Distilling the neurophenomenological signatures of pure awareness during Transcendental Meditation
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Pure awareness (PA) is described in contemplative traditions as a wakeful state largely devoid of cognitive content, often considered a case of minimal phenomenal experience (MPE). Transcendental Meditation (TM) provides an excellent empirical model for PA because it is standardized, effortless, and reliably induces reports of awareness with minimal content. We combined phenomenological and electrophysiological approaches to study PA in 33 experienced TM practitioners and matched controls (performing mental counting). Using Temporal Experience Tracing, TM practitioners reported greater intensity and variability of PA than controls, regardless of years of meditation practice, consistent with the notion of 'automatic self-transcendence'. Using electroencephalography (EEG) and multivariate classification analyses, our large-scale screening of theoretically motivated EEG markers revealed a double dissociation in neural signatures. When contrasting TM with controls, temporal entropy and aperiodic dynamics were the strongest discriminators, while functional connectivity based on phase coherence contributed the least. In contrast, when TM was compared with its own baseline, low-frequency functional connectivity dominated, while temporal entropy contributed minimally to classification. This dissociation suggests that PA is characterized by enhanced EEG signals' diversity and aperiodic neural dynamics compared to ordinary cognition but stabilized by slow-frequency oscillatory synchronization relative to rest. Finally, TM showed little evidence of carry-over effects from meditation into subsequent rest, in contrast to controls, where counting induced residual changes. Together, these results provide the most systematic electrophysiological characterization of PA to date and establish neurophenomenology as a robust framework for advancing the neuroscience of minimal phenomenal experience.