Kundalini phenomenology as expansion of perceptual capacity: a hypothesis and theory article integrating contemplative traditions and neuroscience

Kundalini experiences—characterised by sensations of internal energy movement, sequential anatomical progression, boundary dissolution, and reports of expanded or cosmic consciousness—have been documented across contemplative traditions for millennia, yet remain theoretically underspecified within contemporary neuroscience. This paper proposes that these experiences can be understood, without metaphysical commitment, as reflecting a state-dependent expansion of perceptual capacity: the range and dimensionality across which an organism can apprehend patterns of integration, continuity, and coherence. The framework draws a distinction between perceptual capacity (what can be perceived) and perceptual content (what happens to be perceived at any moment), and argues that kundalini phenomenology maps onto progressive shifts from narrow, body-local, temporally fragmented perception toward multidimensional integrative awareness. The proposal is situated within three converging neuroscientific frameworks—global neuronal workspace theory, predictive processing, and network integration approaches—and is tested for structural consistency against liberation phenomenology across seven contemplative traditions: Śaiva/Tantric Hinduism, Pātañjala Yoga, Advaita Vedānta, Theravāda and Tibetan Buddhism, Daoism (neidan), Sufism (fanā/baqā), and Greek Stoicism. Where these traditions converge in describing a shift from positionally fixed to non-positionally witnessing consciousness, despite operating within substantially different cosmological and linguistic frameworks, the convergence constitutes evidence—not proof, but evidence—that a common phenomenological structure is being independently observed. The framework generates five falsifiable predictions, each specifying the measure, population, and expected direction of effect. It proposes that safety versus crisis outcomes in contemplative practice depend critically on the rate of perceptual expansion relative to individual integration capacity, and offers provisional clinical heuristics—explicitly labelled as hypotheses requiring prospective validation—for differential diagnosis between contemplative states and psychotic episodes. The present paper extends and complements the author’s previously published neurophysiological model of kundalini, which proposed biomarker-level correspondences and a composite tracking metric (NDI); the present contribution addresses the phenomenological and perceptual-theoretic dimension that the earlier paper did not develop.