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Ayahuasca
Published in Mahendra Rai, Shandesh Bhattarai, Chistiane M. Feitosa, Wild Plants, 2020
Raquel Consul, Flávia Lucas, Maria Graça Campos
The induced altered state of consciousness is always difficult to compare and describe because of its abstract character. However, the most referenced subjective effects are introspection, serenity, almost biographical memories of experiences, sensation of well-being, hallucinations and synaesthesia, more specifically, visual and auditory, as well as mystical and religious experiences (Dos Santos et al. 2017b).
Hypnosis and guided imagery
Published in Hilary McClafferty, Mind–Body Medicine in Clinical Practice, 2018
One of the great controversies in hypnosis is whether it can be considered an altered state of consciousness. Some studies suggest that hypnosis is associated with decreased default mode network activity, with high hypnotizability correlating with increased functional connectivity between the executive control network and the salience network, regions of the brain that determine which stimuli are most relevant. A 2016 study by Jiang et al. used functional MRI (fMRI) imaging to examine brain activity and functional connectivity between brain regions in 57 individuals tested and grouped based on high versus low hypnotizability using the Harvard Group Scale for Hypnotic Susceptibility. Participants underwent scanning in four states: resting, memory retrieval, and two different hypnotic experiences (Jiang et al. 2016).
Severe and enduring mental illness in relation to discrimination, racism, prejudice, ethnicity and culture
Published in April Russello, Severe Mental Illness in Primary Care, 2018
The Western category of hallucination excludes dreams and also makes a rigid distinction between daydreams, imagery and hallucinations. In his research on hallucinations and culture, the psychologist Ihsan Al-Issa (1995) has shown how in some other cultural settings less pathological significance might be attached to these distinctions. On the contrary, hallucinations may be deliberately induced or at least fostered under culturally controlled conditions. The meaning of these intentionally induced hallucinations is shared by the community so they lack psychopathological significance. Far from being evidence of mental illness, the participants in ritually induced altered states of consciousness and trance states in which hallucinations can occur, regard the experience in a positive light, and people might attribute the experience to a privileged contact with the supernatural, e.g. Pentecostals (Littlewood and Lipsedge, 1997).
Can the revival of serotonergic psychedelic drugs as treatments for mental disorders help to characterize their risks and benefits?
Published in Expert Opinion on Drug Safety, 2022
M. Ishrat Husain, Madeha Umer, Benoit H. Mulsant
Another concern with psychedelic use is the risk of harm to self and others (including lethal harm) while in an altered state of consciousness, as highlighted by several tragic case reports [24]. However, recent clinical trials suggest that these serious adverse events are very rare and can be prevented with adequate participant screening, monitoring, and safety protocols. Except for the small placebo-controlled RCT of ayahuasca that showed a larger reduction in suicidality with ayahuasca than with placebo [17], all published contemporary trials described above have excluded participants with active suicidal ideation. Although treatment-emergent suicidality has not been reported, there was one suicide in a participant treated for end-of-life distress, 2 weeks after receiving a subtherapeutic 1-mg dose of psilocybin [8]. In the context of reported good tolerability and safety in a series of small trials, larger trials are now needed to better determine the frequency of clinically relevant adverse events, and to optimize safety protocols required to prevent them. Until the risks of psychedelics are better characterized, their use should be limited to clinical trials in people with a personal history of psychosis, mania, or hypomania (which, to date, have been exclusion criteria in all published contemporary clinical trials).
Hypnotizability and the Natural Human Ability to Alter Experience
Published in International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 2021
Altered states of consciousness during religious ceremonies or spiritual practices (e.g., speaking in tongues, religious conversion experiences, shamanic visions, spirit possession, yogic meditation, etc.) seem to be highly motivated (i.e., hoped for and sought) experiences. Although these spiritual experiences are probably equally sought by lows, mediums, and highs, they occur most readily and with the greatest verisimilitude in highs (Cardeña, 1992; Coe, 1900; Dell, 2009; Gibbons & De Jarnette, 1972; James, 2003). In other words – like (1) imaginary companions, (2) fantasy-prone persons, and (3) those with frequent out-of-body fantasies – the spiritual activities listed above are practiced by persons with various degrees of “hypnotic” ability – but are experienced most vividly by highs.
Styles of Experiencing Hypnosis: A Replication and Extension Study
Published in International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 2020
Michael T. M. Finn, Lindsey C. McKernan
In her mixed-methods work with 34 highly hypnotizable individuals (those who scored in the top 3% on one of two standardized hypnotizability scales; Barrett, 1996, p. 123), Barrett recognized and described two subtypes: fantasizers and dissociators (1996, p. 125). The fantasizers reported vivid, absorbing imagery in hypnosis experienced as fantasy. They reported feeling ownership of hypnosis and described trance as familiar to their waking fantasy life. The dissociators reported amnesia during hypnosis with the suggested imagery experienced as real. For dissociators, the hypnosis experience did not feel like it was their own doing (more the skills of the hypnotist) and felt unique, unlike other experiences in their lives. Differences between these two groups extended outside of hypnosis as well, indicating that, at least for highly hypnotizable individuals, these subtypes of experience may be more broadly relevant. Other research delineates a two-part distinction in the manner of experiencing hypnosis among hypnotizable subjects, a distinction where dissociation emerges as differentiating factor (e.g., Brown & Oakley, 2004; Carlson & Putnam, 1989). Anthropological accounts of altered states of consciousness induced by ritual suggest a similar two-part distinction in ways of experiencing (Cardeña, 1996). See Terhune and Cardeña (2010) for a thorough account of scholarly tradition informing their work and Barrett’s (e.g., 1996) work on ways of experiencing hypnosis.