What is it about?
This article explores what happens when the sense of self collapses. Drawing on philosophy and psychology, it argues that identity is not a fixed thing but a looping process—something that continually refers back to itself. In states of ego dissolution, such as meditation, psychedelic experience, or moments of extreme stress, these loops can break down. When that happens, the “self” no longer appears as a stable center of experience. Instead, experience continues, but without being organized around a personal “I.” The article shows how this perspective can help us better understand identity, mental health, and altered states of consciousness.
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Why is it important?
Most theories of identity assume the self is a stable foundation. This work challenges that assumption. By showing that identity depends on fragile recursive loops, it offers a new way of thinking about both everyday experience and extraordinary states like ego dissolution. The framework helps explain why the self can feel so solid in some moments but collapse in others. This has timely implications for psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience, especially as interest grows in therapeutic uses of psychedelics and meditative practices.
Perspectives
I approached this project out of a longstanding interest in how fragile our sense of self really is. My aim was not to argue that the self is an illusion, but to show how it depends on recursive structures that can unravel. Writing this paper meant bringing together insights from philosophy, psychology, and phenomenology into a single account of ego dissolution. For me, the key is that “self-loss” is not the end of experience, but the opening of a different structure of experience—one without a center.
Chris Sawyer
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Unlooping the self: Ego dissolution and the collapse of recursive identity., Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, September 2025, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/teo0000336.
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