Training the embodied self in its impermanence: meditators evidence neurophysiological markers of death acceptance

Background: Human predictive capacity underlies its adaptive strength but also the potential for existential terror. Grounded in the predictive processing framework of brain function, we recently showed using a magnetoencephalogram visual mismatch-response (vMMR) paradigm that prediction-based self-specific neural mechanisms shield the self from existential threat—at the level of perception—by attributing death to the ‘other’ (nonself). Here we test the preregistered hypothesis that insight meditation grounded on mindful awareness is associated with a reduction in the brain’s defensiveness toward mortality. In addition, we examine whether these neurophysiological markers of death-denial are associated with the phenomenology of meditative self-dissolution (embodied training in impermanence). Methods: Thirty-eight meditators pooled from a previous project investigating self-dissolution neurophenomenology underwent the vMMR task, as well as self-report measures of mental health, and afterlife beliefs. Results were associated with the previously-reported phenomenological dimensions of self-dissolution. Results: Meditators’ brains responded to the coupling of death and self-stimuli in a manner indicating acceptance rather than denial, corresponding to increased self-reported well-being. Additionally, degree of death acceptance predicted positively valenced meditation-induced self-dissolution experiences, thus shedding light on possible mechanisms underlying wholesome vs. pathological disruptions to self-consciousness. Conclusions: The findings provide empirical support for the hypothesis that the neural mechanisms underlying the human tendency to avoid death are not hard-wired but are amenable to mental training, one which is linked with meditating on the experience of the embodied self’s impermanence. The results also highlight the importance of assessing and addressing mortality concerns when implementing psychopharmacological or contemplative interventions with the potential of inducing radical disruptions to self-consciousness.