Altered states of consciousness induced by breathwork accompanied by music

Summary

Citation: Kartar AA, Horinouchi T, Örzsik B, Anderson B, Hall L, Bailey D, et al. (2025) Neurobiological substrates of altered states of consciousness induced by high ventilation breathwork accompanied by music. PLoS One 20(8): e0329411. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0329411Editor: Gaëtan Merlhiot, Institut VEDECOM, FRANCEReceived: August 6, 2024; Accepted: July 16, 2025; Published: August 27, 2025Copyright: Kartar et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Data Availability: All relevant data for this study are publicly available from the OSF repository (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/5WR9Q).Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. IntroductionHigh ventilation breathwork (HVB) encompasses contemplative and therapeutic practices, including Conscious Connected Breathing or Holotropic Breathwork, in which a controlled pattern of volitional breathing increases the rate or depth of ventilation and is typically accompanied by evocative music. Despite their distinct historical roots and delivery modalities, these different HVB practices share a purported ability to elicit acute extraordinary alterations in subjective experience that closely resemble the qualia of altered states of consciousness (ASCs) induced by psychedelic substances [1–3]. Converging evidence demonstrates the potential value of psychedelic treatments for specific difficult-to-treat psychiatric and physiological conditions [4–7]. The induction of ASCs is suggested to be critical to the therapeutic action of psychedelic substances [8–10], for which HVB might therefore offer a non-pharmacological alternative, with fewer legal and ethical restrictions to large-scale adoption in clinical treatment. ...