{"id":793,"date":"2026-02-20T17:01:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=793"},"modified":"2026-02-20T17:01:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:01:21","slug":"paper-on-altered-self-consciousness-in-flow-states","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=793","title":{"rendered":"Paper on Altered Self-Consciousness in Flow States"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>(title removed for blind review)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the key markers of the so-called flow state, as described in positive psychology, is a seeming loss or diminishment of our ordinary consciousness of self. However, psychologists and philosophers have provided various inconsistent interpretations of what this feature of the flow state amounts to. Some, like Jay Garfield in his work <em>Losing Ourselves<\/em>, (2022) have argued that loss of self-consciousness in flow supports a no-self account of experience as ultimately selfless, authorless, and ownerless. I argue against Garfield\u2019s interpretation and show that flow states are not cases of <em>loss <\/em>of self-consciousness but are rather instances of <em>altered<\/em> self-consciousness. I give a Husserl-inspired phenomenological account of the experiential structures that jointly constitute this altered and diminished sense of self-consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-black-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=780#paper_abstracts\" style=\"background-color:#e9dfd4c7\"><strong>back to Research<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(title removed for blind review) One of the key markers of the so-called flow state, as described in positive psychology, is a seeming loss or diminishment of our ordinary consciousness of self. However, psychologists and philosophers have provided various inconsistent interpretations of what this feature of the flow state amounts to. Some, like Jay Garfield&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-793","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":794,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/793\/revisions\/794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}