Where The Wild Thoughts Are What happens when consciousness meets chaos?
Oct 27, 2025
Selen Atasoy, neuroscientist and psychotherapist who developed the connectome harmonics method. She discusses standing-wave harmonics in the brain, how psychedelics and meditation amplify high-frequency patterns, and the balance between order and chaos in consciousness. They explore criticality, links to development and nature, and why integration and authenticity matter for mental health.
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From Medical Imaging To Meditative Neuroscience
- Selen began in medical imaging aiming to mimic doctors' recognition of scenes and shifted to consciousness research after realising it was a deeper rabbit hole.
- She took up meditation and dream journaling alongside research, which shaped her scientific and therapeutic path.
Loss Of Consciousness Shows Low Frequency Dominance
- Loss of consciousness from anaesthesia and vegetative state shows the opposite harmonic signature: amplified low frequencies and suppressed high frequencies.
- This opposite pattern allowed distinction between vegetative and minimally conscious patients using harmonic decomposition.
Consciousness Relates To Criticality Balance
- The brain appears to operate near criticality — a balance of order and chaos — and psychedelics move it closer to that critical point.
- Closer-to-criticality under psychedelics correlates with broader repertoire of harmonics and richer subjective experience.