1. A Continuum of Persistent Non-Symbolic Experience in Adults? Jeffery A. Martin Center for the Study of Non-Symbolic Consciousness And Harvard University

2. What is PNSE Catchall phrase for persistent… Enlightenment Mystical Experience Nonduality Cosmic/God/etc. Consciousness (and about 200 other terms, worldwide) Not limited to spiritual or religious people.

3. What is PNSE Persistent Non-Symbolic Consciousness = PNSE Term is adapted from 2000 Cook-Greuter paper: “Eastern psychologies have often pointed to the nonsymbolically mediated, or immediate ways of knowing as the only kind of knowing that can lead to enlightenment or true insight into human nature. In fact, they consider our addiction to language-mediated, discursive thought as a major hurdle in realizing the true or divine Self, or union with the Ground.” (Cook-Greuter, p. 230) Ultimately the term was used because participants accepted it.

4. Piece 1 – Start to get arms around the population – Standard self-report instruments, from best guess within research community, delivered in batches – Chosen to be maximally compatible with existing data from other studies of temporary and permanent forms of NSC – Example: Batch 1 - Modified M-Scale, DES2, STAI, SWLS, BFI, TAS, and Modified MUMEX Approach

5. Three piece structure, continued Piece 2 – In-depth interviews (6-12+ hours) – Focused on Cognition, Affect, Memory and Perception – Extracting and refining testable psychological claims from self reports Example: “Loss of self” …what does this actually mean? Clearly talking to someone who’s saying “I did X” – Population tends to speak in metaphors, be very vague, and so forth – Often takes an enormous effort to correlate claims across subjects, try to really get in and understand them, and narrow them down into something testable – Basically spending time scratching things off a large list – Piece 1 and 2 were concurrent, and are still happening in some populations Piece 3 – Imaging/brain measurement – EEG, fMRI, … Approach

6. Super achievers => broke and homeless Mostly religious or spiritual Age range late teens to mid-nineties Globally dispersed (we only track English speakers, but come across many others) Generally educated Skewed toward men Various races but our sample is skewed towards Caucasians Participants

7. PNSE Continuum Location 1 Location 2 Location 3Location 4 Locations actually represent regions with sub- locations Some people stay in one spot, others move Generally a forward progression but not always

8. PNSE Continuum - Expansion of sense of self, connection to divine - Much less affected by ‘self’ thoughts - Distance from but still have positive and negative emotions - Deep peace but can be suppressed by triggered conditioning - Effects from perceptual triggers fall off quickly - Deep peace and beingness feels more real than anything previous - Trust in ‘how things are’ - Personal history less relevant, memories less Location 1

9. PNSE Continuum - ‘Self’ thoughts continue to fade - Peace increasingly harder to suppress/conditioning fades - Shift towards increasingly positive emotions, until only very positive emotions remain - Intermediate levels of perceptual triggers increasingly fade - More likely to feel that there is a correct decision or path to take when presented with choices - Higher well-being than location one Location 2 Location 3Location 4Location 1

10. PNSE Continuum - Only single positive emotion remains - Feels like a combination of universal compassion, love, joy, … - Higher well-being than location 2 Location 1 Location 2 Location 3Location 4

11. PNSE Continuum - ‘Self’ thoughts continue to fade - Peace increasingly harder to suppress/conditioning fades - Shift towards increasingly positive emotions, until only very positive emotions remain - Intermediate levels of perceptual triggers increasingly fade - More likely to feel that there is a correct decision or path to take when presented with choices - Higher well-being than location one - Expansion of sense of self, connection to divine - Much less affected by ‘self’ thoughts - Distance from but still have positive and negative emotions - Deep peace but can be suppressed by triggered conditioning - Effects from perceptual triggers fall off quickly - Deep peace and ‘beingness feels more real than anything previous - Trust in ‘how things are’ - Personal history less relevant, memories less - No sense of agency - No emotions - No ‘self’ thoughts - Perceptual triggers at their bare minimum - No sense of divine or universal consciousness - life was simply unfolding and they were watching the process happen - Memory deficits/scheduled appointments, etc. - Highest well-being reported - Only single positive emotion remains - Feels like a combination of universal compassion, love, joy, … - Higher well-being than location 2 Location 1 Location 2 Location 3Location 4

12. Other interesting data…

13. You May be Surprised That… No effects for: – “Spiritual Practice” – Hallucinogenic Drugs – Exposure to “Guru’s” Psychologically “normal” – keep same preferences, hobbies, etc. Unable to be differentiated in crowd (or work, family, etc.) Dogmatic Divorce Morality, Health Behaviors, … Body Disassociation 24/7 Awareness and Anesthesia Claims of Truth – they can be primed, conditioned, … Stress, physical illness can knock it out

14. Getting There…

15. fMRI rt-fMRI sEEG MEG Narrow AI Home Bio-feedback PNSE Applied Research - Feedback

16. fMRI rt-fMRI sEEG MEG tDCS T/FUS Home Unit PNSE Applied Research - Stimulation

17. Recent Experiment Best practices Combined based on data Taught by best people in each area 4 months 2 classes – 1 course 6 participants – 3 men, 3 women – 2 high, 2 med, 2 low well-being (1M, 1F ea.)

18. Recent Experiment 3 weeks to go… NSE – Location 1 = 1 person – Location 2 = 1 person Measures – STAI, STRESS, PILL, M-Scale, NETI, AHI, CES-D, FEQ, GHS, PNAS, Gratitude, Optimism, Meaning, ATH, SWLS – All in ‘positive’ direction across subjects

19. Thank You! Slides at: nonsymbolic.org/TSC2014.pptx Paper at: nonsymbolic.org/PNSE-Article.pdf Email: jeffery.a.martin@gmail.com