Maslow (1970) defined peak experiences as the most wonderful experiences of a person's life, which may include a sense of awe, well-being, or transcendence. Furthermore, recent research has suggested that psilocybin can produce experiences subjectively rated as uniquely meaningful and significant (Griffiths et al. 2006). It is therefore possible that psilocybin may facilitate or change the...
Xenomelia, the “foreign limb syndrome,” is characterized by the non-acceptance of one or more of one’s own extremities and the resulting desire for elective limb amputation or paralysis. Formerly labeled “body integrity identity disorder” (BIID), the condition was originally considered a psychological or psychiatric disorder, but a brain-centered Zeitgeist and a rapidly growing interest in the...
The multidisciplinary research on Salvia divinorum and its chemical principles is analyzed concerning whether the ethnobotany, phytochemistry, mental effects, and neuropharmacology of this sacred psychoactive plant and main principle clarify its experienced effects and divinatory uses. The scientific pursuit spans from the traditional practices, continues with the botanical identification,...
This paper reviews the current knowledge about the mechanisms of anesthesia-induced alteration of consciousness. It is now evident that hypnotic anesthetic agents have specific brain targets whose function is hierarchically altered in a dose-dependent manner. Higher order networks, thought to be involved in mental content generation, as well as sub-cortical networks involved in thalamic...
Recent research in cognitive neuroscience using virtual reality, robotic technology and brain imaging has linked self-consciousness to the processing and integration of multisensory bodily signals. This work on bodily self-consciousness has implicated the temporo-parietal, premotor and extrastriate cortex and partly originated in work on neurological patients with different disorders of bodily...
After a hypnotic induction, medium and highly hypnotizable individuals often report spontaneous alterations in various dimensions of consciousness. Few studies investigating these experiences have controlled for the inherent demands of specific hypnotic suggestions and fewer still have considered their dynamic properties and neural correlates. We adopted a neurophenomenological approach to...
Acupuncture therapy encompasses various domains of experience: from the aesthetics and atmosphere of the clinic; to the sensorial aspects of needling; to the aftereffects in terms of potential changes in health and lifestyle.In my research (conducted in Galway and Dublin Ireland) one of the prevailing reasons expressed by patients as to the appeal of acupuncture, and rationale for its continual...
The Holoscendence Approach (HA) is a therapeutic approach based on experience from clinical work, and an integration of Eastern spiritual traditions and Western therapeutic orientations. It is unique in its comprehensiveness, flexibility and depth. It may be applied to a very wide spectrum of consciousness on both personal and transpersonal levels. HA gives a special opportunity to work...
World neurosurgery2013R Aaron Robison, Alexander Taghva, Charles Y. Liu et al.
Since the beginning of recorded history, humans have sought a physical means of altering disordered behavior and consciousness. This quest has spawned numerous innovations in neurosurgery and the neurosciences, from the earliest prehistoric attempts at trepanation to the electrocortical and anatomic localization of cerebral function that emerged in the 19th century. At the start of the 20th...
F ilm is a medium that invites the spectator to imagine altered states: we sit in the dark and see shadows move across a screen, flesh and blood actors altered into phantoms. Sometimes this is thematized, as in Hitchcock’s Vertigo , where Kim Novak first alters herself, then is altered to look like and then become Judy. Cross-dressing comedies like Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot and Sydney...