Elsevier

Consciousness and Cognition

Volume 46, November 2016, Pages 89-98
Consciousness and Cognition

When the dissolution of perceived body boundaries elicits happiness: The effect of selflessness induced by a body scan meditation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2016.09.013Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Body scan meditation reduces the salience of perceived body boundaries and increases optimal emotional experience.

  • Happiness increases when the salience of body boundaries decreases.

  • Results suggest selflessness promotes happiness via dissolution of perceived body boundaries.

Abstract

Drawing on the Self-centeredness/Selflessness Happiness Model (SSHM), we hypothesized that a reduction in the salience of perceived body boundaries would lead to increase optimal emotional experience. These constructs were assessed by means of self-report measures. Participants (n = 53) were randomly assigned to either the selflessness (induced by a body scan meditation) condition or the control condition. As expected, the reduction in perceived body salience was greater in the body scan meditation condition than in the control condition. The change in perceived body salience was accompanied by a change in happiness and anxiety. Participants in the body-scan meditation condition reported greater happiness and less anxiety than participants in the control condition. Happiness increased when the salience of body boundaries decreased. Mediation analyses reveal that the change in happiness was mediated by the change in perceived body boundaries, which suggests that selflessness elicits happiness via dissolution of perceived body boundaries.

Introduction

Every human being has a sense of self that underlies his or her experience of consciousness. The Self-centered/Selflessness Happiness Model (SSHM; Dambrun & Ricard, 2011) posits that happiness is intimately linked to self-consciousness states. This theoretical approach posits that a self-centered mode of psychological functioning, underlined by a sense of separation between one’s body and the rest of the world, tends to increase anxiety, as well as fluctuations in happiness. Authentic happiness would result from a selfless mode of psychological functioning, which is based on dissolution of the perceived boundaries between one’s body and the rest of the world. Thus, a positive emotional state, characterized by the presence of happiness and the absence of anxiety, is likely to occur when the perceived boundary between the body and the environment becomes less perceptible. We present the rationale for this theoretical prediction in the next sections.

Since James (1890/1950), consciousness research has generally distinguished between, on the one hand, the self as ‘I’, the subjective knower, the pre-reflective experience of the self, a momentary enduring presence (i.e. the minimal self), and, on the other, the narrative self, a coherent self (or self-image) that is constituted by a past and a future (Gallagher, 2000; see also Damasio, 1999). Similarly, in their recent theoretical framework, the Consciousness State Space (CSS) model, Berkovich-Ohana and Glicksohn (2014) distinguished between the ‘minimal self’, supported by core consciousness, whose scope is the here and now, and the narrative self, which involves past and future cognitions and conceptual thought, and is supported by extended consciousness. Thus, the self operates at two levels (see Table 1): there is the self as an immediate experience without extension in time (level 1), and the self as a conceptual mental activity extended in time (level 2). While the first level includes the minimal self, the narrative self belongs to the second level.

Gallagher (2000) proposed to define the minimal self as “a consciousness of oneself as an immediate subject of experience” (p. 15). It involves self-referential sensorimotor experiences, such as a specific spatial standpoint anchored to one’s body, a sense of agency and a sense of ownership. The minimal self is phenomenologically related to the body. It is embodied. Many processes underlying the pre-reflective experience of the ‘I’ and of the self as the agent of both physical and mental actions have been identified (for a review see White, 2015). These processes include temporal integration, synchronization and the detection of changes that are responsible for temporal integration and the coherence of inner mental life. These processes give rise to pre-reflective experience of the self, which, in turn, provides the foundation for the narrative self (White, 2015).

The self is also a product of an ongoing mental process as well as being a reified constructed cognitive entity (Dambrun & Ricard, 2011). This conceptual level involves the narrative self that is constituted by a past and a future and gives the perception of a coherent and unified self. The narrative self is characterized by self-referential mental activities, such as thoughts, emotions or motivations. It is the identification to these mental activities that gives rise to the perception of being the one who is thinking the thoughts or the one who is experiencing the emotions. Experiential fusion, an automatic process whereby one become absorbed in the content of consciousness, has been proposed as a key process underlying identification to self-referential mental activities (see Dahl, Lutz, & Davidson, 2015).

According to the SSHM, the minimal self and the narrative self underlie, at their respective levels, self-centeredness (see Table 1). Self-centeredness is a psychological mode of functioning that involves a self-centrism bias (i.e. the self takes on a central point of reference with regard to various psychological activities), an exaggerated sense of importance given to the self (e.g., considering one’s own condition to be more important than that of others and that this takes unquestionable priority) and a hedonic process (i.e. approach of gratifying stimuli and avoidance of disagreeable ones). It emerges when the self is constructed and reified as an unchanging independent entity with sharp boundaries. However, the SSHM posits the existence of a second and distinct psychological mode of functioning, namely selflessness. This functioning is based on a weak distinction between self and others, and between self and the environment as a whole. Selflessness is intimately related to self-transcendence, the process of seeing things as they are with clear awareness and without strong distortion coming from biological and social conditioning (Le & Levenson, 2005). Furthermore, selflessness is based on benevolent emotions, such as compassion. It emerges when the self is reified as a dynamic network of evanescent relations with a causal coherence. In other words, the “self” is perceived as an interconnected transient event. Table 1 presents selflessness both at the level of immediate experience (level 1) and at the level of conceptual mental activity (level 2).

At the first level of selflessness (i.e. level of immediate experience), there is a momentary phenomenal experience, free of a minimal sense of self, where the sense of agency, ownership and center vanishes or, at least, diminishes. This is the mere phenomenon of “experiencing” itself (Hölzel et al., 2011), a present-moment experiencing (Dor-Ziderman, Berkovich-Ohana, Glicksohn, & Goldstein, 2013). We call it the “selfless to no-self” experience. At the conceptual level (i.e. level 2), selflessness is characterized by both a reduction–extinction in self-referential mental activities and a de-identification from mental contents. Meta-awareness and insights resulting from self-inquiry are two mechanisms likely to be involved in this phenomenon (see Dahl et al., 2015). The relationships between these various states of self-consciousness and perceived body boundaries are presented below.

In this paper, we argue that self-consciousness is intimately related to the sense of body boundaries. We adopt a view similar to the one developed by Ataria and colleagues (see Ataria, 2015, Ataria et al., 2015). First, perceived body boundaries are not equivalent to the boundaries of the physical body. They depend upon sensory activities. While physical body boundaries are defined as the boundaries of the body as an object, perceived body boundaries are defined as the sense of being more or less separated from the world. We propose that the sense of body boundaries is a dynamic experience that varies along a spectrum, ranging from extremely salient body boundaries (i.e. a marked boundary between one’s body and the rest of the world) to imperceptible body boundaries (i.e. absence of a boundary between one’s body and the rest of the world). On the basis of the SSHM, we posit that the degree of self-centeredness/selflessness produces significant variations in the sense of body boundaries.

First, sharp body boundaries emerge when the self is reified as an unchanging independent entity (narrative self). Self-referential mental activities and identification to them lead to the perception of a coherent and unified self. Experiential fusion facilitates repeated grasping (i.e. hedonic process), gives the perception of having a personal identity, and produces a dualistic view of the world in which the non-self entities that make up the environment (the outside) are separated from the self-entity (the inside). Thus, the narrative self is associated with a strong sense of separation between one’s body and the rest of the environment. Second, the consciousness of oneself as an immediate subject of experience (minimal self) marks a reduction in the degree of self-centeredness. With the decrease in self-referential mental activities, the salience of the sense of separation should be attenuated. However, since self-referential sensorimotor activities (e.g. sense of agency and ownership) operate at this level, the inside/outside duality, and, thus, the sense of separation between one’s body and the world, would be lower but existent. Finally, the reduction–extinction in self-referential activities during selflessness would result in imperceptible boundaries between one’s body and the rest of the world. Thus, in this context, the inside/outside duality would be even less marked, if not absent altogether.

According to Kabat-Zinn (2003, p. 145), mindfulness is “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.” Mindfulness is a particular quality of attention that is characteristic of a selfless psychological functioning (Dambrun & Ricard, 2011). Specifically, it is a form of attention that is free of bias and distraction. Selflessness can be induced by mindfulness and it has been linked, for example, to attenuation of beta-band activity in the right inferior parietal lobule (Dor-Ziderman et al., 2013). This cerebral region is involved in the integration of multisensory body signals and the conscious experience of the self as an ‘I’ (Blanke, 2012, Ionta et al., 2011). An altered sense of the body has consistently been shown to be closely related to a state of selflessness, in which the self is experienced as being less confined within the body boundaries (Berkovich-Ohana, Dor-Ziderman, Glicksohn, & Goldstein, 2013; see also Ataria et al., 2015). In a recent neurophenomenologically-guided MEG study using trained mindfulness meditators, Berkovich-Ohana et al. (2013) were able to dissociate different levels of alteration in the sense of the body. The 12 long-term mindfulness meditators that made up the sample were asked to volitionally bring about distinct states of ‘timelessness’ (being outside time) and ‘spacelessness’ (being outside space). Four of the 12 meditators reported that their body boundaries were less salient during the tasks (e.g. “There was little awareness of different body parts. Little body boundaries compared to the usual feeling.” Participant no. 1) and four others reported a substantial loss of body boundaries (e.g. “There was a vanishing of bodily sensations. The body was not present.” Participant no. 11). One participant reported a change in location of the self, i.e. an out-of-body experience. In a similar vein, Ataria et al. (2015) reported a study in which a long term meditator was able to shift between three different stages: (a) a sense of self based on a sense of separation, (b) the dissolving of the sense of body boundaries, and (c) the disappearance of the sense of body boundaries. Together, this qualitative data suggest that the practice of mindfulness can alter body perception during both ‘timelessness’ and ‘spacelessness’ instructions. On this basis, we predicted that mindfulness-induced selflessness would quantitatively reduce the salience of body boundaries.

Mindfulness-based meditation comprises a set of practices of which the body scan meditative practice seemed relevant to our purpose. Body scan meditation involves shifting one’s attention voluntarily to various parts of the body, noticing what is happening without judging and without reacting. During a body scan, participants are encouraged to sense every part of their body separately, and then to sense the body as a whole. Conceptual mental activity is attenuated in favor of sustained attention to present bodily manifestations. Thus, body scan meditation induces a transition from the narrative self to the minimal self (see also Berkovich-Ohana & Glicksohn, 2014). This step suggests that body scan meditation decreases self-centeredness. However, another processes involved in the body scan also suggest an increase in selflessness. Physical sensations change every moment, so body scan meditation provides an opportunity to experience the discontinuity of physical and bodily sensations. Thus, rather than as a static entity, the sense of self can be experienced as an event. It has been documented that the “deconstruction of the self” results from the experience of the transitory nature of this sense of self (Dahl et al., 2015, Epstein, 1988, Hölzel et al., 2011). In addition, when one’s attention is directed to one specific body part, one’s consciousness of the other parts is reduced, which potentially promotes a change in bodily consciousness. Paying attention to specific parts of the body also encourages individuals to experience their contact with the ground as diffuse. At the end of the session, when participants are encouraged to sense the body as a whole, a change in bodily consciousness is likely to occur. In the most extreme form, individuals can fully lose their sense of their body. Their sense of body boundaries extends beyond the body and encompasses everything that surrounds them. Thus, we propose that body scan meditation also induces a transition from the minimal self to the “selfless to no-self” experience. We predicted that a body-scan meditation would promote a selflessness state in which the body boundaries that delimit the inside from the outside become less perceptible and, as such, less salient. In addition, we predicted that this altered sense of the body would affect emotional experience. The rationale for this latter prediction is presented below.

The SSHM predicts that experience of the self affects emotional experience. The model suggests that there is a positive association between the experience of selflessness, resulting from dissolution of perceived body boundaries, and the experience of an optimal emotional state, characterized by contentment, inner peace and the absence of anxiety. In other words, a decrease in the salience of body boundaries should be accompanied by an increase in optimal emotional experience.

The SSHM posits that self-centered psychological functioning emerges when an individual perceives a strong distinction between oneself and the outside world, when the self is reified as a real entity with sharp boundaries. The hedonic process, in which individuals are primarily motivated by the desire to obtain rewards and to avoid disagreeable experiences, repeatedly operates (Higgins, 1997, Laborit, 1979). This basic process has been shown to relate to a state of fluctuating happiness in which pleasure and displeasure alternate repeatedly (Dambrun and Ricard, 2012, Dambrun et al., 2012). In contrast, when the self/not-self distinction is less marked and the self is perceived as an interconnected transient event, individuals are less motivated by the need to ensure their own preservation. The hedonic principle becomes less important and the associated anxiety is reduced. In this condition, the SSHM predicts that the individual’s perceived body boundaries will extend beyond the body and encompass everything that surrounds him or her (i.e. oneness). It is assumed that this state is accompanied by a feeling of harmony that is closely linked to characteristics such as completeness and inner peace (for more details, see Dambrun & Ricard, 2012). In other words, in a state of selflessness, the reduction in self-referential activities should give rise to an optimal emotional state characterized by greater happiness and a reduction in anxiety.

The main aim of this study was to experimentally test the assumption that mindfulness-induced selflessness reduces the salience of body boundaries and, thus, leads to an optimal emotional experience. Participants were randomly assigned to a body scan meditation condition or a control condition. The perceived salience of body boundaries and emotional experience were assessed twice, once before the session and once after the session. Perceived body boundaries were assessed using a visual analogue scale. First, we predicted that the reduction in body salience after the session would be greater in the body scan meditation condition than in the control condition (Hypothesis 1). Second, we predicted that participants in the body scan meditation condition would show a significantly greater increase in happiness (Hypothesis 2a) and decrease in anxiety (Hypothesis 2b) after the session than participants of the control condition. Since it is assumed that an optimal emotional state would result from the dissolution of perceived body boundaries, we predicted (a) a negative relation between the salience of body boundaries and happiness, and (b) a positive correlation between the body boundaries’ salience and anxiety. The more the participants would experience a decrease in the salience of body boundaries, the more they would experience happiness (Hypothesis 3a) and the less they would experience anxiety (Hypothesis 3b). We predicted a mediation model in which the reduction in perceived salience of body boundaries would mediate the effect of the body scan meditation on emotional experience (Hypothesis 4a: body scan meditation  decrease in body boundaries’ salience  increase in happiness; and Hypothesis 4b: body scan meditation  decrease in body boundaries’ salience  decrease in anxiety). In addition, because the SSHM posits a self-reinforcing process, in which happiness reinforces selflessness, we also predicted that the increase in happiness would mediate the effect of the body scan meditation on the salience of perceived body boundaries (Hypothesis 5: body scan meditation  increase in happiness  decrease in body boundaries’ salience).

Section snippets

Participants

Fifty-three psychology students at the Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand (France), served as participants. The average age of the sample is 19.2 years (SD = 1.3), and there are 49 women and 4 men. This study belongs to a research program that has been approved by the Sud-EST VI statutory Ethics Committee (2014-CE36; IRB00008526).

Visual analogue scale assessing perceived body boundaries

This instrument consists of a visual analogue scale depicting seven human bodies with body boundaries, which vary from almost imperceptible (at the left pole) to

Perceived body boundaries

A 2 (experimental condition: body scan meditation vs. control) × 2 (time: pre-session vs. post-session) analysis of variance in perceived body boundaries scores was performed to test Hypothesis 1. This revealed a main effect of time, F(1, 51) = 54.70, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.52. Participants perceived their body boundaries as less salient after the session (M = 5.67) than before it (M = 8.50). As predicted, there was also a time by condition interaction, F(1, 51) = 8.65, p < 0.005, η2 = 0.145 (see Fig. 2). The reduction

Discussion

In this study we tested one of the main assumption of the SSHM, namely that mindfulness-induced selflessness reduces the salience of body boundaries and that this leads to a more positive emotional state. First, the results of this study indicate that a short body scan meditation is sufficient to reduce the salience of body boundaries and enhance happiness. These effects were large. The effect of the body scan meditation explained 14.5% of variance in change in perceived body boundaries and 15%

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