Neural mechanisms, state effects and trait correlates of meditation induced alterations in the sense of self

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An ubiquitous feature of subjective human experience is the presence of a perceiving, thinking, feeling and acting subject, which is tied to a personal identity and to past memories. Current conceptualizations of this manifold phenomenon converge on a dual differentiation: The minimal self refers to the immediate subject of experience, perceived as the owner of a body and agent in thought and action. In contrast, the narrative self involves reflected knowledge of what is considered “me”. While perturbations in the sense of self have been described in various mental disorders, a change in the self is also assumed to be a central mechanism of mindfulness meditation effects on wellbeing and social abilities. To contribute to an integrated mechanistic understanding of the involved processes, this project aims to investigate alterations in the self induced by meditation in two studies focusing on 1) lasting trait effects on processes pertaining to the narrative self and 2) short meditation states of attenuated minimal self experience. Both studies will rely on a multi-method approach that triangulates self-reports, behavioral tasks and neural measures. Using EEG, study 1 will test for hypothesized relationships between attenuated narrative self processing and trait mindfulness. Study 2 will assess candidate mechanisms of the minimal self in normal vs. attenuated minimal self experience through functional connectivity modeling of MEG data obtained from expert meditation practitioners.