If you can, you might want to stay under a professional’s supervision to ensure safety. While prolonged fasting can be dangerous it can undoubtedly alter or heighten your consciousness. Some might have a deep mystical experience, others deal with past traumatic events, and some might feel like being reborn. My experiences with it have induced profound altered states of consciousness. Holotropic breathing is a powerful technique. The effects are depending on one’s state of being or set. On the other hand, it might bring up some trauma that has to be dealt with. The roles are switched in future sessions and a session can take up to 3 hours.Ī holotropic breathwork session might bring you deeper into the present moment. People are often paired off, so one person can be the “breather” while the other is the “sitter”. Holotropic breathing involves rhythmic breathing similar to hyperventilation and is often practiced in group settings. Sometimes it’s called rebirthing because some people re-experience their birthing process. Holotropic Breathwork is a breathing technique developed by Stanislav and Christina Grof to induce a non-ordinary state, or as he has also termed it a holotropic state of consciousness. And the more you practice the better you get at practicing. Like meditation, the practice itself is the goal.

Yoga can put you in a state of calmness and peacefulness while becoming more in touch with your body and its abilities. However, even one yoga lesson can induce a heightened state of consciousness.įor many, yoga becomes important in their life not primarily because of the value for the physical body but their spiritual development. To truly gain the benefits of yoga you should have a regular practice. When you are getting better at focusing on your pranayama your postures or asanas will become easier and stronger. Similar to meditation, the most important thing in yoga is being present in its practice and you do that by focusing on your breathing or pranayama. However, yoga is more than just a physical practice, it’s a way of life, a way of being. Or as is said in Zen, we practice the practice to practice the practice.Īnother practice, that is gaining more and more attention is yoga. The moment when you decide to sit down for meditation is already a gain. The most important thing is to do it daily. Moreover, keep in mind that meditation should not be a way to gain something, but it is the gain itself. When starting your meditation practice, you might have the feeling that it’s “not working.”īut with time you will be able to focus on your breathing longer and be aware of getting lost in thought quicker.Īs you progress, you will less and less identify with your thoughts and become the observer in contrast to the experiencer.Īnd the moments where you are fully present can be filled with an infinite sense of peace and interconnectedness. Just try to focus on 10 consecutive breaths without interruption and you will realize how hard it actually is. The easiest way is to concentrate on your breathing and when you get lost in thought you just gently return to your breath without judging yourself.Īlthough I say “the easiest way” it’s not easy. Often, we just get lost in thought and don’t even realize we are lost in thought. However, many of us have difficulties meditating in the beginning. Meditation is one of the best-known ways to induce a non-ordinary state of consciousness. Therefore, subjectively, any experience may or may not lead to an altered state of mind. However, the individual, more than anything else, determines when a state of mind is altered, or non-ordinary. There is a lot of debate about what falls under the category altered state of consciousness and the term itself. Pharmacological (psychoactive substances).Psychological (mediation, music, hypnosis).Physical and physiological (fasting, sex, dancing).Spontaneous (daydreaming, near-death experience).In his book, Dieter Vaitl, for example, suggests a classification into five categories: What is an Altered State of Consciousness?Īlthough there are a variety of different definitions, an altered state of consciousness, also called a non-ordinary state of consciousness, can certainly be defined as a conscious experience that is significantly different from ordinary waking consciousness.Īltered states of consciousness can be induced through various sources. Dreaming / Lucid Dreaming / Daydreamingĭrugs have been used for altered states of consciousness for as long as humans existed.īut we have also been using other means to change our state of mind, apart from ingesting psychoactive substances.What is an Altered State of Consciousness?.

Altered state