Weil points out that even kids love to whirl about and make themselves dizzy. And, of course being drunk or high is not worth paying attention to.Īndrew Weil, formerly an expert on marijuana but who has since spent his career promoting integral medicine, tells us that altered states of consciousness are natural and normal. Hypnotism is a trick to make gullible people believe they are chickens. People who announce that they have seen God often end up in a psychiatric ward. Meditation may be good for relaxing, but that’s about it. Dreams may be interesting but have no real importance to us. We tend to dismiss any experience beyond our typical waking state. In our technological and scientific society, altered states of consciousness don’t sit very well. This blog examines a few of the things researchers have discovered about drugs and altered states. Research has suggested that one of the most important features of this drug-induced altered state is that people see themselves and their world in new ways. In fact, it seems common sense to say that the reason why people use drugs is to experience an altered state of consciousness. They mistake the method of achieving an altered state (the drug) with the altered state itself (consciousness). Andrew Weil, who wrote The Natural Mind: An Investigation of Drugs and the Higher Consciousness, points out that such descriptions betray an error in logic. Anyone who dismisses an altered state is really saying that they believe the only consciousness worth understanding is our waking state. If you think about it, though, you’ll realize that their descriptions are actually comments about consciousness.
It’s curious that mainstream addiction experts often dismiss the experience of being intoxicated, usually with a single word, such as “euphoria” or “escape”. But there are many ways to experience altered types of consciousness: meditation, hypnosis, near-death experiences, religious epiphanies, and fasting, to name a few (there are also altered states that arise from illnesses, such as a fever or psychosis).Īnd, of course, there are altered states of consciousness that drugs produce. Then there are many different types of altered states. An altered state of consciousness is one that is different from our normal waking state. We wake up in the morning, go to work or school, drive the kids to soccer practice, do chores, and so on. Most people think that the “normal” state of consciousness is our waking state. We’re pretty sure that aardvarks don’t wander about pondering their lives or how unfair life is because they didn’t get wings. Although animals are conscious, their version is nothing like ours.
If we can understand consciousness, then we will understand a great deal about human nature. To give you some background, consciousness is often considered the holy grail of psychology. A great deal of scientific literature on drug use comes from psychologists who study altered states of consciousness.
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