Preview

Essay On Altered State Of Consciousness

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
359 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Essay On Altered State Of Consciousness
How Consciousness Works Consciousness is being aware of what is going on around you and inside you. Many philosophers have struggled to understand consciousness. Now with greater technology in our hands we are able to understand it better. When you dream you are in an altered state of consciousness. Some people try to achieve the state of altered consciousness with drugs or more natural ways like meditation and hypnosis.
There are three main types of consciousness. Consciousness as sensory awareness involves 5 senses. Your five senses allow you to know what is going on in the environment around you. Sometimes you have to select one so you can focus on what needs to be done. Consciousness as direct inner awareness is something that doesn't actually happen but you can imagine what it is like. Consciousness as sense of self is realizing you are an individual.
There are three levels of consciousness. The first level is called the preconscious level. This is not readily available in the mind, but it is something that can be remembered if needed for example your schedule. The second level is the unconscious level. That is information that you can not get out. Even if you are not aware of it, like not realizing you don’t want to go to the doctors.
…show more content…
One way of being in an altered state of consciousness is sleep. You are not aware of what is going on around you. You have dreams and are unable to move something. Another way that people can be in altered state of consciousness is under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Some drugs make you feel very relaxed, violent, or unaware of your actions. Others stimulate your body. Meditation, biofeedback and hypnosis are also ways to be in altered states of consciousness. In hypnosis, they respond to suggestions without realizing it. In biofeedback, they become aware of their inner body. Meditation is used to relax the bodies and gain

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    The second element to consciousness is excerptation. This is the ability to recall selected descriptive elements of a particular concept relevant to our experience. For example, if I ask you to think of an amusement park, you may first think of a Ferris wheel, a dart game you were good at, or maybe the shady looking carny who once stood in front of the balloon targets in order to prevent you from winning the good prizes. In all these cases, you are taking an excerpt from the total experience as representative of the whole.…

    • 1598 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    8. Automatic processes- when you start doing something that you have done many times, you can complete it successfully without giving any thought. It requires little awareness and does not interfere with other outgoing activates. Controlled processes- a voluntary movement which requires a lot of attention and alertness for example driving a car. Daydreaming- requires low level awareness and it is fantasizing or your mind wondering off while awake. Altered states- Medication, drugs, alcohol, or other number of procedures can produce an awareness that differs from your normal conscious. Sleep and dreams- one biological theory is a repair theory- the brain and body repairs or replenishes itself while sleeping. Sleep consists…

    • 535 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Campbell says that consciousness is something that the mind uses to guide you to a certain direction or towards a set of purposes. Consciousness is all your thoughts at a deeper level and your awareness or perception of your surroundings. Your consciousness depends on your level of energy that leads us to higher level consciousness. What leads you to these levels of consciousness? Myth. Mythology transforms your consciousness on a deeper level and to a higher spiritual level. You can not develop your consciousness without mythology…

    • 1476 Words
    • 43 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    A. The two-track mind is made up of unconscious processing and serial conscious processing. Our brain is dual-processing, meaning that we interpret things at the same time. For example, the visual perception track enables us to unconsciously recognize objects and plan for the future. The visual action track deals with our conscious, moment-to-moment actions. So, unconscious processing is information that is drilled into your mind that allows us to run on “auto-pilot”. Our conscious, serial processing, is what is used to observe the task at hand. It requires focus and is adept at solving problems.…

    • 1085 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    States of Consciousness

    • 478 Words
    • 2 Pages

    There are various states of consciousness; the one that people spend the most time in is waking consciousness, the alert state that people are in when they are awake. Other times people are in another or altered state of consciousness. In the following, the four types of altered states of consciousness and their behaviors will be examined.…

    • 478 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chapter 4 talks about states of consciousness. William James is associated with the stream of consciousness, which is a term used to describe the continuous flow of changing stations sensations, images, thoughts, and feelings. Consciousness is an individual’s awareness of external events and internal sensations under a condition of arousal. There are two types of consciousness, awareness and arousal. Awareness is awareness of the self and thoughts about one's experiences and thoughts about our thoughts is referred to as metacognition. Arousal is the physiological state of being engaged with the environment and is determined by the reticular activation system (RAS) and "a network of structures including the brain stem, medulla, and thalamus."…

    • 1123 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Consciousness can also be altered through physical stimulation, such as electronic shock during surgery that can cause completely realistic hallucinations. This also includes the use of narcotics to change the way we perceive the world around us as well as influence our thoughts and feelings. Taking a look at the Easy Problem again, the question of why consciousness exists is approached. One of the reasons given is so that our brains do not become overloaded with information. If we were consciously responsible for every little muscle twitch or heartbeat, our conscious mind could not handle it, unlike our unconscious.…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Altered State of Consciousness, also known as ASC, is a temporary change in one's normal mental state without being considered unconscious. There are many different types of ASC but some examples would be dissociation, hypnosis and meditation. All these forms of ASC can all be achieved in different ways, and are achieved for different reasons. For example, meditation is usually used to help reduce stress, and lower anxiety. While hypnosis is used to open people to the power of suggestion.…

    • 902 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Consciousness is the state or condition of being conscious. A sense of one's personal or collective identity, especially the complex of attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or a group. There are several different stages of consciousness. Waking consciousness, altered states of consciousness and sleep.…

    • 1182 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first state of altered consciousness that I will talk about is sleep and dreams, a state that we have many hypotheses about, but not too much fact. We do know that sleep and dreams are resulted from being awake for too long. Sleep is a mandatory function of the human body, and without it, many health problems arise. Without enough sleep, we can lose our sanity, lose all concentration, see hallucinations, and eventually die. A lot of hypotheses behind sleep are based on different things, some being that sleep is used to recharge batteries and reformat the body, preparing it for the next day, as well as having the body grow and repair itself. Another idea is that sleeping is to let us dream, which are images and experiences you have in your mind when you sleep. Nobody knows the factual reason behind why we sleep, only that it could mean anything or nothing. A lot of people think that dreams are premonitions,…

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Outline of Consciousness

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages

    William Wundt (late 1880 's) had subjects report contents of consciousness while working, falling asleep, and sitting still.…

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    consciousness

    • 270 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Consciousness refers to your individual awareness of your unique thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations and environment. Your conscious experiences are constantly shifting and changing.…

    • 270 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    consciousness exactly as it occurs. The method used to enable this will be discussed in combination…

    • 1414 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Revonsuo, A., Kallio, S., & Sikka, P. (2009). What is an altered state of consciousness? Philosophical Psychology, 22(2), 187-204. doi:10.1080/09515080902802850…

    • 547 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Conciousness

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Consciousness is the awareness of the sensations, thoughts and feelings being experienced at a given moment.…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays