Mindfulness meditators’ brains show an acceptance of death which predicts positively-valenced meditative self-dissolution experiences

We recently showed using a magnetoencephalogram visual mismatch-response paradigm that self-specific prediction-based neural mechanisms shield the self from existential threat by attributing death to the ‘other’. Here we test the pre-registered hypothesis that mindfulness meditation is associated with a reduction in the brain’s defensiveness towards mortality. Additionally, we examine putative links between death acceptance and the phenomenology of meditative self-dissolution. Thirty-eight meditators pooled from a previous project investigating self-dissolution neurophenomenology underwent the task. The findings indicated that meditators’ brains responded to the coupling of death and self-stimuli in a manner indicating acceptance rather than denial, and corresponding to increased well-being. Additionally, death acceptance predicted positively-valenced meditation-induced self-dissolution experiences, thus shedding light on possible mechanisms underlying wholesome vs. pathological disruptions to self-consciousness. Overall, these findings provide empirical support for the hypothesis that the neural mechanisms underlying the human tendency to avoid death are not hard-wired but are amenable to mental training.