Try to recall a time when you felt truly at peace, content. Perhaps you also had a strong sense of connection with others, with nature, and even the world. These can be the most meaningful, impactful, and transformative experiences in our lives, but they have for a long time been hard to define and research by science.

Such experiences are often described as self-transcendent— states of diminished self-other boundaries and unity beyond self and immediate circles of relationships. The deepest of these states are often referred to as non-dual because the sense of subject-object duality, the constant me-other dynamic, is thought to dissolve in these states.

In the past self-transcendent states have often been considered somewhat "esoteric" and "elusive." However, the interest from researchers and clinicians in these states has been growing over the last two decades. One reason for this shift is the discovery that such states can have therapeutic effects on addictions, depression, and anxiety.

For example, one study examined the role of self-transcendent states in recovery from addictions. Long-term opioid users took part in a Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) program. Their self-transcendent experiences increased during meditation sessions and were linked to increased brain oscillations in the theta range in frontal midline brain regions. Opioid use reduced after the program, mediated by these brain........

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