Patrick McNamara - What are Altered States of Consciousness?

Altered states of consciousness are non-normal states of mental awareness or experiences. These include dreams, hallucinations, induced mental alterations such as by meditation, alcohol, drugs or disease. What can altered states of consciousness tell us about the essence of consciousness itself?



Patrick McNamara is Director of the Evolutionary Neurobehavior Laboratory in the Department of Neurology at the BU School of Medicine and the VA New England HealthCare System.


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[B.S...]

Wrong title or episode, this video is about evolutionary psychology.

[soubhikmukherjee]

Science is a product of human mind. Game on!!

[empireravenshadow]

The titles of your videos could be more accurate and specific.

[realcygnus]

This vid didn't seem to be about "Altered States" in any way.

[richardedward]

fascinating. But what are altered states of consciousness? from the title I was expecting a conversation about the influence of drugs and alcohol. But I still found what Patrick McNamara said useful.

[priyakulkarni]

Comments of listeners of this videos are more interesting always

[soubhikmukherjee]

Great question. There are actually infinite number of altered states of consciousness.

[soubhikmukherjee]

Consciousness is something that you can crank up and up and up and so on...

[priyakulkarni]

We all have experienced feeling satisfied after eating certain food and no more of that food. Is that mind game felt by consciousness? Is consciousness just so passive that it feels whatever is presented ? Just passive observer?

[bluelotus]

Eating, sleeping, mating and defending are the activities of the mind in relation to the physical senses, and in our modern 'evolved' society they lead more to self-destruction than to fitness. Thinking, feeling, desiring and choosing are the activities of the mind in relation to consciousness, and when they are conditioned by external factors, whether subtle as dreams or gross as drugs, only the mental state is altered, not consciousness, which is far deeper than a mental state.

[holgerjrgensen]

We are always on the peak of our Eternal Development, and tomorrow We are little futher.

[seangrieves]

We talk of alternative states when the Simple one with which Simple events are understood is fully misunderstood. The ideas about absolute truth are the filter through witch absolute truth veils it's own being. An unfathomable display.

[edgarbodamer]

The brain learns to simulate the physical world, when you are a child.
It builds a predictive model of the physical world.
The prediction of the input signals (senses) at any time is compared to the real input signals at the prediction time and the difference is determined. The brain learns to minimise this difference.
What we see is the result of this simulation of the brain. It is not the physical Reality, it is the result of the simulation by use of a dynamic model of the physical reality.
When we are awake, the simulation is synchronized with the actual events of the physical world by the information from our senses. When we dream, the simulation is not synchronized by the information from our senses. Dreams may be used to find a solution to a problem.
By use of alcohol, drugs or disease the normal function of the simulation process is desturbed and may lead to hallucinations.
Nutrition is also important for a normal brain function. Deficiency of Vitamins may disturb the Simulation Process.

[brushbros]

Babies are born as blank slates. Culture is the chalk which writes upon it, and its message as well.

[jamesruscheinski]

Live for conscious environment bigger than oneself

[diegokricekfontanive]

I wonder why we keep on calling it ''evolutionary psychology'' and not evolution of human memetic thinking _[see: *memetics]_, since the whole nature of our psychology (instincts and genetically pre-configured wiring of the brain aside) is almost entirely conditioned by memetic conditioning. As far as we know we have the same brain we had when we were taking care of the caves...

[kallianpublico]

The use of the word religion in this discussion neuters "mysticism". To talk about the mind without mysticism is to talk about mushrooms and other psychotropic digestibles: drugs, food and culture.
With mysticism any talk about the mind overrides genetics: evolution. As if genes were a derivative of mind instead of mind being a derivative of genes.

[switchlaserflip]

Are you going to change your title or keep ignoring us?

[chayanbosu]

Lord Krishna says in Bhagbat Gita that our existence consist of 3 levels 1.Gross body 2. Subtle body i.e. mind, intellect and ego 3.Soul .So mind is also God's energy and it is like a software if you use it badly then mind can damage us or if you use it constructively then it is our friend which can help us to develope our conciousness .

[owencampbell]

What if we grew up on the moon, would we also have a history, and would we believe in a God and speak moonisch?
What would change our reality?