Watching The Brain Switch Off 'Self'

This is a significant little finding about the way that our sense of self has a neuronally visible correlate and therefore it can be seen with appropriate equipment to go dark in some circumstances. The research team wrote up their conclusions in this way.

We propose that the role of self-related cortex is not in enabling perceptual awareness, but rather in allowing the individual to reflect upon sensory experiences, to judge their possible significance to the self, and, not less importantly for consciousness research, to allow the individual to report about the occurrence of his or her sensory experience to the outside world.
To conclude, the picture that emerges from the present results is that, during intense perceptual engagement, all neuronal resources are focused on sensory cortex, and the distracting self-related cortex is inactive. Thus, the term "losing yourself" receives here a clear neuronal correlate. This theme has a tantalizing echoing in Eastern philosophies such as Zen teachings, which emphasize the need to enter into a 'mindless,' selfless mental state to achieve a true sense of reality,

What I find interesting is the automatic correlation of this to eastern mystical practice, as if western correlates didn't exist. Clearly they are unknown to these researchers which indicates that Christian meditative practice is virtually unknown. In fact, I would argue that this experience may not be best understood in the terms attributed to Zen in the paragraph above which I take to be alluding to the 'mindlessness' aimed for in Buddhist teaching. However, the fact is that the 'loss of self' is achieved by intense focus on something else which is more akin to contemplative aims than 'mindlessness' as I understand it.

That said, I'm pretty certain that I have experienced this kind of state playing soccer and doing art work ...
ScienceDaily: Watching The Brain Switch Off 'Self'
Filed in: brain, mind, meditation, research, Self