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CHAPTER 2
A Paradigm for Understanding
Altered Consciousness:
The Integrative Mode of
Consciousness
Michael Winkelman
Ritual alterations of consciousness are a virtual universal of human
cultures, reflecting a basic human drive generally considered of central
importance to religion and spiritual practices. Cross-cultural perspectives
show both similarities in the experiences of altered consciousness (AC)
that implicate biological factors as the basis for similarities across cultures,
time, and space, as well as cultural differences in the manifestations of
these potentials that implicate social factors. Individual and group experi-
ences of altered consciousness may vary in many ways, but it is commonal-
ities and recurrent patterns, rather than unique differences, that are crucial
to understanding AC.
This introduction reviews evidence for the universal manifestation of
altered consciousness. This universal manifestation is not well explained
in the classic paradigms of altered states of consciousness that emphasize
their individual nature. In contrast, a biological approach to consciousness
helps to situate altered consciousness within human nature. This perspec-
tive provides a foundation for an approach that characterizes AC in terms
of an integrative mode of consciousness that reflects systemic features of brain
functioning. This integrative mode of consciousness is typified in theta
wave patterns that synchronize the frontal cortex with discharges from
lower brain structures. This integration of ancient brain functions into
the frontal cortex explains many of the key features of AC.
Culture, Science, and Altered Consciousness
Institutionalized procedures for ritually altering consciousness are found
in virtually all societies (Bourguignon, 1968; Winkelman, 1992), reflecting
an innate drive for altering consciousness (Siegel, 2005). Societies have a
number of adaptations to the capacities of AC, for example, those manifested
in conditions distinguished as soul flight, possession, enlightenment, and
others. As Whitehead points out in Volume 1, culture fundamentally influen-
ces how our capacities are developed. Some cultures extol these experiences
while others vilify and block access to them. Laughlin, McManus, and d’Aquili
(1992) characterized cultural differences in relating to the alteration of con-
sciousness as ranging from “monophasic” cultures, which institutionally value
only waking consciousness, to “polyphasic void” cultures, which encourage
exploration of phases of consciousness beyond phenomenal reality.
Most cultures have traditions designed to enhance the availability of
altered consciousness such as those produced in shamanic and meditative
traditions. In contrast, the dominant cultural ethos of Indo-European soci-
eties generally ignores them or subjects those who seek them to patholog-
ization, social marginalization, or persecution. Some cultures believe that
altering consciousness provides a variety of adaptive advantages through
development of a more objective perception of the external world in
recognizing the illusory and constructed nature of ordinary perception.
For example, many cultures have viewed some drugs as entheogens,
sacred substances that produce a contact with the divine (e.g., Ra
¨tsch,
2005; Schultes & Hofmann, 1979).
In spite of different attitudes, it appears that virtually all societies have
practices that support the ability to function in this mode of altered
consciousness (Laughlin et al., 1992; Winkelman, 2000). This universality
indicates that these manifestations of AC are a part of human biological
potentials. Even when there is cultural repression of altered consciousness,
these experiences are nonetheless manifested because they reflect a
biological basis and its inevitable expression in human experience. Such
a biological basis indicates that we should be able to provide a scientific
explanation of these persistent and significant human phenomena.
Situating Altered Consciousness within Science
The scientific status of studies of altered consciousness has a doubly
stigmatized position—first, by being about consciousness, a field that still
struggles for general scientific recognition, and second, by being marked
as something altered. In spite of many scientific and other inquiries, one
24 Altering Consciousness
might legitimately claim that we still do not have a science of altered con-
sciousness.
Scientific fields, as conceptualized by the historian and philosopher of
science Thomas Kuhn (1970) in his now classic The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions, have regular features called paradigms that guide research
and provide general modes of explanation. In his Postscript—1969 Kuhn
(1970, p. 175) clarified his concepts of paradigm, emphasizing two levels
of use, which he distinguished with new terms:
1) the disciplinary matrix, the common beliefs, values, and techniques of a group
of scientists that provides the universally accepted concepts and practices of
the field and frameworks for most research; and
2) exemplars, an element of the disciplinary matrix, defined as concrete models
used for solutions to research problems.
The main elements of the disciplinary matrix include:
1) symbolic generalizations (exemplified in mathematical expressions, formulas
and laws);
2) metaphysics, analogies, and metaphors that provide acceptable models and
explanations;
3) values (e.g., criteria for research and evaluation of theories); and
4) exemplars (“paradigms”), the concrete problem solutions used to solve the
puzzles confronting the discipline (e.g., use of hydraulic models for explain-
ing electricity, wind, crowds, etc.).
Altered Consciousness within Paradigmatic Frameworks
As is typical of the social sciences in general, consciousness studies are
not characterized by the uniformity and agreement typical of paradigms of
the physical sciences; rather, theoretical diversity and heterodoxy reflect-
ing mutually exclusive paradigms are characteristic. For example, consider
the divergent concepts and theories regarding the nature of consciousness
found in Freudian psychology versus behaviorist psychology. Kuhn
emphasized that paradigms are shared by members of a scientific commu-
nity as a result of common education and training. The diversity of scien-
tific disciplines that study consciousness precludes the uniformity that a
paradigm presumes.
Kuhn proposed that competing schools of thought characterize scien-
tific fields in a preparadigm period, suggesting that consciousness studies
are in a preparadigmatic period. The study of consciousness and AC does
not have accepted symbolic generalizations or laws. Consciousness studies
A Paradigm for Understanding Altered Consciousness 25
in general do not share a metaphysics; instead, one might contend that
diametrically opposed metaphysics are found, ranging from strictly
materialist, reductionist, and dismissive perspectives to idealist and spiri-
tual systems of explanation. Consciousness studies have no core set of val-
ues, with extreme disciplinary diversity and competing camps (e.g.,
qualitative vs. quantitative approaches). Metaphysical and methodological
diversity produces a similar diversity in the exemplars used to elucidate
consciousness. These range from strictly descriptive and phenomenologi-
cal approaches to more systematic cross-cultural concepts (e.g., “soul
flight” and out-of-body experiences), to strictly materialist approaches
exemplified in using brain imaging as a measure of consciousness.
Paradigm Shifts in Science
Consciousness studies and AC may nonetheless be elucidated by
Kuhn’s models. A central feature of Kuhn’s model is the occurrence of sci-
entific revolutions that lead to radically new ways of understanding. Scien-
tific revolutions associated with the impacts of Copernicus, Darwin, and
Einstein involved abandoning one way of viewing the world in favor of a
new incompatible approach that rejected many prior elements and con-
cepts. Kuhn noted these are relatively rare occurrences, but that they are
key to advances in science. Kuhn proposed that significant changes in sci-
entific fields are characterized by a succession of paradigms (exemplars)
involving a reinterpretation of the elements of the disciplinary matrix.
Kuhn characterized scientific revolutions as reinterpretations, a new way
of seeing relationships among theories, concepts, and laws that involve
changes in the meaning of concepts. For instance, in the shift in
astronomy from the geocentric to the heliocentric model of the solar sys-
tem, the elements (the sun, planets, moons, and asteroids) remained the
same although there were changes in relationships among them and the
laws and models that explain their behavior.
Scientific revolutions are not the outcome of normal science but of
impediments to normal science produced by anomalies, findings that are
in contradiction to normal expectation. Anomalies play central roles in the
development of science. Anomalies are findings that provide counterexam-
ples to the assumptions of the dominant paradigm and are generally key ele-
ments in the development of new theoretical frameworks. These crises
produced by anomalies are the “prerequisite to fundamental inventions of
theory” (Kuhn, 1977, p. 208), producing a scientific revolution in the devel-
opment of a new exemplar for the disciplinary matrix [seeBeischel, Rock, &
Krippner, this volume].
26 Altering Consciousness
Altered Consciousness as an Anomaly
Studies of both ordinary consciousness and AC have produced find-
ings that are anomalies for the dominant materialist assumptions of the
physical sciences. But these anomalies have few central roles in any major
field of scientific inquiry, with the very question of consciousness seen by
some as falling outside of scientific inquiry altogether. Anomalies of
altered consciousness are generally seen as exceptions that are best dis-
missed as distorted data rather than novel findings.
Why have these disjunctures between consciousness studies and the rest
of science not provoked a scientific revolution? Kuhn noted that anomalies
must impede the work of normal science and that the significance of an
anomaly is dependent on the development of concepts and methodologies
that make it apparent. Furthermore, what constitutes anomalies and the
need for new paradigms is not strictly the facts but the social context that
dominates a science, including the policies and practices of professional
organizations and their publication organs. This lack of import of the
anomalies of AC for science in general reflects a significant source of these
findings outside of the established sciences in anthropology, folklore,
parapsychology, occult studies, and other marginalized sciences. One can
conclude that whatever anomalies the studies of AC present, they do not
affect the progress of scientific disciplines as currently practiced.
These phenomena of AC may, nonetheless, be the keys to truly novel
developments in science. Philosopher of science Karl Popper chided Kuhn
for his satisfaction with scientific revolutions, considering them to be
“ordinary science.” Scientific revolutions are rather modest affairs in
Kuhn’s (1970) clarifications, the change in the exemplars with other
aspects of the disciplinary matrix (values and metaphysic and symbolic
generalizations) remaining the same; the findings of the past are main-
tained. Popper (1972) argued for a more thorough revision of the bases
of science in ideological revolutions in which the fundamental assumptions
of the paradigm and theories of science are altered.
In assessing the role of AC within the broader psychology of con-
sciousness, a paramount question is whether such findings constitute a
scientific revolution or even a more profound ideological revolution.
Those who have devoted their lives and careers to consciousness studies
often make such claims, pointing to vastly different conceptions of human
nature demanded by these unusual experiences. Their claims, however,
have not swayed the heterodox field of consciousness studies to a unanim-
ity of opinion that would create a common paradigm, nor have the anoma-
lies demanded major changes in metaphysics, methodology, and values of
A Paradigm for Understanding Altered Consciousness 27
other scientific disciplines that are the hallmark of ideological revolutions.
Whatever claims studies of AC have for fomenting scientific or ideological
revolutions, they remain unrealized, perhaps simply premature for a field
still in its infancy.
Nonetheless, Kuhn also emphasized that during the preparadigmatic
period, the community shares paradigmatic elements. In our contribu-
tions here, I foresee the emergence of a paradigm for the study of AC that
may bring the significance of these phenomena to the forefront of other
scientific disciplines. Below I propose a model of AC that constitutes a
neurophenomenological paradigm linking biological features and phe-
nomenological experiences.
A Reconceptualization of ASC: The Integrative Mode of Consciousness
The concept of altered states of consciousness (ASC) as a topic for
legitimate scientific inquiry emerged in the 1960s. A central figure contrib-
uting to this emerging field was Charles Tart (e.g., 1975, 1977). His influen-
tial books and edited volumes contributed to the formation of an implicit
paradigm of ASC that has persisted for decades. This paradigmatic frame-
work for AC was explicitly linked to waking consciousness.
Tart defined states of consciousness (SoC) as conditions that differ qualita-
tively from others by the presence of conditions or characteristics absent in
other states. SoC represent how people judge usual alterations in experience
and are identified by the individual’s assessment of patterns of experience.
Different SoC are determined by personal significance. Tart (1977) concep-
tualized ASC in terms of differences from the baseline state of conscious-
ness, “an active stable overall patterning of psychological functions that,
via multiple (feedback) stabilization relationships among the parts making
it up, maintains its identity in spite of environmental changes” (p. 192).
The ASC paradigm takes the ordinary aspects of consciousness as the frame-
work for conceptualizing the significant aspects of altered consciousness.
The personal significance of a SoC is of less importance to science than
are the underlying biological dynamics that give both similarity to SoC
across people and regular features of ASC across people and cultures.
What is most significant about ASC is not simply that they have personal
significance but that they have a significance that transcends both personal
and cultural factors. These transpersonal and transcultural features point
to their biological foundations. This notion of a biological basis did not
figure significantly in this paradigm of ASC. But Tart’s pioneering work
also pointed to the reality of altered consciousness that involves something
28 Altering Consciousness
transcendental, a set of significant human conditions that must be under-
stood with respect to their own intrinsic properties. Tart’s (1972) concept
of state-specific sciences foreshadowed the perspective suggested below
that characterizes AC in epistemological terms, as specific forms of know-
ing (also see Winkelman, 2010).
To understand altered consciousness requires a framework that goes
beyond personal significance and baseline or waking consciousness.The
neurophenomenological approach proposes a conceptualization of altered
consciousness in relationship to several biologically based functional
modes of operation that we share with other organisms.
Modes of Consciousness
Similarities in manifestations of waking, deep sleep, and dreams across
species and cultures reflect common underlying biological structures.
These biologically structured foundations are discussed as modes of con-
sciousness. A mode of consciousness is a biologically based functional sys-
tem of organismic operation that reflects conditions of homeostatic
balance among brain subsystems to meet global organismic needs (see
Winkelman, 2010, for discussion and details). Different modes of con-
sciousness are revealed in the congruencies in the primary daily patterns
of variation in behavior and experiences of humans and other animals.
We share with other animals the daily cycles of sleep and waking, with
homologous brain structures responsible for these patterns. Similarly,
humans share the dream mode of consciousness with most mammals.
Their presence in other animals indicates the transcendent nature of these
human modes of consciousness. In addition, humans experience altered
consciousness, conceptualized here as the integrative mode of conscious-
ness. Although learning and cultural factors produce variance in these
modes of consciousness in humans, their similar patterns cross-
culturally (and across species) reflect underlying biological functions and
organismic functions and needs:
Waking: learning, adaptation, and food and other survival needs;
Deep sleep: recuperative functions, regeneration, and growth;
Dreaming (REM sleep): memory integration and consolidation and psychosocial
adaptation; and
Integrative: psychodynamic growth and social and psychological integration.
These modes are so basic to organismic operation that they are function-
ally wired in multiple ways into brain structures, as illustrated in the brain’s
A Paradigm for Understanding Altered Consciousness 29
control of dreaming. No single region of the brain is entirely responsible for
the initiation of REM sleep, and dreaming persists or re-emerges even after
excising the supposed dream areas (Graham, 1990; also see Alkire & Miller,
2005; Hobson, 2005; and Kokoszka & Wallace, Volume 2, for general neu-
ral correlates of sleep and dreams).
Tart’s baseline and altered states of consciousness correspond to the
waking and integrative modes of consciousness, respectively. Because
SoCs differ in terms of personal significance or psychological subsystems,
they are a subsidiary level of analysis to that of modes, which are derived
from physiological processes related to organismic needs and homeostatic
balance. SoC occur within modes, with their specific characteristics deter-
mined by the social, cultural, and psychological effects rather than by the
strictly biological needs. Different states of consciousness are found within
each of the modes of consciousness—sleep, dreaming, waking, and inte-
grative. During the modes of deep sleep and dreams, a variety of SoC
may emerge, including pathological states such as somnambulism, noctur-
nal automatisms, sleep drunkenness, sleep terrors, and also “normal”
states such as hypnagogic and hypnopompic transitions between being
awake and being asleep. The integrative mode of consciousness includes
various SoC (e.g., soul flight, possession, samadhi), but would not include
everything that Tart considered ASC since some SoC have disintegrative
and pathological features rather than integrative effects.
Biological Bases of the Integrative Mode of Consciousness
Diverse states of altered consciousness reflect similar brain responses.
Common mechanisms involve manipulation of the autonomic nervous
system through extensive ergotropic (sympathetic) activation leading to a
collapse into a trophotropic (parasympathetic) dominant state with a
slowing of the brain wave discharges into a more synchronized and coher-
ent pattern (see Winkelman, 2010, for review). Altered consciousness epi-
sodes are also characterized by an integration of the various levels of the
brain. This integration is manifested in entrainment of the frontal cortex
by highly coherent and synchronized slow-wave discharges emanating
from the limbic system and related lower-brain structures. These entrain-
ments may occur at a variety of frequencies, but two predominant patterns
are synchronized slow-wave theta bands (3–6 cycles per second) and the
high-frequency gamma oscillations (40+ cps). These synchronized brain
wave patterns justify labeling them as an integrative mode of consciousness
(Winkelman, 2000). The biological foundation for these experiences is
30 Altering Consciousness
reflected in their production by a wide variety of natural agents (i.e., psy-
chedelic drugs) and ritual procedures (i.e., trauma, extreme fasting, and
exertion) that elicit these brain wave patterns.
This paradigm of integrative consciousness originates in the work of
Mandell (1980), who suggested that physiological mechanisms underly-
ing “transcendent states” are based in a common neurochemical
pathway-involving the temporal lobe. Many agents and procedures result
in a loss of serotonin inhibition to the hippocampal cells, producing an
increase in cell activity and the manifestation of hippocampal-septal
slow-wave EEG activity (alpha, delta, and especially theta) that imposes a
synchronous slow-wave pattern across the lobes. Mandell suggested that
the neurobiological basis underlying transcendent states, including their
ineffable and religious components, involves a “biogenic amine-
temporal-lobe limbic neurology . . . the mesolimbic serotonergic pathway
that extends from the median raphe nucleus in the mesencephalon, coex-
istent with part of the mesencephalic reticular formation regulating arousal
. . . to the septum and hippocampus” (pp. 381, 390). This produces hyper-
synchronous discharges across the hippocampal-septal-reticular-raphe
circuit, which links the R(reptilian) complex and paleomammalian brain.
Agents and procedures that invoke this pattern include hallucinogens,
amphetamines, cocaine, marijuana, polypeptide opiates, long-distance run-
ning, hunger, thirst, sleep loss, auditory stimuli such as drumming and
chanting, sensory deprivation, dream states, meditation, and a variety of
psychophysiological imbalances or sensitivities resulting from injury,
trauma, disease, or hereditarily transmitted nervous system conditions (see
Winkelman, 2010, for review).
The underlying psychobiology of many forms of AC involves this
response based in the serotonergic connections between the limbic system
and brain stem regions [see Presti and various chapters on psychoactive
drugs, Volume 2]. While dopamine mechanisms are also involved, sero-
tonin has a significant role as a neuromodulator that regulates the activities
of many other neurotransmitter systems.Mandell proposed that the hippo-
campus is the focal point of the mechanisms that reduce the inhibitory
serotonin regulation of temporal lobe limbic function. The loss of inhibi-
tory regulation by serotonin results in a reduction or loss of the “gating”
of emotional response and an enhancement of dopamine circuitry. This
loss of gating combined with hippocampal-septal-discharges results
in an emotional flooding or ecstasy (cf. Mandell 1980, p. 400). The
hippocampal-septal system is an association area involved in the forma-
tion and the mediation of memory and emotions. The synchronous pat-
terns originating in the hippocampal-septal-reticular raphe circuits
A Paradigm for Understanding Altered Consciousness 31
reflect linkages of the attentional mechanisms in the behavioral brain
regions (reticular formation) and the emotional brain. These synchronous
electrical discharges propagate up the major axon bundles from the base
of the brain into the frontal cortex, integrating activity from ancient levels
of the brain into the frontal lobes.
Psychedelics and Cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical Feedback Loops
This paradigm of integration as a generic feature underlying AC is illus-
trated by Vollenweider’s (1998) research on the mechanisms of action of
psychedelics on the major cortical loops. The frontal-subcortical circuits
provide one of the principal organizational networks of the brain involv-
ing neuronal linkages and feedback loops of the cortical areas of the fron-
tal brain with the thalamus of the brain stem region (Cummings, 1993).
These loops unite specific regions of the frontal cortex with lower brain
regions, specifically the basal ganglia, substantia nigra, and the thalamus.
These circuits are central to brain–behavioral relationships, mediating
motor activity and eye movement, as well as social actions, motivations,
and executive functions. Vollenweider attributes the consciousness-
altering properties of psychedelics to their selective effects on the brain’s
cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical feedback loops that link the information
gating systems of lower levels of the brain with the frontal cortex. These
loops are regulated by the thalamus, which limits the ascending informa-
tion to the frontal cortex from the environment and body. Psychedelics
disable this disinhibition process; this increases access to the flow of infor-
mation that is ordinarily inhibited, overwhelming the frontal cortex and
leading to an alteration of experience of self, other, environment, and the
internal world of psychological structures and projection.
Altered Consciousness as Dysregulation of the Prefrontal Cortex
The notion that alterations of consciousness involve a disruption of the
processes of the frontal cortex is elaborated by Dietrich (2003), who pro-
poses that a variety of conditions of AC involve a temporary dysregulation
of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). He reviews psychological and neurological
studies on the effects of endurance running, dreaming, hypnosis, drug-
induced states, and meditation to illustrate their commonality in the dis-
ruption of the higher-order functions associated with the PFC. The
common effects of this disruption are manifested in the loss of the roles
of the frontal lobes and prefrontal cortex involved in highly integrated
aspects of neural information processing and higher cognitive functions.
32 Altering Consciousness
The downregulation of certain mental faculties from conscious aware-
ness involves a subtraction of certain faculties or experiences, with a vari-
ety of different modules capable of being down-regulated, reducing
awareness to a lower condition within the hierarchy of conscious states.
Greater alterations of consciousness, such as those experienced in dream-
ing or out-of-body experiences (OBE), involve a greater amount of down-
regulation of prefrontal mediated capacities [see Dieguez & Blanke, Vol-
ume 2]. The different kinds of prefrontal capacities and different degrees
of deregulation provide for a variety of phenomenological alterations to
consciousness. The different agents and activities that lead to this dysere-
gulation do so in distinct ways that produce unique phenomenological
characteristics of religious experiences. Dietrich proposes that these differ-
ent forms of hypofrontality involve a general principle of a hierarchical
and progressive disengagement with the more sophisticated cognitive
skills and levels of consciousness involving self-awareness and planning
(e.g., self-reflection, sense of time, planning) being compromised first, fol-
lowed by lower-level systems. The dysregulation of the PFC allows a num-
ber of unusual self-experiences related to our more ancient brain
functions. Dietrich (2003) proposed that the lack of engagement of the
PFC results in the lack of certain frontal qualities—willful action, self-
awareness, the deliberate direction of attention, abstract and creative
thought, and planning. However, many alterations of consciousness, nota-
bly the shamanic soul journey and many meditative states, have those
properties, requiring explanation of how these capacities persist.
Meditation as Integrative and Dissociative Brain Dynamics
The integrative and dissociative or “dysregulated” brain dynamics of
AC are exemplified in meditation. Since the earliest studies, there have
been consistent reports of similarities across meditative disciplines in a
shift toward parasympathetic dominance, an overall decrease in frequency
of the brain waves to alpha and theta ranges, and increases in alpha and
theta amplitude and regularity in the frontal and central regions of the
brain (Taylor, Murphy, & Donovan, 1997). More recent research confirms
that typical brain waves associated with meditation involve an increase in
alpha waves, which then decrease in frequency toward dominant theta
rhythms (Cahn & Polich, 2006; Takahashi et al., 2005). Hebert and
coworkers (2005) implicated alpha EEG during meditation as a form of
“integration in the brain that leads to high-level cognitive processes.”
These are the same basic systemic physiological principles underlying the
concept of the integrative mode of consciousness: enhanced synchronization
A Paradigm for Understanding Altered Consciousness 33
of brain wave patterns. An additional level of meditation-induced integration
in the brain is reflected in biphasic hypersynchronous high-frequency
gamma waves (35–44 cps; see Lehmann et al., 2001; Lutz et al., 2004,
Vialatte et al., 2009). The presence of gamma in meditation is a direct confir-
mation of the integrative model because gamma is associated with binding of
diverse signals within the brain; furthermore, gamma synchronization is
modulated by the theta and alpha rhythms (Fries, 2009, p. 217).
Altered consciousness also necessarily involves selective segregation or
deafferentation of input from brain systems. Dissociation may nonetheless
reflect the integration of the principles of lower brain systems and their
imposition on the frontal cortex. This dissociation is specifically seen in
meditation and hypnosis, as well as in more obviously dissociative condi-
tions such as spirit possession [see Sluhovsky, this volume]. D’Aquili and
Newberg (1999) propose that mystical experience involves interference
with the normal functions of tertiary association areas, namely a deafferenta-
tion or functional cutting off of input into a structure. Deafferentation
results in a structure firing independent of normal input from other parts
of the brain. Inhibition of some structures explains the ineffable aspects of
mystical experiences, a result of being cut off from language production
centers. D’Aquili and Newberg propose that deafferentation of limbic stimu-
lation results in specific effects such as relaxation and profound quiescence,
ecstatic and blissful feelings, and a sense of pure space and obliteration of
the self–other distinction. Enhancing the attentional processes characteristic
of meditation results in deafferentation of input from other systems, such as
the environment, that would be distracting to highly focused attention.
Hypnosis as Dissociation
Selection for a biological disposition to these highly focused internal
states of awareness and limbic–frontal integration characterized by theta
wave discharge patterns is illustrated by hypnosis (Crawford, 1994).
Highly hypnotizable people have attentional filtering mechanisms that
provide a concentration with a simultaneous dissociation of some cogni-
tive features [see Carden
˜a & Alvarado, this volume]. Crawford proposed
that hypnosis and its enhanced attention reflect an interaction between
subcortical and cortical brain mechanisms that enable highly hypnotizable
people to sustain attention as well as disattention. A consequence of the
highly hypnotizable individual’s more efficient frontal limbic attentional
systems is the ability to disattend to extraneous stimuli, known as cogni-
tive inhibition, which is associated with enhanced theta-wave production.
34 Altering Consciousness
Enhanced limbic frontal interaction characteristic of highly hypnotizable
individuals is a pattern of brain functioning that typifies the integrative
mode of consciousness, an enhanced interaction between the limbic and
the frontal brain that produces integration across the neuraxis and holistic
information-processing styles (Crawford, 1994)
Dissociation is reflected in the highly susceptible hypnotic subject’s
ability to engage an alternative reality that is demanded by a social rela-
tionship with the hypnotist, expressed in the concept of rapport that
reflects the person’s cooperation with the hypnotist. This feature of hyp-
notic susceptibility also exemplifies integration, epitomized in the ability
to subject oneself to the theory of mind manifested by others in complying
with the requests of the hypnotist. This lower-level brain control is illus-
trated by highly hypnotic subjects’ greater efficiency in implementing the
strategies suggested by others (the hypnotist) while having a general
inability to voluntarily alter their own strategic performance, a predomi-
nance of paleomammalian brain functions over the frontal cortex (also
see Jamieson, 2007; Jamieson & Woody 2007; Ray, 2007).
Hypnosis shifts the interaction between the frontal and limbic systems
to the latter’s evolved capacities for processing of survival-related informa-
tion and feelings (Woody & Szechtman, 2007), allowing social feelings to
take precedence over the sensory world in dictating behavior. Hypnotic
susceptibility engages the motivational systems that manage social hier-
archy, with the individual accepting a subordinate position and the impo-
sition of the will of a dominant other. Highly susceptible hypnotic subjects
experience a dominance of the limbic structures in an enhanced orienta-
tion to the emotional/motivation engagement with the hypnotist, reflect-
ing the survival value of the evolved capacity to subordinate the
individual’s personal perceptions and behaviors to the wishes of the leader.
This reflects the unconscious emotional control of volition characteristic of
hypnosis, where the higher-level ego structures do not identify with the
volitional qualities of behavior generated unconsciously.
This reflects the basic features of the model of the integrative mode of
consciousness, where lower-level structures impose their dynamics on
the overall functional outcomes. The model is supported by the state
approaches to hypnosis, which see it as engaging structures of conscious-
ness and brain networks distinctive from those of waking consciousness.
In contrast to the orientation to the external sensory world, hypnosis and
SoC in the integrative mode of consciousness engage this imagined alter-
native that controls the body, including physiological responses, percep-
tions, emotions, behaviors, and thoughts.
A Paradigm for Understanding Altered Consciousness 35
Spirit Possession as Integration and Dissociation
This interactive dynamic of integration and dissociation is illustrated in
the context of possession and dissociative disorders.Since dissociation is
by definition “a lack of integration of psychological processes that normally
should be integrated” (Carden
˜a & Gleaves, 2003, p. 474), it would seem
that the dissociative interpretation of possession directly contradicts the
fundamental thesis of the integrative mode of consciousness. Without
question, possession involves some forms of dissociation and separation,
such as manifested in amnesia. But what do the symptoms or processes of
possession tell us about the functioning of the individual? These processes
of dissociation have been viewed as defense mechanisms to allow the inte-
grated functioning of the emotional self in the face of self-destroying trauma.
Seligman and Kirmayer (2008) reviewed research on dissociation in
normal populations, where its similarities with pathological forms are
characterized positively in terms of an intense focus of attention, isolation
from the external environment, and absorption, particularly with inter-
nally generated thoughts and images such as daydreams. A dominant
hypothesis is that dissociation evolved as a mechanism to block awareness
and memories in order to escape the stress of interpersonal situations, for
example, protecting oneself from extreme emotional stimulation and asso-
ciated autonomic arousal that comes from an attack or betrayal. The ability
of traumatic stress to block consolidation of conscious narrative memories
provides an explanation based on evolutionary adaptations. Distancing of
self and identity provides emotional numbing mechanisms that can inhibit
the flight-or-fight response, enabling a more objective search for survival
strategies rather than being driven by emotional fears. In order to seek sol-
utions to pressing problems, certain information is compartmentalized,
kept out of consciousness, so that adaptive responses may be made.
Seligman and Kirmayer (2008) showed how we can reconcile the
adaptive paradigm of dissociation with the obvious nonadaptive patho-
logical dimensions by examining how the social context interacts with
psychophysiological bases. Dissociation involves a regulation of atten-
tional mechanisms that allow a selective suppression of perceptions and
memories and a reduction of physiological stress. In shamanistic rituals,
these traumatic dissociative experiences are addressed in processes that
allow the emergence of an integrated sense of self linked to “others” who
provide a variety of attachment functions for self integration. Sar and
Ozturk (2007) propose that dissociation involves a detachment of the
psychological self from the sociological self. In this dissociation, the socio-
logical self becomes amplified. This sociological self, which functions in
36 Altering Consciousness
the interface between the individual and society, undergoes an accelerated
development as a consequence of trauma. This protective dissociation of
the psychological self allows for a reestablishment of connections between
the inner and outer world through the sociological self.
Social roles of possession exemplify this control, where higher-order
representations embodied in the personalities of possession spirits redirect
identity and behavior to adapt to varying social circumstances. Possession
must be seen in light of an extreme tendency to identify with idealized
social norms embodied in the social functions of the paleomammalian
brain.
Allison and Schwarz (1999) provide an understanding of the integra-
tion involved in the possessing “other” in the context of dissociative iden-
tity disorders and the operation of what they called an “inner self helper,”
a source of unconscious inner guidance. This personality structure of
these patients was aware of all of the multiple identities and had a greater
consciousness and control than did the ego. This inner helper also could
help and strengthen the ego in its struggles with the other personalities.
The inner self helper provides a psychological space for control, stability,
clarity, and self-understanding. Comstock (1991) emphasized the ability
of this structure to operate as an organizing force for the person. This
identity provides integrative potentials for the patient and processes of
therapeutic resolution of the dissociated aspects of the ego in the integra-
tion or psychological fusion of the personalities.
Common Denominators in Altered Consciousness
Frecska and Luna (2006) suggested that commonalities in techniques
that alter consciousness involve two opposite processes: overstressing the
frontal-prefrontal circuits of the coping mechanisms or dysregulating
them, pushing them below the functional range. They propose that the
resulting effect is the emergence of a direct intuitive information process-
ing that replaces the ordinary perceptual-cognitive processing. Frecska
and Luna point to support for this model of integrative consciousness in:
(1) the final common pathway of psychedelic drugs’ action in the thala-
mus; (2) the role of thalamic gamma synchronization in binding; (3) the
vertical organization of fronto-subcortico-thalamic feedback loops; and
(4) their relations to the horizontal layering of McLean’s triune brain
model.
This perspective illustrates that integration and dissociation or deaffer-
entation are complementary and co-dependent processes. Typical
A Paradigm for Understanding Altered Consciousness 37
alterations of consciousness occur with an enhanced integration of lower
brain processes that may simultaneously disengage other habitual pro-
cesses of knowing. This also helps illustrate how AC constitutes a special
form of knowing.
Examination of these brain patterns of AC from the perspectives of
MacLean’s (1990) model of the triune brain illustrates the elicitation of
the paleomentation and the emotio-mentation processes of lower brain
structures (R-complex and limbic brain) and their management of emo-
tions, attachment, social relations and bonding, sense of self, and convic-
tions about beliefs.Procedures and conditions that alter consciousness
have an intrinsic potential to produce an integration of information
processing between the R-complex and the limbic system, between the
limbic system and the frontal cortex, and between the hemispheres of
the cortex; hence the labeling as the integrative mode of consciousness.
A primary characteristic of integrative consciousness involves an
ascending integration of brain mechanisms, a limbic-system driving of
the frontal cortex that integrates the preconscious or unconscious func-
tions and material into self-conscious awareness. Key physiological mech-
anisms underlying integrative forms of consciousness are found in
activation of the paleomammalian brain, specifically the hippocampal-
septal circuits, the hypothalamus, and related brain structures that regu-
late emotions (MacLean, 1990). These effects contribute to a second char-
acteristic of integrative forms of consciousness, the ability to act on the
structures of earlier levels of consciousness by engaging operational struc-
tures of the unconscious and dissociated aspects of the self. This engage-
ment allows a differential elicitation of specific aspects of the psyche and
their integration at a higher level of awareness and self-organization.
Conclusions
Explaining AC requires neurophenomenological approaches that link
biological functions and structures to the cultural processes producing
experience. These neurophenomenological approaches (e.g., Laughlin,
McManus, & d’Aquili, 1992; Winkelman, 2010) illustrate that alterations
of consciousness engage special forms of knowing. A prominent manifes-
tation of altered consciousness involves imagetic representations known
as a presentational symbolism (Hunt, 1995). This system of visual symbol-
ism provides knowledge—one might even say wisdom—beyond that of
our rational language-based consciousness, exemplified in the out-of-
body experiences of shamans. Altered consciousness reflects this early
38 Altering Consciousness
level of symbolism through which we know the universe in ways much
like those of other animals through a variety of prelanguage structures
and processes of knowing. Altered consciousness involves special forms
of the integration of consciousness through an elevation of the precon-
scious processes of our ancient reptilian and paleomammalian brains.
These levels of consciousness produce key aspects of AC such as holistic
perceptions and intuition, special forms of pre–self-identification, nonver-
bal knowledge, and manifestations of intense emotional engagement and
detachment.
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