Abstract: The intersection of criminal liability and altered states of consciousness presents unique jurisprudential challenges. Crimes allegedly committed during sleep or dream states raise profound questions about culpability, intent, and free will. This paper explores the legal dilemmas surrounding criminal acts committed in dreams, analyzing jurisprudence, neuroscience, and comparative...
Chanting is a universal practice with deep ethnocultural roots. More recently, chanting has become popular on online platforms and meditation apps which have extended chanting practices beyond their original cultural, sacred, and healing traditions. The aim of the current study was to determine if online chanting meditation promotes altered states of consciousness and psychosocial benefits when...
Abstract Background and aims Altered states of consciousness (ASC) represent acute and marked deviations from normal waking consciousness. Investigations into ASC are significant to problems in medicine, science, and philosophy, including the structure of conscious experience. Here, we conducted a preliminary investigation into the structure of ASC while addressing the role of psychedelics,...
To evaluate the ability of median nerve stimulation (MNS)-induced high gamma band (HGB) activity in mapping the hand motor cortex at different states of consciousness. Five patients undergoing awake craniotomy were recruited. MNS-induced electrocorticographic signals were recorded from awake to anesthetic states, with the loss of consciousness (LOC) session divided into three stages (LOC1,...
Abstract Altered states of consciousness (ASCs), induced e.g. during psychedelic-assisted therapy, show potential to treat prevalent mental health disorders like depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. However, access to such treatments is restricted by legal, medical, and financial barriers. Circular breathwork may present a non-pharmacological and hence more accessible alternative to...
Chapter 15, “Working with Dreams and Other Non-Ordinary States,” explores gestalt dream work, breathwork, and psychedelic integration. Dream work is the most common non-ordinary state, and by bringing a dream to life in the here and now, we can create space for a client to become each element of the dream. This is a deeply integrative approach to working with dreams that can reveal a client&s;s...
The scientific study of lucid sleep, defined as the ability to retain critical self-awareness during ongoing sleep, has traditionally focused on lucid dreaming and induction techniques that specifically target REM sleep. Recently, interest has grown to include other forms of lucid sleep, such as out-of-body experiences, sleep paralysis, and “witnessing-sleep” episodes described in Indian...
In accordance with Bud (A.D.) Craig's theories, we maintain that ascending physiological signals in their temporal dynamics are a necessary prerequisite for human time judgments. Functional neuroimaging and psychophysiological evidence have increasingly demonstrated that the subjective judgment of time is based on the physical and emotional self. The psychological literature reveals how...
Background: The Altered States of Consciousness Scale (3/5D-ASC or 11-ASC) is widely used to assess non-ordinary states of consciousness, particularly for psychedelic research. However, its original dimensional model (3D-ASC within 5D-ASC) and later 11-subscale structure (11-ASC) have a hierarchically incompatible higher/lower-order structure. Although the 11-ASC offers superior model fit, the...
In electronic music events, the driving four-on-the-floor music appears pivotal for inducing altered states of consciousness (ASCs). While various physiological mechanisms link repetitive auditory stimuli to ASCs, entrainment-a brainwave synchronization through periodic external stimuli-has garnered primary focus. However, there are no studies systematically exploring the relationship between...