Whole-Brain Models of Minimal Phenomenal Experience: Approaching Criticality through Jhāna Meditation

Minimal phenomenal experiences (MPE) provide a distinctive entry point for investigating consciousness and understanding how certain meditative practices may represent and contribute to human flourishing. Adopting a neurophenomenological stance, we combine first-person phenomenology with formal whole-brain modeling to ask what mechanisms underlie MPE states and the progression towards it, as reached through jhāna meditation, a type of advanced concentrative absorption meditation (ACAM-J). We used a dataset of advanced practitioners performing the eight ACAM-J states scanned in high-field functional magnetic resonance imaging. For each state, we build a mechanistic whole-brain model that reproduces brain activity by modeling the dynamical regimes of different resting-state networks. We found that the later ACAM-J states, taken here as candidates for MPE, show a shift of functional network dynamics toward near-bifurcation working points. The default mode network exhibits the largest shift, from a distant noise-driven regime at a control condition to near-critical dynamics. We also observed that the pathway to MPE is non-linear, with prominent reconfigurations at key meditative milestones. Our results suggest that MPE corresponds to a globally susceptible state where near-critical dynamics dominate. We interpret this critical regime as a form of "openness", where the usual hierarchical and heterogeneous patterns of brain activity give way to generalized flexibility. In this light, MPE provides both a minimal model of consciousness and a window into how advanced meditation can profoundly reshape brain dynamics.