What is Consciousness

What Produces Consciosuness

When Charles Tart, the writer/editor of the book Altered States of Consciousness, investigated the subject in the 60's, it was difficult when the evidence was gathered in, to say exactly what can stimulate an ASC. The reason being that almost anything can be the trigger. It has been said that to list the triggers becomes comic in that one has to include almost everything from scratching ones ear to taking a drug such as alcohol or LSD. Even something as common as a drink of coffee can produce an altered state. Sometimes there is apparently no obvious trigger at all. My experience of hearing John's voice calling occurred without me even knowing what it was, until the telephone call. Perhaps many experiences of altered state happen in this way and go unnoticed.

There are classic ways of producing ASC's however, and each culture has its own traditional methods. But because there are so many different 'places' an ASC can take us - everything from apparent time travel to contact with the dead - it has to be understood that some of the techniques relate to specific areas of experience. Alcohol for instance has a general tendency to make one less capable physically. Some of the best known techniques are listed below.

• Meditation and prayer in their many forms. See: meditation - goals of. These may use imagery and fantasy; the mental repetition of a phrase, question or prayer; the stilling of the thoughts and emotions; the evoking of love and passion for a god or God; the directing of attention along particular pathways. This latter may be done by concentrating deeply on a question or problem. In this way one calls on what is 'out of sight' within the psyche to respond.
• Body postures, movements and dance. Experiments with some body postures in particular setting have produced marked changes in states of awareness. See Body Posture and Religious Altered States of Consciousness by Felicitas D. Goodman which appeared in The Journal Of Humanistic Psychology, Summer 1986. Also see Magnetism And Magic by ***. Allowing spontaneous body movements, as occurs in many forms of sacred practices such as early Pentecostalism, Shaktipat in India, Subud in Indonesia, can quickly lead to pronounced ASC's. See: movements during sleep. Given movements, such as the dance of the Dervishes, is also a way many cultures use to produce particular forms of ASC. In many of these practices, the results may be due to the movements or posture helping the person to let go of their thinking and will, enabling an easier emergence of mental phenomena usually suppressed by dominant processes. The whirling of the Dervishes is particularly expressive of this.
• Consciously directing the breathing in some way. See: yoga and dreams. Because the breathing is so intimately connected with body processes, mood and emotion, consciously changing it can be a powerful form of producing an ASC. In general, fast full breathing is an accelerator. It speeds heart, over oxygenates, and reproduces the sort of physical state of excitement, high activity and high emotion such as laughing or crying. It reduces the muscular and psychological barriers we may habitually hold to prevent ourselves openly expressing emotions through the physical movements of sobbing or laughing. This is why it is used a great deal in popular therapy movements such as 'Rebirthing'. IT may produce the release of long held emotions or spontaneous fantasy, including powerful body movements and emotions. The fantasies are explained in many ways, such as memories of past lives, release of childhood trauma. This needs careful handling. See: tools for exploring the mind. In the opposite direction slowing the breath brings control of emotions, a slowing of the mental processes, and when used successfully produces an ASC where the thoughts stop and one moves into a completely different experience of oneself.
• Use of stress, such as fasting, isolation, warfare, disorientation, etc. Any form of stress can trigger a marked ASC. Fasting was often used probably because it is a fairly controllable form of stress, and might even produce a sense of dying.Many people have an ASC following a car accident, or during any natural upheaval such as an earthquake or flood, or after a medical operation. In R. D. Laing's book "The Politics of Experience." the experience of Jesse Watkins is quoted. The barriers between Jesse's known self, and wider self had been broken down by a change of job and lifestyle, overwork, fatigue, a dog bite, and a visit to hospital.
• Penetrating ones dreams through learning to move beyond their surface imagery to the underlying emotions, past experiences and realisations from which they emerge, is a classic way of experiencing ASC's. The reason for this has already been described above in the example given of the image on the screen of a computer which links to a program on the hard disk. The dream image has direct links with memories or processes that are not on the screen of waking awareness until accessed via the image.
• Herbs, drugs, and various forms of diet have been associated with altered states of consciousness since the beginning of history. Some people believe that drugs such as psilocybin were the source of all religious visions. This seems unlikely considering how many things can lead to an ASC. The readiness with which some drugs, or herbs containing hallucinatory drugs, can lead to powerful ASC's, does however, make them one of the major pathways toward the wealth of experience provided by ASC's. As with anything which can provoke powerful hallucinations and emotions, there are dangers attached to the use of such drugs. When we want to drive a car, which is also a dangerous undertaking, society provides means of learning how to safely handle the vehicle, but such drugs are easily accessible, and yet there is no schooling in their safe usage. See: drug initiation; hallucinations and hallucinogens; tools for exploring the mind.
• Not interfering with the workings of ones psyche is probably the simplest and most fundamental form of allowing ASC's. This approach is taught in many of the traditional schools such as Buddhism, Christian mysticism, Islamic mysticism, Subud, and most recently by Carl Jung in his methods of accessing the unconscious. In Buddhism Vipassana meditation is the way of not interfering, not giving oneself a goal in meditation. One simply observes what the mind and emotions do when one stops forever editing or directing. In Christian mysticism the book The Cloud Of Unknowing describes a similar process, but from a very different standpoint.
• Excerpted from Altered States of Consciousness by Tony Crisp