However, there are also wakeful situations in which we can experience an altered state of consciousness (ASC) these include hallucination, hypnotic states, trance states and meditation. Inner Presence, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. What are altered states of consciousness We are all aware that our dreams may contain very different kinds of thoughts than those that we have while awake. Inner Presence, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.ģ. for further details on this multilevel view of consciousness, see Revonsuo, 2006 Revonsuo, A. Our metaphysical theory of consciousness is biological realism see Revonsuo, 2006 Revonsuo, A. Still, the subject's own judgement remains ambiguous as to what is going on, and therefore proves the point that the subject's own reflective judgement cannot be the criterion for an ASC.Ģ. However, we do not in general wish to defend a representational theory of consciousness, only a representational definition of an ASC. Thus, derealization is a kind of “meta-ASC” the content of which concerns the representational accuracy of one's own consciousness. This state is quite interesting from the representational perspective, because the subject is representing the events of the world correctly, but simultaneously has a strong feeling or belief that these representations must in fact be misrepresentations. Even the ideomotor suggestions, perhaps the most prosaic of all hypnotic phenomena, involve altered consciousness: hypnotized subjects do not just lower or fail. The representational definition of ASC should be applied in the theoretical and empirical studies of ASCs to unify and clarify the conceptual basis of ASC research.ġ. It could also be argued that the subject is in such a case having an ASC called “derealization.” This would be a state where everything seems unreal, distant, and dreamlike, as if not really happening. Paradigm examples of such generally misrepresentational, temporary, and reversible states are dreaming, psychotic episodes, psychedelic drug experiences, some epileptic seizures, and hypnosis in highly hypnotizable subjects. An altered state of consciousness is defined as a state in which the neurocognitive background mechanisms of consciousness have an increased tendency to produce misrepresentations such as hallucinations, delusions, and memory distortions. We outline a new definition of ASC and argue that the proper way to understand the concept of ASC is to regard it as a representational notion: the alteration that has happened is not an alteration of consciousness (or subjective experience) per se, but an alteration in the informational or representational relationships between consciousness and the world. We argue that these traditional definitions fail to draw a clear line between altered and normal states of consciousness (NSC). This paper addresses various states of altered consciousness such as anaesthesia, sleep, vegetative states, seizures, post-LSD hallucinations, the minimally. “Altered State of Consciousness” (ASC) has been defined as a changed overall pattern of conscious experience, or as the subjective feeling and explicit recognition that one's own subjective experience has changed.
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