Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies

10/08/2026

In psychedelic trials, the people who feel the strongest “oceanic boundlessness” (that sense of the self dissolving into something larger) tend to show the biggest long-term gains in well-being. That leaves an open question: is it the molecule doing the healing, or the experience?

Our new float tank study adds a piece to that puzzle. It doesn’t settle the debate, but it suggests the experience itself may matter more than we thought.

09/30/2026

What happens to your mind when you are in a floatation tank?

Our team at IACS studied people after sessions in a floatation tank. Participants described more spiritual experiences, stronger sense of unity, and a sense of “oceanic boundlessness”, which we call Aquahenosis. Those altered states experiences helped explain why people felt better afterward.

Follow along as we explore how floatation and other technologies can open up therapeutically promising states of consciousness!

09/03/2026

We're running a quick study over the next few days to get quick feedback on protocols within the Regenesis Pod.

You'll make a visit to the lab (free parking), answer a few questions, try a 20-minute experience in the Regenesis Pod, and get paid $20!

We are only collecting participants until September 11th, so sign up fast, as slots are limited.

Sign up here:

IACS is investigating the potential of integrated multisensory experiences through the Regenesis Pod technology.

08/31/2026

What happen to your body boundaries in a floatation tank?

John Lilly built the first float tank in the 1950s to ask whether consciousness would persist without the outside world.

Seventy years later, we measured what people actually experience in them.

For people being treated for anxiety and depression, an hour of floating brought on a sense of the body’s boundaries softening, of self, water, and environment merging: much of what people describe on ketamine and low doses of psilocybin, without the visions and distortions. The stronger they ‘dissolved,’ the more their mood improved.

We call this experience “aquahenosis,” or oneness with water.

You can read more about this in our paper out now in Neuroscience of Consciousness: https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2026/1/niag044/8771413 (or via our website proceedings, link in bio).

Grateful to our collaborators at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Laureate Institute for Brain Research (LIBR) and the Float Research Collective Float Research Collective !

07/30/2026

What your parents would say, “keep making that face and it will stay that way” is a threat about the relationship between states and traits. In our new study, we asked whether the trait is already legible in the brain when nothing is happening at all.

Does six minutes of someone staring at a fixation cross in an MRI scanner contains enough structure to predict how much empathy they subsequently report on a questionnaire?

Explore our new paper and what your resting brain already knows about you in the new paper we published in Neuroimaging, open access (linked in website proceedings). Read more through our new blog on our website, link in bio.

07/26/2026

How does Aesthetic Chills calibrate the art we’re drawn toward? How does this involuntary shiver that is wired into the dopamine this reward system confirm that a high-level layer of your world model just got corroborated by something outside you?

Explore our commentary and what your body knows that your brain doesn’t … yet — in our new feature in the Radio Lab episode “The Holy Shiver”. Read more through our new blog in our website, link in bio.

05/21/2026

What is it like to enter the dark? Journey with us to prepare to go into a 5-days dark retreat.

IACS is currently running an exciting study on dark retreats. Check it out here: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://advancedconsciousness.org/product/dark-cave-bright-mind/&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwi1p8a5n8uUAxWxBu8CHR4fMVEQFnoECB8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw3GloOsL207uJAYDKd0Sbcw

04/24/2026

What profound mental states would you want to map?