A Unified Theory of Distributed Non-Verbal Synchrony (DNS)

Intrinsic Motive Pulse, Relational Perception, and Object-Mediated Synchrony. 1. Abstract

This document proposes a unified framework for Distributed Non-Verbal Synchrony (DNS): a mode of cognition in which intention, affect, timing, and expectation become aligned across individuals through phase-locking of embodied rhythmic processes. DNS is grounded in developmental psychology via Trevarthen’s Intrinsic Motive Pulse (IMP) and supported by evidence from elite musical performance, contemplative practices, and altered states of consciousness (ASC). The framework is extended to incorporate Indigenous and contemplative epistemologies, including Māori concepts such as matakite/matekite and relational ontology, alongside yogic accounts of siddhi as disciplined descriptions of altered synchrony. Finally, the framework expands beyond interpersonal alignment to include Object-Mediated Synchrony (OMS), recognising that ritual artefacts, taonga, icons, yantra, and place-objects function as synchrony anchors that bind attention and meaning into stable fields. The theory explicitly rejects mind-reading and coercive interpretations; it treats “telepathic” phenomenology as an outcome of shared rhythm and relational cognition rather than information transmission.

2. Introduction: the problem of language-centric cognition

Mainstream WEIRD models of mind frequently presume:

1. cognition is primarily linguistic and propositional

2. minds are private containers

3. coordination requires explicit information exchange
   

Yet many well-attested phenomena contradict these assumptions:

• infant–caregiver rhythmic communication prior to language

• elite musical ensemble synchrony (“in the pocket”)

• flow states in collective performance

• contemplative insight in non-verbal meditation

• group alignment during ASC

• Indigenous categories of relational knowing
  

DNS proposes that these phenomena reveal an under-theorised cognitive capacity: humans can enter shared temporal coherence states in which cognition becomes partially distributed.

3. Foundational substrate: Trevarthen’s Intrinsic Motive Pulse (IMP)

3.1 Definition

The Intrinsic Motive Pulse (IMP) is a biologically grounded endogenous rhythm organising:

• movement

• attention

• affect

• expectation

• gestural phrasing and prosody
  

IMP functions as a pre-linguistic timing grammar enabling humans to co-regulate meaning before symbolic representation.

3.2 Developmental primacy

Infant–caregiver interaction shows:

• turn-taking rhythms

• affective prosody

• micro-timing prediction

• mutual entrainment
  

Meaning emerges rhythmically. Language is built on top of this temporal substrate rather than replacing it.

4. DNS core: phase-locking and distributed cognition

4.1 Core claim (IMP → DNS)

Distributed Non-Verbal Synchrony (DNS) arises when the intrinsic motive pulse of multiple agents becomes phase-aligned through shared temporal constraints, stabilised attention, and convergent intention.

In DNS:

• meaning is enacted as rhythm and affect rather than propositions

• coordination is anticipatory rather than reactive

• timing becomes a shared field rather than an individual property
  

4.2 DNS is not transmission (and mind is not primary)

DNS does not require the transfer of thoughts, semantic content, or propositional messages between isolated minds. It does not posit a paranormal communication channel, and it is not dependent on the folk concept of telepathy as mind-reading.

Instead, DNS explains “telepathic” phenomenology as an outcome of:

• phase-locking of embodied rhythms (IMP)

• alignment of predictive models

• attenuation of discursive self-monitoring

• softening of individuating boundaries
  

Crucially, DNS rejects mind-first idealism. It is compatible with a Brahman-primary metaphysics in which:

Brahman is primary; mind is a local relational modulation (substratum/appearance) within Brahman expressed through embodied rhythm, affect, and attention.

Under this frame, DNS is not “minds transmitting content.” It is coherence among local expressions of Brahman, wherein individuating constraints relax and cognition becomes field-like and relationally distributed.

4.3 Phenomenology: why DNS feels like “telepathy”

DNS produces experiences commonly described as:

• immediate mutual intelligibility

• “knowing before hearing”

• shared intention

• dissolving self/other boundaries

• felt participation in a larger unity
  

In DNS terms, these are subjective correlates of:

• reduced egoic boundary maintenance

• increased predictive coherence

• attentional absorption

• shared temporal priors

The phenomenology is real as experience; the telepathy label is a cultural misnaming of relational coherence.

5. Paradigmatic case: elite musical ensemble synchrony

Musical “lock-in” demonstrates DNS with exceptional clarity:

• players coordinate on millisecond timescales

• ensembles anticipate phrasing before acoustic onset

• agency becomes collectively distributed

• conscious monitoring recedes
  

In DNS terms, elite ensembles display:

• high IMP stability

• highly aligned temporal priors

• low uncertainty tolerance

• rapid error correction without discursive thought
  

Music provides a robust model of “telepathic” phenomenology without metaphysical inflation.

6. Altered States of Consciousness (ASC) as DNS facilitators

ASC (meditation, trance, psychedelics, performance flow) can facilitate DNS by:

• suppressing discursive self-monitoring

• softening ego boundaries

• intensifying rhythmic salience

• increasing pattern sensitivity

• stabilising attention through absorption
  

ASC does not create synchrony; it amplifies access to synchrony by reducing the cognitive noise introduced by rigid individuation.

DNS is:

• state-dependent

• discipline-sensitive

• not belief-dependent

• not substance-dependent
  

7. DNS–Extended: matakite/matekite and yogic siddhi as relational perception

7.1 Epistemic pluralism

DNS is strengthened by recognising multiple epistemologies. In Aotearoa, Māori concepts such as matakite/matekite are tolerated as legitimate modes of knowing, challenging WEIRD assumptions that dismiss non-ordinary cognition.

Yogic traditions also describe siddhi-like capacities—often as secondary outcomes of deep practice.

7.2 DNS interpretation of matakite and siddhi

DNS–Extended treats these traditions as:

• disciplined descriptions of heightened relational cognition

• culturally stable accounts of non-ordinary attunement

• evidence that cognition can be ecological, field-like, and non-private
  

It does not treat such claims as automatic proof of paranormal mind-reading.

7.3 Expanded definition of “information”

DNS–Extended broadens “information” beyond propositions to include:

• affective information (danger/safety; attraction/repulsion)

• temporal information (the “right moment”)

• relational information (trust, discord, intention)

• imagistic/symbolic information (visions, dreams)

• pattern information (holistic apprehension)

8. Long-distance DNS and technological mediation

Distance does not primarily block synchrony; uncertainty blocks synchrony.

DNS can occur over distance when:

1. temporal scaffolds exist (clock alignment, cues)

2. participants share practice/training

3. attention is stabilised (meditation, ritual, flow)

4. interpretive inflation is bounded by protocol
   

Internet mediation is a coordination scaffold (metronome/ritual bell analogue), not a thought-transmission medium.

9. DNS–Objects: Object-Mediated Synchrony (OMS)

9.1 Rationale

Many traditions emphasise that synchrony is achieved not only between persons, but through:

• taonga and artefacts

• icons and images

• yantra and geometric devices

• ritual implements

• landscapes and place-objects (whenua)
  

9.2 Definition (OMS)

Object-Mediated Synchrony (OMS) occurs when objects act as:

• attentional anchors

• timing constraints

• meaning condensers

• carriers of relational memory/lineage

• phase-locking scaffolds for collective cognition
  

9.3 Māori taonga within OMS

In Māori ontology, taonga carry:

• mauri

• mana

• whakapapa embedding

• tapu/noa boundary conditions
  

In DNS terms, taonga:

• stabilise communal attention

• modulate affect and behaviour

• concentrate shared meaning

• help structure the collective synchrony field
  

9.4 Indic objects (mūrti/yantra/mantra) within OMS

Yogic and tantric objects operate as consciousness technologies:

• mūrti: darśan interface

• yantra: perceptual stabiliser

• mantra: sound-object / rhythmic constraint

In DNS terms: synchrony engines rather than mere symbols.

10. OMS-2: kinetic signs, resonance, and objects that move

10.1 Motivation

Many ritual and contemplative traditions report that deep alignment—especially under collective ASC—may coincide with objects appearing to move, shift, vibrate, or behave “responsively.”

DNS incorporates these reports without overclaim.

10.2 Conservative OMS account (physical resonance)

Many kinetic signs arise from ordinary mechanisms:

• acoustic resonance (chanting/drumming)

• airflow dynamics (breathing/heat gradients)

• surface coupling (floor vibration)

• material sensitivity (light objects/liquids)
  

10.3 Ideomotor coupling (unconscious micro-movement)

Where human contact is involved (pendulums, tables, planchettes), DNS predicts increased ideomotor coordination:

• synchrony aligns micro-timing

• ASC increases absorption and salience

• object movement externalises collective intention
  

10.4 Brahman-primary interpretation (bounded metaphysics)

DNS permits an interpretive layer:

coherence among local expressions of Brahman may be reflected as outward signs within the ritual field, including perceptible object behaviour.

But this remains metaphysical interpretation, not empirical conclusion.

10.5 Testable predictions

To preserve epistemic integrity, DNS predicts measurable correlates:

1. object motion correlates with vibration (accelerometers/contact mics)

2. motion increases with chant/breath tempo stability

3. motion decreases without visual/tactile feedback (ideomotor tests)

4. events are more replicable under protocol + environmental control
   

10.6 Safeguards

DNS rejects:

• coercive psychic claims

• surveillance narratives

• certainty without verification

Tikanga / yogic ethics / communal integration are treated as epistemic stabilisers.

11. Epistemic safeguards: what DNS rejects

To prevent coercive, paranoid, or delusional drift, DNS includes explicit exclusions: DNS rejects:

• unilateral mind-reading

• involuntary participation

• persistent mind-links as default reality

• surveillance/control interpretations

• certainty without verification
  

DNS requires:

• symmetry and consent

• shared practice and constraints

• collapse when attention fragments

• bounded interpretation via tikanga/discipline/community norms
  

12. Conclusion: synchrony as coherence of time, relation, and field

DNS proposes that what is often mislabelled “telepathy” is the phenomenology of:

• phase-aligned embodied rhythm (IMP)

• reduced individuation under ASC/flow

• shared predictive temporal models

• relationally distributed cognition

• object-mediated anchoring of attention and meaning
  

It does not claim paranormal message transfer. Instead, it claims:

human consciousness is fundamentally rhythmic, relational, and field-like, and under certain conditions it can become distributed through bodies, objects, and place.

12. Peter Brook: Immediate Theatre as DNS practice

12.1 Brook’s “empty space” as the minimal DNS condition

Peter Brook’s foundational claim—that any empty space becomes theatre when a person crosses it while another watches—can be interpreted as a radical reduction of theatre to its temporal and attentional substrate. In DNS terms, Brook is implicitly describing the minimal condition for synchrony:

• an actor as a generator of pulse (timing, rhythm, phrasing)

• an audience as an entrainable field of attention

• meaning arising from shared expectancy, not textual content
  

Brook’s “bare stage” is therefore not empty in DNS terms; it is a synchrony chamber, an environment where motive pulses can phase-lock.

12.2 The four theatres as a taxonomy of entrainment quality

Brook’s division of theatre into the Deadly, Holy, Rough, and Immediate can be re-read as a taxonomy of the conditions under which DNS is either enabled or blocked. Deadly Theatre corresponds to anti-DNS: convention, routine, and representational rigidity disrupt phase-locking by introducing cognitive noise (self-monitoring, boredom, institutional expectation).

• Rough Theatre corresponds to high-variance DNS: the audience is mobilised through energy, shock, and communal affect (strong coupling, sometimes unstable).
  

• Holy Theatre corresponds to DNS interpreted metaphysically: theatre as ritual field, as communion with the invisible.
  

• Immediate Theatre corresponds to DNS at its most precise: living responsiveness, timing truth, and presence generating synchrony directly.
  

Brook’s framework becomes, in DNS language, a model of:

how performance either collapses into representation (Deadly) or becomes a living synchrony field (Immediate / Holy).

12.3 Immediate Theatre and the Intrinsic Motive Pulse (IMP)

Brook’s emphasis on presence and aliveness can be understood as aesthetic recognition of Trevarthen’s Intrinsic Motive Pulse: a pre-verbal rhythmic grammar underlying human meaning-making.

Immediate Theatre prioritises:

• micro-timing

• phrasing

• breath and stillness

• mutual responsiveness

• minimal performative “explaining”
  

These priorities correspond precisely to the requirements for stable DNS:

• coherent timing priors

• reduced discursive interference

• high perceptual sensitivity

• trust in pre-symbolic meaning
  

Brook’s actor training can thus be interpreted as:

rehearsal as IMP refinement— making timing truthful enough to entrain the room.

12.4 Holy Theatre and Brahman-primary metaphysics

Brook’s Holy Theatre is often misread as advocating mystical spectacle. On the contrary, Brook’s “holy” emphasis is typically on revealing rather than imposing: theatre as a practice that makes an underlying order perceptible. This resonates strongly with the Brahman-primary interpretation of DNS:

• Brahman is primary

• mind is not primary; mind is local modulation within Brahman

• theatre can temporarily relax individuation (nāma–rūpa) through coherent rhythm

• “the invisible” becomes perceptible as coherence

Thus, Brook provides a theatre-specific expression of the same insight expressed in DNS:

theatre does not transmit information; it establishes conditions of coherence in which meaning arises directly.

12.5 Brook’s ensemble and the ethics of non-coercion

Brook’s mature theatre practice places strong emphasis on:

• disciplined rehearsal

• stripping away cliché

• avoiding manipulation

• avoiding dead imitation

• maintaining the living relation between actor and audience

DNS describes a parallel ethical boundary:

• no unilateral access

• no coercion

• no permanent linking

• no certainty without verification

Brook’s anti-“Deadly Theatre” stance is therefore not just aesthetic but epistemic: Deadly Theatre violates the conditions of real shared knowing by substituting convention for presence.

12.6 Brook and OMS: objects as meaning condensers

Brook’s minimal staging approach—especially in later work—often elevates simple props (cloth, stick, bowl, earth, water) into objects of intensified presence.

In OMS terms, these objects become:

• attentional anchors

• phase-locking constraints

• meaning condensers

• carriers of ritual density

Brook’s theatre demonstrates OMS in practice: not “special effects,” but:

objects made operative by shared attention and shared pulse.

12.7 Brook’s Mahabharata as long-duration phase-locking

Brook’s Mahabharata can be interpreted as a large-scale DNS technology: extended performance duration, mythic structure, ritualised pacing, and sparse staging collectively produce long-form entrainment and shared moral-temporal space.

The epic becomes a timing ecology:

• narrative as chant analogue

• duration as absorption driver

• collective attention as ethical field

In DNS terms, the audience is not consuming story. It is being entrained into a cosmology.

12.8 Conclusion: Brook as a theatre theorist of synchrony

Brook’s theatre offers a practical demonstration of DNS: meaning arises from timing coherence rather than representation. His categories of theatre map onto degrees of synchrony, his rehearsal method corresponds to motive pulse refinement, and his staging practice anticipates OMS by treating objects as active anchors of attention.

Peter Brook can therefore be read as a major precursor to DNS thinking — an artist-theorist of:

theatre as the engineering of shared rhythm, shared attention, and field-like meaning.

13. Glossary (core terms)

IMP (Intrinsic Motive Pulse): endogenous rhythmic organisation of movement/attention/affect enabling pre-linguistic meaning.

DNS (Distributed Non-Verbal Synchrony): phase-alignment of IMP across individuals leading to shared timing, intention, affect, prediction.

DNS–Extended: integration of Indigenous and contemplative epistemologies (matakite/matekite; siddhi) as relational perception frameworks.

OMS (Object-Mediated Synchrony): synchrony stabilised through objects acting as attentional anchors and meaning condensers.

OMS-2: kinetic/resonance manifestations of OMS, including object motion phenomena with conservative and testable interpretations.

Relational perception: knowing that arises through relation and alignment, not through symbolic exchange.