Very close to clearly defined boundariesConsciousness of a person is an area that contains a lot of unknown and unusual. Altered states of consciousness are a hidden area of human mental activity, which even at the present stage of development of psychological science is uncultivated virgin soil. The functions and nature of this phenomenon, despite the abundance of clinical and experimental data, continue to remain thoroughly unexplored. Dreams and dreams, sleep and drowsiness, hypnosis and hypnotic states, sensory deprivation and historical states of dissociation, depersonalization, pharmacologically induced mental disorders, etc., having a clear natural origin, are presented not as variants of manifestation of something in common, but as separate phenomena. In each case, the processing of the material led to conclusions with applied value and practical application.
Attempts to systematize and organize into a clear system all the accumulated over the years material was made so little that all research in this area borders on discovery.
Before proceeding to the study of the concept“Altered states of consciousness” should be understood what constitutes for us the most important concept of both philosophy and psychology — consciousness. First of all, it refers to the ability to perfectly reproduce reality using specific forms and mechanisms at different levels of reflection. Consciousness can manifest itself as an individual (personal) as well as a social phenomenon. An attempt to systematize knowledge about consciousness was made by Sigmund Freud. Its clear hierarchical system has played an important role in the development of human cognition in this area, but at the present stage even it shows inconsistency in many areas and requires fundamental improvement.
The state of consciousness is clearly fixed,but nevertheless it can undergo a series of changes, being at different levels of states. The most familiar and mundane is the waking consciousness that accompanies us in our daily activities, worries, and even on vacation. Next comes a dream. This is the only natural state of altered consciousness that not only accompanies an important physiological process of restoring all the forces of the body, but also immerses a person into the world of dreams.
A special form of dreaming ishypnotic, in it the consciousness can remain in subjective fantasy. Artificially induced hypnotic altered states of consciousness make a person in a half awakened state, which is accompanied by flashes of intensification of consciousness.
Strong shock, stress, mental crisis,emergency situations, and even anger or fear can provoke a state in which consciousness obeys a certain strength. The appearance of changes in the character of sensations, feelings and behavior may signal that a change in the state of consciousness occurs.
As a result of some systematization,produce some typology of these phenomena. The altered states of consciousness of the first group are artificially caused. For their appearance, it is necessary to use psychoactive substances (for example, psychedelics) contained in hallucinogenic mushrooms, datura, marijuana, etc. They can also appear under the influence of certain procedures (sensory deprivation, holotropic breathing). In the next group were combined psycho-technical conditions arising during religious ceremonies, autogenic training, lucid dreams, hypnotic trance, meditative actions. There is also a group of spontaneously arising states under normal conditions. The reason may be a significant stress, listening to music, a sports game.
The study of this problem is important for anthropology, psychiatry, clinical and transpersonal psychology.
