Biological Psychiatry
November 29, 2014
Yasmin Schmid, Florian Enzler, Peter Gasser et al.
425 citations
BackgroundAfter no research in humans for >40 years, there is renewed interest in using lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in clinical psychiatric research and practice. There are no modern studies on the subjective and autonomic effects of LSD, and its endocrine effects are unknown. In animals, LSD disrupts prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the acoustic startle response, and patients with...
BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine
October 25, 2014
Anette Kjellgren, Jessica Westman
BackgroundSensory isolation in a flotation tank is a method known for inducing deep relaxation and subsequent positive health effects for patients suffering from e.g. stress or muscle tensions pains. Very few studies have investigated this method as a preventive health-care intervention. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects in healthy participants after receiving a series of...
Medical Hypotheses
October 2014
Shane Lindsay
Meditation is used worldwide by millions of people for relaxation and stress relief. Given sufficient practice, meditators may also experience a variety of altered states of consciousness. These states can lead to a variety of unusual experiences, including physical, emotional and psychic disturbances. This paper highlights the correspondences between brain states associated with these...
Journal of Neuroscience Methods
September 30, 2014
Masayuki Hara, Roy Salomon, Wietske van der Zwaag et al.
Bodily self-consciousness has become an important topic in cognitive neuroscience aiming to understand how the brain creates a unified sensation of the self in a body. Specifically, full body illusion (FBI) in which changes in bodily self-consciousness are experimentally introduced by using visual-tactile stimulation has led to improve understanding of these mechanisms. This paper introduces a...
Frontiers in Psychology
September 24, 2014
Tom Alexander de Graaf, Alexander T eSack
Research into the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs) has blossomed, due to the advent of new and increasingly sophisticated brain research tools. Neuroimaging has uncovered a variety of brain processes that relate to conscious perception, obtained in a range of experimental paradigms. But methods such as fMRI or EEG do not always afford inference on the role these brain processes play in...
Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science
September 2, 2014
William A. Richards
17 citations
Renewed research with entheogens (psychedelic substances) has been able to facilitate the occurrence of mystical forms of consciousness in healthy volunteers with a high degree of reliability. This article explores the potential significance of this development for religious scholars, especially those interested in the study of mysticism. The definition of “mystical consciousness” employed in...
Preternature Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural
September 1, 2014
Morgan Shipley
4 citations
ABSTRACT In 1957, Aldous Huxley published The Doors of Perception, a work that would galvanize debates regarding the sacredness and profaneness of mystical consciousness. In connecting psychedelically inspired, unmediated perception with mystical, and perennial, modes of understanding, Huxley, critics like R. C. Zaehner declared, elided the conditions that make mystical consciousness possible,...
Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology
August 1, 2014
David Baumeister, Georgina Barnes, Giovanni Giaroli et al.
Hallucinogens have been part of spiritual practice for millennia, but controversy surrounding their mind-manifesting effects led to their proscription by the mid-20th century, largely without evidence of harm or toxicity and despite nascent data suggesting therapeutic utility in treating depressive illnesses. This review explores their pharmacodynamic actions and the current limited data on...
Human Brain Mapping
July 3, 2014
Enzo Tagliazucchi, Robin Carhart-Harris, Robert Leech et al.
423 citations
Abstract The study of rapid changes in brain dynamics and functional connectivity (FC) is of increasing interest in neuroimaging. Brain states departing from normal waking consciousness are expected to be accompanied by alterations in the aforementioned dynamics. In particular, the psychedelic experience produced by psilocybin (a substance found in “magic mushrooms”) is characterized by...
Electronic Visualisation and the Arts London Conference
July 1, 2014
Jonathan Weinel, Stuart Cunningham, N. Roberts et al.
Psych Dome (Weinel 2013a) is a short interactive piece of visual music first presented in an immersive 'full dome' environment that forms part of the authors' on-going research regarding Altered States of Consciousness (ASC) as a basis for the design of computer-based artworks.