Unlooping the self: Ego dissolution and the collapse of recursive identity.

Losing one's sense of self—ego dissolution—occurs during psychedelic experiences, deep meditation, traumatic dissociation, and psychosis. This paper proposes a unifying concept called 'unlooping': the breakdown of recursive mental structures that normally construct and maintain identity. Drawing on predictive processing and enactive cognition, the authors interpret ego dissolution as a graded suspension of feedback loops responsible for agency, continuity, and self-boundary. Through phenomenological analysis and cross-contextual case studies, they argue that selfhood is not a fixed ontological constant but a contingent, dynamically enacted achievement. Unlooping reveals both the fragility and plasticity of identity, with implications for theory, methodology, and therapy.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Ego dissolution—the experience of losing one’s sense of self—is reported across a range of altered states, including psychedelic intoxication, meditative absorption, traumatic dissociation, and psychotic episodes. This paper proposes a unifying framework for these phenomena by introducing the concept of unlooping: the breakdown of recursive structures that construct and maintain identity. Drawing on models of recursive self-modeling, predictive processing, and enactive cognition, ego dissolution is interpreted as a graded suspension of feedback loops responsible for agency, continuity, and self-boundary. Through phenomenological analysis and cross-contextual case studies, the paper demonstrates that selfhood is not an ontological constant but a contingent, dynamically enacted achievement. Unlooping the self reveals both the fragility and plasticity of identity and offers new insights into the intersection of subjective experience and cognitive architecture. The implications span theoretical, methodological, and therapeutic domains, suggesting a revised account of selfhood that incorporates its capacity for suspension and reorganization.