Abstract
In this paper I investigate the neurophenomenology of freediving (NoF) and the Skilled Intentionality Framework (SIF), using these two components to mutually inform each other in order to better understand cognition in skilled action. First, this paper provides a novel neurophenomenological exposition of the practice of freediving. It combines quantitative neurophysiological data with qualitative phenomenological reports in order to understand the neural and bodily mechanisms that correlate with the phenomenology of freediving. The NoF data suggests that freediving induces a unique neurophysiological state. This unique neurophysiological state forms the basis for a peculiar and exceptional experiential state, which is phenomenologically characterized by a heightened sense of presence, heightened perception, lack of reflective awareness, lack of anticipation in decision-making, and restricted emotional range. Second, this paper synthesizes the NoF data and the SIF conceptual framework of cognition in skilled action in order to investigate how the two can mutually inform one another. This synthesis provides 1) a unified and cohesive understanding of the NoF data; 2) elucidation and clarification of three key features generalizable to SIF’s metastable zones; 3) refinement of the role of anticipation in SIF, with the focus shifting instead towards task-specific constraint of action-readiness; and 4) an investigation of the breath, an understudied dynamical oscillator of brain, body, and behavior, which provides an empirical mechanism to support SIF’s theoretical assumption of the dynamical self-organization required in skilled action. Looking more broadly, this neurophenomenological investigation of freediving elucidates a novel case study which can provide rich perspectives and fertile material for further scientific, phenomenological, theoretical, and philosophical investigations in ecological psychology, expertise, reflection, enactivism, and cognition more generally.
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A list of interview questions asked of all study participants is available as Online Resource 1. An appendix of key interview excerpts, anonymized and sorted thematically, is available as Online Resource 2. Full interview transcripts are available upon request. Please send all inquiries and requests to s.luecke@berkeley.edu.
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Notes
Ideally, a rigorous neurophenomenological approach would employ synchronous collection of qualitative and quantitative datasets, rather than relying on one or more pre-existing datasets, so as to increase the robustness of correlations discovered. However, for the case of freediving, synchronously collecting these two datasets in an ecologically valid setting is near impossible due to current technological constraints: sophisticated neuroimaging devices cannot yet be taken underwater into the freediving environment. However, a wearable, waterproof, and pressure-proof near-infrared spectroscopy device – which can collect neurophysiological measurements such as cerebral haemodynamic responses, heart rate, cerebral and arterial blood oxygen responses, and temperature – is currently under development (McKnight et al., 2021). Preliminary results show its efficacy in measuring the neurophysiology of human freedivers in an ecologically valid field setting. Future work should utilize this device, in concert with phenomenological interviews, to increase the rigor and robustness of NoF.
As participation in this study relied on voluntary response sampling, it is important to consider the effects of non-response bias and how they might affect the data collected. I cannot here discuss these considerations in due detail, but point instead to Cheung et al. (2017), where such a discussion is produced.
It is important to note that all study participants engaged only in modern Western forms of freediving. While the cultural specificity of this sample allows for greater ease of comparison across participants, it is thereby not representative of other cultural variations in freediving practices. The results of the current study are thus limited in scope, and are only applicable to modern Western freediving. Future investigations should explore other freediving cultures in order to determine the extent to which the neurophysiology and phenomenology that follows obtains across different freediving cultures and contexts.
While freediving does induce a unique neurophysiological state, unable to be realistically reached otherwise, more research is needed to determine whether it also induces a unique experiential state. Current data suggests that freediving does induce a unique experiential state; however, similar experiential states may obtain in other practices with similar characteristics. Such practices could include intense meditative or mindfulness practices (Gamma & Metzinger, 2021; Travis & Pearson, 2000), or other extreme, water-based, and/or life-threatening practices, such as free solo climbing or big wave surfing (Ilundáin-Agurruza, 2015). More research is needed to discern whether the phenomenology that follows obtains uniquely for freediving.
Future work should compare freediving versus advanced meditative states in more detail, in order to understand the nuanced similarities and differences in both neurophysiology and phenomenology between the two practices.
Low-threshold pressure sensors critical to gentle touch and proprioception.
A recent study by Karalis and Sirota (2022) may provide initial corroboration of some of these findings. The study shows that breathing acts as a ‘perennial oscillatory pacemaker’ of the brain, entraining and synchronizing both local and global neural circuit dynamics. The breath “acts as a functional oscillatory scaffold and provides a unifying global temporal coordination of neuronal firing and network dynamics,” which allows for the segregation and integration of information across distributed neuronal networks (Karalis & Sirota, 2022, p. 11). This breathing-induced oscillatory pacemaker activity may be implicated in memory consolidation, integration of exteroceptive and interoceptive inputs, fear behavior, and other cognitive processes.
The case of freediving adds further convolutions to the Piezo2/ICP mechanism which need to be investigated. For example, how does the high external pressure of deep underwater environments affect ICP? The effects of hyperbaric conditions on ICP are still unknown and require further research (Mehrpour et al., 2014). What effects do prolonged breath-holds have on ICP? Progressive increased CO2 levels (hypercapnia), characteristic of prolonged breath-holds, can increase ICP due to cerebral vasodilation (Asgari et al., 2011). However, at depth, freedivers sometimes experience elevated O2 levels (hyperoxia), due to the increased pressure facilitating blood-oxygen uptake into the tissues (Bosco et al., 2018) – and hyperbaric oxygen is known to decrease ICP in mammals in certain situations (Miller et al., 1970). Freedivers may thus experience amplified ICP changes due to the volitional breathe-up practice, altered ICP changes due to hyperbaric conditions, increased ICP due to hypercapnia, and decreased ICP due to hyperoxia at depth, all within a single dive. There is simply not enough information available regarding the effects of breath-holds nor hyperbaric conditions on ICP, but these are important areas for future research in order to understand the proposed respiration-entrained mechanisms that may alter freedivers’ brain activity, behavior, and experience.
I cannot here take a particular stance on the reflection literature (eg. Dreyfus, 2014; McDowell, 2007; Toner et al., 2016; Sutton et al., 2011; Høffding, 2014), due to a lack of adequate space. While the peculiarities of the current investigation are certainly relevant to this body of literature, and should be explored in further work, the purpose of the present subsection is to explore and portray freedivers’ phenomenological reports and the relevant neurophysiological data.
This phenomenological description of decision-making in freediving seems, upon first glance, to be at odds with the concept of action automaticity, and its often inverse relationship to both the level of action flexibility and adaptability, and the level of complexity and difficulty of task conditions (see eg. Christensen et al., 2016; Ilundáin-Agurruza, 2015). Future work should explore the concept of automaticity further to determine how closely freedivers’ conceptions of automaticity align with theoretical notions of automaticity, and what the implications of this phenomenology might be for the relevant theoretical frameworks.
Due to space constraints, the implications to be discussed in the present paper will focus primarily on the concept of anticipation as it is presented in the SIF literature. However, the peculiar experience (or apparent lack thereof) of anticipation in freediving should be explored further, by way of more detailed engagement with a broader literature on cognition in skilled action. Future work should apply NoF to other theoretical investigations which critically engage the concept of anticipation (eg. Christensen & Bicknell, 2019; Farrow & Abernethy, 2015).
For any readers who are intrigued by the phenomenology of freediving and wish to hear more about the experience from the perspective of a world renowned freediving champion, I can recommend William Trubridge’s TEDx Talk on the matter, called “This is why I freedive: A Journey into the Deep,” where he beautifully and poetically describes what it feels like to freedive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MZetpFw7qY
While a full review of the relevant theoretical literature in relation to the NoF data is certainly worthwhile, it is not possible in the scope of the current paper. Future work should therefore use NoF to investigate other relevant theoretical frameworks, such as Christensen et al.’s ‘Mesh’ framework (2016).
SIF authors occasionally write that anticipation need not always be explicitly experienced. In the absence of explicit goals or plans, relevant actions arise through “the skilled animal’s anticipatory dynamics, understood in terms of self-organizing states of action readiness” (Bruineberg et al., 2019, p. 5234). In these cases, anticipation takes on a different, more technical meaning, being understood as synonymous to SIF’s assumed theoretical process of action-readiness self-organization. However, this second definition of anticipation, unlike the first, fails to answer the key question of narrowing. It defines the general process of narrowing that SIF assumes must occur in all cases of skilled action (self-organization), but does not provide an answer to the question of what specifically is guiding that process in any given case of skilled action. As we can see, ‘anticipation’ becomes a slippery term: the technical conception (which refines the question of narrowing through describing the presumed general process of self-organization) has colloquial connotations that allow for conflation with more explicit conceptions of anticipation (which provide the answer to what specifically is doing the narrowing). More precision is needed within the SIF framework to avoid conflation between these two different conceptions of anticipation. For present purposes, we focus on explicit conceptions of anticipation, since we are interested in the answer to what specifically is doing the narrowing.
This maintenance of viability conditions relates to Di Paolo et al.’s notion of agent normativity (2017).
On neither its explicit nor its technical conception, since 1) explicit anticipation is not necessary for skilled action, and 2) technical anticipation, while necessary due to the fact that it defines the general process which is assumed by SIF to be driving all cases of skilled action, does not address the key question of what specifically is driving this assumed general process.
Such as task difficulty, interdependence of task features, and whether or not a task is presupposed.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all the freedivers who took the time out of their busy days to share with me their unbelievably fascinating and powerful stories. Thank you to Dave Ward, Erik Rietveld, Susanne Ravn, and Andreas Roepstorff, whose feedback, insights, and revisions provided critical direction. Thank you to three anonymous reviewers for their very detailed and helpful suggestions for ways to improve the manuscript and make it more relevant and accessible to a broader audience of readers. Thank you to Simon Høffding, whose inputs, comments, and revisions provided clarity, methodology, and motivation from conceptualization to publication of this project. Thank you to my supervisor Alistair Isaac for his wonderful guidance and encouragement throughout the course of this project. A final thank you to Venita De Souza and Matthew Emslie-Smith, whose constant support was crucial to my ability to complete this project amidst a global pandemic.
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Suraiya Luecke conceptualized the project, conducted the literature review, designed the phenomenological interview questions and structure, recruited participants, conducted the phenomenological interviews, transcribed the interviews, analyzed the data, wrote the original draft of the manuscript, and edited the final version of the manuscript.
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Luecke, S. Freediving neurophenomenology and skilled action: an investigation of brain, body, and behavior through breath. Phenom Cogn Sci 22, 761–797 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-022-09808-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-022-09808-8