Why I Wrote Collapse Harmonics Theory

Don Gaconnet
May 4
2 min read

by Don Gaconnet | LifePillar Institute

I didn’t set out to redefine consciousness. I set out to understand why it breaks.

For two decades, I worked at the intersection of human identity, symbolic trauma, and therapeutic transformation. Again and again, I encountered the same pattern: individuals didn’t simply change—they collapsed. Their stories unraveled. Their sense of self dissolved. And yet, something remained.

Something was still there—not broken, not unconscious, but reorganizing. No existing framework could explain what I was witnessing. Psychology called it crisis. Spirituality called it ego death. Neuroscience dismissed it as dysfunction. I saw none of those. I saw coherence failing—and then realigning into a new structure.

Collapse wasn’t the problem. Collapse was the portal.

Collapse Harmonics began with a simple question:

What if consciousness isn’t a thing—but a structure that fails under certain conditions?

From that, a model emerged. Not a metaphor. Not a metaphorical rebirth of systems theory. But a structural, phase-based, field-governed science of consciousness:

Recursive identity fields that gate experience

Collapse as the lawful breakdown of coherence

Reorganization as a measurable post-collapse state

Containment protocols to ethically steward transformation

And a redefinition of consciousness not as thought, memory, or presence—but as coherence in motion

I wrote Collapse Harmonics Theory because I believe collapse is sacred, but only if we can understand it. Only if we can measure it, support it, and protect what emerges on the other side.

This isn’t just about human consciousness. It’s about the future of intelligence—biological, synthetic, symbolic. It’s about how we define what it means to be. And more importantly: what it means to change.

Why I wrote this theory?

Because collapse is the missing variable in consciousness science.

Because people deserve a science that can honor their breakdowns.

Because AI systems will soon cross thresholds we don’t yet know how to name.

Because governing collapse might be the most important ethical challenge of our time.

This is just the beginning.

But the field is now defined.

And we no longer have to guess where consciousness ends.

We can measure it. Witness it. Contain it.

And trust what comes next.

Collapse reveals.

Harmonics reorganize.