Encinitas 2023 1_11 sean esbjörn hargens 1080p

PARADIGMS AND PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE REVOLUTION
Neuroscience Needs a Revolution to Understand Consciousness
hosted by California Institute for Human Science and the
Center for Consciousness Studies, University of Arizona
August 18-20, 2023 Encinitas, California
Weird Realities - Super Experiencers & Anomalous Cognition:A Multi-phase Multi-year Global Mixed Methods Neurophenomenological Research Study
Sean Esbjörn-Hargens
CIHS, Encinitas, CA, USA
Categories by Discipline
5.0 Experiential Approaches
Primary Topic Area - TSC Taxonomy
[05.08]........Near-death and anomalous experiences
Abstract
One of the most interesting and quickest ways to revolutionize neuroscience is to study the brains of individuals who have anomalous experiences. This approach can challenge existing models of how the brain interfaces with reality and open up new horizons of analysis and understanding. One of the best ways to advance science is to focus on those anomalies which the mainstream models tend to ignore - they often contain the sparks of insight that can start a revolution. While much neuroscience research has been successfully conducted on meditators, surprisingly, very little of this kind of research has been done on individuals who have stable and regular access to other types of altered states of consciousness. Many individuals report having had an anomalous experience at some point in their lives - a precognitive dream that comes true, seeing the ghost of a relative soon after their passing, a near-death experience (NDE) after a traumatic event, or an out-of-body experience (OBE) while they were doing Vipassana meditation, and so on. Some individuals report having multiple anomalous experiences of the same category throughout their life - such as those who have seen ghosts on a number of occasions or those who have trained themselves to have OBEs on a semi-regular basis. And then there are those rare individuals - super experiencers - who for unknown reasons experience multiple types of anomalous events throughout their lives. These are individuals who have a disposition to experiencing a wide range of “weird realities.” Sometimes there is a trigger event for these experiences and other times they just seem to randomly happen. By focusing on these unique individuals who have regular access to a wide range of anomalous experiences new insights around brain structure, phenomenological experience, and cognition can be achieved. Over the course of five-years this research aims to locate and study these super experiencers and develop neuro-phenomenological and biofield (i.e., subtle energy system) profiles for them. The research will be conducted in three major phases: · Phase 1: 5000 surveys will be collected from individuals worldwide who have anomalous experiences; · Phase 2: 100 individuals will be selected from Phase 1 for in-depth interviews and psychometric assessments using over a dozen standard instruments; and · Phase 3: 50 individuals will be selected from Phase 2 for developing neurological imaging and subtle energy assessments. The goal of this research is to better understand the unique psychological, phenomenological, neurological, biophysical, and subtle energy markers and conditions that super experiencers have that play an experiential, emotional, cognitive, and biological role in their unique capacity for anomalous cognition. Through this study of weird realities current neuroscience models of perception and experience will be reviewed and revised and new models will be pioneered. And we may just discover that reality is actually weirder than we often want to admit