Investigating Altered States of
Consciousness on Their Own Terms:
A Proposal for the Creation of State-Specific Sciences
Charles T. Tart
Institute of Transpersonal Psychology,
Department of Psychology,
University of California
(1998, Journal of the Brazilian Association for the Advancement of Science.)
Published in the Journal of the Brazilian Association for the Advancement of Science 1998, 50, 2/3 March/June 1998, 103-116 The contents of this document are Copyright © 1998 by theJournal of the Brazilian Association for the Advancement of Science
Abstract
Because various phenomena of consciousness have powerful affects on science, personal life, values and culture, they must be studied in their own right, especially the effects of altered states of consciousness (ASCs). After separating the methods of essential science from the more particularized methods of paradigmatic fields, often confused with science per se, I propose that the methods of essential science (observation, theorizing, prediction, communication/consensual validation) can be applied from within various ASCs, using the state-specific perceptions and logics of these states to form a variety of state-specific, complementary sciences which will expand our understanding of both consciousness and world. Problems with and prospects for the development of such state-specific sciences (SSSs) are discussed.
Article
Scientific investigation obtains a great deal of its power through specialized and intensive focus on narrowly delineated aspects of reality. The (usually temporary) price of such intense focus may be blindness to other important aspects of the world. This is now obvious in the case of consciousness: the consciousness of the individual scientist is far and away her or his most important instrument, yet for much of the last century the study of consciousness per se was considered outside of the purview of empirical science (except for studies trying to reduce aspects of consciousness to brain functioning). The last decade has seen a radical change in attitude, with the importance of questions about the nature and functioning of consciousness now being recognized in a wide variety of scientific and scholarly disciplines. This is well illustrated by such events as the first University of Arizona Tucson conference, "Toward a Science of Consciousness," whose published proceedings run to 790 pages , with more than a thousands scientists attending the second 1996 conference; by the popularity of the Journal of Consciousness Studies; and by the necessity of the online discussion section of that journal being forced to limit posts to a maximum of six per day so as to not overload the moderator.
A strong root of this resurgence of interest has been the widespread personal experiencing of altered states of consciousness (ASCs). In the 1960s an important source of this was personal experience of both laymen and scientists with psychedelic drugs. Lately near-death experiences (NDEs) have sparked considerable interest, as well as an enormous increase in people practicing various meditative disciplines in the West. Such roots of interest illustrate another very important point: consciousness is not just of academic and scientific interest: consciousness is our very mode of being and the source of the values by which we live our life. This is often especially true for experiences of ASCs: a brief ASC like an NDE, e.g., can alter a person's life and values (for better or worse) far more than years of education or psychotherapy. To apply only reductionistic explanations to ASCs, as in the popular approach to NDEs of hypothesizing (with very little evidence) that they are due to nothing but some sort of brain chemical causing hallucinations, might have some truth in it, but in terms of human life it is rather like saying that a Picasso painting is due to nothing but putting pigments on canvas. If we do not thoroughly investigate consciousness, we suffer from a basic blindness about our lives and values, a blindness that exacts a high penalty.
While there has been some research to date on ASC, conventional research has not looked much at primary ASC effects per se, viz. the feelings of novel and valuable insights into both world and self experienced by many experiencers of ASCs. Scientists are primarily motivated by a search for understanding, so something promising new insights and understandings was of interest within parts of the general scientific community, mainly students and younger scientists. Interest was great enough that my Altered States of Consciousness anthology became something of a scientific best seller, and it was used as a text in hundreds of college courses on altered states in the early 1970s.
This interest in consciousness went fairly dormant during the 1980s, partly as a reaction to the general undiscriminating cultural hysteria about psychoactive drug use, partly because many areas of science were not ready to start investigating consciousness in spite of the strong personal convictions of those who had experienced ASCs. In particular, a proposal for the creation of state-specific sciences that I published in Science in 1972 turned out to be premature. A major reason for this prematurity was a deep cultural bias, revealed in the approximately one hundred letters to the editor submitted to Science, that rationality is only possible in our ordinary, so-called normal, state of consciousness. I believe conditions are now much more favorable for this method of studying consciousness on its own terms (in addition to reductionistic approaches: see, e.g., , so this article is a updated presentation of this proposal. Although I focus on ASCs, the discussion herein is applicable to the study of consciousness in general.
I propose that both our understanding of consciousness per se and our understanding of reality in general can be enhanced by developing sciences that involve the use of essential scientific methods within various ASCs, viz. state-specific sciences. Such a development is compatible with essential science, although not with some current paradigmatic forms of science.
States of Consciousness:
A "state" of consciousness, an SoC, may be defined as a usefully distinctive organizational pattern of the components of consciousness. An "altered" state is then a qualitative, as well as perhaps a quantitative, alteration in the overall pattern of mental functioning relative to some SoC chosen as a baseline (usually ordinary consciousness), such that the experiencer feels her consciousness is qualitatively (and often radically) different from the way it functions in the baseline state.
To illustrate, I sometimes ask a class of students if anyone wants to argue that their current experience might actually be a nocturnal dream. After all, it is common for students to dream about being in a classroom. A few people will sometimes want to argue that this might indeed be the case, for some components of their current experience could be experienced in their dreams. But when I ask if they are willing to bet fifty dollars that they will wake up at home in bed in a few minutes, no one takes the bet. Within waking consciousness, it is almost always obvious that the pattern, the gestalt of mental functioning currently being experienced, the current SoC, is clearly different from that remembered as characterizing the ASC of dreaming. In general, across the spectrum of experiential reports, some ASCs are reported to be as different as the states of, for example, water, viz. solid, liquid or gaseous, while the differences between others are more subtle but still of consequence for styles of perception, cognition and functioning.
There is usually an observable induction process to destabilize the baseline SoC from which one starts and to guide the formation of the desired ASC. Asking a person to imagine being relaxed and to be non-critical in thinking, e.g., is part of the typical process to induce hypnosis. Another example is how someone may sit in a special posture and focus attention on the breath in the hopes of inducing a meditative ASC. In general destabilizing forces reduce the stability of the baseline state, a chaotic-like transition develops, patterning forces affect the components and gestalt of the new ASC and stabilizing forces maintain it. But, like most skills, the induction process can be so overlearned and automatized that transition to an ASC can be almost instantaneous. This rapid transition to and functioning in an ASC can sometimes become so familiar that the person does not consciously recognize that they are in an ASC.
While the concept of an ASC can be refined well beyond what is needed in this article (see my , such as conceptualizing SoCs from a systems theory approach and/or as constituting a world simulation process, or a biological-psychological virtual reality , it is also a common sense concept applied to widespread personal experience. Almost all ordinary people experience the ASC of nocturnal dreaming, for example. Many have experienced the ASCs of alcohol intoxication (not just the mild effects of light drinking on ordinary consciousness) ASCs induced by other drugs like marijuana. Experiencers of NDEs perceive their consciousness functioning in a drastically altered manner. I also believe that any strong emotional state (rage, depression, ecstasy, etc.) can be usefully conceptualized as an ASC. Other ASCs include those loosely characterized as hypnosis, meditation-induced states, sensory-isolation induced states, mediumistic and possession trance, reverie, shamanic states, guided visualization, and channeling states.
Kuhnian Paradigms and States of Consciousness:
My concept of SoCs and ASCs, that they are qualitatively distinct organizations of the patterning of mental (both perceptual and evaluative) functioning, has strong parallels with Thomas Kuhn's concept of paradigms in science. A paradigm is an intellectual achievement that underlies normal science and attracts and guides the work of an enduring number of adherents in their scientific activity. It is a kind of "super theory," a formulation of scope wide enough to bring about the useful organization of most or all of the major known phenomena of its field. Yet it is sufficiently open-ended that there still remain important problems to be solved within that framework. Examples of important paradigms in the history of science have been Copernican astronomy, Newtonian dynamics, Darwinian evolution and quantum theory.
Because of their tremendous success, paradigms undergo a change which, in principle, ordinary scientific theories do not undergo. An ordinary scientific theory is always tentative, always subject to further questioning and testing as it is extended. A paradigm undergoes a psychological shift, it becomes a largely implicit framework for most scientists working within it; it becomes the "natural" way of looking at things and doing things. It does not seriously occur to the adherents of a paradigm to question it any more (we ignore, for the moment, what happens during scientific revolutions). Theories become referred to as "laws:" students are taught the Law of gravity, not the theory of gravity, for example.
A paradigm serves to concentrate the attention of researchers on "sensible" (by the paradigm's logic) problem areas and to prevent her from wasting time on what might be unimportant. On the other hand, by explicitly and implicitly defining some lines of research as "trivial" or "nonsensical," a paradigm acts like a set of blinders. Kuhn has discussed this blinding function as a key factor in the lack of effective communications during paradigm clashes.
The concept of a paradigm and of an SoC have many similarities. Both constitute complex, interlocking sets of procedural rules and theories that enable a person to interact with and interpret experiences within an environment. In both cases, the rules and theories become largely implicit. They are not recognized as tentative working hypotheses; they operate automatically and the person feels she is doing the obvious or natural thing. How the world is "naturally" perceived is especially important. Modern psychological and neurological research has shown that perception is not a simple and "natural" given but highly affected by, semi-arbitrarily constructed by, both nervous system structure and psychological and cultural conditioning. The old saying "Seeing is believing" is only part of the story, for believing is also seeing. Both an SoC or a paradigm can literally control the automatized construction of perceiving and evaluating such that experience does seem to "obviously" confirm the tenets of the SoC or the paradigm. In Ptolemaic astronomy, the "obvious" retrograde motion of planets is seen as actual movement of the planet, in Copernican astronomy it is obviously an "illusion" caused by the motion of the earth. Experiencing an ASC is thus of considerable interest in essential science because it is analogous to suddenly seeing the world through the construction process of another paradigm.
Paradigm Clash:
We tend to become emotionally attached to the things which give us pleasure, and a scientist making important progress within a particular paradigm can become emotionally attached to it, as well as being rewarded with peer approval, promotion, publication access to prestigious journals, etc. When data which make no sense in terms of current paradigm are brought to our attention, the usual result is not a reevaluation of the paradigm, but a rejection or misperception of such data. This rejection seems rational to others sharing that paradigm and irrational to others committed to a different paradigm. Einstein's rejection of some of the implications of quantum theory is a well known example, with many colleagues sharing Einstein's "sensible" position, even though his convictions about the nature of reality here were eventually disproved by experiments.
In spite of the current resurgence of scientific interest in consciousness, there is still frequent conflict of a paradigmatic sort between those whose approach is based solely on mainstream, usually physicalistic, paradigms and those who also want scientific investigation to progress but who have experienced the alternative paradigmatic points of view that can come from personal experience of various ASCs.
Consider, as a dramatic example, a subject in an experiment involving a deep meditative state producing the unity experience. The subject may tell the investigator that "You and I, all beings, are all one, there are no separate selves!" The investigator "perceives" and is likely to report that her subject showed a "confused sense of identity and distorted thinking processes," or "showed poor reality contact." The subject is reporting what is "obvious" to him, the investigator is reporting what is "obvious" to her. The investigator's implicit paradigm, based on her scientific training, her cultural background, and her normal SoC, is physicalistic, a world view in which the investigator and subject are discrete physical entities with no energetic or physical connection other than the indirect one of verbal exchange, a "real" condition enormously short of reaching "unity." Her paradigm indicates that a literal interpretation of the subject's statement can not be true, and therefore must be interpreted as mental dysfunction on the part of the subject. The subject, his paradigms radically changed for the moment by being in an ASC, not only reports what is obviously true to him, but perceives the investigator as showing mental dysfunction, by virtue of being incapable of perceiving the obvious!
Must the experiencers of ASCs continue to see the mainstream scientists as too often concentrating on the irrelevant, and these scientists see the experiencers as confused or mentally ill? Or can science deal adequately with ASC (as well as ordinary state) experiences? The thesis I shall now present in detail is that we can deal with the important aspects of the ASCs using the essence of scientific method, even though a variety of nonessentials, unfortunately overly identified with current science, hinder such an effort.
The Nature of Knowledge:
Basically, science (from the Latin scire, to know) deals with knowledge . Knowledge may be defined for our purposes as an immediately given experiential feeling of congruence between two different kinds of experience, a matching. "I understand." One set of experiences may be regarded as perceptions of the external world, of others, or of oneself; the second set may be regarded as a theory, a scheme, a belief, a system of understanding. I see an object fall, for example (one set of mental experiences) and know that it is "caused by" the "force of gravity" (another set of mental experiences comprising my ideas about physics). The feeling of congruence is usually something immediately given in experience, although many refinements have been worked out for judging degrees of congruence.
All knowledge, then, is basically experiential knowledge. Even my so-called objective knowledge of the physical world can be reduced to this: given certain sets of experiences, which I (by habitual assumption) attribute to the external world activating my sensory apparatus, it may be possible for me to compare them with purely internal experiences (memories, previous knowledge about how the hypothesized physical world works) and predict with a high degree of reliability other kinds of subsequent experiences, which I again attribute to the external world.
Because science has been incredibly successful in dealing with the physical world, it has been historically been associated with a philosophy of physicalism, the belief that reality is totally reducible to certain kinds of physical entities. The vast majority of phenomena of ASCs have no known physical manifestations, however: thus to physicalistic philosophy they are "epiphenomena," not worthy of serious study. But insofar as science deals with knowledge per se, it need not restrict itself only to physical kinds of knowledge. To put it another way, the methods of essential science are a powerful knowledge gathering and refining tool which can be used more widely than just in studying phenomena of the physical world.
Essential Scientific Method:
I shall discuss the essence of scientific method, what I like to call essential science, which is not the same as paradigmatic (which Kuhn also called "normal") science, and show that essential science is compatible with an enlarged study of the important phenomena of ASCs. In particular, I propose that state-specific sciences (SSSs) be developed.
As satisfying as the feeling of knowing can be, we are often wrong: what seems like congruence at first later does not match, or has no generality. We have learned that our reasoning is often faulty, our observations are often incomplete or mistaken, and that emotional and other nonconscious biasing factors can seriously distort both reasoning and observational processes. Our reliance on authorities, "rationality" or "elegance," while helpful, are not sure criteria for achieving truth. The development of essential scientific method may be seen as a determined effort to systematize the process of acquiring knowledge in such a way as to minimize the various pitfalls of observation and reasoning.
I shall discuss four basic rules of scientific method to which an investigator is committed, namely: (1) observation; (2) logical theory construction; (3) the testing of theory by predicting observable consequences; and (4) full communication linking these various processes. Together these constitute the essential scientific enterprise. I shall consider the wider application of each rule to the study and use of ASCs and indicate how unnecessary physicalistic restrictions may be dropped. Then I will show that all these commitments or rules can be accommodated in the development of SSSs that I propose.
Observation:
The basic processes of essential science are schematized in Figure 1. The arrows represent major information flow routes.
Figure 1.
We start with some segment of reality that we want to learn more about and begin by making observations, collecting data, about what actually happens. It is necessary to realize we can often be insensitive and biased observers, so part of the observational process is a continual commitment to discover our shortcomings and to devise processes and/or instruments that increase the accuracy of our observations: this is represented by the circular "refine" arrow in the observational (and other process) circles in Figure 1.
While a scientist is committed to observe as well as possible the phenomena of interest, our paradigmatic commitments, our individual and cultural SoCs, make us likely to observe certain parts of reality and to ignore or observe other parts of it with error. Specifically, to date many of the most important phenomena of ASCs have been observed poorly or not at all because of the physicalistic subrating of them as "epiphenomena," so that they have been called "subjective," "ephemeral" "unreliable," or "unscientific." Such a priori value judgments thus interfere with observation. Observations of internal processes are probably much more difficult to make than those of external physical processes, because of their inherently greater complexity, but devaluing and not observing them in the first place is not the way to understanding. The essence of good science, however, is that we commit ourselves to observe what there is to be observed, whether it is difficult or not, whether it fits in with our beliefs and desires or not.
When the data to be observed is experiences in a specific SoC, then we have state-specific observations. They can only be made by investigators who can function in that specific SoC. Some consequences of this will be discussed later.
There is another observational problem. One of the traditional ideals of science, the unbiased and isolated observer, whose observations do not affect the observed, has little place in dealing with many internal phenomena of SoCs. Not only are the observer's perceptions selective, he may also affect the things he observes. Rather than increasing errors by pretending to an objectivity we may not have, we must try to understand the characteristics of each individual observer in order to compensate for them.
A recognition of the usual unreality of the totally objective and detached observer in the psychological sciences was starting to become widespread in the 1970s, with studies under the topics of experimenter bias and demand characteristics . Interest and work in this fell off sharply, however. I suspect that the topic was too threatening, and so it was brushed under the rug rather than really dealt with. I have done some work in the area and have always carried out experiments with the assumption that I am biased and so should try to be careful to eliminate sources of bias. A similar recognition long ago occurred in physics when it was realized that the observed was "altered" by the process of observation at subatomic levels - more precisely that the "observations" did not have definite values until they interacted with the paradigm, the measuring activity of the observer - or in relativity theory where the characteristics/motion of the observer had to be taken into account. When we deal with ASCs where the observer is the experiencer of the ASC, the observer's experiences are the data, this factor is of paramount importance. Not knowing the characteristics of the observer can also confound the process of consensual validation, which we shall soon consider.
Theorizing:
In spite of its primacy, we are not that interested in data per se, however. As discussed earlier, we want to know, scire, to create theories, schema, hypotheses - mental constructs that match and make sense out of the data we have observed. A basic requirement of essential science is that, ideally, our theories completely account for the data we have observed. In practice we may create theories that account for that portion of the data we deem of most interest at the time, but ultimately our theories aim to account for all of the "significant" data. We use some kind of logic - more precisely some kind of axiomatic system - to create these theories, and, as with observation, we commit ourselves to improvement, both looking for potential errors in our logic that we can correct and/or expanding the explanatory power of our theories.
A scientist may theorize about his observations as much as he wishes, but the theory he develops must consistently account for all that he has observed, and should have a logical structure that other scientists can comprehend (but not necessarily totally accept). The requirement to theorize logically and consistently with the data is not as simple as it looks, however. Philosophers have demonstrated that any logic consists of a set of (arbitrary) assumptions and a set of rules for manipulating information, based on these assumptions. Change the assumptions, or change the rules, and there may be entirely different outcomes when the different logics are applied to the same data. In Euclidean geometry, for example, parallel lines remain the same distance apart even when extended to infinity (by assumption alone, as this cannot possibly be tested empirically), but in Riemannian or Lobatschewskian geometry they either touch or move infinitely far apart when so extended. Problems solved in these three systems of logic lead to quite different outcomes and all these outcomes have their uses.
A paradigm or an SoC, too, is a logic (or set of logics): each has certain assumptions and rules for working within these assumptions. By changing the paradigm (with its paradigm-specific perceptions and logics) or altering the SoC to an ASC (with its state-specific perceptions and logics), the nature of theory building may change radically. Thus an investigator in SoC#2 might come to very different "logical" conclusions about the nature of the same events that he observed in SoC#1. An investigator in SoC#1 may comment on the comprehensibility of the second person's ideas from the point of view (paradigm) of SoC#1, but can say nothing about their inherent (SoC#2) validity. A scientist who could enter either SoC#1 or SoC#2, however, could pronounce on the state-specific comprehensibility of the other's theory, and the adherence of that theory to the rules and logic of SoC#2. Thus, scientists trained in the same SoC may check on the logical validity of each other's theorizing.
Observable Consequences:
Essential science is built on a recognition, however, that a theory being "logical" - conforming to the rules of a system that is based on arbitrary assumptions - is not enough to guarantee progress. We have to avoid the trap of what I like to call the Principle of Limitless Rationalization, a recognition that many of us are smart enough to make a plausible sounding post hoc fit between any data and some theory, regardless of whether that theory is actually correct in reality. Thus the third step of essential science: the requirement that a scientific theory must make predictions about new events which can be observed and these predictions must be tested. If your theory predicts, "If A, then B," and you set up A but B doesn't follow, that's too bad for your theory. It doesn't matter if your theory is mathematical, is "elegant," is consistent with currently fashionable and widely accepted theories, and is obviously brilliant and true to you: it's wrong in that it does not predict observables. The theory must either be modified until its predictions get better or it must be replaced with another theory. In essential science, theory is always secondary to data. In "normal," paradigmatic science, on the other hand, the paradigmatic framework tends to become predominant and data that doesn't fit is automatically subrated ("trivial" exceptions) or overlooked altogether. Paradigms and theories are useful when we use them as appropriate and useful, but when we become attached to them and they function automatically we are enslaved by them and our vision is constricted.
Ordinarily when we think of empirical validation, we think of validation in terms of testable consequences that produce physical effects, but this physicality is not essential to the essential scientific process. Any effect, whether interpreted as "physical" or "nonphysical," is ultimately an experience in the observer's mind. All that is essentially required to validate a theory is that it predict that "When certain experiences (observed necessary conditions) have occurred, another specified kind of experience will follow." Thus an essentially scientific theory may be based on data that have no external, physical existence, but are observable by consciousness.
Observing the tests of theoretical predictions metaphorically takes us back to the segment of reality we are interested in, eventually leading to improved understanding. When we begin an area of science we will make relatively crude (in retrospect) observations and have theories that are only gross approximations of reality with moderate support from predictions. Science is not a one time process, however, but a continuous one. The continual operation of this observe theorize test …..observe theorize test….. cycle ultimately leads to better and better matches between our knowledge and what can be observed.
Communication/Consensual Validation:
I have described essential science so far as if it were the solitary activity of an individual scientist, but of course science is also a collective process. Any particular individual, no matter how devoted to the ideals of enriching our knowledge through the process of essential science, undoubtedly has her or his own particular biases and shortcomings in observation, theorizing and testing. Thus the fourth element of essential science, full and honest communication about all the other aspects of the processes of observation, theorizing and prediction. Colleagues check and expand your observations, adding in their own, check and expand the logic of your theories and predictions, test predictions of your theory, etc. Since it is unlikely that all one's colleagues will have biases and shortcomings identical to one's own, a social feedback and correction process works to reduce the effects of biases. As with all other stages of the process, a commitment to improving communications and absolute honesty is essential.
We usually require that observations be public in that they must be replicable by any properly trained observer. Where the observations are reports of particular internal experiences, the (experienced) conditions that led to the report of certain experiences must be described in sufficient detail that others may duplicate them and consequently have experiences which we judge to be identical. We assume that experiential data are subject to some sort of natural laws (even if harder to understand at present) just as physical data are. That someone else may set up apparently similar conditions but not have the same experiences, suggests that the original investigator gave an incorrect description of the conditions and observations (including the initial observer's relevant characteristics), or that she was not aware of certain essential aspects of the conditions.
The unnecessary physicalistic accretion to this rule of consensual validation is that, physical data being the only "real" data, internal phenomena must be reduced to physiological or behavioral data to become reliable or they will be ignored entirely. I believe most physical observations to be more readily replicable by any trained observer (although the training, such as getting a PhD in physics, may be much more arduous than developing some ASC abilities!) because physical events often yield productively to simplified models, which we have not developed yet for internal events. In principle, however, consensual validation of internal phenomena by a trained observer is quite possible. Experienced marijuana users, for example, gave consistent rankings of minimal thresholds for various internal phenomena as a function of their overall experiential perception of how intoxicated they were , and Buddhist meditation tradition has criteria for the quality of the states reached in meditation , criteria only comprehensible and applicable by those who have attained similar meditative states.
Note too that the emphasis on the public nature of observation in science has a misleading quality insofar as it implies that any intelligent person can replicate a scientist's observations. This might have been true early in the history of science, but nowadays only the highly trained observer can replicate many observations. I cannot go into a modern physicist's laboratory and confirm her observations. Indeed, her talk of what she has found in her experiments (physicists seem to talk about innumerable invisible entities these days) would probably seem "mystical" (in the pejorative sense of the term) to me, just as many descriptions of internal states sound "mystical" to those with a background in the physical sciences.
Given the high complexity of the phenomena associated with ASCs, the need for replication by trained observers is exceptionally important. Since it generally takes 4 to 10 years of intensive training to produce a scientist in most of our conventional sciences, we should not be surprised that there has been very little reliability of observations from untrained observers of ASC phenomena or of experiential phenomena in general. Psychology, for example, began in the last century as an introspective discipline, where "trained observers" intended to isolate and observe the basic elements of the mind, a sort of mental chemistry model. When different laboratories could not agree in their basic observations, discouragement set in and psychology moved largely to behaviorism, throwing away the bulk of the most interesting aspects of mental life, getting a much narrower, but far easier to observe, subject matter.
In retrospect, this failure of early introspective psychology is not hard to understand. A "trained observer" was usually a research assistant with 10 to 20 hours of training, but insofar as we can take a 2500 year old tradition of meditative training seriously (Buddhism), their finding was that almost all people's ordinary minds were (and are) so unstable and biased that it takes something like 5,000 hours of basic training to calm and stabilize the mind so that basic mental phenomena can be reliably observed. (We will look at the question of whether a tradition like Buddhism is a state-specific "science" later.)
Further, for the state-specific sciences that I propose should be established, we cannot yet specify the requirements that would constitute adequate training. These would only be determined after considerable trial and error. We should also recognize that very few people might complete the training successfully. Some people do not have the necessary innate characteristics to become physicists, and some probably do not have the innate characteristics to become, say, scientific investigators of meditative states. Public observation, then, almost always refers to a limited, specially trained public. It is only by basic agreement among those specially trained people that data become accepted as a foundation for the development of a science. That laymen cannot replicate the observations is of little relevance.
In addition to the fact that state-specific observations are potentially available only to those who can enter the required SoC, a second problem in consensual validation arises from a phenomenon predicted by my concept of ASCs, but not yet empirically investigated, namely, state-specific communication. Given that an ASC is an overall qualitative and quantitative shift in the complex functioning of consciousness, such that there are new "logics" and perceptions (which constitute a paradigm shift), it is reasonable to hypothesize that communication may take a different pattern. For two observers, both of whom, we assume, are fluent in communicating with each other in a given SoC, communication about some new observations may seem adequate to them, or may be improved or deteriorated in specific ways. To an outside observer, an observer in a different SoC, the communication between these two observers may seem "nonsensical" or "deteriorated."
Practically all investigations by scientists in a state of ordinary consciousness of communication by persons in ASCs have resulted in reports of "deterioration" of communication abilities. In designing their studies, however, these investigators have not taken into account the fact that the patterns and internal logics of communication may have changed. If I am listening to two people speaking in English, and they suddenly begin to intersperse words and phrases in Portuguese, I, as an outside (non-Portuguese speaking) observer, will note a gross "deterioration" in communication. Adequacy of communication between people in the same SoC and across SoCs must be empirically determined.
Thus consensual validation may be restricted by the fact that only observers in the same ASC are able to communicate adequately with each other, and they may not be able to communicate adequately to someone in a different SoC, say normal consciousness.
State-Specific Sciences:
We tend to envision the practice of science like this: centered around interest in some particular range of subject matter, a small number of highly selected, talented, and rigorously trained people spend considerable time making detailed observations on the subject matter of interest. To various degrees they have special places (laboratories) or instruments or methodologies to assist them in making finer observations. They speak to one another in a special technical language which they feel conveys precisely the important facts of their field. Using this language, they confirm and extend each other's knowledge of certain data basic to the field. They theorize about their basic data in accordance with the special logic(s) they have been trained in and construct elaborate systems. They validate these by recourse to further observation. These trained people all have a long-term commitment to the constant refinement of observation and extension of theory. Their activity is frequently incomprehensible to laymen. Their work may or may not have some consequences that affect ordinary people's lives.
This general description is equally applicable to a variety of sciences, or areas that could become sciences, whether we called such areas biology, physics, chemistry, psychology, lucid dreaming, understanding of mystical states, or drug-induced alteration of cognitive processes. The particulars of research would look very different, but the essential scientific method potentially running through all is the same.
More formally, I now propose the creation of various state-specific sciences. If such sciences could be created, we would have a group of highly skilled, dedicated, and trained practitioners able to achieve a common SoC (an ASC, remember, in comparison with their ordinary state) and able to agree with one another that they have attained a common state. While in that SoC, they might then investigate various areas of interest, whether these be totally internal phenomena of that given SoC, the interaction of that state with external, physical reality, or people in other SoCs.
The fact that the experimenter should be able to function skillfully in the SoC itself for a state-specific science does not necessarily mean that he would always be the subject/observer. While he might often be the subject, observer, and experimenter simultaneously, it would be quite possible for him to collect data from experimental manipulations of other subjects in the SoC, and either be in SoC himself at the time of data collection (so he would be sensitive to nuances of observers' reports not communicable to people not in that SoC) or be in that SoC himself for data reduction and theorizing.
Illustrations of State-Specific Sciences:
Examples of some observations made and theorizing done by a scientist in a specific ASC would illustrate the nature of a proposed state-specific science. But this is not easy to do because no state-specific sciences have yet been formally established. Also, any example that would make good sense to the readers of this article (who are, presumably, all in a normal SoC) would not really illustrate the uniqueness of a state-specific science. If parts of it did make sense, it would be an example of a problems that could be approached usefully from both the ASC and our ordinary SoC, and thus it would be too easy to see the entire problem in terms of accepted scientific procedures for normal SoCs and so miss the point about the necessity for developing state-specific sciences.
However there has been significant progress in one area toward laying the foundations of a state-specific science, namely in the study of lucid dreaming, and we may already have one highly developed state-specific science which has not been recognized as such.
Lucid dreaming is an ASC that usually begins as an ordinary nocturnal dream (with the usual stage-1 EEG and rapid eye movement (REM) correlates), but at some point the SoC of ordinary dreaming is converted into lucid dreaming by two events. First, the dream thought, "This is a dream." occurs. This is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for defining a lucid dream, as this dream thought can occur without any further changes in the gestalt quality of consciousness that comprises ordinary dreaming. Then a rapid change in the pattern of consciousness may occur (the induction process is not well understood) that is described by the adjective "lucid," for consciousness is now experienced as having roughly the clarity of one's ordinary waking state - but one is still sensorily located in the dream world in a perfectly "real" way. Except for the major sensory change of being located in a quite real dream world (the dreamer feels she is perceiving a dream world, usually with as much or more intensity as the ordinary sensory world is perceived, not imagining it), the quality of consciousness is very like - although not necessarily identical with - ordinary consciousness. How is this distinction made? In the same way we discussed at the beginning of this article in defining states of consciousness, namely your obvious observation that the pattern of your mental functioning is essentially that of your waking state, not the pattern you recall as constituting your dream state. A lucid dreamer can also test various components of mental functioning, such as checking for continuity and clarity of waking memories, availability of skills (such as "logically" reasoning that it is impossible to be so obviously lucid and conscious while dreaming, but right then you are experiencing the reality that it can happen), etc.
The 1969 publication of my Altered States of Consciousness book had the fortunate effect of sensitizing people to the reality of lucid dreaming (it had been almost totally ignored by mainstream dream investigators) by republishing Frederick van Eeden's article describing and naming this ASC , (pp. 145-158), and considerable attention was then given to the topic. While a lucid dream is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most people, some have learned to deliberately induce them, if not quite at will at least with at least fair probability of having one on any particular night. Most such investigators have described lucid dreams in ordinary state language to maximize communications, and there is now an extensive literature on this (see, e.g. ). A newsletter (Lucidity Letter) that evolved into a journal, Lucidity, (now unfortunately defunct for financial reasons) connected investigators together so they could share observations, experimental results (what happens when you try X in a lucid dream?), and theories about the nature of lucid dreams. For example some investigators reported that they could not switch on lights beyond low level of experienced brightness in their lucid dreams (compared to their memories of waking state light brightness while in the lucid dream) and theorized that there were underlying physiological reasons, involving levels of cortical activation, to explain this. Other investigators practiced switching on lights in their lucid dreams and eventually found they could get bright illumination in their dreams, so the theory of an underlying cortical limit here was rejected.
Investigation of lucid dreams by lucid dreamers is now most strongly represented by a newsletter (Night Light) published by one of the pioneering investigators, Stephen LaBerge (information can be found at http://www.lucidity.com) and by the sharing of observations and theories in internet news groups (see, e.g., alt.dreams.lucid). While much of this activity can be seen as the investigation of an ASC from within ordinary consciousness, that is ordinary state reflection on reports about and memories of lucid dream experiences, there can be state-specific qualities to lucid dreaming (recall the definition above that the SoC in lucid dreaming is very like ordinary consciousness, but not necessarily identical to it). A promising beginning step in investigating this was a study by Bogzaran . She investigated lucid dreamers who had also experienced some of their lucid dreams as a transition state into a more mystical ASC, described as a "multidimensional space." They had great difficulty attempting to describe that state, calling it "ineffable." But when she had them inspect the works of several modern artists (Gordon Onslow Ford, Roberto Matta, Lee Mullican and John Anderson), they found the paintings expressed the multidimensional spaces they had experienced in a way that made sense to them. This may be a step toward an indirect form of state-specific communication, necessary for developing SSSs of lucid dreams, as two lucid dreamers in their lucid dreams are not in direct contact with one another at that time.
Mathematics: I will argue that various branches of pure mathematics constitute at least one, if not several, unrecognized state-specific sciences. I intend this argument to be provocative rather than definitive, in the hope that it will inspire mathematicians to reflect on the SoCs they work in and see how well they fit the concept of state-specific sciences.
The argument is as follows. First, the "data" of pure mathematics are entirely experiential, mental in nature. Second, the subject matter of pure mathematics consists of experiential "perceptions"/data as well as theorizing, because mathematicians frequently allude to a sort of quasi-perception of mathematical "forms" ("forms" may be too concrete a word for some mathematics) as a basis for their work. They try to grasp or perceive these forms more and more accurately. Third, mathematicians theorize in terms of various logics, systems of mathematics, and try to apply this correctly. Fourth predictions from such theories are often tested on other experiential data, mathematical "perceptions" and "intuitions," and the power of the extension of the theories is used as a test of the generality and usefulness of them. Finally there is communication with colleagues about all stages of the process, and these state-specific communications about state-specific observations and state-specific logics are sufficiently well developed among practitioners to allow general agreement among this community of state-specific scientists as to what is and isn't valid.
While one might argue that there is no formal "induction" of an ASC to do mathematical work, recall the observation at the beginning of this paper that with practice induction can be virtually instantaneous and functioning in the ASC so familiar that the person does not notice that she is in an ASC. Indeed more than one SoC may be involved: a mathematician might do her creative work in an ASC, e.g., but switch back to ordinary consciousness for communicating. Some people are naturally talented at entering the appropriate SoC(s) for doing pure mathematics, but most have (also) had the induction procedure of many years duration called getting an advanced degree in mathematics!
Transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilber has expressed a parallel between mathematics and contemplative traditions provocatively as: "Simply because religious experience is apprehended in an 'interior' fashion does not mean it is merely private knowledge, any more than the fact that mathematics and logic are seen inwardly, by the mind's eye, makes them merely private fantasies without public import. Mathematical knowledge is public knowledge to all equally trained mathematicians; just so, contemplative knowledge is public knowledge to all equally trained contemplatives." , p. 20.
If practicing mathematicians will begin making psychological observations of the SoCs they function in, rather than only being absorbed in their work within those states, we may learn a great deal about how state-specific sciences can work. Further, more knowledge per se of these mathematically useful SoCs may aid the training of future mathematicians or increase the efficiency of those already utilizing them. It is now up to mathematicians to expand or refute this argument.
State-Specific Sciences and Religion:
Some aspects of organized religion appear to resemble the proposed state-specific sciences. There are techniques that allow the believer to enter an ASC and then have religious experiences in that ASC which are taken as proof of his religious belief. People who have had such experiences usually describe them as ineffable in important ways--that is, as not fully comprehensible in an ordinary SoC, but which are presumably comprehensible to people who can enter a similar ASC. Conversions at revivalist meetings are the most common example of religious experiences occurring in various ASCs induced by an intensely emotional atmosphere, although this seems to lack the systematic kind of knowledge and practice we would associate with the beginnings of a science.
In examining the training systems of the more esoteric and mystical branches of some religions, however, such as Yoga, Buddhism or Sufism, there seems to be even more resemblance between such mystical methodologies and the proposed state-specific sciences, for there we often have the picture of devoted specialists, complex techniques, and repeated experiencing of the induced ASCs in order to further religious knowledge.
Nevertheless the proposed state-specific sciences differ in a fundamental way from religion. The use of ASCs in religion may, to various degrees, involve the kind of commitment to searching for truth that is needed for developing a state-specific science, but practically all the religions we know might be better characterized as state-specific technologies, operated in the service of a priori belief systems. The experiencers of ASCs in most religious contexts have already been thoroughly indoctrinated into a particular belief system (paradigm). Recall our earlier discussion about any SoC, including ordinary consciousness, being a world simulation process or a biological-psychological virtual reality system . This belief system may thus at least partially mold the content of the induced ASCs to create specific experiences which seem to reinforce or validate the belief system.
The crucial distinction between a religion utilizing ASCs and a state-specific science is the commitment of the scientist to constantly reexamine his own belief system and to question the obvious, in spite of its intellectual or emotional appeal to him. To put it another way, a commitment to truth (in the sense of theories with better and better congruence with data) must be more important than feelings or beliefs in science. Investigators of ASCs would certainly encounter an immense variety of phenomena that would be like what we now crudely label "mystical experiences" during the development of state-specific sciences, but they would have to remain committed to examining these phenomena more carefully, to honestly sharing their observations and techniques with colleagues, and to consider any obviously true "revelations" from such experiences as hypotheses and theories, subject to the essential scientific requirement of leading to testable predictions, rather than simply taking them as revelation of The Truth. It is data, for example, that people may enter ASCs in which they experience beyond the shadow of any doubt that the universe is fundamentally alive and intelligent. It is theory to then believe that this is indeed a factually correct view of the universe. Because of the immense persuasive power of mystical experiences, this may be a difficult task in practice, but it is one that will have to be undertaken by disciplined investigators if we are to fully understand various ASCs.
Relationship between State-Specific Sciences:
Any state-specific science may be considered as consisting of two basic parts, observations and theory building. The observations are what can be experienced relatively directly; the theories are the inferences about what sort of non-observable factors account for the observations. For example, the phenomena of synesthesia (seeing colors and forms as a result of hearing sounds) is a hypothetical, largely hearsay proposition for me (and most of us) in my ordinary SoC: I do not experience it, and can only generate theories about what other people report about it. If I were in an appropriate ASC, on the other hand, I could experience synesthesia directly, and my descriptions of the experience would become data. Although not an inevitable outcome, we generally expect theory which is based on direct experience to have more value than theory which has little basis in data.
Figure 2 demonstrates some possible relationships between three state-specific sciences.
Figure 2.
State-specific sciences 1 and 2 show considerable overlap. The area labeled O1O2 permits direct observation in both states, in both sciences. Area T1T2 permits theoretical inferences about common subject matter from the two perspectives. In area O1T2 by contrast, the theoretical propositions of state-specific science number 2 are matters of direct observation for the scientist in SoC number 1(as in our synesthesia example), and vice versa for the area T1O2. State-specific science number 3 consists of a body of observation and theory exclusive to that science and has no overlap with the other two sciences: it neither confirms, denies, nor complements them.
It would be naively reductionistic (and involve an unprovable assumption that some one SoC is inherently superior to all others in all respects) to say that the work in one state-specific science "validates" or "invalidates" the work in a second state-specific science. This is particularly true in the too common assumption that ordinary state of consciousness science is the final arbiter of all truth: the hypothesis that everything can be reduced to material interactions is highly useful, but when it becomes an automatic paradigm it is a faith that blocks observations. I prefer to say that different state-specific sciences, where they overlap, provide different points of view with respect to certain kinds of theories and data, and thus complement each other. The proposed creation of state-specific sciences neither validates nor invalidates the activities of ordinary consciousness sciences, for example. The possibility of developing certain state-specific sciences means only that certain kinds of phenomena may be handled differently and, one hopes, more adequately within these potential new sciences.
Interrelationships more complex than those that are illustrated in Fig. 1 are, of course, possible. One SSS might, e.g., integrate two separate SSSs, analogous to the way Maxwell's electrodynamics integrated electricity and magnetism.
The possibility of stimulating interactions between different state-specific sciences is very real. Creative breakthroughs in ordinary consciousness science have frequently been made by scientists temporarily going into an ASC . In such instances, the scientists concerned obtained quite different views of their problems and performed different kinds of reasoning, conscious or nonconscious, which led to results that could be later tested within their ordinary consciousness science.
Individual Differences:
A widespread and misleading assumption that hinders the development of state-specific sciences and confuses their interrelationships, as well as creating problems in the development of conventional psychology, is the assumption that because two people are "normal," their ordinary SoCs are essentially the same. My research has led me to suspect that there can be enormous differences between the SoCs of some, if not many, normal people. Because societies train people to behave and communicate along socially approved lines, frequently emphasizing our commonality, these differences are covered up.
For example, some people think primarily in images, others in words. Some can voluntarily anesthetize parts of their body when needed to eliminate pain, most of us cannot. Some recall past events by imaging the scene and looking at the relevant details; others use complex verbal processes with no images.
This means that person A (in her "ordinary" SoC) may be able to observe certain kinds of experiential data that person B cannot experience in his ordinary SoC, no matter how hard B tries. There may be several consequences. Person B may think that A is insane, too imaginative, or a liar, or he may feel inferior to A. Person A may also feel herself odd or perhaps insane, if she takes B as a standard of normality.
In some cases, B may be able to enter an ASC and there experience the sorts of things that A has reported to him. A realm of knowledge that is "ordinary" for A is then state-specific to an ASC for B. Similarly, some of the experiences of B in his ASC may not be available for direct observation by A in her ordinary SoC.
The phenomenon of synesthesia can again serve as an example. Some individuals possess this ability in their ordinary SoC, most do not. Yet 56 percent of a sample of experienced marijuana users experienced synesthesia at least occasionally while in the drug-induced ASC.
Thus we may conceive of bits of knowledge that are specific for an ASC for one individual, part of ordinary consciousness for another. Scientific arguments over the usefulness of the concept of "states" of consciousness may thus sometimes reflect differences in the structure of the ordinary SoC of various investigators. One investigator who questions the need for any concept of a special "state" of hypnosis, for example, can anesthetize his body in his ordinary state in just a few seconds, so reports of anesthesia induced in a "state" of hypnosis do not seem compelling evidence to him.
Another important source of individual differences, little understood at present, is the degree to which an individual may first make a particular observation or form a concept in one SoC and then be able to re-experience or comprehend it in another SoC. That is, some items of information which were state-specific when observed initially may be learned and somehow transferred (fully or partially) to another SoC. Differences across individuals, various combinations of SoCs, and types of experience will probably be enormous.
End Notes
This article has no footnotes.
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