Overview
This paper develops a theoretical model of temporal depth in coherent self-experience and its disruption in depersonalization. Using Active Inference, we formalize how subjective temporal experience is constructed through hierarchical predictive processing, and how disruptions to temporal integration may underlie depersonalization phenomena.
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Methods and contributions
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Findings and contributions
- The authors propose that a substantial change in 'temporal depth' can be a common, causal factor in dissociative episodes of any etiology.
- Voluntary contractions of temporal depth (flow, meditation) are framed as healthy, while involuntary collapses are pathological and may indicate memory-system dysfunction.
- Clinically reported emotional flattening is mapped to top-down lowering of precision on affective prediction errors between the Core Self and peripheral Self.
- Prolonged inescapable stress is described as disintegrating the Self into components with smaller cognitive light cones, accompanied by temporal depth collapse.
- The authors defer empirical data, a computer simulation, and therapeutic implications to planned follow-up papers.
Methods
- Framework combining FEP, nonlinear dynamics, clinical and neurobiology views — The authors build a model of dissociation by combining a first-principles (FEP/TAME) perspective with dynamical systems, clinical and neurobiological perspectives.
- Self modelled as a hierarchical component of the organism's generative model — Using TAME and the Free Energy Principle, the Self is defined as part of a generative model with a Core Self and peripheral layers bounded by informational Markov blankets.
- Attractor-landscape and phase-transition description of Self regimes — Health is cast as a point-attractor regime ('I am me'), with trauma potentially causing a phase transition to unstable or chaotic regimes.
- Literature analysis of co-occurring temporal depth collapse and dissociation — Lacking an experimental design for humans, the authors rely on published literature showing co-occurrence as indirect illustration of the thesis.
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- 2025_TemporalDepth.pdf PDF · 0.89 MiB · extracted-text source
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