With neuroscientific context and testable predictions
Mart Wijn Independent Consciousness Researcher & Unbounded Logic Practitioner – ORCID: 0009-0005-4894-972X
martwijn59@proton.me
Preprint — Zenodo, 2026
Abstract
The contemplative and neuroscientific literatures converge on a state in which self-referential, narrative
processing is attenuated and the sense of a separate experiencing self loosens or dissolves. This state has
been studied primarily as a transient condition achieved during advanced meditation, and has been
correlated with reduced activity in the Default Mode Network (DMN), particularly in its medial prefrontal and
posterior cingulate hubs (Brewer et al., 2011; Garrison et al., 2015). What has been less thoroughly described
is this condition not as a practiced, episodic achievement but as a stabilized, involuntary default: a continuous
baseline from which a person lives, which cannot be set aside at will. This paper presents a structured first-
person (phenomenological) report of such a state, authored by the person who reports it. The state is
characterized by six features: awareness without an experiencer; experience without an owner; direct,
uncolored perception; a “closed circle” in which thinking, naming, and explaining each function as a single
kind of object-offering movement sufficient to initiate predictive processing; the non-feeding of the self-
constructing loop (experience leaves no trace in the self-model); and the presence of affect without
ownership or added valence — specifically compassion together with pure arousal (activation) decoupled
from valence. The report maintains an explicit three-way distinction throughout between what is experiential
claim, what is established in the literature, and what is a testable hypothesis. I argue that this state is the
extreme, stabilized endpoint of precisely the dimension that existing DMN research measures in milder,
transient form, and that it therefore generates specific, falsifiable neuroimaging predictions — most naturally
tested in a between-subjects, resting-state design, since the state admits no within-subject “off” baseline.
The state is positioned relative to predictive-processing theory, to constructed-self accounts (Hume;
Metzinger; anattā), to Dielenberg’s (2026) model of autopraxis, and to my own prior account of the human
default state and unbounded logic (Wijn, 2026b, 2026c). No claim is made that a scan can confirm the
experience itself; a measurement can at most reveal a neural correlate. The first-person/third-person gap is
treated as principled, not as a defect to be engineered away.
- Status of This Report and Its Central Limitation
This is not a report of a proven finding. It is a structured first-person description — a phenomenological
report — of a specific state of consciousness, authored by the person who sustains it, with a view to possible
neuroimaging investigation.
Throughout, three categories are kept rigorously apart:
[EXPERIENTIAL] — what is reported in the first person. This is data, not a claim about the external
world. It is not externally verifiable and is not presented as proven.
[ESTABLISHED] — findings reasonably well supported in the peer-reviewed literature, with
reference.
[HYPOTHESIS] — a testable conjecture that follows from combining the first two, and that can in
principle be confirmed or falsified by measurement.
The central epistemological limitation is acknowledged at the outset: no measurement can “confirm” a first-
person experience. A scan can at most demonstrate a neural correlate of the reported state. The “hard
problem” of consciousness (Chalmers, 1995) is bracketed and not addressed. What is proposed here is more
modest and testable: whether the reported state co-occurs with a recognizable, deviating brain pattern. The
first-person/third-person gap is treated as a principled boundary of method, consistent with the position
developed in Wijn (2026b). - Phenomenological Description [EXPERIENTIAL]
The state is summarized in six features. The wording is the reporter’s; the technical term in parentheses is
added to permit contact with the literature. - There is awareness, but no experiencer. Awareness is present, but is directed 0% at an experiencing
subject. There is no centre, no “someone” to whom what appears is presented. (absence of a self-referential
frame; “non-dual awareness” / selflessness in the contemplative literature.) - Experience has no owner. What appears is not lived as “mine” and is not attributed to a self. There is
nothing that possesses, and therefore nothing that can be touched, threatened, or affected. (absence of self-
tagging / appropriation.) - Perception is direct and uncolored. There is no anticipation of what appears; no meaning, category, or
valuation is projected onto the stimulus. The reporter describes this as “raw” and “unmediated.” (minimal or
absent top-down prediction / conceptual appropriation of sensory input.) - The state is “a closed circle.” As long as no grasping movement arises, no object is offered for top-down
processes to act upon. The reporter treats thinking, naming, and explaining as one and the same kind of
movement: each offers an object, and each alone is sufficient to initiate predictive processing. It is therefore
not language specifically that breaks directness, but the underlying act these three share — making an object
available to the predictive system. Even a wordless thought suffices to open the circle. The absence of all
such movements keeps the state intact. - Experience does not feed the self-constructing process. The raw experience is not taken up, evaluated,
and fed back to modify a future tendency, habit, or behavioural disposition. In that sense it leaves no trace: it
does not change who the reporter is or what they do. This is explicitly not formulated as “causality stops” —
ordinary forward physical causality (stimulus evokes neural activity and awareness) continues, and an effect
may in principle also occur with delay. What is absent is specifically the fed-back, self-forming route: the loop
in which an experience is stored and later rewrites the self-model. Because there is no experiencer to whom
the experience belongs (see features 1 and 2), there is no self that is updated by it. (absence of feedback into
the self-model; in Dielenberg’s (2026) terms, the non-operation of the autopraxis loop — see §7.) - Affect is present, but without owner and without added valence. The state is explicitly not emotional
numbing, deadening, or flattening. Feeling occurs; emotion arises. The difference lies in the structure of that
affect:
Emotion as a response to the event, not to “what is done to me.” The emotion is a reaction to the
situation itself, not to an injury or threat to a self — because there is no self to whom anything is
done. The emotion therefore remains isolated: it attaches to nothing, usually passes immediately or
is processed, and leaves no residue.
A purified and reduced spectrum. Emotions that require ego-attachment (grief and anger in their
ordinary, self-referenced form) scarcely occur. What remains is predominantly outward-directed
affect, chiefly compassion — a response to another’s situation in which nothing is at stake for the
reporter. (Anger can still arise rarely and briefly in one specific relational context, but even then as a
momentary occurrence with no lasting effect on the baseline.)
Arousal without valence. In addition, a purely energetic “being moved” occurs — a welling-up at
something perceived — which has intensity but no good/bad colouring. In affective-science terms
this maps onto the two-dimensional (circumplex) model of core affect, in which affect is spanned by
two independent dimensions, valence and arousal (Russell, 2003; Barrett & Russell, 1999): what the
reporter describes is activation (arousal) decoupled from valence. Notably, that model already
posits a continuously present, objectless “core affect” described as an unlabeled feeling — which
closely matches the reporter’s “being moved without good or bad.” This is the direct
phenomenological counterpart of the claim that valence is not a property of the stimulus but an
addition by the receiver; in this state that addition is not made, and bare activation remains.
A distinction the reporter makes explicitly — a distinction in time, not only between experiencing and
explaining. What matters is the moment of explanation relative to the experience. During the experience,
describing or questioning would disturb the state: the question “what am I experiencing?” offers an object
and opens the closed circle (feature 4). After the fact, the same experience can simply be explained without
touching it: the experience is then complete and fixed; the later description runs alongside it and can no
longer color or overwrite it, and is therefore not stored as part of the experience. The experience remains
preserved as it was: raw and unmediated. A consequence is that the present document — composed after
the state — does not contaminate the described experience. The common objection that “any report already
mediates the experience” therefore applies only to describing during the state, not to a retrospective report. - Delimitation Against Related but Distinct States
To prevent confusion, the state is distinguished from several conditions with which it might superficially be
conflated:
Not ordinary relaxation or an “empty head”: awareness is fully lucid, with no drowsiness or
diminished consciousness.
Not mind-wandering or daydreaming: those are dominated by internally generated content (the
opposite of what is described here).
Not ordinary focused concentration on an object: no object is held; the hallmark is precisely
objectlessness.
Not emotional blunting, numbing, or dissociation: feeling and perception genuinely occur (see
feature 6). What is at issue is the absence of ownership and residue, not the absence of affect or of
reality-contact.
Not a skill switched on and off: for the reporter the state has become a stable, permanent baseline
(default). It cannot be released at will; an attempt to do so meets internal resistance. This
distinguishes the situation from meditation practitioners who enter and leave a state, and has direct
consequences for study design (see §5 and §6).
The state most closely approximates what the contemplative literature calls pure consciousness experience
(PCE) or nondual awareness (NDA) — the latter studied neuroscientifically by Josipovic (2014) and defined as
“a background awareness that precedes conceptualization and intention” — and the Buddhist anattā (non-
self): the recognition that none of the components of experience can be regarded as a self. The decisive
difference from the studied cases is stabilization: in the literature NDA is an achieved, transient condition in
trained practitioners, whereas here it is reported as a permanent, involuntary baseline. It corresponds to the
stabilized baseline described in my own prior work as the human default state (Wijn, 2026b). - Neuroscientific Context [ESTABLISHED]
The state is not an isolated curiosity; it connects to an active field of research.
4.1 The DMN carries self-referential, narrative processing. Its core hubs — medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC),
posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and precuneus — are consistently involved in autobiographical thought, self-
reference, and mind-wandering (Raichle et al., 2001; Buckner, Andrews-Hanna & Schacter, 2008; Andrews-
Hanna, Smallwood & Spreng, 2014).
4.2 Advanced meditation co-occurs with reduced DMN activity. Experienced practitioners show decreased
activity in core DMN hubs (mPFC, PCC) during meditation compared with novices (Brewer et al., 2011), a
finding replicated with ultra-high-field 7-Tesla fMRI.
4.3 PCC deactivation correlates with the subjective experience itself. Crucial to the present proposal: PCC
deactivation has been shown to track reported experiences of “undistracted awareness,” “effortlessness,”
and “not efforting” in meditators (Garrison et al., 2015). There is thus precedent for linking a first-person
state to an objective brain signal.
4.4 Reduced DMN activity is associated with the loosening of self-boundaries. The literature explicitly links
decreased DMN activity to the weakening of identification with the narrative self and to experiences of
selflessness (Brewer et al., 2011).
4.5 “Nondual awareness” is the closest studied parallel, and implicates network anticorrelation. Josipovic
(2014) characterizes nondual awareness (NDA) as “a background awareness that precedes conceptualization
and intention” — a description that closely matches features 1–3 of the present report. Importantly, his
neuroimaging work addresses not only DMN activity but the anticorrelation between intrinsic (default) and
extrinsic (task-positive) networks: whereas focused-attention meditation tends to increase this
anticorrelation, NDA was found to reduce it, i.e. the two normally opposed systems become less segregated
(Josipovic, Dinstein, Weber & Heeger, 2011; Josipovic, 2014). This is directly relevant here, because the same
reduction of anticorrelation is predicted independently in Wijn (2026c) as a signature of the continuously-
rested default mode.
Summary [ESTABLISHED]: there is an established, replicated association between (a) reduced DMN activity,
particularly in PCC and mPFC, and (b) subjectively reported reduction of self-referential, narrative thought;
and a more specific finding (Josipovic) that nondual awareness is marked by reduced anticorrelation between
intrinsic and extrinsic networks. The state reported here is an extreme, stabilized variant of precisely the
dimension this research measures. - From Experience to Testable Prediction [HYPOTHESIS]
If the state described in §2 is real and co-occurs with the neural dimension described in §4, specific, falsifiable
predictions follow. The core: the reporter describes in extreme degree exactly what correlates, in milder
degree, with DMN deactivation in meditators.
Prediction 1 — DMN deactivation. During the reported state (compared with a resting condition permitting
ordinary thought in control participants) there is significantly reduced activity in core DMN hubs (mPFC, PCC,
precuneus).
Falsification: if the state shows no DMN deviation relative to ordinary rest, the link loses its ground.
Prediction 2 — reduced DMN connectivity. Functional coupling within the DMN (particularly mPFC–PCC) is
reduced.
Falsification: unchanged or increased internal DMN connectivity would count against the hypothesis.
Prediction 3 — specificity, not global reduction. The effect is selective for the self-referential/DMN system
and is not simply a global decline of brain activity or of alertness. Primary sensory processing remains intact
(the reporter describes lucid, “raw” awareness), and measures of vigilance/physiological arousal remain
normal.
Falsification: if the picture is one of general deactivation or lowered arousal (as in drowsiness), it is not a
specific correlate of the described state. This distinction is essential and must be controlled (see §6).
Prediction 4 — the state is a stable default, not a transient task-state. Because the state is permanent and
involuntary (see §3), a within-subject contrast (state on/off within one person) is not the appropriate design
— there is no “ordinary” baseline to set against it. The appropriate design is between-subjects: the reporter’s
resting state (resting-state fMRI) is compared with that of a control group possessing a normal, self-
referential default. The prediction is then that the reporter’s resting state shows a reduced DMN profile that
in control participants typically appears only during deep meditation — that is, the reporter’s “rest”
resembles others’ “meditation,” neurally. This aligns with the finding that reduced DMN activity in highly
experienced practitioners may “settle in” as a new default (Brewer et al., 2011).
Falsification: if the reporter’s resting profile does not differ from that of control participants, the hypothesis
loses its ground.
Prediction 5 — reduced anticorrelation between intrinsic and extrinsic networks. Following Josipovic (2014;
Josipovic et al., 2011), the reported state should show reduced anticorrelation between the DMN (intrinsic)
and task-positive/attentional (extrinsic) networks — the two normally opposed systems being less segregated
— rather than the increased anticorrelation typical of focused-attention meditation. This is the one prediction
that points in the opposite direction from most meditation findings, and it therefore discriminates sharply: a
result of increased anticorrelation (the focused-attention pattern) would count against the hypothesis,
whereas reduced anticorrelation would support both this report and the independent prediction in Wijn
(2026c).
Falsification: increased or unchanged intrinsic/extrinsic anticorrelation relative to controls.
These predictions distinguish the framework from a generic claim of “less thinking.” They also provide ways in
which the central claims could fail. This set of predictions is consistent with, and extends, the neurological
predictions for the continuously-rested DMN proposed in Wijn (2026b, 2026c). - Methodological Considerations and Limitations
An honest proposal states its own weaknesses. The following can be addressed in advance:
n = 1. This is a single case. A finding would be a case description, not a generalizable result. This is
legitimate in itself (compare single-case depth studies of exceptional practitioners), but its status
must be stated as such.
The correlate is not proof of the experience. Even a perfect match does not confirm the first-person
claim; it shows only a co-occurring brain pattern. The first-person/third-person gap remains in
principle.
Reporting problem — strongly reduced, but not nil. Because the state is permanent and
involuntary, the reporter need not “switch it on” or enter it; there are no transitions to be signalled,
which removes the principal source of disturbance known from meditation-neurofeedback research.
It remains relevant that active signalling, questioning, or reporting during measurement itself offers
an object and may briefly interrupt the state (see feature 4). A task-free design without real-time
reporting is therefore preferable (resting-state), with any questioning conducted only afterwards
(retrospectively — see the temporal distinction in §2).
Necessary controls. To test Prediction 3, physiological arousal, head motion, respiration, and
alertness must be controlled — exactly the controls applied in the 7T meditation work. (Note:
“arousal” here is meant in the physiological sense — vigilance/activation level — and must not be
confused with the affective arousal of feature 6.) Without these controls, an alternative explanation
(drowsiness, diminished consciousness) cannot be excluded.
Confound with impaired consciousness. DMN deactivation also occurs in diminished consciousness
(Crone et al., 2011). The distinction from the state described here — lucid, wakeful awareness with
DMN deactivation, including intact affect and reality-contact — is precisely the point of interest, and
must be demonstrated explicitly (e.g., intact sensory response, normal vigilance measures). - Positioning Relative to Existing Theory
This state bears on several theoretical frameworks:
Predictive processing (Clark, 2013; Seth, 2021): the reporter describes its core as the absence of top-
down filling-in of sensory input — “no prediction that fills the experience in advance.” In this
framework’s terms, the state would amount to a minimization of top-down prediction over
perception, with pure, uninterpreted sensory presence. This is an interpretation of the experience in
theoretical terms, not a proven mechanism [HYPOTHESIS].
The self as constructed process (Hume’s bundle theory; Metzinger’s self-model; Buddhist anattā):
the state is consistent with the view that the “self” is not a given entity but a process that can also
cease. The reporter does not describe “I have a self that is quiet,” but the absence of an experiencer
— closer to the strong (no-self) reading.
Autopraxis / recursive self-modification (Dielenberg, 2026): this framework holds that the
distinctively human capacity consists of a fed-back loop in which experiences are taken up,
evaluated, and fed back to rewrite one’s own future dispositions (the “bias function”). The state
described here is the functional mirror image: not the maximal activation of that loop, but its non-
operation — experience that does not feed the self-model (see feature 5). Importantly, this is not a
refutation of that framework but fits within it: it describes the condition in which the loop finds no
point of application. It also offers a sharp operationalization, contrasting the state with a well-
specified, self-referential process.
The human default state and unbounded logic (Wijn, 2026b, 2026c): the present report is the
phenomenological counterpart of the resting, non-narrative DMN described in that work. Where
those papers approach the rested DMN through its cognitive consequences (assumption-free
reasoning), this report approaches the same baseline through its first-person structure (ownerless,
objectless awareness). The two descriptions are of one condition viewed from two sides.
The reporter takes no position on the hard problem and does not claim the experience demonstrates
anything non-physical. The state is presented as a phenomenon to be investigated, not as a refutation of any
paradigm. - Conclusion
A stable, lucid state of objectless, ownerless awareness is reported [EXPERIENTIAL]. This state is an extreme
variant of the dimension (reduction of self-referential, narrative thought) that is established and replicated as
co-occurring with reduced DMN activity, particularly in PCC and mPFC [ESTABLISHED]. From this follows the
testable, falsifiable expectation that the state is characterized by selective DMN deactivation and reduced
DMN connectivity, with intact sensory processing and normal vigilance [HYPOTHESIS], most naturally tested
in a between-subjects, resting-state design because the state admits no within-subject “off” baseline. A fMRI
study can test these predictions; it cannot prove the underlying experience, only image a correlate of it. The
value of such a measurement lies not in validating the first-person truth but in establishing whether an
exceptional, stabilized state of consciousness has a recognizable neural signature. The state further stands as
the phenomenological complement to the rested default-mode baseline I have described elsewhere (Wijn,
2026b, 2026c), and as the functional mirror image of the autopraxis loop described by Dielenberg (2026):
where that account locates the distinctively human in the maximal operation of recursive self-editing, the
present report describes the condition in which that loop finds no point of application.
Author Note
This report describes a first-person state sustained by the author. It was composed retrospectively, outside
the state, so as not to disturb the condition it describes (see §2). The phenomenological description is the
author’s; the neuroscientific context and predictions are formulated to permit testing, with explicit marking
of what is and is not established. The author declares no conflicts of interest. No external funding was
received. The author is available for neuroimaging investigation as described in §5 and §6. Correspondence:
martwijn59@proton.me
References
Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Smallwood, J., & Spreng, R. N. (2014). The default network and self-generated thought:
Component processes, dynamic control, and clinical relevance. Annals of the New York Academy of
Sciences, 1316(1), 29–52.
Barrett, L. F., & Russell, J. A. (1999). The structure of current affect: Controversies and emerging consensus.
Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8(1), 10–14.
Brewer, J. A., Worhunsky, P. D., Gray, J. R., Tang, Y.-Y., Weber, J., & Kober, H. (2011). Meditation experience is
associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 108(50), 20254–20259.
Buckner, R. L., Andrews-Hanna, J. R., & Schacter, D. L. (2008). The brain’s default network: Anatomy, function,
and relevance to disease. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1124(1), 1–38.
Chalmers, D. J. (1995). Facing up to the problem of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2(3), 200
–219.
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181–204.
Crone, J. S., Ladurner, G., Höller, Y., Golaszewski, S., Trinka, E., & Kronbichler, M. (2011). Deactivation of the
default mode network as a marker of impaired consciousness: An fMRI study. PLoS ONE, 6(10), e26373.
Dielenberg, R. (2026). Autopraxis: a biological model of limited free will. Academia Neuroscience and Brain
Research, 2. https://doi.org/10.20935/AcadNeurosci8547
Garrison, K. A., Zeffiro, T. A., Scheinost, D., Constable, R. T., & Brewer, J. A. (2015). Meditation leads to
reduced default mode network activity beyond an active task. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral
Neuroscience, 15(3), 712–720.
Josipovic, Z. (2014). Neural correlates of nondual awareness in meditation. Annals of the New York Academy
of Sciences, 1307(1), 9–18.
Josipovic, Z., Dinstein, I., Weber, J., & Heeger, D. J. (2011). Influence of meditation on anti-correlated
networks in the brain. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5, 183.
Metzinger, T. (2003). Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. MIT Press.
Raichle, M. E., MacLeod, A. M., Snyder, A. Z., Powers, W. J., Gusnard, D. A., & Shulman, G. L. (2001). A default
mode of brain function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(2), 676–682.
Russell, J. A. (2003). Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion. Psychological Review, 110(1),
145–172.
Seth, A. (2021). Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. Faber & Faber.
Wijn, M. (2026b). The Human Default State: Factory Settings of Natural Human Consciousness. Zenodo.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22096131
Wijn, M. (2026c). Unbounded Logic: The Cognitive Capacity That Emerges When the Default Mode Network
Rests. Zenodo.
