Altered States of Consciousness

What is altered state of consciousness? To get a clear picture of altered states of consciousness, let's first understand the model of human mind. The mind has three basic functional zones. The rational conscious mind which makes you aware of the self and you as being you. The other zone of your mind is the sensory conscious mind which evolved long before the rational mind. It works with the help of the senses and does not understand the language or abstract words. It is more connected to the third part of your mind that is, your subconscious mind rather than the rational mind.

So, when the dominance of the rational mind is reduced, the sensory consciousness becomes more active in receiving the information. As the sensory mind shares the sensory circuit with the subconscious mind to process the information, it gets access to the subconscious storehouse which has a wide range of experiences and abstract thoughts. Thus, we can say that altered states of mind is a state when a person loses self-awareness. There may be many reasons for altered states of mind. An individual can experience an altered state of consciousness through neurochemical imbalance, trauma, overload, or fever. These states were due to a particular situation, but there are intentional ways also to create such a state like using psychedelic drugs, meditation and chanting. A tussle is still going on between the scientific researchers and parapsychologists on, what is altered state of mind and does it actually exist? Researchers consider the claim of parapsychologists for existence of altered state of mind as baseless.

What is Altered Consciousness?

The researchers who are studying the conscious state of mind say that a human brain can quiver from various states of mind in a day. They categorize this absence of self- consciousness or non reflective consciousness in six states.

• The bodily feelings which are the non reflective awareness of the functioning of the cells and body organs.
• The memories that are stored in the sub-conscious and do not come live unless they are retrieved.
• Coma, a prolonged state of non reflective awareness of the whole body.
• A state of marginal consciousness due to excess dosage of alcohol or psychosis which reduces the individual's capacity to receive the external sensations.
• A state when there is no rapid eye movement during sleeping and has least mental activity.
• A state of rapid eye movement, generally during night sleep cycle.

Altered Consciousness

Now, let's have a look at some of the types of consciousness of various degrees that can be included in this state of consciousness.

• Hysterical Consciousness ~ generally stimulated by neurotic anxiety, fear, anger and drugs.
• Trance State Consciousness ~ caused by focusing on a single thing and is very similar to hypnotism.
• Fragmented Consciousness ~ which is due to some psychological stress, accidents or drugs.
• Daydreaming ~ which is because of isolation and boredom.

These different levels of consciousness can accidentally occur due to fever, insomnia, infections like meningitis, lack of oxygen, and nitrogen, mental illness, temporal lobe epilepsy and painful accident. This state can be intentionally attained through intake of psychoactive drugs and traditional hallucinogens. This state can also be scientifically induced applying the techniques of neurotechnology, binaural beats, and stimulation by sound and light. These techniques are an attempt to create waves in the brain that can alter the state of consciousness.

Majority of the researchers are still doubtful about the authenticity of altered consciousness. They consider this state as deceptive and fake, but many of the parapsychologists are sure that repeated research for this altered states of mind may discover something extraordinary.