Existential domain

By this we mean deep and layered aspects of existence and identity itself, including to our sense of agency, subjectivity, the centrality and coherence of identity, the continuity or ephemerality of experience, life before or after death, parallel lives, split existences, and the like.

Temporary of permanent modifications of “sense of self” and “sense of reality”, are common EPEEs and sometimes longer-term outcomes of emergent practices — psychedelics, meditation, but also NDEs, ELEs, and even epilepsy or mental disorders, all involve such existential transformations, whether temporary or permanent.

As a single example, one of the major outcomes of one of the foundational developmental milestones in Theravada buddhist practice, considered as the first level of awakening, called “Stream Entry”, involves as one of its core components the complete seeing-through of “self-views”. The final goal of buddhism is equated to the complete removal of a special kind of “ignorance” which consists in not seeing emptiness of self and world at the deepest pre-reflexive level.

Recent phenomenological research has focused on this as well. Bitbol & Petimengin (2011) bring out “the possibility of complete loss (or at least increased permeability) of the archetypal inner/outer boundary, at the deepest level of pre-reflective experience (Petitmengin, 2007). The availability of this type of experience strongly suggests that the subject/object divide is a secondary  byproduct of mental activity, rather than a primary given" adding that "the subject/object duality lacks credentials from both a phenomenological and an epistemological standpoint".

Modulating the field of consciousness in ways which are conducive to liberative, transformational, or revelatory experiences and insights (likely involving various dynamics including but not limited to memory reconfiguration), is basically the fundamental approach of all emergent traditions. By contrast, various diseases like Alzheimer’s or Schizophrenia, involve maladaptive loss of certain aspects of self-consciousness.

Sense of self

Millière et al. (2018) propose that "self-consciousness may be best construed as a multidimensional construct, and that “self-loss,” far from being an unequivocal phenomenon, can take several forms"; they present a "multidimensional model of self-loss in global states of consciousness" involving, on one axis of "Multisensory self-loss" (which I would call the "pre-reflexive" level), a gradation from lowest to highest of (1) Loss of body ownership, (2) Loss of bodily awareness, (3) Loss of self-location, and on a complementary, "Narrative self-loss" axis (which I would call a "reflexive" level), involving (1) Reduced self-related thoughts and mental time travel, and at the highest level, (2) Loss of access to autobiographical information. The combination of all of these is called "total self loss" by Millière et al.

In the general inventory of EPEEs and in the The Multidimensional Framework, the pre-reflexive level roughly corresponds to the existential category — which has a greater variety of aspects —, while the narrative level is considered as roughly corresponding to "psychological" ego, including autobiographical memories and self-related narratives.

References

Bitbol, M., & Petitmengin, C. (2011). On Life Beneath the Subject/Object Duality A Reply to Pierre Steiner. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 18(2), 125–127.

Petitmengin, C. (2007). Towards the Source of Thoughts. The Gestural and Transmodal Dimension of Lived Experience. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 14(3), 54–82. https://clairepetitmengin.fr/AArticles%20versions%20finales/JCS%20-%20Source.pdf

Millière, R., Carhart-Harris, R. L., Roseman, L., Trautwein, F.-M., & Berkovich-Ohana, A. (2018). Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 29. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01475

Sandilands, O., and Ingram, D.M. (2024) Documenting and defining emergent phenomenology: theoretical foundations for an extensive research strategy. Frontiers in Psychology, 15:1340335. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1340335