Yes, it is possible to experience a dissolution of the "I" …

Yes, it is possible to experience a dissolution of the "I" during real-time perception, though the experience and interpretations vary across traditions and individuals.
In contemplative practices:
- Meditation traditions like Vipassana and Zen specifically work toward moments where the sense of a separate self falls away
- Practitioners report experiences of "bare awareness" where perceptions occur without a sense of someone perceiving them
- Advanced meditators describe states where the boundary between observer and observed temporarily dissolves
Neuroscientific perspective:
- The "self" appears to be a construction of various neural processes
- Brain imaging during deep meditative states shows altered activity in regions associated with self-referential processing
- The default mode network, linked to self-narrative, shows reduced activity during these states
Phenomenological accounts suggest several features of this experience:
- Perception continues without the feeling of an "I" doing the perceiving
- Thoughts and sensations arise but aren't "owned" by anyone
- No center point from which experience is happening
- A sense of direct, unmediated contact with phenomena
These experiences are often described as revealing something fundamental about consciousness rather than producing an unusual state—suggesting that the sense of "I" may be an add-on to basic awareness rather than intrinsic to it.
The interpretation of such experiences varies significantly between traditions:
- Buddhist frameworks see it as insight into anatta (no-self)
- Advaita Vedanta might interpret it as glimpsing the non-dual nature of reality
- Secular mindfulness might frame it as experiencing consciousness without self-referential thinking
While many report these experiences, they remain subjective and difficult to verify objectively, existing at the intersection of phenomenology, contemplative practice, and neuroscience.