Perspective On the Autonomy of Mystical Perception

While numerous mystical encounters have been described in the literature, these experiences were hardly considered in the cognitive sciences appropriately. In general mystical accounts were either interpreted as impermanent subjective feelings outside the grasp or even interest of scientific investigation. Or mystical experiences are discussed within and mixed with religious belief systems rather than external to religion. In the following I will present evidence that the mystical mind is a genuine, distinct mental state separate from the well known and more or less well characterized mental states coma, dream, dreamless sleep, athletes "flow", five-sense-perception, deep meditation, normal daytime awareness. I will collect mystical mind characteristics from literature usually not considered within the natural sciences and show that these characteristics have been described again and again with great coincidence over the last 4000 years, in particular in asian cultures. It is a mental state of non-verbal, non-rational awareness, a particular form of permanent intuition. Compared to five-senses perception and rational thinking, this form of intuition delivers another, but not necessarily inferior, picture about ourselves, our relations with other people and what constitutes reality, therefore representing an autonomous state of perception. I will argue that the mystical mind can and should be investigated within the cognitive sciences separate from religious belief and ordinary five-senses perception.