Altered Consciousness Essay

The first topic, and one I found most interesting is how people alter their consciousness through drugs and alcohol. This was really interesting to me as I grew up in a home with drug addiction, so learning about what makes drugs so appealing and addicting really opened my eyes. A lot of the information covered in that section was information that I was already familiar with, however I did read some things that did surprise me. For example, marijuana was listed as a hallucinogen which really surprised me, as I had assumed it would be listed as depressant. After reading the section about marijuana though, I was surprised to find that it really is more of a hallucinogen than a depressant, although I think that it would be better off classes …show more content…
I did not understand why hypnosis was included as a way to alter consciousness. Hypnosis really isn’t a form of altered consciousness in my opinion, and the author even states that it doesn’t have a definition in Psychology, and there’s questions about whether the subject is just performing to please the hypnotist. It did explain the theory that hypnosis creates a divided state of conscious, which is the neodissociation theory, but personally I would have to say that is grasping at straws. Aside from that, I thought the section actually offered some great ideas about ways to relax and was really thorough about the different types of meditation. Different forms of meditation like counting breaths, chanting, and limiting the attention to a minute to minute attention span, were all covered. Some of the healthy benefits mentioned that are associated with meditation are less daily stress, less insomnia, lowered blood pressure, and less anxiety and depression. I did find it unfortunate that the section didn’t offer more ways of healthy altered consciousness, but in reality there really aren’t too many other ways. All in all, the section was informative and thorough with the two healthy ways to altered consciousness it did