Our normal state of consciousness is constructed on the basis of our expectations, which make the world around us a consistent and familiar place. It can be an interesting experiment to try shaking up your expectations deliberately and, through this, induce an alteration in your mental state. The approaches described here will not take you into a kaleidoscopic world of psychedelia, but they can generate subtle and intriguing alterations of consciousness.
Entering The Flow
Try this exercise the next time you go for a walk. While walking, look straight ahead, but pay attention to your peripheral vision. If you’re on a path, pay attention to what lies on either side of the path (such as hedges) rather than the path itself. Stretch your attention as wide as you can – the fields beyond the hedges, for example. Become aware of your other senses – hearing, smell, skin, touch, and pressure. Soon, you will feel that everything flows more than usual, and you are part of the flow. Your walking is only one action among all the movements in your vicinity; your awareness is part of the awareness that creatures around you are experiencing. Continue until there is only the flow, only the pulse of the world.
Light Headedness
In his book Walen, Henry Thoreau describes how he induced a dissociated state of consciousness by simply gazing at the reflection of the sun on Walden Pond. You can try this for yourself. On a sunny day, sit or lie by a calm lake and watch the reflection of the sun on the surface of the water. Ensure that you won’t be disturbed – maybe try this exercise with a friend, taking turns. Just keep gazing without distraction. Don’t hold onto particular thoughts in your mind – allow your attention to drift where it will, but keep your gaze fixed. After a while, you should find yourself moving into a state of consciousness, subtly altered form, normality. An alternative method of entering this state is to gaze at a bright light reflected in a crystal.
Sensory Deprivation
To see how your mind responds to a diminishing sensation, try this route to temporary sensory deprivation. This is not so much a matter of depriving the senses of any input but of removing any formed meaningful input. The idea is to use a flotation tank since the environment can be carefully controlled. If you have no access to one, you can create similar conditions in your own home. Use a bed in a warm room with dim lighting. Cover your eyes with a bubble wrap mask (you are not trying to blindfold yourself, merely creating a diffuse light ). De-tune a radio so you hear a hissing noise and listen to it through headphones. These provide the basics for sensory deprivation; choose a time of day when you are feeling fairly alert. The object is to stay awake. Try to ensure that there is no air movement or strong melts in the room. Lie down and relax with your eyes open under the mask and the hissing in your ears, and see what happens.
Wild Imaginings
The French poet Rimba d recommended a long, tremendous, and methodical disturbance’ of perceptions and their interpretations in the mind as a way of experiencing an altered state of consciousness. See if you can follow his method. Deliberately imagine that an object that you are seeing is something other than what it is. If it’s a book, imagine it’s a block of wood; if it’s a cat, see it as a mutant fox. So too with sound: label the rustling of leaves as the sound of an animal; the voice of someone in the room as a radio voice. This exercise is hard to start with and may not be something that you take to, but the method gets easier with practice. Don’t worry if it sounds bizarre – that’s the point!
Changing Names
Your name is a key part of your identity. As soon as you hear your name, a host of changes occur in your conscious mind – you pay attention, you become alert, and you start questioning what is going on. You will realize how much of your conscious world is centered on your name if you change it. Unless you want to experience a serious sense of dislocation, a total change is not recommended. However, you could make arrangements with a group of close friends. The ‘alias’ that you choose may reflect aspects of your personality, which may be worth analyzing (most people entering internet chat rooms use aliases, which are often revealing). Agree that you will be called by your alias for the course of a weekend. You will discover how de-centered you can become.
Trance Dance
Total absorption in a physical activity can transport you to a trance-like state. You can try this with a group of friends. Clear your biggest room to make a dance floor. Make sure there is nothing to trip over and that everyone has enough space to turn a full circle with arms outstretched without touching anyone else. Then – with the exception of one or two trustworthy supervisors – everyone should put on a blindfold and dance for at least 30 minutes. The hypnotic rhythms of African tribal music are particularly good for this exercise. Let the music take over, clear your mind, and just let yourself go. To reground yourself afterward, lie down quietly for 20 minutes.
