Exchange of Tensional Selves and the Stabilization of Consciousness 2.5 to 3.5 s - Decolonial Neuroscience SfN 2025 Brain Bee Ideas NIRS EEG
Exchange of Tensional Selves and the Stabilization of Consciousness 2.5 to 3.5 s - Decolonial Neuroscience SfN 2025 Brain Bee Ideas NIRS EEG
First-Person Consciousness
I am no longer just unstable flow.
Between 2.5 and 3.5 seconds, I land: a new Tensional Self stabilizes.
I feel the breath complete its cycle and, with it, I find a place for Consciousness to rest.
Phenomena Involved
EEG: microstates extend into longer sequences; networks begin to arrange as dominant configurations.
fNIRS: stronger coherence between vmPFC, insula, ACC, and parietal regions, evidence of interoceptive–proprioceptive integration.
Hormones: the surge of adrenaline, cortisol, and oxytocin reaches its peak and begins to stabilize.
Connectomes: Paper, Rock, and Scissors now arrange into functional stable sets:
Paper (Zone 2) sustains fruition, belonging, and openness.
Rock (Somatosensory, fast thinking) consolidates immediate performance and blind faith in rigid patterns.
Scissors (Prefrontal, slow thinking) organizes reasoning, classification, and critical analysis.
Soul and Spirit: here the spirit, already embodied as soul, becomes inner narrative, living memory, integrated feeling.
Voices of the Avatars
Brainlly: “Now chemistry finds equilibrium: the hormonal peak fades into stability. Energy and body align.”
Iam: “Feeling is no longer oscillation; it becomes state. I recognize myself in this landing.”
Olmeca: “In culture, we call this identity: mother, researcher, friend, warrior. These are souls stabilized in the social body.”
Yagé: “Here trance ends and story begins. What was spirit became soul, and what was vibration became path.”
Math/Hep: “Microstates reveal longer-lasting clusters: no longer flipping every 100 ms, but sustaining seconds of coherence. This is landing.”
DANA: “Each landing leaves trace in DNA. Epigenetic marks that transform plasticity into relative permanence.”
Practical Example
The researcher-mother holds her baby.
Now it is not only reaction or analysis.
What was spirit (a recognized sound) has become soul (a lived feeling).
Between 2.5 and 3.5 s, she finds stability:
The baby calms in her arms.
The bond (oxytocin) deepens belonging.
Her mind returns to her thesis knowing she can inhabit both Selves — mother and researcher — without rupture.
She lands Consciousness in this new Tensional Self, one that does not need to restart, only to continue.
Neuroscientific Reading
EEG – longer, more stable microstates reveal consolidation of connectome patterns.
fNIRS – hemodynamic integration of vmPFC, insula, and ACC aligns affective value with interoception.
Hormones – stabilization after initial peak aligns the whole body.
Connectomes – stable arrangements of Paper, Rock, Scissors sustain experience across seconds.
Soul – embodied emotion becomes stabilized feeling, an episodic memory already woven into narrative.
Partial Conclusion
Between 2.5 and 3.5 seconds, the exchange of Tensional Selves occurs.
Spirit, now transformed into soul, lands into a new state of Consciousness.
The respiratory cycle offers stability: Consciousness does not reset but lands in continuity, sustaining memory, emotion, and belonging.
References (post-2020)
Deco, G. et al. (2021). Dynamical regimes of whole-brain activity underpin human cognition. Nature Communications.
Khalsa, S.S. & Lapidus, R.C. (2022). Interoception and the body–brain connection in emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Rolls, E.T. (2022). The orbitofrontal cortex, emotion, and decision-making. Cerebral Cortex.
Zaccaro, A. et al. (2021). How breath control shapes interoceptive awareness. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
Perl, O. et al. (2023). Respiratory phase modulates readiness potential in voluntary action. NeuroImage.
Michel, C.M. & Koenig, T. (2022). EEG microstates as windows into large-scale brain dynamics. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
