Microgravity as neurocognitive catalyst for altered consciousness experiences
11 hours ago
- #consciousness
- #neuroscience
- #microgravity
- Earth's gravity acts as a '1G super-prior' in the brain's predictive framework, stabilizing perception and consciousness.
- Microgravity disrupts this super-prior, causing prediction errors, multisensory integration issues, and spatial disorientation.
- Astronauts experience altered self-location, emotional regulation, and perceptual coherence, sometimes leading to transformative states like the Overview Effect.
- Neural changes in spaceflight resemble those induced by psychedelics, involving reduced high-level priors and enhanced global brain integration.
- Spaceflight serves as a non-pharmacological experiment to study consciousness transformation when fundamental constraints are removed.