The experimental induction of altered states of consciousness (ASC) constitutes a research opportunity to relate changes in phenomenological states to underlying biophysical mechanisms. A variety of pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods were reported to induce consciousness alterations in humans, ranging from the consumption of psychoactive drugs to special breathing techniques or...
The main focus of this paper is to explore the re-contextualisation of the concept of transcendence as an altered state of experience within digital art performances. Is there a transcendental art movement in the contemporary digital art scene and does it exist in response to the lack of emotional and spiritual connection in general Western Society? How could we use our contemporary mediums,...
This article presents a discussion of publications in Anglo-American and German research, mainly since 2000, on topics related to Altered States of Consciousness (ASC). It is motivated by an unprecedented expansion of brain-research which has fostered a boom of reductionist models of the human mind with visions of a technologically augmented humanity and numerous successful neuro-enterprises....
BackgroundDespite its designation as a 'dissociative anaesthetic,' the dissociative and psychoactive effects of ketamine remain incompletely understood. The goal of this study was to characterise the subjective experiences and accompanying EEG changes with subanaesthetic doses of ketamine.MethodsHigh-density EEG was recorded in 15 human volunteers before, during, and after subanaesthetic...
ABSTRACT The article discusses the experience of being “carried by witches” narrated to me repeatedly during my field research in rural eastern Slovenia in 2000–2001. The experience, which was ascribed to the agency of witches who “enchanted” their victims and led them astray, typically occurred in the forest at night and implied disorientation, sometimes (but not necessarily) the vision of...
МетОдОЛОГИчеСкИй ПОтенцИаЛ куЛьтурнО-деЯтеЛьнОСтнОГО ПОдХОда к ИзученИю ИзМененныХ СОСтОЯнИй СОзнанИЯ (на МатерИаЛе реЛИГИОзныХ ПрактИк) (ОкОнчанИе)* И. в.Соленов актуальность.В культурных и религиозных практиках широко распространены и функционально значимы феномены измененных состояний сознания (ИСС).Само признание факта их существования зачастую выступает основой критики «догматической»...
The consciousness is the expression of an enormous and complex variety of neurobiological events, phenomenological and psychological that, from the early stages of development, prepare the emergence soil of the Self. It is a complex of tangible and intangible characters distinct from one another - neural infrastructure, awareness, temporality, qualitative subjectivity, intentionality - to such...
ABSTRACT Background: The four-dimensional (‘4-D’) model has been proposed as a theoretical framework to understand and delineate trauma-related dissociative experiences, categorizing symptoms into trauma-related altered states of consciousness (TRASC) and normal waking consciousness (NWC), which occur along four dimensions: time, thought, body and emotion. Objective: The main aim of the present...
Singh's cultural evolutionary theory posits that methods of inducing shamanic altered states of consciousness differ, resulting in profoundly different cognitive states. We argue that, despite different methods of induction, altered states of consciousness share neurophysiological features and cause shared cognitive and behavioral effects. This common foundation enables further cross-cultural...
To survive in an ever-changing environment, the brain must seamlessly integrate a rich stream of incoming information into coherent internal representations that can then be used to efficiently plan for action. The brain must also balance its ability to integrate information with a complementary capacity to segregate information into modules which perform specialized computations in local...