Abstract
Contemporary philosophical and neurocognitive studies of the self have dissociated two distinct types of self-awareness: a “narrative” self-awareness (NS) weaving together episodic memory, future planning and self-evaluation into a coherent self-narrative and identity, and a “minimal” self-awareness (MS) focused on present momentary experience and closely tied to the sense of agency and ownership. Long-term Buddhist meditation practice aims at realization of a “selfless” mode of awareness (SL), where identification with a static sense of self is replaced by identification with the phenomenon of experiencing itself. NS-mediating mechanisms have been explored by neuroimaging, mainly fMRI, implicating prefrontal midline structures, but MS processes are not well characterized and SL even less so. To this end we tested 12 long-term mindfulness meditators using a neurophenomenological study design, incorporating both magnetoencephalogram (MEG) recordings and first person descriptions. We found that (1) NS attenuation involves extensive frontal, and medial prefrontal gamma band (60–80 Hz) power decreases, consistent with fMRI and intracranial EEG findings; (2) MS attenuation is related to beta-band (13–25 Hz) power decreases in a network that includes ventral medial prefrontal, medial posterior and lateral parietal regions; and (3) the experience of selflessness is linked to attenuation of beta-band activity in the right inferior parietal lobule. These results highlight the role of dissociable frequency-dependent networks in supporting different modes of self-processing, and the utility of combining phenomenology, mindfulness training and electrophysiological neuroimaging for characterizing self-awareness.
Highlights
An unremitting companion of human experience is the sense of self
Participants reported high measures of task stability: 8.2 ± 1.6, 8 ± 1.4, and 7.6 ± 1.5 for narrative” self-awareness (NS), minimal” self-awareness (MS), and selfless” mode of awareness (SL), respectively. These indicate that the participants managed—in their subjective experience—to produce and maintain the requested self-states in a stable manner for the task duration
The LO group, whose experiences indicated a sharp attenuation of the sense of agency/ownership, and who were distinct in terms of their greater meditative expertise, evidenced a distinct neural signature characterized by a further attenuation of the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and left dorsomedial thalamus in the beta band
Summary
An unremitting companion of human experience is the sense of self. Amidst the ocean of coming-and-going waves of perceptions, cognitions and emotions, an absolute certainty regarding the identity of the present-moment experiencer—“self as I”— remains unwavering (James, 1890). The thread of a constant, static, unchanging self—the “self as Me”—stretches back to childhood years, and extends as far into the future as one can imagine. The protagonist of both scenarios is experienced as one-and-the-same, even though the respective (imagined/remembered) bodies, mental capacities, as well as external contexts have completely changed. These phenomenally distinct aspects of self-awareness are being re-conceptualized by contemporary philosophers, psychologists and neurobiologists, aiming at a fruitful exchange between philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and the cognitive sciences. One such influential conceptualization has been offered by Gallagher (2000) as “minimal” and “narrative” forms of self-awareness
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