The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology
September 5, 2018
Ruth Finnegan
Forms of “altered” consciousness are common in human life yet at the same time (apart from dreams) seldom investigated in depth by anthropologists. The main areas where such states of consciousness have been found, and up to a point studied, are dreaming, including prophetic and creative dreams; sensations of contact of various kinds with and from the dead; the experience of music, poetry and...
The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology
September 5, 2018
Michael Winkelman
3 citations
Shamanism and possession are central concepts in the religious practices of many “premodern” societies, with substantial similarities manifested across cultures and time that reflect their basis in human nature. Shamans and possession both involve ritual alteration of consciousness but differences between them are illustrated by cross‐cultural studies and the distinctive experiential features...
American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis
September 4, 2018
Éva Bányai
67 citations
After a brief review of the history of the idea of an activity-increasing hypnotic induction procedure with eyes open and pedaling a bicycle ergometer, the features of active-alert hypnotic induction are summarized. Results of research conducted on healthy volunteers revealed the behavioral, experiential, physiological, and interactional characteristics of the induced altered state of...
September 4, 2018
J. Adam Carter
30 citations
This chapter explores two research areas: virtue epistemology, an area of epistemology that gives epistemic virtues a central theoretical role, and extended cognition, a research program in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science that contests received boundaries between mind and world. Virtue epistemology, in short, is marked by an epistemological shift in focus from properties of beliefs...
Scientific Reports
September 4, 2018
Zirui Huang, Phillip E. Vlisides, Vijaykumar C Tarnal et al.
Detecting covert consciousness in behaviorally unresponsive patients by brain imaging is of great interest, but a reproducible model and evidence from independent sources is still lacking. Here we demonstrate the possibility of using general anesthetics in a within-subjects study design to test methods or statistical paradigms of assessing covert consciousness. Using noninvasive neuroimaging in...
STEINIANA: Revista de Estudios Interdisciplinarios
September 4, 2018
María Teresa Russo
1 citation
The biographical itinerary and the speculative development of Edith Stein offer a precious material to reflect on the relationships between philosophy and mysticism, considered as two ways to approach the truth, without yielding to the temptation to immanentize the divine by reducing it to the individual conscience or There is therefore in common between the two saints the interest towards the...
Frontiers in Psychology
September 4, 2018
Mateusz M Wozniak
41 citations
James (1890) distinguished two understandings of the self, the self as "Me" and the self as "I". This distinction has recently regained popularity in cognitive science, especially in the context of experimental studies on the underpinnings of the phenomenal self. The goal of this paper is to take a step back from cognitive science and attempt to precisely distinguish between "Me" and "I" in the...
September 4, 2018
Marc Wittmann
What altered states of consciousness—the dissolution of feelings of time and self—can tell us about the mystery of consciousness. During extraordinary moments of consciousness—shock, meditative states and sudden mystical revelations, out-of-body experiences, or drug intoxication—our senses of time and self are altered; we may even feel time and self dissolving. These experiences have long been...
Peyote Effect
September 4, 2018
Alexander S. Dawson
While research on peyote accelerated in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany during the last decade of the nineteenth century, Mexican scientists remained largely ignorant of the properties of the cactus. This changed when Mexico’s Instituto Médico Nacional (IMN) sponsored a series of peyote studies at the turn of the century. In part, those studies relied on historical accounts and...
Frontiers in Psychology
September 4, 2018
Raphaël Millière, Robin Carhart-Harris, Leor Roseman et al.
402 citations
In recent years, the scientific study of meditation and psychedelic drugs has seen remarkable developments. The increased focus on meditation in cognitive neuroscience has led to a cross-cultural classification of standard meditation styles validated by functional and structural neuroanatomical data. Meanwhile, the renaissance of psychedelic research has shed light on the neurophysiology of...