Synthesis:Multidimensional Framework

A seemingly outstanding barrier to our field is that various disciplines with different themes of interest, goals, histories, and socioeconomic incentives are insufficiently connected.

Similarly, a consensus across fields, disciplines, and clinical and non-clinical practices on how best to handle challenging experiences, with pragmatism and in a way that champions human health and dignity, is still lacking — yet increasingly essential.

These and other significant disconnections that silo knowledge within individual academic and professional disciplines and seemingly prevent new innovations are the core problems to be addressed here.

Can skilful dialog between the sometimes seemingly orthogonal perspectives of the academic disciplines (the humanities and sciences), modern medical disciplines, and spiritual, mystical or religious traditions, lead to a fruitful, integrative synergy to advance our understanding of emergent experiences and development?

We think that it can, and that significantly reduced barriers to knowledge sharing through a multidisciplinary approach can yield valuable new knowledge and integrate old yet useful knowledge into contemporary emergent practices, science, and global clinical practice.

Attempting a synthesis of the perspectives and epistemologies of phenomenology, medicine, and emergent traditions would likely solve numerous problems currently encountered in this nascent yet still siloed and scattered research domain.

It is to that end that we developed the present framework, hoping it will help integrate thematic and disciplinary domains and stimulate bridges and innovations, would be helpful to resolve this issue and inform future research work.

In many ways the development of this framework started from similar observations as made by Locke and Kelly in their Preliminary model for the cross-traditional analysis of ASCs (1985) that the complexity of studying "altered states" cross-culturally and across-modalities calls for "interdisciplinary and multidimensional explanation drawing upon emerging lines of evidence from separate disciplinary studies" (p.5). We wish to thank these authors for their stimulating work which in large part inspired the present initiative.

The present article expands on the work done in Sandilands and Ingram (2024), which synthesized various theoretical and empirical models of human subjectivity and function from theoretical phenomenology, qualitative and biomedical research.

This scaffolding was enriched by additional categories uncovered through the thematic re-analysis of the qualitative content found in 50 recent peer-reviewed articles reporting on various emergent phenomena, experiences and effects (EPEEs).

For the present framework we first identified, reviewed, and synthesized existing frameworks with a similarly global, integrative scope and outcomes-based/therapeutic orientation (listed at the bottom of this page)

We then complemented these findings with relevant themes and domains borrowed from the literature of various fields of research dealing with various aspects of the various levels identified in the first phase. Much of this relevant literature was found in the Emergence Research Database.

The corpus we have drawn from is somewhat arbitrary. However, given our pragmatic aims, the large number of sources, variety of disciplines, and diversity of approaches that were mobilized, we believe it accomplishes its principal goal: namely, to help bridge the worlds of contemplative practices and experiential modalities in general, clinical mental health and medicine, classical phenomenology, as well as biomedical and qualitative research on sound enough conceptual and practical grounds that it be used for a variety of later applications, including outlining promising areas of research — through which this framework may be refined in return.

Individual Level

Subjectivity

This covers all relevant domains of experiencing, which constitute the manifest world or the field of consciousness for a given individual from their own perceptual perspective. As is the case overall with this framework, not all domains will be of equal relevance. Note that from a phenomenological perspective, this is the "first-person view", while from a medical perspective, this corresponds to symptoms.

Aesthetics

The domain of aesthetic experiences is fundamental to human life and intersects deeply with EPEEs and related behavioral and sociocultural aspects. Experiences involving more or less central aesthetic aspects, a sense of beauty, of awe, of sublimity, etc., are very common. Culturally-speaking, most spiritual and mystical traditions exhibit elaborate aesthetics, which often draw on elements and themes of the sociocultural and natural environments. Many of the most valued aesthetic productions of a given culture are related with contemplative, psychedelic, mystical, etc., experiences often linked with religion and spirituality, including sacred arts in all forms of expressions – to stick with well-known european examples, music (think J.S. Bach), sculpture (think Bernini's Transverberation of Saint Teresa of Jesus), painting (Piero Della Francesca's Polyptych of Misericordia), poetry (Dante's Divine comedy), architecture (the pyramids, the cathedrals), etc. Remember Dostoyevsky: "Beauty will save the world".

Sainte chapelle - Upper level

Mystical and religious rituals and practices (liturgies, sadhanas, etc.) usually involve the synergistic integration of internal and external forms and activities belonging to and impacting many different complementary domains of the present framework, often blending all artistic modes of expression into aesthetically coherent wholes that also involve cognitive, attentional, imaginative, ethical, mythical, cultural, and other domains and factors which, when viewed at different scales of time and space, can have profound historical and even civilizational import (Gruau, 1999; Jousse, 2008), and are thus hard to reduce to the notion of "set and settings" sometimes employed in e.g. psychedelic studies to describe the proximal conditions in which a substance is ingested.

This experiential domain often involves complex emotions, cognitive and arousal changes, depth of meaning, paradigmatic and/or axiological components, and an overall sense of pleasure or appreciation disconnected from the direct hedonic tone of individual aspects of the experience — e.g. an aesthetic experience may involve painful or unpleasant specifics and yet be overall deeply valued and appraised as overall "pleasant" or beneficial (Sandilands, 2019; Schaeffer, 2015). The relationship between pleasure, values and aesthetic experiences is complicated: many religious or spiritual traditions are rather "puritanical" in the sense that they do not inherently value pleasure, or only certain kinds of pleasures (e.g. the pleasure born from "seclusion from the hindrances" in early buddhism). Yet many traditional religious figures seem to have fond deep meaning, beatuy and personal significance — thus perhaps a sense of pleasure derived from an overall appreciation as well — in experiences which by all means seem extremely unpleasant. One may think once more of transverberation experiences described by Terésa of Àvila, and its sculpted counterpart.

Aesthetic experiences also involve a degree of immersion into the sensate qualities of a given phenomenon or work of art, for themselves, i.e. without an instrumental goal, and a defamiliarization, i.e. they often involve the voluntary or involuntary suspension of pre-conceived judgments and perceptive habits, of what Husserl called the "natural attitude" which quickly categorizes and reifies surroundings and objects into a familiar world. After all, classical phenomenology associated with Husserl, starts with the gesture of épochè, which means "suspending" the belief in the intrinsic existence of the largely socioculturally conditioned "natural" objects and entities of perception around us, and instead returning "to things themselves", i.e., phenomena as they appear. This can also be "imposed" by something "striking", whether captivating beauty, or  the surprise of something threatening in the environment, drawing the attention of the subject out of the default roaming mode of attention, out of ruminations, projections, and familiarity, into a raw and intensified world of experience often infused with a sense of novelty.

The intensification of aesthetic experiences can sometimes be accompanied by varying levels of unease or fear, and the defamiliarization criterion may in part explain why. Famously, enlightenment philosopher Kant saw experiences of the "sublime" as one degree above aesthetic experiences, differing from it by the fact that they supposedly come with a sense of fear. It seems common sense that more radical defamiliarization should lead from a sense of novelty to a sense of mystery. Considerations on the relationship between attention, arousal, and fear found in the arousal/vigilance section below, can inform these observations. This is why we also include in this domain experiences linked with a sense of devotion- or fear-inspiring holiness, mystery, divinity, sanctity, sacredness, etc., all of which may be viewed as the "numinous", a term used by Rudolf Otto and later by the likes of Carl Jung to refer to these types of feelings — be it mysterium augustum (majestic) or mysterium tremendum (awe-inspiring). "The most beautiful emotion we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. [...]  It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion" Albert Einstein.

Interestingly, the english words "whole", "holy", and "health" have shared etymological histories, while the french equivalents to healthy ("sain") and saint ("saint") have latin words "sanus" and "sanctus" which are also cognate.

There seems to be some relationship between aesthetic experiences and emergent development trajectories (e.g., certain stages of meditation/ phases of mystical itineraries seem associated with particular kinds or higher likeliness of going through aesthetic experiences etc.) but this relationship is not straightforward (Sandilands, 2019).

The aesthetic domain may entail a larger meaning. In its more general, etymological sense, aesthetics can refer to the laws of sensibility itself as opposed to the sphere of rationality: the ancients thus divided lived experience into aesthesis and noesis (see the "Transcendental Esthetics" section in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant, 2007). In the context of aesthesis as sensibility, Kant declared "time" and "space" to be the transcendental, a priori forms of sensibility, i.e., he considered that all experience had temporal and spatial extension as a pre-condition.

Aesthetics thus relates with metaphysics and the domain of beliefs and paradigms, both in terms of people's lived experiences in this realm and in existing theoretical literature. Speaking of transcendentals, through many centuries in Western medieval philosophy, which drew on Greek thought, the tetrad of the Good, the One, the True, and the Beautiful, has been considered as "transcendentals" or "properties of being". The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "The manifold perfections of creatures — their truth, their goodness, their beauty all reflect the infinite perfection of God" (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], 1997, para. 41). In a Confessions paragraph where he recounts "being drawn to God", Augustine speaks of the experience as an ancient and fresh beauty ("pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova").

Hegel's work on aesthetics gave such epistemological importance to the experience of beauty and the relationship between ideas and artistic production, that some later authors argued he participated in the arising of a king of "religion of art" throughout the romantic period and beyond (Schaeffer, 2015).

Regardless of metaphysical debates, all of this speaks volume as to the enduring importance of aesthetic experience and beauty for humans.

A few examples of EPEEs linked with various psychedelics, meditation practices, or spontaneous related to this domain:

Increased Appreciation for music (Subjective Effect Index, [A]), Intense sense of Gracefulness (N,N-DMT, [11]), Experiencing a (sometimes “overwhelming”) sense of Holiness (Meditation [various], [l]), Mild to extreme experiences of beauty or the sublime, either specific (such as perceiving "beautiful colors" [N,N-DMT, [11]), or not (Jhāna meditation, [t]; N,N-DMT, [11]; Ibogaine, [6]: Sense of Beauty (Jhāna meditation, [t]; Ibogaine, [6]; N,N-DMT, [11], Light (Ibogaine, [6], Extreme/intense (N,N-DMT, [11]), extreme Experience of the Sublime (N,N-DMT, [11]), Sense of Novelty — “Novelty enhancement (Subjective Effect Index, [A]) feeling of increased fascination, awe, and appreciation attributed to specific parts or the entirety of one's external environment”; Seeing the world as new (Subjective Effect Index, [A]), Intense sense of Purity (N,N-DMT, [11]), Sublimation, i.e. Finding beauty in a previously difficult experience (e.g. re-experiencing a past trauma "with a sense of the beauty of it") (Buddhist meditation NOS, [e]), Transfigured perception of "the world" or "life", e.g. Perceiving "life" as "a golden world" (Spontaneous NOS, [δ]) or Perceiving the visual world as a "Magical landscape" infused with "the experience of location and non-location" (Meditation NOS, [b]).

References

Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd ed.). (1997). https://www.scborromeo2.org/catechism-of-the-catholic-church.

Daly, H. (2016). Shadowy Beauty: The Art of Hypnopompic Inquiry [Dissertation, California Institute of Integral Studies]. https://www.proquest.com/openview/87359d5dd856200d0b7e55adf186cc8d/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

Dufrenne, M. (2011). Phénoménologie de l’expérience esthétique [Phenomenology of the aesthetic experience]. (2. éd). Paris: Presses Univ. de France.

Eliade, M. (1985). Symbolism, the sacred, and the arts (D. Apostopolos-Cappadona, Ed.). New York: Continuum.

Eliade, M. (1987). The sacred and the profane: the nature of religion (W. R. Trask, Trans.). Harcourt, Brace.

Gruau, M. (1999). L’Homme rituel. Anthropologie du rituel catholique français [The ritual Man. Anthropology of the french catholic ritual]. Paris: Métailé.

Hegel, G.W.F. (1998). Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art. Translated by T.M. Knox. Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press.

Jousse, M. (2008). L’anthropologie du geste [Anthropology of the Gesture.]. Gallimard.

Kant, I. (2007). "Transcendental aesthetics" in Critique of pure reason (M. Weigelt, Ed.; F. M. Müller, Trans.). London: Penguin Books.

Otto, R. (1958). The idea of the holy: an inquiry into the non-rational factor in the idea of the divine and its relation to the rational. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Saint Augustine. (2008). Confessions (H. Chadwick, Trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schaeffer, J.-M. (2015). L’expérience esthétique [The aesthetic experience]. Paris: Editions Gallimard.

Sandilands, O. (2019). Comparative Phenomenology of Aesthetic and Meditative Experiences. [Unpublished Master’s Thesis]. Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

Vallet, O. (1991). Le sain et le saint [The healthy and the holy]. Mots, 26(1), 107–108. https://doi.org/10.3406/mots.1991.1598

Arousal and vigilance/wakefulness

In the context of psychedelics and meditation, arousal is a central theme. It is linked with cognition, perception, and emotions, and is one of the dimensions of individual subjective experience which also clearly manifest across the various perspectives on the individual with correlates at the physiological and behavioral levels.

Introducing more awakeness and vigilance to  various areas of life is often a saught-after effect. Many psychoactive substances affect arousal (coffee, ritalin, cocaine, MDMA, amphetamines, etc.) and this is often a sought-after effect. Conversely, other substances like alcohol or opiates, lead to lower levels of arousal and increased relaxation, also a sought-after effect.

From a bioevolutionary perspective, Dr. Britton notes that since attention, arousal, and fear systems have evolutionary connections (it is likely beneficial to survival if there are mechanisms so that living beings become hypervigilant in threatening environments), practices which lead to high vigilance and arousal might also naturally tend to evoke more challenging or scary psychoemotional states (James & Britton, 2024; Lindahl et al., 2022). This may in part inform the connection between deeper aesthetic experiences and fear mentioned above.

Practice styles which rely on the cultivation of higher levels of attention, mindfulness, and awareness of all or aspects of the field of consciousness (like many forms of meditation), will often lead to variations in arousal levels, often leading to increased arousal. Long-term effects of practices like meditation include highe baseline levels of wakefulness and sensitivity (Britton et al., 2014).

Conversely, relaxation and diminished arousal is also a very saught-after effect cultivated through practices like breathing exercises, cold exposure, yoga Nidra, hypnosis, Zen [Yaden & Newberg, 2022]. Torpor and dullness are common occurrences, often seen as obstacles to be remedied (excessive hypoarousal), or as characteristic of specific “stages” of meditation by some (Britton et al., 2014).

Many traditions advocate for developing a right balance between tension and relaxation, which may be highly variable depending on individual proclivities and dispositions. Buddhism is centered around “awakening” (bodhi), but this notion is also found in many other R/S/M contexts, and early buddhist texts advocate for the simultaneous development of high-energy, clarity and arousal, with a corresponding development of complementary factors like relaxation and tranquility, counterbalancing the possibly ungrounding effects of hyperarousal.

Low- or high-arousal (e.g. Mahāsī noting) style practices, linked to the degree of intensity, energy, and attention involved in one’s meditative activities, modulate the types of experiences one is likely to run into, or will lead to different variants of similar meditative experiences, with higher-arousal experiences likely leading to more intense and spectacular manifestations. This is also related with personal factors, as some people may experience naturally high arousal (think ADHD), needing little intensity of practice to achieve high-intensity or “exotic” experiences. This interpersonal variability should be carefully considered. Further factors influencing arousal effects include dose, expertise, and contemplative trajectory (Britton et al., 2014), as “the course of meditative progress suggests a nonlinear multiphasic trajectory such that early phases that are more effortful may produce more fatigue and sleep propensity, while later stages produce greater wakefulness”.

Many traditions involve practices related with sleep, often introducing moments of practice in-between phases of sleep during the night, or staying up all night to practice (Liturgy of the hours involve night-offices, Orthodox christianity who use the term "Nepsis" for vigilance, Mystagogy happening at night, adithana determination practice in buddhism [the Buddha notoriously is supposed to have attained awakening at night], think of the word "Vigil", the "Night Vigil",), as seen as a particularly fruitful (though perhaps also more risky) time to practice.

Maintaining awareness during sleep, while falling asleep, or during dreams (lucid dreaming), are also quite common experience, which are voluntarily cultivated in several practice traditions (tibetan yogas of sleep and dreams, etc.). Experiences on the border of asleep and awake are also very commonly reported across cultures, with e.g. night-mares and sleep-paralysis experiences of being observed by evil presences in one’s room while being unable to move being a widespread phenomenon that has sometimes been given metaphysical significance (Sparby, 2020, 2022a, 2022b).

Of note, while valued and practiced in many contexts, thus having high-potential for benefits, things like odd hours of practice, sleep deprivation, high-intensity meditation practices leading to very altered states (especially when participants are not ready for them),and sudden increase in the duration of practice, are all potential risk-factors for meditation-induced psychotic-like experiences (Charan et al., 2023), and may be contraindicated for some individuals. Likewise, excess of stimulant substances can lead to difficulty sleeping, panic attacks, or even psychotic-like episodes (Lindahl et al., 2022).

Wakefulness or awakeness is related but different from arousal, as e.g., feeling very awake/high wakefulness could be accompanied by either low or high arousal. One can even be very "awake" whilst being asleep, as in the case of lucid dreaming, or lucid dreamless sleep, which are noteworthy EPEEs (Daly, 2016). Conversely, some meditative phenomena (e.g. various forms of cessation of consciousness), seem to involve a momentary absence of any experiential content, which seems to be only marginally related to arousal, since the physiology of meditators who have been studied while in cessation for 90 min, didn't stop, although it slowed down (Laukkonen et al., 2023). There still appeared to be some degree of arousal, from a third person perspective, even though, from the first-person perspective of the meditator, any form of awakeness or wakefulness had disappeared.

Wakefulness or vigilance could be viewed as simply "awareness", "impressional consciousness" (Henry, Husserl), the very "stuff" which experience is made of (James, 1904), or the "space" within or as which experience manifests, which has various "levels" (Vion-Dury & Mougin, 2016), or even more radically, phenomenality. Husserl called this phenomenal "matter" (hylè), of which the "forms" (morphè) of the phenomena of intentional consciousness are made of, the Absolute.

The fact that so many traditions consider notions like "original mind", "pristine awareness", the "absolute self-affection of phenomena", "lux mundi", in various R/S/M traditions, or quite simply, "life", as essential and often soteriological, should be a major clue that it is extremely important that we do not reduce arousal, vigilance, and awakeness, to biological phenomena, although they may have clear physiological correlates and evolutionary narratives behind them, as awakeness and phenomenality are logical and experiential preconditions for any perception, concept, or indeed manifestation of "matter" in the biological sense to arise or be conceived or even conceivable (Bitbol, 2014). This is a central insight of classical phenomenology as well as contemplative traditions: "experience is the source and horizon of research" and, indeed, of human life. Recognizing the true nature of all experience is the core point of many strands of buddhism and some have argued this is equally the case with all other religions... a point of contention which will likely never be resolved.

Finally, many traditions have practices related with the dying process, including sleep-practices or visualization of the dissolution of bodily and mental experience at death. The question of what happens to awakeness at this moment is, obviously, a perennial one.

Britton, W. B., Lindahl, J. R., Cahn, B. R., Davis, J. H., & Goldman, R. E. (2014). Awakening is not a metaphor: the effects of Buddhist meditation practices on basic wakefulness. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1307, 64–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.12279

Charan, D., Sharma, P., Kachhawaha, G., Kaur, G., & Gupta, S. (2023). Meditation Practices and the Onset of Psychosis: A Case Series and Analysis of Possible Risk Factors. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 45(1), 80–84. https://doi.org/10.1177/02537176211059457

Daly, H. (2016). Shadowy Beauty: The Art of Hypnopompic Inquiry [Dissertation, California Institute of Integral Studies]. https://www.proquest.com/openview/87359d5dd856200d0b7e55adf186cc8d/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

Henry, M. (1973). The Essence of Manifestation. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2391-7

Henry, M. (2003). I am the truth: toward a philosophy of Christianity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

James, W. (1904). A World of Pure Experience. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 1(20), 533. https://doi.org/10.2307/2011912

James, S., Britton, W. (2024, 04/19). Ep250: When Meditation Goes Wrong - Dr Willoughby Britton [Video]. Youtube.

Lindahl, J. R., Britton, W. B., & Cooper, D. J. (2022). Fear and Terror in Buddhist Meditation: A Cognitive Model for Meditation-Related Changes in Arousal and Affect. Journal of Cognitive Historiography, 7(1–2). https://doi.org/10.1558/jch.22807

Sparby, T. (2020). Body, Soul, and Spirit: An Explorative Qualitative Study of Anthroposophic Meditation and Spiritual Practice. Religions, 11(6), 314. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11060314

Sparby, T. (2022a). Rudolf Steiner and the ‘Guardian of the Threshold’, Part I. Steiner Studies, 3(3), 1–30. https://doi.org/10.12857/STS.951000340-12

Sparby, T. (2022b). Rudolf Steiner and the ‘Guardian of the Threshold’, Part II. Steiner Studies, 3(3), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.12857/STS.951000340-13

Vion-Dury, J., & Mougin, G. (2016). Modalisations Of The Consciousness Field: A Phenomenological And Morphodynamic Approach. PSN - psychiatrie, sciences humaines, neurosciences. https://hal.science/hal-01580235/document

Beliefs and Worldviews

In any case, this domain includes a huge variety of relative idiosyncratic and culturally informed beliefs of an individual, as well as ultimate beliefs which include the following aspects:

• Metaphysics
  • Cosmology  (Origins of the world)
  • Epistemology
  • Ontology
  • Soteriology
• General beliefs or views about life in general
  • Implicit
  • Explicit

EPEEs are profoundly intertwined with beliefs, metaphysics and philosophy. Timmermann et al. (2021) have shown that psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs, which may in part be why they have therapeutic effects (Moreton et al., 2024), and Palitsy et al. (2023) underscore the need to integrate “spiritual, existential, religious, and theological” components — in other words, metaphysics — to psychedelic-assisted therapies, while Lindahl et al. (2022) have demonstrated the impact of worldviews on meditation-related outcomes.

While Sjöstedt-Hughes (2023) argues that “with psychedelic therapy there is the potential and mutually beneficial fusion of philosophy with practical science”, our opinion is that metaphysics and philosophy have much broader significance and import than this. Nevertheless, we can only applaud the author’s view that those who experience psychedelic-induced “mystical” or “metaphysical” experiences, in the context of clinical interventions and beyond, would benefit from being given resources on the legacy of various philosophical positions from history and discussion of metaphysical views.

There is “a mutual dependency between conceptions of consciousness and the state of consciousness of those who defend them” (Bitbol, 2014, p. 685), which explains why any cause that modulates conscious experience will tend to lead to with novel conceptions of the mind and lived experience. For instance, Lutkajtis and Evans (2023) have shown that participants in psychedelic retreats often experience “ontological shock”, which can sometimes prove debilitating. Metaphysics are often a profound topic of interest and/or concern for those EPEE experiencers, yet traditional therapies often fail to provide any sense that this is relevant or nourishment for these existential and ontological questions.

Clearly, philosophical analysis and reflection are a core aspect of many emergent traditions. Countless examples could be given, likethe logical reasonings of the Eleatic school founded by Parmenides — the most famous one being perhaps Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the Turtle —, or the profound analyses of the prajñaparamita tradition of Mahayana Buddhism, best examplified by Nāgārjuna, or yet again Nicholas of Cusa's De Docta Ignorantia, etc.

We go into more detail about varieties of metaphysical view in section II, Culture. While individuals often internalize the implicit or explicit worldviews and beliefs of their sociocultural milieu, there are also often idiosyncratic of personal, implicit or explicit, views which are peculiar to individuals. At the far end of the spectrum, worldviews that violate deeply shared norms of logic, reasonableness, or coherence, are usually apprehended by others as delusions and rejected in the domain of abnormality.

This is where the psychiatric notion of "delusions" comes in, with all the complexities and ambiguities involved in determining where delusions begin and where they end... The DSM-5-TR defines delusions as "fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. Their content may include a variety of themes (e.g., persecutory, referential, somatic, religious, grandiose)."

It adds that "Assessing delusions in individuals from a variety of cultural backgrounds can be difficult. Some religious and supernatural beliefs (e.g., evil eye, causing illness through curses, influence of spirits) may be viewed as bizarre and possibly delusional in some cultural contexts but be generally accepted in others. However, elevated religiosity can be a feature of many presentations of psychosis" (pp. 102–103).

Clearly, the narowness of this normative view has been the subject of heated debate, as one wonders on what basis beliefs should be evaluated as normal or not, and who would have the legitimacy to make that call and why, especially in the context of cultural fragmentation of modern societies.

Bitbol, M. (2014). La Conscience A-t-elle Une Origine? Des Neurosciences À La Pleine Conscience: Une Nouvelle Approche De L’esprit. [Does Consciousness Have An Origin? From Neuroscience To Mindfulness: A New Approach To The Mind.]. Paris: Flammarion.

Kingsley, P. (1996). Ancient philosophy, mystery and magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean tradition. Clarendon Press.

Kingsley, P. (1999). In the dark places of wisdom. Golden Sufi Center.

Lindahl, J. R., Palitsky, R., Cooper, D. J., & Britton, W. B. (2022). The roles and impacts of worldviews in the context of meditation-related challenges. Transcultural Psychiatry, 136346152211286. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634615221128679

Lutkajtis, A., & Evans, J. (2023). Psychedelic integration challenges: Participant experiences after a psilocybin truffle retreat in the Netherlands. Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 6(3), 211–221. https://doi.org/10.1556/2054.2022.00232

Moreton, S. G., Barr, N. N., & Giese, K. J. (2024). Investigating the relationship between changes in metaphysical beliefs and death anxiety following a significant psychedelic experience. Death Studies, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2024.2352726

Nāgārjuna. (1995). The fundamental wisdom of the middle way: Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (J. L. Garfield, Trans.). Oxford University Press.

Nicholas of Cusa. (1985). Nicholas of Cusa on learned ignorance: a translation and an appraisl of de Docta Ignorantia(J. Hopkins, Trans.; 2. ed). Banning Press.

Palitsky, R., Kaplan, D. M., Peacock, C., Zarrabi, A. J., Maples-Keller, J. L., Grant, G. H., Dunlop, B. W., & Raison, C. L. (2023). Importance of Integrating Spiritual, Existential, Religious, and Theological Components in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies. JAMA Psychiatry, 80(7), 743. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.1554

Parmenides. (1991). Fragments: a text and translation (Paperback ed). Univ. of Toronto Press.

Sjöstedt-Hughes, P. (2023). On the need for metaphysics in psychedelic therapy and research. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1128589. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1128589

Timmermann, C., Kettner, H., Letheby, C., Roseman, L., Rosas, F. E., & Carhart-Harris, R. L. (2021). Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 22166. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01209-2

Cognition

Attention

Disposition  

Dynamics  

Ease  

Focus  

Shape  

Saturation

           Clarity

           Intensity

           Judgments

    Learning

    Logic

    Memory systems

           Meta-cognition

    Thinking

Activity  

Clarity  

Control  

Ease  

Speed  

Structure/organization

Physiology and biological systems

Third-person phenomenology, and what, to a medical doctor, would be the domain of "signs".

A lot of the elements of in the previous section also manifest or have correlates on this level, but not all of them — for instance the content of mental images is hard to observe apart from a 1st person perspective.

Engel's Biopsychosocial model outlines this level as a hierarchy of spatial-scales of progressively more complex organization: Quarks > Subatomic particles > Atoms > Molecules > Organelles > Cells > Tissues > Organs > Systems > (Engel, 1978).

We add a non-hierarchical, synchronic presentation.

Clearly, not all levels here will be of equal relevance for the study of the determinants involved in emergent processes and outcomes. This is similar to Emmons and Paloutzian's (2003) affirmation that deep psychological traits are less likely to be affected by R/S practices than more superficial ones — although their may be more variability than they suggest.

In the case of the physiology of emergence and emergent phenomena, it seems that e.g. the skeleton or the genome would likely not change that much (yoga could break a bone, teeth whitening…), while changes in more plastic components like the brain-immune-gut-system, heart-brain-axis, etc. could well be very significant mediators/correlates on the longer term. How important are the lower levels of organization like quarks, atoms, to consider, for our present focus, is also indeterminate, but likely not very important...

However it seems like punctual and longitudinal exploration of the collective and/or individual role, impact, and modifications in the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal (e.g. gut microbiome), endocrine, inflammatory, and nervous systems, in transient EPEEs, including challenging ones, but also on the long-term of consistent cultivation over years in all possible doses, could yield important insights and open possible avenues for prevention and management and perhaps optimisation of cultivation, by contrast with studies focused solely on e.g. neurological aspects.

Main sources

Reference	Name of model	Discipline/Field
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2. Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (2007). The Bioecological Model of Human Development. In W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of Child Psychology (1st ed.). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470147658.chpsy0114	Bioecological Model of Human Development	Developmental Psychology
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11. Taves, A. (2020). Mystical and Other Alterations in Sense of Self: An Expanded Framework for Studying Nonordinary Experiences. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(3), 669–690. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619895047	Expanded Framework for Studying Nonordinary Experiences	Psychology and Nonordinary Experiences
12. Vion-Dury, J., & Mougin, G. (2016). Modalisations Of The Consciousness Field: A Phenomenological And Morphodynamic Approach. PSN - psychiatrie, sciences humaines, neurosciences. https://hal.science/hal-01580235/document	Phenomenological and Morphodynamic Model of the Consciousness Field	Phenomenology and medicine
13. Wright, M. J., Sanguinetti, J. L., Young, S., & Sacchet, M. D. (2023). Uniting Contemplative Theory and Scientific Investigation: Toward a Comprehensive Model of the Mind. Mindfulness. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-023-02101-y	THIN Model	Contemplative science
14. General Inventory of Emergent Phenomena in Sandilands, O., & Ingram, D. M. (2024). Documenting and defining emergent phenomenology: theoretical foundations for an extensive research strategy. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1340335. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1340335	Domains of Experience and Function	Multidisciplinary and varied qualitative and theoretical sources

~~~Olivier Sandilands