Speaker: Dr. Marc Wittmann, Institute for Frontiers Areas of Psychology and Mental Health

Time: 3:00 - 4:30p.m., 24 October, 2019

Venue: #1115, Wangkezhen Building, Peking University

Abstract: Over the last years a novel idea regarding the neural basis of time perception has been developed. Based on empirical evidence, this conceptual framework suggests that physiological changes of the body, the basis of our feeling states, form an internal signal to encode the duration of external events in the time range of several seconds. On a basic level, the bodily self, as created by the continuous physiological input from the body, is the functional anchor of phenomenal experience of a self – and of subjective time. The entanglement of self-reflective consciousness, emotion and body awareness with the experience of time is prominently disclosed in altered states of consciousness such as in everyday experiences of flow and of boredom as well as in peak experiences in meditative states, under the influence of drugs as well as in many psychiatric and neurological conditions. I will present empirical evidence on modulations of self and time in studies probing for effects of meditation, psychedelics, and the Ganzfeld.

Host: Dr. Yan Bao

2019-10-14