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| What is the relevance of an altered state of consciousness to psychic functioning? What altered states of consciousness seem to be favorable to ESP? | |
Historically, psychic functioning has been associated with a number of altered states of consciousness. One of these was the so-called "trance state" which mediums entered while functioning psychically. This was a dissociated condition in which the medium functioned in a manner unlike that of her ordinary waking consciousness. Hypnosis or mesmerism (as it was then called) was another altered state of awareness which seemed to be rich in psychic accompaniments. Still another was the drug induced state of consciousness valued by the shaman or medicine man for its aid in forecasting important events or diagnosing causes and cures for illnesses. Another state of consciousness was induced by meditation in practitioners of yoga, zen, and other formal disciplines. There is a belief, in nearly all meditative traditions, that meditation is conducive to the development of paranormal powers or siddhis, as they are called in yogic doctrine. However, the ordinary nocturnal dream has always been the most commonly experienced altered state of consciousness associated with frequent psychic occurrences -most notably, precognition. Recent laboratory findings are confirming what were previously only unsubstantiated claims. In particular, nocturnal dreams, hypnosis and meditation are all conditions which have proved to be favorable to ESP functioning in a number of well—controlled laboratory studies. At present there are too few well-designed studies of the effects of drugs on ESP to draw any definite conclusions. Why are dreams, hypnosis and meditation favorable to psychic functioning? We’re not yet certain, but we have a number of hypotheses. One holds that these three conditions are characterized by decreasing the use of the regular senses, relaxing and ‘calming the body, and redirecting attention inwardly — to images, thoughts, and feelings. We think that the relative freedom from external and internal distractions (and the increased attention to internal events) may make it easier to detect psychic impressions when they do occur. Just as the stars are always present, but are masked or hidden by bright sunlight, so, too, ESP impressions may be relatively weak and easily overwhelmed by sensory noise and mental distractions. Perhaps these altered states of consciousness are helpful to the extent that they "turn off the sunlight" of distraction. A second hypothesis is that dreams, hypnosis, and meditation are favorable to ESP because they result in an unstructuring of the brain, freeing the brain from usual constraints. Freed of these structuring constraints, the brain more easily changes to match ESP target events. For example, if an ESP target is a flower, the brain more easily changes its organization to match that of an image of a flower. This can’t happen as readily if the brain is strongly structured by demanding information coming through the senses. The third hypothesis is that dreams, hypnosis, meditation and certain other ESP—favorable altered states of consciousness are effective because they are well —defined rituals which work wet I psychological ly to increase our confidence in success and free us momentarily from the possibly inhibiting effect of personal responsibility for ESP success or failure. They may function like psychological sugar—pills, placebos. Further study is necessary to determine which of these three contributions or hypotheses is the most significant. |
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| Suggested Readings: | |
| Tart, Charles (1969) Altered States of Consciousness | |
| Tart, Charles (1975) States of Consciousness | |
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