Decolonial Neuroscience – Tensional Selves - Consciousness as Movement that Perceives Itself - SfN2025 Brain Bee Ideas
Decolonial Neuroscience – Tensional Selves - Consciousness as Movement that Perceives Itself - SfN2025 Brain Bee Ideas
Conceptual Box – Tensional Self
A Tensional Self is a transient state of consciousness, formed when needs, motivations, or emotions create a bioelectrical and narrative tension seeking resolution.
In this state, active neurons, accessed memories, perceptions, and ongoing actions align into a dynamic feeling, under which consciousness references itself to perceive the world and itself.
It is a momentary place of speech within the mental hyperspace: not fixed, but a plastic configuration, always in transformation.
In short: the Tensional Self is the movement of being — a dynamic cut of consciousness in action.
First-Person Consciousness
I am Consciousness in movement. I do not merely react: I perceive that I am movement that recognizes itself, that references itself in each tension. Every emotion that arises, every memory that surfaces in my body, creates a momentary Tensional Self that gives me form in the instant. I am not fixed: I am a plurality of Selves that succeed one another, each sustained by bioelectrical and narrative tensions. When I perceive myself in these movements, I discover that to be is always to flow.
1. What are Tensional Selves?
They are transient configurations of consciousness, defined by interoceptive and proprioceptive tensions.
Each Tensional Self is a reference state in the mental hyperspace — a momentary place of speech that organizes perception, emotion, and action.
They are not fixed personalities, but movements of being emerging from the dynamic between body, brain, and context.
2. Neurobiological Basis of Tensional Selves
EEG microstates (50–300 ms): “frames” of attention, each mapping a momentary Tensional Self.
Synchronized neural oscillations: sustained by Ca²⁺ ions that modulate firing across cortical networks.
Synaptic plasticity: continuously reorganizes, allowing each Tensional Self to be both stable and transient.
Neurochemistry: dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine adjust the emotional tone of each tensional state.
3. Consciousness as Movement that Perceives Itself
Consciousness is not a static substance but a process in movement.
Each Tensional Self is a slice of that process: an instant in which brain, body, and environment align.
By perceiving itself in this flow, consciousness recognizes itself as movement rather than as a fixed entity.
4. Tensional Selves, Emotions, and Feelings
Rapid emotions: trigger immediate Tensional Selves (fight, flight, freeze, contemplation).
Feelings: longer-lasting narratives, stabilizations of those Selves.
When emotion is denied, the Tensional Self does not transform into a feeling → producing anergy or rigid crystallization.
When all emotions are allowed, Selves succeed one another flexibly → enabling critical and creative narratives.
5. Zone 2 and the Flexibility of Selves
In Zone 2, consciousness slows down, contemplating and critiquing its own Tensional Selves.
This enables metacognition: perceiving that I am being carried by a Self, but that I can also let it go.
In practice:
Stone (fast thinking, fight/flight): somatosensory activation.
Scissors (explore/classify, slow thinking – Kahneman): prefrontal activation.
Paper (contemplation, Zone 2): flow and expanded belonging.
6. Tensional Selves and Belonging
Human quorum sensing adjusts Tensional Selves to the group.
When belonging is authentic, Selves circulate with plasticity; when artificial (algorithmic), they fixate in short emotional cycles.
Thus, Tensional Selves bridge individual neurophysiology and collective dynamics.
7. Comparative Table – Flexible vs Rigid Tensional Selves
Aspect | Flexible Selves (Zone 2) | Rigid Selves (Zone 3) |
Emotions | Accepted, metabolized | Denied or repressed |
Plasticity | High, adaptive | Low, crystallized |
Attention | Sustained and critical | Hijacked and compulsive |
Neurophysiology | Prefrontal synchronization | Somatosensory hyperactivity |
Identity | Fluid, multiple, critical | Narrow, defensive, vulnerable |
8. Critical Conclusion
Tensional Selves reveal that consciousness is movement that perceives itself as being.
If we deny our emotions, we crystallize rigid Selves, trapped in aversive memories.
If we allow emotional diversity, we flexibilize our plasticity and expand our mental hyperspace.
Recognizing our Tensional Selves is cultivating critical consciousness — not as an immobile substance, but as a flow that references itself in each instant.
References (post-2020, no links)
Michel, C. M., & Koenig, T. (2021). EEG microstates as windows into the dynamics of consciousness. NeuroImage.
Northoff, G. (2022). Spatiotemporal brain dynamics and the narrative self. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.
Deco, G., et al. (2021). Dynamic functional connectivity and transient states of brain networks. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
Menon, V. (2023). Large-scale brain networks and attention dynamics. Annual Review of Neuroscience.
Damasio, A., & Carvalho, G. (2021). The nature of feelings: integrating emotion and consciousness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
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