Tiny Blue Dot Foundation

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Announcing NEW Fifth Round of Request for Proposals

Tiny Blue Dot Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of its fifth round of major neuroscience funding, offering multiyear grants of up to $900,000 through the Science of Perception Box™. New funding round seeks research exploring Agency and Independence, Interoception and Emotional Regulation, Identity and Self-Narrative, Values, Meaning, and Belonging.
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Tiny Blue Dot Foundation

The Tiny Blue Dot Foundation strives to help people understand that they live in their own unique Perception Box whose walls can be expanded to minimize suffering, increase acceptance of self and others, and view trauma and other challenges as opportunities for growth. Our mission is to develop Perception Box modification techniques that are safe, effective, reliable, measurable, widely accessible, and easy to use.
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New Research Grants Exploring the Science of the Perception Box

The newly funded research spans institutions in the United States, Australia, Great Britain, and the Netherlands and includes studies examining adolescent anxiety and emotion regulation, autism, body perception and chronic pain, transformative dreams, mindfulness, psychedelic-assisted therapy, virtual reality, brain stimulation, and new methods for measuring the Perception Box.
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What's a Perception Box?

Dr. Christof Koch explains the framework of and science behind Perception Box, an invisible mental box that every human being alive lives inside that distorts our perceptions. It distorts our ability to understand one another and to understand ourselves. It’s made from the material of our beliefs we sometimes call stories.
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A Conversation with Elizabeth R. Koch and Christof Koch

Christof Koch (Chief Scientist, Tiny Blue Dot Foundation) and Elizabeth R. Koch (Founder, Tiny Blue Dot Foundation) sat down during the 2023 Tiny Blue Dot Foundation summit to discuss the origin and meaning of the Perception Box framework and how it connects to Tiny Blue Dot Foundation's research.

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Research

Our foundation seeks to fund neuroscientific research related to studying the science of Perception Box.

What is Perception Box?

Perception Box is a groundbreaking framework developed by Elizabeth R. Koch that describes how a person's perception is structured by various factors such as beliefs, biases, and narratives.

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Insights

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A doctor reviewing x-rays of the skull — Expanding Horizons: A Look Back at the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation's Impact

It's an exciting time at the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation as we announce our third round of funding! Over the past three years, we've been dedicated to supporting groundbreaking neuroscientific research focused on The Science of Perception Box™, our way of describing the unique lens through which each of us experiences the world. Our goal is to help expand the walls of that Perception Box to reduce suffering, foster acceptance, and turn challenges into opportunities for growth.
Tags: mindfulness psychedelics research technology

Can We Ever “Escape” Our Perception Box?

In What We See When We Read, the novelist and designer Peter Mendelsund reveals a remarkable fact about his own mind.
Tags: consciousness memory self-identity

RFP_R4_Launch_Announcement — Tiny Blue Dot Foundation Announces Fourth Round of Major Neuroscience Funding

Tiny Blue Dot Foundation is proud to announce the launch of its fourth round of major neuroscience funding, offering multi-year grants of up to $900,000 through the Science of Perception Box™.
Tags: consciousness research The Science of Perception Box Tiny Blue Dot Foundation Research

Videos

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How Self-Awareness and Brain Function Help Us Understand and Treat Anxiety
2:40 Series: Tiny Blue Dot Foundation Research

Can a Psilocybin Trip Shift Your Mindset Long-Term?
3:00 Series: Tiny Blue Dot Foundation Research

Bridging Police and Black Communities with Mindfulness and Compassion
5:10 Series: Tiny Blue Dot Foundation Research

Research Projects

A boy smiles while climbing a large tree, surrounded by lush green leaves and dappled sunlight filtering through the branches. — New York University
Independence Focused Therapy (IFT): A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Novel, Low Cost, and Scalable Intervention for Child and Adolescent Anxiety

Helicopter parenting undermines children's sense of agency and resilience, contributing to rising anxiety levels, while daily independence-building experiences can powerfully shift their perception of themselves and the world. Independence-Focused Therapy (IFT) offers a scalable, strengths-based solution, showing promising results in reducing anxiety in children, and this project will support a rigorous randomized controlled trial to further validate its effectiveness.

Brown University

Transforming School Environments to Prevent Adolescent Depression: Expanding Perception Boxes with CATCH-IT Community

CATCH-IT is an evidence-based intervention designed to prevent depression by helping teens build resilience and develop healthy coping skills.This study aims to test the benefits of delivering CATCH-IT within schools, using a community-based approach to support at-risk students by expanding mental health literacy and emotional support across entire classrooms.

A person with electrodes on their face sits smiling, surrounded by three others, including one holding wires, in a room with a relaxed atmosphere. — Northwestern University
Transformative Benefits of Contemplative Sleep Practices and a Novel Pathway to Deliver Benefits to the General Public

This project aims to characterize ways for individuals to learn how to use their dreaming experiences to expand their perceptual horizons in the waking state.

Stanford University
The Transformative Potential of Anesthesia-Induced Dream States

Researchers are developing a new therapy for PTSD using anesthesia to induce a specific type of dream that has the potential to help people recover from trauma and improve mental well-being.

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

The Science of Perception Box

Tiny Blue Dot Foundation (TBD) seeks to fund rigorous, empirical, statistically valid, and sound research that allows children, teenagers, and adults to understand that the reality they experience is a construct of their mind, and amenable to change. That is, they can learn to expand their Perception Box to reduce the anxieties that come with living in the modern world, minimize strife and to be more mindful and compassionate with others and themselves.

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Hero Carousel

Announcing NEW Fifth Round of Request for Proposals

What is Perception Box?

Insights

Expanding Horizons: A Look Back at the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation's Impact

Can We Ever “Escape” Our Perception Box?