The Experiential Self State as Affective Salience: Neurobiological, embodied, and predictive foundations of non-reflective consciousness

Consciousness is best understood as dynamic configurations of two distinct self states—a reflective self and an experiential self—rather than as static layers. The reflective self involves narrative, self-referential thought supported by the default mode network, while the experiential self is an embodied, affective-salience mode of awareness anchored in salience network hubs such as the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex, integrating bodily and external signals into a coherent sense of being a subject. Within predictive processing, the experiential self is a mode where precision-weighted affective and bodily prediction errors shape ongoing meta-aware experience. Altered states, including those in meditation, reveal how shifting to and maintaining the experiential self can be practiced. The framework offers testable predictions for neurocomputational models and longitudinal studies.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article proposes a dual-self states framework to demonstrate how phenomenology and neuroscience of embodied and altered states of consciousness illuminate the nature of consciousness and the sense of self. It argues that consciousness is best conceived as dynamic configurations of a reflective and an experiential self state, rather than as static, taxonomic layers of self. The reflective self corresponds to narrative, denotational, and self-referential consciousness underpinned by default mode network activity, whereas the experiential self is characterised as an embodied, affective-salience mode of perspectival awareness supported by salience network hubs, especially anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex, integrating interoceptive and exteroceptive signals into a coherent sense of “being here” as subject of experience. Within a predictive processing and dopaminergic framework, the experiential self state is construed as a mode in which precision-weighted affective and bodily prediction errors structure ongoing meta-aware experience, rather than non-conscious processing or contentless nondual awareness. Altered states, particularly such as examined in meditation research, provide further evidence of the processes involved in shifting to, and maintaining, the experiential self state, and how these processes may be practiced and developed. The framework yields testable predictions for neurocomputational modelling and longitudinal studies, positioning self-transcendent and related altered states as useful entry points for investigating how reflective and experiential modes of consciousness are distinct, and how experiential consciousness is embodied, pertains to salience processing, and is expressed in affective engagement with the world.