Selective reductions amid global increases in neural information dynamics jointly track self-dissolution in meditation
Abstract
The sense of self is fundamental to experience, yet its neural basis remains unresolved. Contemplative traditions and empirical evidence suggest it can be voluntarily dissolved while retaining awareness, offering a window onto this question. We combined magnetoencephalography with in-depth phenomenology in long-term meditators (N=45, mean 3,832 practice hours) who reliably modulated self-boundaries across rest, self-maintenance and self-dissolution. Meditation broadly increased entropy and information transfer, yet selective reductions characterized self-dissolution. Reduced posterior-medial high-beta entropy and within-cingulate information transfer differentiated dissolution from maintenance. Information transfer reductions from occipital, cingulate, limbic, and subcortical regions, alongside orbitofrontal entropy stabilization, correlated with dissolution phenomenology. Combined with posterior-medial high-beta power reductions, these correlates explained 52% of dissolution depth variance, yet only information transfer predicted held-out participants. We propose selfhood relies on distributed processes that can be reconfigured in meditation through relaxed priors, gated bottom-up evidence, and stabilized evaluative dynamics, distinct from global disruption during psychedelic ego-dissolution.
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BibTeX
@misc{atad2026selective,
title = {{Selective reductions amid global increases in neural information dynamics jointly track self-dissolution in meditation}},
author = {Daniel Andrew Atad and Pedro A. Mediano and Fynn-Mathis Trautwein and Yair Dor-Ziderman and Henrik Röhr and Yoav Schweitzer and Ohad Nave and Stephen Fulder and Aviva Berkovich-Ohana},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/yhavc_v3},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/yhavc_v3/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Selective reductions amid global increases in neural information dynamics jointly track self-dissolution in meditation
AU - Daniel Andrew Atad
AU - Pedro A. Mediano
AU - Fynn-Mathis Trautwein
AU - Yair Dor-Ziderman
AU - Henrik Röhr
AU - Yoav Schweitzer
AU - Ohad Nave
AU - Stephen Fulder
AU - Aviva Berkovich-Ohana
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/16
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/yhavc_v3
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/yhavc_v3/
AB - The sense of self is fundamental to experience, yet its neural basis remains unresolved. Contemplative traditions and empirical evidence suggest it can be voluntarily dissolved while retaining awareness, offering a window onto this question. We combined magnetoencephalography with in-depth phenomenology in long-term meditators (N=45, mean 3,832 practice hours) who reliably modulated self-boundaries across rest, self-maintenance and self-dissolution. Meditation broadly increased entropy and information transfer, yet selective reductions characterized self-dissolution. Reduced posterior-medial high-beta entropy and within-cingulate information transfer differentiated dissolution from maintenance. Information transfer reductions from occipital, cingulate, limbic, and subcortical regions, alongside orbitofrontal entropy stabilization, correlated with dissolution phenomenology. Combined with posterior-medial high-beta power reductions, these correlates explained 52% of dissolution depth variance, yet only information transfer predicted held-out participants. We propose selfhood relies on distributed processes that can be reconfigured in meditation through relaxed priors, gated bottom-up evidence, and stabilized evaluative dynamics, distinct from global disruption during psychedelic ego-dissolution.
ER -