The collapse of inner walls: Psychology and spirituality as the unit of consciousness
Reading | Neuropsychology
Olivia Shkreli, MSc | 2026-06-12
A clinical neuropsychologist tells us how her own ego-dissolution experience led her to a new perspective on science, the ‘soul,’ and life itself. Psychology and spirituality are not opposing paths, she realized, but complementary languages describing the same reality: consciousness.
This essay reflects a deeply personal experience I went through, a confrontation with the limits of what we call the “objective” mind. It began as a reflection on my own awakening, a moment when psychology and spirituality no longer stood as separate languages, but as two expressions of the same search: the understanding of consciousness itself.
While searching for what defines our human nature, psyche, or identity, I noticed how many theories, definitions, and schools of thought exist: each trying to explain who we are supposed to be. Yet, through the search of my own ‘soul,’ I became aware of realities that our collective reliance on socially constructed frameworks often blinds others to. Coming from what some might call a spiritual awakening or, as defined by the DSM-5, a psychotic-like experience (choose your card: science or spirituality) [1], I was certain that what I lived through was something far beyond psychosis.
It didn’t take long to realize that many of these theories were socially constructed ideas; systems designed to suppress our intellectual and spiritual capacity, to keep us distanced from our true purpose. They often leave spirituality out of the equation, as if it didn’t matter, as if life itself should move in a kind of zombie mode, scripted and unquestioned. As philosopher Ernst Cassirer suggested, humans are not merely rational animals, but symbolic beings. Science, art and spirituality are distinct symbolic forms through which we interpret reality, each illuminating a facet of the same mystery. Yet, when one form dominates, our understanding of human nature becomes partial [2].
Opening books, reading academic papers, seeking answers: I began to see that the answers I was looking for were not there. Maybe it was because of the narrow way information is presented to us, or maybe it’s because we are collectively prone to overlook what human nature truly is. What makes you, you? And who decides what counts as identity or selfhood, if not you?
Coming from an academic background in psychology, I could no longer ignore how limited these frameworks are. Believing entirely in science had once given me comfort, but it eventually revealed its own boundaries—a controlled form of thinking that sought to explain everything except the very thing that experiences: consciousness itself. Yet boundaries are not failures; they define the integrity of science. As Wittgenstein noted, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” [3]. That silence does not deny the ineffable; it invites philosophy, art, and spirituality to articulate what empirical language cannot.
Psychology, in its quest to be accepted as a science, forgot the most essential element: the human essence. It defined symptoms, tried to treat those symptoms, but rarely cured the person. In the attempt to measure and categorize subjective experience, we began translating inner realities into external formulas, mistaking abstraction for truth. We forgot that subjective experience is not an illusion of matter; it is the source of what is real. Here I’d like to explore the limits of scientific frameworks in understanding consciousness, and reflect on the role of subjective experience, spirituality, and the ego in our understanding of self.
Our obsession with breaking everything down analytically has shown how limited the rational mind is in grasping our true nature. Now, even science begins to wonder: Is subjective experience important? Recent work in neuroscience and quantum physics suggests that consciousness may not be fully explainable by classical models [4]. Quantum physics, neuroscience, and philosophy are starting to reveal that perhaps we have known very little all along. We have been conditioned to seek external explanations, to interpret the inner world through the language of matter, and in doing so we silenced the mystery that makes us alive.
That is why phenomena like consciousness, higher awareness and spirituality have been excluded for so long. Our analytical mind couldn’t accept that some things cannot be explained, only experienced. And so, rather than surrendering to not-knowing, the scientific ego created new categories, new disorders, new symptoms, until it forgot that those very constructs were its own reflections.
Over time, I became increasingly drawn to areas of psychology widely dismissed as parapsychology, such as telepathy, out-of-body experiences and clairvoyance. Any serious discussion of these fringe phenomena inevitably runs into the mind-body problem: the crucial distinction between mental states and physical states, and the reality that correlation between the two does not imply causation. The difficulty in scientifically measuring these events likely stems from this very ambiguity; we simply do not have the tools to cleanly separate mind from matter when trying to observe them. For me, this reinforced the notion that science may be approaching its conceptual limits. It evokes Socrates’ famous realization, “Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα” —“I know that I know nothing”—serving as a humbling reminder of the boundaries of human understanding.
But spirituality showed me there is no limit. Only continuity. It opened my mind in a way that kept skepticism alive but expanded the field of possibility. It reminded me that psychology must return to its primordial purpose: to help and to heal, by understanding that every subjective experience is different, yet all are connected within the same field of awareness.
Today, I sense a collective awakening. The very ideas once dismissed as unscientific are now quietly finding their way back into scientific inquiry. As a young neuropsychologist, I can only feel hope seeing more researchers dare to ask what consciousness really is. Perhaps, if we unite these perspectives, science and spirituality, the outer and the inner, we might begin to see that not knowing is not a failure, but a door—an endless, evolving dialogue between mind and mystery.
Recent research emphasizes that consciousness cannot simply be reduced to neural chemistry, but is foundational to all subjective experience [5]. In this light, each subjective experience, in this collective field of awareness, is unique. And perhaps the cure we seek is not in the brain’s chemistry, but in remembering that consciousness was never a symptom; it was the source.
Ego is a peculiar companion. It promises identity, continuity and security, yet often obstructs the view of who we truly are. According to Carl Jung, the ego is “the center of the field of consciousness, which contains our awareness of existence and a continuing sense of personal identity” [6]. In everyday life, it shapes our desires, fears, and social roles. It convinces us that our personal story is central, that our thoughts and feelings define reality.
Yet, across cultures and spiritual traditions, the ego is seen differently. Buddhism, Taoism, and mystical teachings often describe it as an obstacle, a lens that distorts our perception of life, causing unnecessary suffering. Because society constantly encourages us to identify with the ego, pushing it to the forefront of our awareness, the more spiritually inclined may feel as though the ego must be destroyed. Nonetheless, its true purpose is to be understood and reconciled with the deeper currents of the self.
In my own experience, this reconciliation arrived suddenly and intensely. I confronted a moment where the boundaries of my identity dissolved. All the labels, all the concerns about who I was, vanished. Panic gave way to surrender, and surrender gave way to clarity. For a fleeting moment, I was neither someone nor anywhere. And yet, I was fully alive. It was the first time I tried DMT—a powerful psychedelic compound—and in that moment everything I thought I knew about myself simply disappeared.
That moment revealed a profound truth: our sense of self is not fixed. The ego constructs walls between us and the world, between us and our deeper consciousness. By observing these walls, questioning them, and sometimes letting them fall, we open the possibility of seeing life with greater depth, flexibility, and freedom.
The ego is not inherently evil. It is necessary for navigating the world, for structuring thoughts, and for protecting the self. But it becomes a prison when we cling to it as the ultimate reality. Transcending it, even temporarily, opens space for a broader, more compassionate perspective, a place where our soul, our essence and our consciousness can meet.
The journey toward understanding the self is not linear. It is full of trial, reflection and even solitude. But each step toward observing, questioning and integrating the ego offers a subtle liberation. The fall of the self is not a destruction, but a softening—a quiet letting go, a return to the living pulse of consciousness, unbound, present, and profoundly alive.
At the end of this path, after confronting the limits of knowledge and the self, it becomes clear that psychology and spirituality are not opposing paths, but complementary languages describing the same reality: consciousness. Our ego may construct walls and science may measure only what can be quantified, yet the true essence of our being lies beyond labels, beyond symptoms, beyond formulas. By honoring our subjective experience—by embracing the mystery of consciousness—we open the door to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world. The fall of the self is not a loss, but an invitation, a return to awareness, to presence, to the infinite intelligence that animates life itself. In that space, we find not only insight, but freedom; and perhaps the very healing we have always sought.
References
[1] Borges, P. (2013, October). Psychosis or spiritual awakening? [Video]. TEDxUMKC. https://youtu.be/CFtsHf1lVI4?si=O0dlxJJ-wxUtDZkB.
[2] Cassirer, E. (1944). An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture. Yale University Press.
[3] Wittgenstein, L. (1922). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
[4] Sergi, A., Hameroff, S., & Penrose, R. (2025). The quantum-classical complexity of consciousness and orchestrated objective reduction. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 19, 1630906. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2025.1630906.
[5] Coppola, P. (2025). A review of the sufficient conditions for consciousness. Neurosci Biobehav Rev, 177, 106333. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2025.106333.
[6] Jung, C. G. (n.d.). Jung’s model of the psyche. The SAP. Retrieved October 20, 2025, from https://www.thesap.org.uk/articles-on-jungian-psychology-2/carl-gustav-jung/jungs-model-psyche/
Essentia Foundation communicates, in an accessible but rigorous manner, the latest results in science and philosophy that point to the mental nature of reality. We are committed to strict, academic-level curation of the material we publish.
Recently published
|
The metaphysics of the psychedelic experience: Anil Seth, Christof Koch, and Bernardo Kastrup debate
The OPEN Foundation and the Essentia Foundation together hosted a panel debate on metaphysics at the latest Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research (ICPR26), Europe’s leading scientific conference dedicated to psychedelic science, therapy, ethics, and policy. During this discussion, Anil Seth, Bernardo Kastrup and Christof Koch discuss the latest insights from psychedelic research, as well as their different viewpoints on the epistemic value of psychedelic experiences and what metaphysics these experiences point to.
|
The question of reality has proceeded uninterrupted with a search “out there,” outside ourselves, but must progress to a search inward towards awareness, argues Adedire. All honest and rigorous inquiries into the nature of reality will ultimately come to the realization that fundamental Nature is conjoined with the phenomenon of consciousness, he concludes in this short and powerful essay. Yet, here, at the inflection point of a new age of contemplation, we find ourselves burdened by the walking-dead ontology of physicalism.
From the archives
|
This essay proposes association as a fundamental principle uniting physics, biology, and mind. Rather than treating causation as either upward (from parts to wholes) or downward (from wholes to parts), Jarosek suggests that coherence emerges through the relational act of association itself. From Carlo Rovelli’s relational quantum mechanics, where particles acquire properties only in interaction, to Michael Levin’s discoveries of cellular intelligence, to Charles Sanders Peirce’s triadic semiotics, evidence converges on association as irreducible. It can be seen as the connective tissue of reality: the principle by which potential becomes form, and form becomes meaning.
|
David Lloyd discusses the intriguing correspondences and isomorphisms between physical laws—such as electromagnetism and gravity—and the phenomenal flow of mentation. He sees in them more than mere poetic analogy, but a hint pointing to the mental nature and structure of reality.
|
In 2018, Professor Etzel Cardeña, PhD, published a landmark review paper surveying thousands of psi studies in “American Psychologist,” one of psychology’s most respected journals. In this conversation with Hans Busstra, Cardeña explains his main findings and why a dismissal of psi without looking at the data is “as unscientific as you can get.” Cardeña’s conclusion is that the cumulative evidence for psi phenomena is so strong that outright dismissal is no longer scientifically justified.
Reading
Essays
|
River Kanies argues that the paradoxical nature of psychological archetypes isn’t contingent, but reflect the very structure of experience: one where irresolvable tension is the impetus to action and the substance of meaning. The belief that an archetypal paradox can be resolved—that the tension between order and chaos, control and freedom, self and other can be finally settled in favor of one pole—is a failure to understand the nature of consciousness, he argues. It mistakes a structural feature for a solvable problem.
|
David Glowacki is a cross-disciplinary researcher and artist who founded the ‘Intangible Realities Laboratory’ (IRL) in Spain. A 2020 study showed that the Virtual Reality (VR) phenomenology Glowacki constructed induced peak mystical-type experiences similar to near-death and psychedelic experiences. In this conversation, Glowacki explains how his VR work led him to develop fascinating new visual metaphors for non-duality.
|
This essay proposes association as a fundamental principle uniting physics, biology, and mind. Rather than treating causation as either upward (from parts to wholes) or downward (from wholes to parts), Jarosek suggests that coherence emerges through the relational act of association itself. From Carlo Rovelli’s relational quantum mechanics, where particles acquire properties only in interaction, to Michael Levin’s discoveries of cellular intelligence, to Charles Sanders Peirce’s triadic semiotics, evidence converges on association as irreducible. It can be seen as the connective tissue of reality: the principle by which potential becomes form, and form becomes meaning.
|
David Lloyd discusses the intriguing correspondences and isomorphisms between physical laws—such as electromagnetism and gravity—and the phenomenal flow of mentation. He sees in them more than mere poetic analogy, but a hint pointing to the mental nature and structure of reality.
|
In 2018, Professor Etzel Cardeña, PhD, published a landmark review paper surveying thousands of psi studies in “American Psychologist,” one of psychology’s most respected journals. In this conversation with Hans Busstra, Cardeña explains his main findings and why a dismissal of psi without looking at the data is “as unscientific as you can get.” Cardeña’s conclusion is that the cumulative evidence for psi phenomena is so strong that outright dismissal is no longer scientifically justified.
Seeing
Videos
|
Harry Stolting argues that, while nature automatically excludes all that is unsustainable within its own natural dynamic, the human mind can create and maintain within itself maladaptive ideas that, if expressed in nature, would quickly be driven out. This leads to a mismatch between our inner concepts and the reality whereupon we believe we can apply those concepts. This schism between nature and our mental models, Stolting argues, is not only the origin of evil, but of many other ills.
|
Ishita argues that life, which in a sense can be regarded as a local “violation” of the second law of thermodynamics—the universal tendency towards disorder—, betrays the presence of a universal “prime directive” towards conscious self-knowledge. In elaborating on her argument, she brings together the ideas of Thomas Campbell, Donald Hoffman and Federico Faggin, in a way that highlights their surprising complementarity. In Ishita’s view, the second law of thermodynamics is merely the necessary background that delineates the foreground of self awareness.
|
Michael Pollan is one of the world’s most influential science writers, known for his authoritative journalistic investigations into food, plants, and psychedelics. In his latest book, “A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness,” he turns to the nature of consciousness by rigorously exploring the leading scientific theories in the field. In this interview, Pollan reflects on why he has come to doubt that materialism can fully account for consciousness, calling it “unproven or wrong,” and why he describes consciousness as “a labyrinth from which there is no exit.”
Let us build the future of our culture together
Essentia Foundation is a registered non-profit committed to making its content as accessible as possible. Therefore, we depend on non-financial contributions from people like you to continue to do our work.
