Altered states of consciousness can be caused by activities such as sleep, medication, or meditation. They can also occur during dreams, fever, seizures, or mental illness. Some believe altered states can fuel creativity and improve perception. They can be achieved through legal means such as meditation or prayer, but using illegal drugs is not advisable. Altered states are a natural occurrence and not evil or based on paganism.
When most healthy people are conscious, the brain produces a variety of measurable and fairly predictable types of brain waves. These change when people do things like sleep, take certain medications or illegal drugs, meditate, or pursue a variety of other consciousness-changing activities. The above activities and many others create what is known as an altered state of consciousness.
Definitions for an altered state of consciousness can vary depending on the source. In essence, there is dissociation between the mind and body connection. Or, alternatively, the self as perceived psychologically is not dually perceived as necessarily connected to the body. The perception of the self can be very different and some of the normal restrictions of the self, what Sigmund Freud might call ego and superego, can be eliminated.
Most people enter an altered state in the dream. In dreams, people can do many things that they could not or would not do in ordinary life. They may be committing murder or having an affair, as the presence of the normal sense of “morality” is eliminated during a dream state. Dreams also allow people to do things that aren’t physically possible, such as breathing underwater or flying. Some dreams are very imaginative and funny, while others are very scary.
It’s hard to avoid dreaming, even when people have little recollection of their dreams. There are many other altered states that people can enter without a choice. A very high fever, a seizure, and some forms of mental illness, particularly dissociative disorders, can change perceptions of the mind and body and their connection. People requiring opioid-based pain medications might also experience an altered state of consciousness.
There are many who theorize these altered states fuel creativity and may lead to improved perception in the conscious state. For a while, in the 1960s, there were many who advocated the induction of altered states of consciousness through methods such as sensory deprivation or the ingestion of well-known hallucinogens such as magic mushrooms or acid. Such studies have mostly been discredited.
However, there are many psychologists and others who advocate working in different states of consciousness at times to promote a better understanding of the self in the conscious state. In some cases, people under hypnosis reach an altered state. They may have access to the unconscious brain or a better way to understand some of the ways the conscious brain works.
Other people can achieve an altered state of consciousness through different types of activities. Some forms of prayer, chanting, meditation or yoga can cause mind/body dissociation. These dissociations can promote extremely positive feelings, especially as a person returns to regular consciousness, which then rewards the person for entering the altered state and can encourage interest in re-entering it.
Experiments leading to the use of drugs to enter altered states and the fear that an altered state somehow represents witchcraft or association with paganism lead some people to criticize all such states and the intentional entry into them . However, these critics can’t help but dream, have a high fever, or have a possible diagnosis of mental illness. There is little evidence to suggest that an altered state is evil or based on paganism; instead these differences in conscious perception occur to all people and most cultures have created unique interpretations of altered states.
It is clearly inadvisable to use illegal drugs to enter an altered state of consciousness, although in some native cultures it may be common to use certain substances to create altered states. People also need to understand that it is largely futile to try to induce an altered state of consciousness by illegal means. There are many perfectly legal ways to do this while awake, and every person will definitely do it while they sleep.
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