Charles T. Tart - States of Consciousness (1975)

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States of Consciousness

Charles T. Tart, Ph. D.

Contents

Introduction to the Web Edition Introduction

Section I: States

1. The Systems Approach to States of Consciousness 2. The Components of Consciousness: Awareness,Energy, Structures 3. Conservative and Radical Views of the Mind 4. The Nature of Ordinary Consciousness 5. Discrete States of Consciousness 6. Stabilization of a State of Consciousness 7. Induction of Altered States: Going to Sleep,Hypnosis, Meditation 8. Subsystems 9. Individual Differences 10. Using Drugs to Induce Altered States 11. Observation of Internal States 12. Identity States 13. Strategies in Using the Systems Approach 14. The Depth Dimension of a State of Consciousness 15. State-Specific Communication 16. State-Specific Sciences

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17. Higher States of Consciousness

Section II: Speculation

18. As Above, So Below: Five Basic PrinciplesUnderlying Physics and Psychology 19. Ordinary Consciousness as a State of Illusion 20. Ways Out of Illusion Bibliography

States of Consciousness ©1975 by Charles T. TartFirst published by E.P. Dutton & Co., New York, in 1975.ISBN 0-525-20970-0States of Consciousness appears in The Psychedelic Library bypermission of the Author

Introduction to the Web Edition, 1997

I am very pleased that the Schaffer Library, through the kind efforts ofPeter Webster, is now making this book available over the World Wide Web.The greatly increasing interest in the nature of consciousness in the lastfew years makes this material even more relevant than when it was originallypublished in 1975.Unfortunately too much of the current scientific and popular interest inconsciousness tends to be simplistically reductionistic, a "Consciousness isnothing but……" approach, where the particular "nothing but" may be brainfunctioning, language, philosophical abstractions, etc. All these approacheshave valuable things to offer our understanding, but do grave injustice tothe richness and complexity of our consciousness with suchoversimplification. My systems approach presented in this book is notsimplistic, but tries to deal with the whole, rich range of consciousfunctioning, particularly as it is expressed in altered states ofconsciousness (ASCs) like hypnosis, dreaming, meditation, drug-inducedstates, etc.While my approach is primarily scientific, the book was written clearly tobe accessible to all educated people (indeed, I have sometimes gotten introuble with the University, which has "reasoned" that if my writings can beunderstood they must not be really scholarly….). Many of the students in myaltered states classes over the years have also found considerable personal

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relevance in this approach. As one young woman put it, at first she didn'tunderstand what all these diagrams of mine were about and then one day shesuddenly realized that I had been talking about the way her mind actuallyworked!The basic systems approach I developed to understanding ASCs in this book isstill my basic approach to working with consciousness. In my (undoubtedlybiased) opinion, it is still superior in important ways to the simplisticapproaches that have preceded and followed it. In the past 20 years I havedeveloped this approach further, using computer generated virtual realitysystems to illustrate how consciousness creates a biological-psychologicalvirtual reality (BPVR) in which we experientially live, a semi-arbitraryconstruction, a simulation of the world, which we naively mistake forstraightforward and accurate perception of external reality. This expansionof the systems model can be found in my writings listed below.For those who prefer the pleasure of a real book to reading from a screen (Istill do!), there are still some soft cover copies of the second edition ofStates of Consciousness available at $ 12.95 (plus sales tax for Californiaresidents) and $ 3 for shipping within the US, $ 10 for air shipping outsidethe US. Checks or money orders must be denominated in US currency. Otherbooks and tapes of mine are also available, and $ 1 will bring a catalog.Write to PPI, Box 8385, Berkeley CA 94707-8385.Incidentally I made a great literary mistake in naming this book States ofConsciousness after earlier publishing my Altered States of Consciousness(1969), as readers get the two books confused, If they've read the one, theythink they've read the other. Altered States of Consciousness is ananthology detailing the rich variety of what can happen in ASCs. States ofConsciousness is my attempt to make some coherent sense of this vastspectrum of experiences. Altered States of Consciousness is also availablefrom PPI for $ 16.95 plus shipping (and tax if the book is shipped to aCalifornia address), as above.Charles T. TartBerkeley, CaliforniaSeptember 1997

Further developments of the Systems Approach:

Charles T. Tart, An Emergent Interactionist Understanding of HumanConsciousness Brain/Mind and Parapsychology: Proceedings of an InternationalConference, held in Montreal, Canada, August 24-25, 1978 under the auspicesof the Parapsychology Foundation, New York, NY. Available over the web from

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question our inherited social systems, we go directly to the sources,to altered states of consciousness, in our search for new values andrealities. This is a very exciting, very dangerous, and very hopefulundertaking. We are in a social transition, and no one of us knowsprecisely where it is going. Yet we have, perhaps, a chance tounderstand our own transition and possibly to guide it—things nosociety in the past has been able to do.This opportunity is granted us by science, particularly the youngscience of psychology. Instead of being blindly converted toideologies created by the powerful experiences encountered in alteredstates of consciousness, or avoiding them because of fear, we may beable, through science, to gain a broader understanding f our own mindsand of these forces and to exert some intelligent guidance.This book is transitional in a second way because psychologyitself is entering a state of rapid transition. Once defined as thestudy of the mind, psychology made little headway as a science; itlacked the elegance, precision of understanding, and power of doing ofthe physical sciences. So it was redefined by many of itspractitioners as the study of behavior. Overt behavior is easier tostudy than experience, and the examination of overt behavior has givenus many useful tools for predicting and changing behavior.Now I see psychology once again becoming a science of or the studyof the mind. This trend seems undesirable to many of my oldercolleagues, but is welcomed by many younger psychologists and by mostcurrent students of psychology. We cannot shun the study of the natureof the human mind simply because it is difficult, and confineourselves to the easier analysis of overt behavior. We are nowdeveloping many tools for more precise study of the mind.Yet this second transition is unfinished. At the moment I amoptimistic that a science of consciousness and states of consciousnesswill be developed within this decade. But I cannot be certain thatthis transition in contemporary psychology will definitely lead to ascience of consciousness. The interest among younger psychologists andstudents is not simply a function of some linear progress in thepsychological knowledge available to s; it is also a reflection of thetransition in our society that has prompted our search for values. Ifthere is a marked change in society, such as an authoritarian,repressive shift to buy security rather than to endure the stress oftransition, the new science of consciousness may be aborted.This books presents a new way of viewing states of consciousness—asystems approach. it is a way of looking at what people tell us aboutand how they behave in various altered states of consciousness that Ihave been slowly developing in a decade of research. I have worked out

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the major dimensions of this way of understanding to a point of greatusefulness to myself, and I believe the method can be useful toothers, as well. It is now clear to me that the need is great for somekind of paradigm to make sense of the vast mass of chaotic data inthis field, and I offer this systems approach to others even thoughthis approach is still in transition. It will take me another decadeto think out all the ramifications of this approach, to begin thebroad-scale experimental tests of its usefulness, to adequately fitall the extant and evolving literature into it. But I do not think wehave time for such slow and orderly work if, given the first twotransitions, we are to understand enough scientifically about statesof consciousness to have some influence on the powerful transitionsoccurring in our society. Thus I present this systems approach now,even though it is unfinished, in the hope that it may lead us towardthe understanding we need.This book is transitional in still another sense; it represents avariety of personal transitions for me. One of these transitions is aprofessional one—from experimentalist to theoretician. I am notentirely comfortable with this change. My style has been to conductsmall-scale experiments in various areas of the psychology ofconsciousness where I can stay personally involved with the factualdata and not lose track of them in the course of pursuing intriguingabstractions. Yet the systems approach presented here has evolved inthe course of that experimentation, and it seems so promising that Ihave chosen to de-emphasize my immediate involvement inexperimentation to look at the larger picture of the nature of statesof consciousness. A forthcoming book, Studies of States ofConsciousness [132], will collect some of that research for convenientreference. References to all of my research can be found in theBibliography [61-139].Another personal transition is that I have lately given moreattention to direct experience of some of the phenomena associatedwith altered states of consciousness. While much of what I write abouthere is intellectual or theoretical knowledge based on reports fromothers and on the experimental literature, some of it comes directlyfrom my own experience—enough so that the systems approach I describeclearly makes basic experiential sense to me, even though many of itsramifications are beyond the scope of my personal experience.My personal experience of some of the phenomena associated withaltered states of consciousness may be both advantageous anddisadvantageous. In the early days of research with LSD (lysergic aciddiethylamide), scientists often downgraded the work of a researcherwho had not taken LSD himself on grounds that he did not really

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understand the phenomena he was researching. On the other hand, if hehad taken LSD himself, his research was suspect on grounds that hisjudgment probably had been warped by his personal involvement. He wasdamned if he did and damned if he didn't. So I have tried to steer amiddle course—not presenting a personal theory, but also notpresenting ideas that have no experiential basis at all for me.Whether this is an advantage or disadvantage must be judged by thelong-term usefulness of these ideas.This book is addressed to everyone who is interested in states ofconsciousness, whether that interest is personal, professional, orboth. Each of us lives in his ordinary state of consciousness, each ofus experiencers at least one altered state of consciousness(dreaming), and few of us are immune to the currents of social changethat make us ask questions about the nature of our mental life.Understanding consciousness is not the exclusive task or desire ofscientists or therapists. Because this is a subject of interest to allof us, I have tried to keep my writing straightforward and clear andto resist the temptation to talk in scientific jargon. I introduceonly a few technical terms, usually where the common words we mightuse have acquired such a wide range of meaning that they are no longerclear.This book is also addressed to practitioners and researchers whowill see where this way of looking at consciousness is helpful andwill refine and expand it, and who will also see where this way oflooking things is not helpful and does not fit their experience and sowill alter it. I believe what is presented here will be useful to manyof us now, but I hope that in a decade the progress made by others inthe refinement and application of this approach will allow a far moredefinitive book to be written.The book is organized into two sections. The first section,"States," describes my systems approach to states of consciousness,discusses some of its implications, and gives an overview of what weknow about states of consciousness today. The second section,"Speculations," presents ideas that, while consistent with the systemsapproach, are not a necessary part of it and are more unorthodox.My own thinking in evolving this systems approach has dependedheavily on the contributions of many others. To name only the onesmost prominent in my mind, I am indebted to Roberto Assagioli, JohnBennet, Carlos Castaneda (and his teacher, Don Juan), Arthur Deikman,Sigmund Freud, David Galin, George Gurdjieff, Arthur Hastings, ErnestHilgard, Carl Jung, Thomas Kuhn, John Lilly, Abraham Maslow, HaroldMcCurdy, Gardner Murphy, Claudio Naranjo, Maurice Nicoll, RobertOrnstein, Peter Ouspensky, Idries Shah, Ronald Shor, Tarthang Tulku,

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we see this function in the overall system. Similarly, understandingthe complexity of consciousness requires seeing it as a system andunderstanding the parts. For this reason, I refer to my approach tostates of consciousness as a system approach.To understand the constructed system we call a state ofconsciousness, we begin with some theoretical postulates based onhuman experience. The first postulate is the existence of a basicawareness. Because some volitional control of the focus of awarenessis possible, we generally refer to it as attention/awareness. We mustalso recognize the existence of self-awareness, the awareness of beingaware.Further basic postulates deal with structures, those relativelypermanent structures/functions/subsystems of the mind/brain that acton information to transform it in various ways. Arithmetical skills,for example, constitute a (set of related) structure(s). Thestructures of particular interest to us are those that require someamount of attention/awareness to activate them. Attention/awarenessacts as psychological energy in this sense. Most techniques forcontrolling the mind are ways of deploying attention/awareness energyand other kinds of energies so as to activate desired structures(traits, skills, attitudes) and deactivate undesired structures.Psychological structures have individual characteristics thatlimit and shape the ways in which they can interact with one another.Thus the possibilities of any system built of psychological structuresare shaped and limited both by the deployment of attention/awarenessand other energies and by the characteristics of the structurescomprising the system. The human biocomputer, in other words, has alarge but limited number of possible modes of functioning.Because we are creatures with a certain kind of body and nervoussystem, a large number of human potentials are in principle availableto use. but each of us is born into a particular culture that selectsand develops a small number of these potentials, rejects others, andis ignorant of many. The small number of experiential potentialsselected by our culture, plus some random factors, constitute thestructural elements from which our ordinary state of consciousness isconstructed. We are at once the beneficiaries and the victims of ourculture's particular selection. The possibility of tapping anddeveloping latent potentials, which lie outside the cultural norm, byentering an altered state of consciousness, by temporarilyrestructuring consciousness, is the basis of the great interest insuch states.The terms states of consciousness and altered state ofconsciousness have come to be used too loosely, to mean whatever is on

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one's mind at the moment. The new term discrete state of consciousness(d-SoC0 is proposed for greater precision. A d-SoC is a unique,dynamic pattern or configuration of psychological structures, anactive system of psychological subsystems. Although the componentstructures/subsystems show some variation within a d-SoC, the overallpattern, the overall system properties remain recognizably the same.If, as you sit reading, you think, "I am dreaming," instead of "I amawake," you have changed a small cognitive element in yourconsciousness but not affected at all the basic pattern we call yourwaking state. In spite of subsystem variation and environmentalvariation, a d-SoC is stabilized by a number of processes so that itretains its identity and function. By analogy, an automobile remainsan automobile whether on a road or in a garage (environment change),whether you change the brand of spark plugs or the color of the seatcovers (internal variation).Examples of d-SoCs are the ordinary waking state, nondreamingsleep, dreaming sleep, hypnosis, alcohol intoxication, marijuanaintoxication, and meditative states.A discrete altered state of consciousness (d-ASC) refers to a d-SoC that is different from some baseline state of consciousness (b-SoC). Usually the ordinary state is taken as the baseline state. A d-ASC is a new system with unique properties of its own, a restructuringof consciousness. Altered is intended as a purely descriptive term,carrying no values.A d-SoC is stabilized by four kinds of processes: (1) loadingstabilization—keeping attention/awareness and other psychologicalenergies deployed in habitual, desired structures by loading theperson's system heavily with appropriate tasks; (2) negative feedbackstabilization—correcting the functioning of erringstructures/subsystems when they deviate too far from the normal rangethat ensures stability; (3) positive feedbackstabilization—strengthening activity and/or providing rewardingexperiences when structure/subsystems are functioning within desiredlimits; and (4) limiting stabilization—restricting the range offunctioning of structures/subsystems whose intense operation woulddestabilize the system.In terms of current psychological knowledge, ten major subsystems(collections of related structures) that show important variationsover known d-ASCs need to be distinguished: (1) Exteroception—sensingthe external environment; (2) Interoception—sensing what the body isfeeling and doing; (3) Input-Processing—automated selecting andabstracting of sensory input so we perceive only what is "important"by personal and cultural (consensus reality) standards; (4) Memory;

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(5) Subconscious—the classical Freudian unconscious plus many otherpsychological processes that go on outside our ordinary d-SoC, butthat may become directly conscious in various d-ASCs: (6) Emotions;(7) Evaluation and Decision-Making—our cognitive evaluating skills andhabits; (8) Space/Time Sense—the construction of psychological spaceand time and the placing of events within it; (9) Sense ofIdentity—the quality added to experience the makes it a personalexperience instead of just information; and (10) Motor Output—muscularand glandular outputs to the external world and the body. Thesesubsystems are not ultimates, but convenient categories to organizecurrent knowledge.Our current knowledge of human consciousness and d-SoCs is highlyfragmented and chaotic. The main purpose of the systems approachpresented here is organizational: it allows us to relate what wereformerly disparate bits of data and supplies numerous methodologicalconsequences for guiding future research. it makes the generalprediction that the number of d-SoCs available to human beings isdefinitely limited, although we do not yet know those limits. Itfurther provides a paradigm for making more specific predictions thatwill sharpen our knowledge about the structures and subsystems thatmake up human consciousness.There are enormously important individual differences in thestructure of the d-SoCs. If we map the experiential space in which twopeople function, one person may show two discrete, separated clustersof experiential functioning (two d-SoCs), while the other may showcontinuous functioning throughout both regions and the connectingregions of experiential space. The first person must make a specialeffort to travel from one region of experiential space (one d-SoC) tothe other; the second makes no special effort and does not experiencethe contrast of pattern and structure differences associated with thetwo regions (the two d-SoCs). Thus what is a special state ofconsciousness for one person may be an everyday experience foranother. Great confusion results if we do not watch for thesedifferences: unfortunately, many widely used experimental proceduresare not sensitive to these important individual differences.Induction of a d-ASC involves two basic operations that, ifsuccessful, lead to the d-ASC from the b-SoC. First, we applydisrupting forces to the b-SoC—psychological and/or physiologicalactions that disrupt the stabilization processes discussed aboveeither by interfering with them or by withdrawing attention/awarenessenergy or other kinds of energies from them. Because a d-SoC is acomplex system, with multiple stabilization processes operatingsimultaneously, induction may not work. A psychedelic drug, for

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example, may not produce a d-ASC because psychological stabilizationprocesses hold the b-SoC stable in spite of the disrupting action ofthe drug on a physiological level.If induction is proceeding successfully, the disrupting forcespush various structures/subsystems to their limits of stablefunctioning and then beyond, destroying the integrity of the systemand disrupting the stability of the b-SoC as a system. Then, in thesecond part of the induction process, we apply patterning forcesduring this transitional, disorganized period—psychological and/orphysiological actions that pattern structures/subsystems into a newsystem, the desired d-ASC. The new system, the d-ASC, must develop itsown stabilization processes if it is to last.Deinduction, return to the b-SoC, is the same process asinduction. The d-ASC is disrupted, a transitional period occurs, andthe b-SoC is reconstructed by patterning forces. The subject transitsback to his customary region of experiential space.Psychedelic drugs like marijuana or LSD do not have invariantpsychological effects, even though much misguided research assumesthey do. In the present approach, such drugs are disrupting andpatterning forces whose effects occur in combination with otherpsychological factors, all mediated by the operating d-SoC. Considerthe so-called reverse tolerance effect of marijuana that allows newusers to consume very large quantities of the drug with no feeling ofbeing stoned (in a d-ASC), but later to use much smaller quantities ofmarijuana to achieve the d-ASC. This is not paradoxical in the systemsapproach, even though it is paradoxical in the standardpharmacological approach. The physiological action of the marijuana isnot sufficient to disrupt the ordinary d-SoC until additionalpsychological factors disrupt enough of the stabilization processes ofthe b-SoC to allow transition to the d-ASC. These additionalpsychological forces are usually "a little help from my friends," theinstructions for deployment of attention/awareness energy given byexperienced users who know what functioning in the d-ASC of marijuanaintoxication is like. These instructions also serve as patterningforces to shape the d-ASC, to teach the new user how to employ thephysiological effects of the drug to form a new system ofconsciousness.This book also discusses methodological problems in research fromthe point of view of the systems approach: for example, the way inwhich experiential observations of consciousness and transitions fromone d-SoC to another can be made and the shifts in research strategiesthat this approach calls for. The systems approach can also be appliedwithin the ordinary d-SoC to deal with identity states, those rapid

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shifts in the central core of a person's identity and concerns thatare overlooked for many reasons, and emotional states. Similarly thesystems approach indicates that latent human potential can bedeveloped and used in various d-ASCs, so that learning to shift intothe d-ASC appropriate for dealing with a particular problem is part ofpsychological growth. At the opposite extreme, certain kinds ofpsychopathology, such as multiple personality, can be treat as d-ASCs.One of the most important consequences of the systems approach isthe deduction that we need to develop state-specific sciences. Insofaras a "normal" d-SoC is a semi-arbitrary way of structuringconsciousness, a way that loses some human potentials while developingothers, the sciences we have developed are one-state sciences. Theyare limited in important ways. Our ordinary sciences have been verysuccessful in dealing with the physical world, but not very successfulin dealing with particularly human psychological problems. If we applyscientific method to developing sciences within various d-ASCs, we canevolve sciences based on radically different perceptions, logics, andcommunications, and so gain new views complementary to our currentones.The search for new views, new ways of coping, through theexperience of d-ASCs is hardly limited to science. It is a major basisfor our culture's romance with drugs, meditation, Eastern religions,and the like. But infatuation with a new view, a new d-SoC, tends tomake us forget that any d-SoC is a limited construction. There is aprice to be paid for everything we get. It is vital for us to developsciences of this powerful, life-changing area of d-ASCs if we are tooptimize benefits from the growing use of them and avoid the dangersof ignorant of superstitious tampering with the basic structure ofconsciousness.

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States of Consciousness

elements of it, as well as the overall pattern of your experience,match those qualities you have come to associate with your ordinarywaking consciousness, but do not match the qualities you have come toassociate with being in a dreaming state of consciousness.I ask this question in order to remind the reader of a basic datumunderlying my approach to consciousness—that a person sometimes scansthe pattern of his ongoing experience and classifies it as being oneor another state of consciousness.Many people make distinctions among only a few states ofconsciousness, since they experience only a few. Everyone, forexample, probably distinguishes between his ordinary waking state,dreaming, and dreamless sleep. Some others may distinguish drunkennessas a fourth state of consciousness. Still others who have personallyexperimented with altered states may want to distinguish among drug-induced, meditative, and emotion-induced states.Without yet attempting to define consciousness or states ofconsciousness more precisely, suppose we ask people who havepersonally experienced many states of consciousness how they makethese distinctions. What do they look for in their experience thatalerts them to the fact that they are in a different state ofconsciousness from their ordinary one? A few years ago I asked a groupof graduate students who had had fairly wide experience with alteredstates, "What sorts of things in yourself do you check on if you wantto decide what state of consciousness you're in at a given moment?"Table 2-1presents a categorization of the kinds of answers they gave,a categorization in terms of the systems approach I am explaining aswe go along. A wide variety of unusual experiences in perceptions ofthe world or of oneself, of changes in time, emotion, memory, sense ofidentity, cognitive processes, perception of the world, use of thebody (motor output), and interaction with the world were mentioned.If we ignore the categorization of the experiences listed in Table2-1, we have an illustration of the current state of knowledge aboutstates of consciousness—that people experience a wide variety ofunusual things. While the experiencers imply that there are meaningfulpatterns in their experiences that they cluster together as "states,"our current scientific knowledge about how his wide variety of thingsgoes together is poor. to understand people's experiences in this areamore adequately we must develop conceptual frameworks, theoreticaltools, that make sense out of the experiences in some more basic wayand that still remain reasonably true to the experiences as reported.We can now begin to look at a conceptual framework that I havebeen developing for several years about the nature of consciousness,and particularly about the nature of states of consciousness. Although

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States of Consciousness

what we loosely call altered states of consciousness are often vitallyimportant in determining human values and behavior, and although weare in the midst of a cultural evolution (or decay, depending on yourvalues) in which experiences from altered states of consciousness playan important part, our scientific knowledge of this area is stillsparse. We have a few relationships, a small-scale theory here andthere, but mainly assorted and unrelated observations and ideas. Mysystems approach attempts to give an overall picture of this area toguide future research in a useful fashion.I call this framework for studying consciousness a systemsapproach because I take the position that consciousness, as we knowit, is not a group of isolated psychological functions but a system—aninteracting, dynamic configuration of psychological components thatperforms various functions in greatly changing environments. Whileknowledge of the nature of the components is useful, to understandfully any system we must also consider the environments with which itdeals and the goals of its functioning. So in trying to understandhuman consciousness, we must get the feel of the whole system as itoperates in its world, not just study isolated parts of it.I emphasize a psychological approach to states of consciousnessbecause that is the approach I know best, and I believe it is adequatefor building a comprehensive science of consciousness. but because theapproach deals with systems, it can be easily translated intobehavioral or neurophysiological terms.Let us now look at the basic elements of this systems approach,the basic postulates about what lies behind the phenomenalmanifestations of experience. In the following chapters we will putthese basic elements of awareness, energy, and structure together intothe systems we call states of consciousness.

Awareness and Energy

We begin with a concept of some kind of basic awareness—an abilityto know or sense or cognize or recognize that something is happening.This is a basic theoretical and experiential given. We do not knowscientifically what its ultimate nature is,[1]but it is where westart from. I call this concept attention/awareness, to relate it toanother basic given, which is that we have some ability to direct thisawareness from one thing to another.This basic attention/awareness is something we can bothconceptualize and (to some extent) experience as distinct from the

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particular content of awareness at any time. I am aware of a plantbeside me at this moment of writing and if I turn my head I am awareof a chair. The function of basic awareness remains in spite ofvarious changes in its content.A second basic theoretical and experiential given is theexistence, at times, of an awareness of being aware, self-awareness.The degree of self-awareness varies from moment to moment. At oneextreme, I can be very aware that at this moment I am aware that I amlooking at the plant beside me. At the other extreme, I may be totallyinvolved in looking at the plant, but not be aware of being aware ofit. There is an experiential continuum at one end of whichattention/awareness and the particular content of awareness areessentially merged,[2]and at the other end of which awareness ofbeing aware exists in addition to the particular content of theawareness. In between are mixtures: at this moment of writing I amgroping for clarity of the concept I want to express and trying outvarious phrases to see if they adequately express it. In low-intensityflashes, I have some awareness of what I am doing, but most of thetime I am absorbed in this particular thought process. The lower endof the self-awareness continuum, relatively total absorption, isprobably where we spend most of our lives, even though we like tocredit ourselves with high self-awareness.The relative rarity of self-awareness is a major contributor toneurotic qualities of behavior and to the classification of ordinaryconsciousness as illusion or waking dreaming by many spiritualsystems, an idea explored in Chapter 19. The higher end of thecontinuum of self-awareness comes to us even more rarely, although itmay be sought deliberately in certain kinds of meditative practices,such as the Buddhist vipassana meditation discussed in Chapter 7.The ultimate degree of self-awareness, of separation ofattention/awareness from content, that is possible in any final sensevaries with one's theoretical position about the ultimate nature ofthe mind. If one adopts the conventional view that mental activity isa product of brain functioning, thus totally controlled by theelectrical-structural activity of brain functioning, there is adefinite limit to how far awareness can back off form particularcontent, since that awareness is a product of the structure andcontent of the individual brain. This is a psychological manifestationof the physical principle of relativity, discussed in Chapter 18.Although the feeling of being aware can have an objective quality,this conventional position holds that the objectivity is onlyrelative, for the very function of awareness itself stems from and isshaped by the brain activity it is attempting to be aware of.

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A more radical view, common to the spiritual psychologies {128},is that basic awareness is not just a property of the brain, but is(at least partially) something from outside the workings of the brain.Insofar as this is true, it is conceivable that most or all contentassociated with brain processes could potentially be stood back fromso that the degree of separation between content andattention/awareness, the degree of self-awareness, is potentially muchhigher than in the conservative view.Whichever ultimate view one takes, the psychologically importantconcept for studying consciousness is that the degree of experiencedseparation of attention/awareness from content varies considerablyfrom moment to moment.Attention/awareness can be volitionally directed to some extent.If I ask you to become aware of the sensations in your left knee now,you can do so. but few would claim anything like total ability todirect attention. If you are being burned by a flame, it is generallyimpossible to direct your attention/awareness to something else andnot notice the pain at all, although this can be done by a few peoplein the ordinary d-SoC and by many more people in certain states ofconsciousness. Like the degree of separation of attention/awarenessfrom content, the degree to which we can volitionally direct ourattention/awareness also varies. Sometimes we can easily direct ourthoughts according to a predetermined plan; at other times our mindswander with no regard at all for our plans.Stimuli and structures attract or capture attention/awareness.When you are walking down the street, the sound and sight of anaccident and a crowd suddenly gathering attract your attention to theincident. This attractive pull of stimuli and activated structures mayoutweigh volitional attempts to deploy attention/awareness elsewhere.For example, you worry over and over about a particular problem andare told that you are wasting energy by going around in circles andshould direct your attention elsewhere. but, in spite of your desireto do so, you may find it almost impossible.The ease with which particular kinds of structures and contentscapture attention/awareness varies with the state of consciousness andthe personality structure of the individual. For example, things thatare highly valued or are highly threatening capture attention muchmore easily than things that bore us. Indeed, we can partially definepersonality as those structures that habitually capture a person'sattention/awareness. In some states of consciousness,attention/awareness is more forcibly captivated by stimuli than inothers.Attention/awareness constitutes the major energy of the mind, as

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we usually experience it. Energy is here used in its most abstractsense—the ability to do work, to make something happen.Attention/awareness is energy (1) in the sense that structures havingno effect on consciousness at a given time can be activated ifattended to; (2) in the sense that structures may drawattention/awareness energy automatically, habitually, as a function ofpersonality structure, thus keeping a kind of low-level, automatedattention in them all the time (these are our long-term desires,concerns, phobias, blindnesses); and (3) in the sense thatattention/awareness energy may inhibit particular structures fromfunctioning. The selective redistribution of attention/awarenessenergy to desired ends is a key aspect of innumerable systems thathave been developed to control the mind.The concept of psychological energy is usually looked upon withdisfavor by psychologists because it is difficult to define clearly.Yet various kinds of psychological energies are direct experientialrealities. I am, for example, full of energy for writing at thismoment. When interrupted a minute ago, I resented having to divertthis energy from writing to dealing with a different issue. Last nightI was tired; I felt little energy available to do what I wished to do.Those who prefer to give priority to observations about the body andnervous system in their thinking would tell me that various chemicalsin my bloodstream were responsible for these varied feelings. But"chemicals in my bloodstream" is a very intellectual, abstract conceptto me, while the feelings of energy and of tiredness are directexperiences for me and most other people. So we must considerpsychological energy in order to keep our theorizing close toexperience.I cannot deal in any detail with psychological energy at thisstage of development of the systems approach, for we know little aboutit. Clearly, changing the focus of attention (as in trying to sensewhat is happening in your left knee) has effects: it starts, stops,and alters psychological processes. Also, attention/awareness is notthe only form of psychological energy. Emotions, for example,constitute a very important kind of energy, different in quality fromsimple attention/awareness shifts, but interacting withattention/awareness as an energy. So while this book deals concept ofpsychological energy is much more complex and is one of the majorareas to be developed in the future.Note that the total amount of attention/awareness energy availableto a person varies from time to time, but there may be some fixedupper limit on it for a particular day or other time period. Somedays, we simply cannot concentrate well no matter how much we desire

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it; other days we seem able to focus clearly, to use lots of attentionto accomplish things. We talk about exhausting our ability to payattention, and it may be that the total amount of attention/awarenessenergy available is fixed for various time periods under ordinaryconditions.

Structures

The mind, from which consciousness arises, consists of myriadstructures. A psychological structure refers to a relatively stableorganization of component parts that perform one or more relatedpsychological functions.We infer (from outside) the existence of a particular structure byobserving that a certain kind of input information reliably results inspecific transformed output information under typical conditions. Forexample, we ask someone, "How much is fourteen divided by seven?" andhe answers, "Two." After repeating this process, with variations, weinfer the existence of a special structure or related set ofstructures we can call arithmetical skills. Experientially, we infer(from inside) the existence of a particular structure when, givencertain classes experienced input information, we experience certaintransformed classes of output/response information. Thus, when Ioverhear the question about fourteen divided by seven and observe thatsome part of me automatically responds with the correct answer, Iinfer an arithmetical skills structure as part of my own mind.We hypothesize that structures generally continue to exist evenwhen they are not active, since they operate again when appropriateactivating information is present. I again know that fourteen dividedby seven equals two, even though I stopped thinking about it for awhile.The emphasis here is on the structure forming something that has arecognizable shape, pattern, function, and process that endure overtime. Ordinarily we are interested in the structure's overallproperties as a complete structure, as a structured system, ratherthan in the workings of its component parts. Insofar as any structurecan be broken down into substructures and sub-substructures, fineranalyses are possible ad infinitum. The arithmetical skill structurecan be broken down into adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividingsubstructures. Such microscopic analyses, however, may not always berelevant to an understanding of the properties of the overall system,such as the state of consciousness, that one is working with. the most

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obvious thing that characterizes an automobile as a system is itsability to move passengers along roads at high speed; a metallurgicalanalyses of its spark plugs is not relevant to an understanding of itsprimary functioning and nature. Our concern, then, is with thepsychological structures that show functions useful to ourunderstanding of consciousness. Such structures can be givennames—sexual needs, social coping mechanisms, language abilities.Note that some structures may be so complex that we are unable torecognize them as structures. We see only component parts and neverunderstand how they all work together.A psychological structure may vary in the intensity and/or thequality of its activity, both overall and in terms of its componentparts, but still retain its basic patterns (gestalt qualities) and soremain recognizably the same. A car is usefully referred to as a carwhether it is moving at five or twenty-five miles an hour, whether itis red or blue, whether the original spark plugs have been replaced byspark plugs of a different brand. We anticipate an understanding of astate of consciousness as a system here.Some structures are essentially permanent. The important aspectsof their functioning cannot be modified in any significant way; theyare biological/physiological givens. They are the hardware of ourmental system. To use an analogy from computer programming, they arefixed programs, functions built into the machinery of the nervoussystem.Some structures are mainly or totally given by an individual'sparticular developmental history; they are created by, programmed by,learning, conditioning, and enculturation processes that theindividual undergoes. This is the software of the human biocomputer.Because of the immense programmability of human beings, most of thestructures that interest us, that we consider particularly human, arein this software category.Permanent structures create limits on, and add qualities to, whatcan be done with programmable structures: the hardware puts someconstraints on what the software can be. The physiological parametersconstituting a human being place some limits on his particular mentalexperience and his possible range of programming.Our interest in relatively permanent structures,[3]one that arearound long enough for us conveniently to observe, experience andstudy. But all the theoretical ideas in this book should be applicableto structures that are not long-lasting, even though investigation maybe more difficult.Structure, for the outside investigator, are hypothesizedexplanatory entities based on experiential, behavioral, or

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psychological data. They are also hypothesized explanatory conceptsfor each of us in looking at his own experience: I know that fourteendivided by two equals seven, but I do not experience the arithmeticalskills structure directly; I only know that when I need that kind ofknowledge, it appears and functions. Since I need not hold onconsciously to that knowledge all the time, I readily believe orhypothesize that it is stored in some kind of structure, someplace"in" my mind.

Interaction of Structure and Attention/Awareness

Many structures function completely independently ofattention/awareness. An example is any basic physiological structuresuch as the kidneys. We infer their integrity and nature as structuresfrom other kinds of data, as we have no direct awareness of theirfunctioning.[4]Such structures do not utilize attention/awareness asenergy, but use other forms of physiological/psychological activatingenergy. Structures that cannot be observed by attention/awareness areof incidental interest to the study of consciousness, except for theirindirect influence on other structures that are accessible toconscious awareness.Some structures require a certain amount of attention/awarenessenergy in order to (1) be formed or created in the first place(software programming), (2) operate, (3) have their operationinhibited, (4) have their structure or operation modified, and/or (5)be destructured and dismantled. We call these psychological structureswhen it is important to distinguish them from structures in general.Many structures require attention/awareness energy for their initialformation. The attention originally required to learn arithmeticalskills is an excellent example. Once the knowledge or structure wecall arithmetical sills is formed, it is usually present only ininactive, latent form. An arithmetical question directsattention/awareness to that particular structure, and we experiencearithmetical skills. If our original programming was not verythorough, a fairly obvious amount of attention/awareness energy isnecessary to use this skill. Once the structure has become highlyautomated and overlearned, only a small amount of attention/awarenessenergy is needed to activate and run the structure. We solve basicarithmetic problems, for example, with little awareness of the processinvolved in so doing.Note that while we have distinguished attention/awareness and

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structure for analytical convenience and in order to be true tocertain experiential data, ordinarily we deal with activated mentalstructures. We acquire data about structures when the structures arefunctioning, utilizing attention/awareness energy or other kinds ofpsychological energies.Although we postulate that attention/awareness energy is capableof activating and altering psychological structures, is the fuel thatmakes many structures run, our experience is that affecting theoperation of structures by the volitional deployment ofattention/awareness energy is not always easy. Attempts to alter astructure's operation by attending to it in certain ways may have noeffect or even a contrary effect to what we wish. Attempts to stop acertain structure from operating by trying to withhold attentionenergy form it may fail. the reasons for this are twofold.First, if the structure is (at least partially operating on energyother than attention/awareness, it may no longer be possible to changeit with the amount attention/awareness energy we are able to focus onit. Second, even if the structure still operates withattention/awareness energy, complete control of this energy may bebeyond our conscious volition for one or both of the followingreasons: (1) the energy flow through it may be so automatized andoverlearned, so implicit, that we simply do not know how to affect it;and (2) the functioning structure may have vital (and often implicitor hidden) connections with our reward and punishment systems, so thatthere are secondary gains from the operation of the structure, despiteour conscious complaints. Indeed, it seems clear that for ordinarypeople in ordinary states of consciousness, the amount ofattention/awareness energy subject to conscious control and deploymentis quite small compared with the relatively permanent investments ofenergy in certain basic structures composing the individual'spersonality and his adaptation to the consensus reality of hisculture.Since the mount of attention/awareness energy available at anyparticular time has a fixed upper limit, some decrement should befound when too many structures draw on this energy simultaneously.However, if the available attention/awareness energy is greater thanthe total being used, simultaneous activation of several structuresincurs no decrement.Once a structure has been formed and is operating, either inisolation or in interaction with other structures, theattention/awareness energy required for its operation can beautomatically drawn on either intermittently or continuously. Thepersonality and normal state of consciousness are operating in such a

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way that attention is repeatedly and automatically drawn to theparticular structure. Personality can be partially defined as the setof interacting structures (traits) habitually activated byattention/awareness energy. Unless he develops the ability to deployattention in an observational mode, the self-awareness mode, a personmay not realize that his attention/awareness energy is being drawn tothis structure.There is a fluctuating but generally large drain onattention/awareness energy at all times by the multitude of automated,interacting structures whose operation constitutes personality, thenormal state of consciousness. Because the basic structures composingthis are activated most of a person's waking life, he perceives thisactivation not as a drain on attention/awareness energy, but simply asthe natural state of things. He has become habituated to it. The mostimportant data supporting this observation come from reports of theeffects of meditation, a process that in many ways is a deliberatedeployment of attention/awareness from its customary structures tononordinary structures or to maintenance of a relatively pure,detached awareness. From these kinds of experiences it can beconcluded that attention/awareness energy must be used to support theordinary state of consciousness. Don Juan expounds this view to CarlosCastaneda {12} as the rationale for certain training exercises ("notdoing") designed to disrupt the habitual deployment ofattention/awareness energy into channels that maintain ("doing")ordinary consensus reality. And from experiences of apparent clarity,the automatized drain of attention/awareness energy into habituallyactivated structures is seen by meditators as blurring the clarity ofbasic awareness, so that ordinary consciousness appears and dreamlike.

Interaction of Structures and Structures

Although the interaction of one psychological structure withanother structure depends on activation of both structures byattention/awareness energy, this interaction is modified by animportant limitation: that individual structures have various kinds ofproperties that limit and control their potential range of interactionwith one another. Structures are not equipotent with respect tointeracting with one another, but have important individualcharacteristics. You cannot see with your ears.Information is fed into any structure in one or more way and comesout of the structure in one or more ways.[5]We can say in general

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that for two structures to interact (1) they must have either a directconnection between them or some connections mediated by otherstructures, (2) their input and output information must be in the samecode so information output from one makes sense to the input for theother, (3) the output signals of one structure must not be so weakthat they are below the threshold for reception by the otherstructure, (4) the output signals of one structure must not be sostrong that they overload the input of the other structure.Now let us consider ways in which psychological structures may notinteract. First two structures may not interact because there is nodirect or mediated connection between them. I have, for example,structures involved in moving the little finger of my left hand andsensing its motion, and I have structures involved in sensing my bodytemperature and telling me whether I have a fever or a chill. AlthoughI am moving my little finger vigorously now, I can get no sense ofhaving either a fever or a chill from that action. Those twostructures seem to be totally unconnected.Second, two structures may not interact if the codes of output andinput information are incompatible. My body, for example, has learnedto ride a bicycle. While I can sense that knowledge in my body, in thestructure that mediates my experience of riding a bicycle when Iactually am doing so, I cannot verbalize it in any adequate way. Thenature of knowledge encoded in that particular structure does not codeinto the kind of knowledge that constitutes my verbal structures.Third, two structures may not interact if the output signal fromone is too weak, below the threshold for affecting another. When I amangry with someone and arguing with him, there may, during theargument, be a still small voice in me telling me that I am actingfoolishly, but I have little awareness of that still small voice, andit cannot affect the action of the structures involved in feelingangry and arguing.Fourth, two structures may not interact properly if the outputsignal from one overloads the other. I may be in severe pain during amedical procedure, for instance, and I know (another structure tellsme) that if I could relax the pain would be lessened considerably; butthe structures involved in relaxing are so overloaded by the intensepain that they cannot carry out their normal function.Fifth, two structures may be unable to interact properly if theaction of a third structure interferes with them. An example is aneurotic defense mechanism. Suppose, for instance, your employerconstantly humiliates you. Suppose also that part of your personalitystructure has a strong respect for authority and a belief in yourselfas a very calm person who is not easily angered. Now your boss is

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humiliating you, but instead of feeling angry (the natural consequenceof the situation), you are polite and conciliatory, and do not feelthe anger. A structure of your personality has suppressed certainpossible interactions between other structures (but there may well bea hidden price paid for this suppression, like ulcers).Now consider the case of smoother interaction between structures.Two structures may interact readily and smoothly with one another toform a composite structure, a system whose properties are additiveproperties of the individual structures, as well as gestalt propertiesunique to the combination. Or, two or more structures may interactwith one another in such a way that the total system alters some ofthe properties of the individual structures to various degrees,producing a system with gestalt properties that are not simpleadditive properties of the individual structures. Unstableinteractions may also occur between two or more structures thatcompete for energy, producing an unstable, shifting relationship inthe composite system.All these considerations about the interactional structures applyto both hardware (biologically given) and software (culturallyprogrammed) structures. For example, two systems may not interact fora lack of connection in the sense that their basic neural paths, builtinto the hardware of the human being, do not allow such interaction.Or, two software structures may not interact for lack of connectionbecause in the enculturation, the programming of the person, theappropriate connections were simply not created.All the classical psychological defense mechanisms can be viewedin these system terms as ways of controlling interaction patternsamong perceptions and psychological structures.Remember that in the real human being many structures usuallyinteract simultaneously, with all the above-mentioned factorsfacilitating or inhibiting interaction to various degrees at variouspoints in the total system formed.Thus while the interaction of structures is affected by the wayattention/awareness energy is deployed, it is also affected by theproperties of individual structures. In computer terms, we are nottotally general-purpose computers, capable of being programmed in justany arbitrary fashion. We are specialized: that is our strength,weakness, and humanness.

Table 2-1EXPERIENTIAL CRITERIA FOR DETECTING ANALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

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and potentially experiencable phenomena of which awareness andconsciousness are components. These are not precise definitions becausethe three key words—awareness, consciousness, and mind—are not simplethings. But they are realities, and we must deal with them whether ornot we can give them precise logical definitions. Since logic is onlyone product of the total functioning of the mind, it is no wonder thatwe cannot arrive at a logical definition of the mind or consciousnessor awareness. The part cannot define the whole.Awareness and consciousness, then, can be seen as parts of acontinuum. I would use the word awareness to describe, for instance, mysimple perception of the sound of a bird outside my window as I write.I would use the word consciousness to indicate the complex ofoperations that recognizes the sound as a bird call, that identifiesthe species of bird, and that takes account of the fact that the soundis coming in through my open window. So consciousness refers to arather complex system that includes awareness as one of its basicingredients, but is more complex than simple awareness itself.Few psychologists today would argue with the statement thatconsciousness is awareness resulting from the brain's functioning. Butif you ask what is the basic nature of awareness, the simple basicbehind the more complex entity consciousness, you meet the commonassumption in Western culture generally and scientific culture inparticular that awareness is a "product" of the brain. When psychologywas fond of chemical analogies, awareness was thought of as a sort of"secretion" by the brain.I believe that seeing consciousness as a function of the brain issound, but I think that explicitly or implicitly assuming thatawareness is only a function of the brain, as accepted as that theoryis, can be a hindrance, for two reasons.First, as psychology deals more and more with the phenomena ofaltered states of consciousness, it will more and more have to dealwith phenomena that do not fit well in a conceptual scheme that saysawareness is only a product of the brain. Experiences of apparentlyparanormal abilities like telepathy, of feeling that one's mind leavesone's body, of mystical union with aspects of the universe outsideoneself, of supernormal knowledge directly given in altererd states,fit more comfortably into schemes that do not assume that awareness isonly a function of the brain. I have nothing against competent attemptsto fit such phenomena into our dominant Western scientific framework,but the attempts I have seen so far have been most inadequate and seemto work mainly by ignoring major aspects of these altered statesphenomena. Thus the assumption that awareness is only a function of thebrain, especially as it becomes implicit, tends to distort our view ofreal phenomena that happen in altered states. We dismiss their possible

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reality a priori. We cannot build a science when we start with such aselected view of the data.The second reason for questioning this assumption is the existenceof first-class scientific data to suggest that awareness may besomething other than a product of the brain. I refer to excellentevidence of parapsychological phenomena like telepathy, evidence thatshows that the mind can sometimes function in ways that are"impossible" in terms of our current, physical view of the world. Ireview our knowledge of the paranormal in Studies of Psi {131}."Impossible" means only that these phenomena are paraconceptual, thatour conceptual schemes are inadequate because they exclude this part ofreality. These same conceptual schemes underlie the belief thatawareness is only a product of the brain, and if we question theseconceptual schemes we question that assumption. This book is not theplace for detailed argument, but I have discussed the subject atgreater length in Transpersonal Psychologies {128}, which reviews theimpact of the spiritual psychologies on the evolving science foconsciousness.This view thatawareness is only afunction of thebrain—the conservativeor physicalistic viewof the mind—isdiagrammed in Figure 3-1. The brain (andnervous system andbody) are depicted as astructure that hashardware qualities onthe one hand andsoftware qualities onthe other. The hardwarequalities are those inherent in the physical makeup of the brainitself, as dictated by the physical laws that govern reality. Thisdictation of limitation is shown as a one-way arrow from the physicalworld to the brain. The software qualities are the programmable aspectsof the brain, the capacities for recording data and building upperception, evaluation, and action patterns in accordance withprogramming instructions given by the culture. The arrows of influenceare two-way here, for even though the programming is largely done bythe culture to the individual, occasionally the individual modifiessome aspects of the culture. Awareness is shown as an emergent qualityof the brain, and so awareness is ultimately limited by the hardware

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and by particular software programs of the brain. Consciousness is theindividual's experience of awareness diffused through a tiny fractionof the structure of the brain and nervous system.The radical view ofthe mind is diagrammedin Figure 3-2. Twochanges have been madeto incorporate theradical view. First,awareness is shown assomething that comesfrom outside thestructure of thephysical brain, as wellas something influencedby the structure of thebrain (thus givingconsciousness) and thecultural programming. In religious terms, this is the idea of a soul orlife/mind principle that uses (and is used by) the body. This is a mostunpopular idea in scientific circles, but, as I have argued elsewhere{129}, there is enough scientific evidence that consciousness iscapable of temporarily existing in a way that seems independent of thephysical body to warrant giving the idea serious consideration anddoing some research on it.The second change incorporated in the radical view is shown by thetwo-way arrow from the physical world to the hardware structure of thebrain. The idea, held in many spiritual systems of thought that havedealt with altered states of consciousness, is that physical reality isnot a completely fixed entity, but something that may actually beshaped in some fundamental manner by the individual's beliefs about it.I am not speaking here simply of perceptions of reality, but of theactual structure of reality. Pearce {49}, for example, describes anexperience as a youth where he accidentally entered an altered state ofconsciousness in which he knew he was impervious to pain or injury. Infront of witnesses he ground out the tips of glowing cigarettes on hischeeks, palms, and eyelids. He felt no pain, and there was no sign ofphysical injury. The consventional view can easily account for the lackof pain: by control of the structures involved in sensing pain (nervetracts and certain brain areas), pain would not be perceived. But aglowing cigarette tip has a temperature of about 1400F, and his skinshould have been severely burned, despite his state of consciousness.From the radical point of view, his beliefs about reality in thealtered state actually altered the nature of physical reality.

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A culture can be seen as a group which has selected certain humanpotentials as good and developed them, and rejected others as bad.Internally this means that certain possible experiences are encouragedand others suppressed to construct a "normal" state of consciousnessthat is effective in and helps define the culture's particularconsensus reality. The process of enculturation begins in infancy, andby middle childhood the individual has a basic membership in consensusreality. Possibilities are partially shaped by the enculturation thathas already occurred. By adulthood the individual enjoys maximumbenefits from membership, but he is now maximally bound within thisconsensus reality. A person's "simple" perception of the world and ofothers is actually a complex process controlled by many implicitfactors.One of the greatest problems in studying consciousness and alteredstates of consciousness is an implicit prejudice that tends to make usdistort all sorts of information about states of consciousness. Whenyou know you have a prejudice you are not completely caught by it, foryou can question whether the bias is really useful and possibly try tochange it or compensate for it. But when a prejudice is implicit itcontrols you without your knowledge and you have little chance to doanything about it.The prejudice discussed in this chapter is the belief that ourordinary state of consciousness is somehow natural. It is a very deep-seated and implicit prejudice. I hope in this chapter to convince youintellectually that it is not true. Intellectual conviction is alimited thing, however, and to know the relativity and arbitrarinessof your ordinary state of consciousness on a deeper level is a muchmore difficult task.Consciousness, notour sense organs, isreally our "organ" ofperception, and one wayto begin to see thearbitrariness of ourconsciousness is toapply the assumptionthat ordinaryconsciousness issomehow natural orgiven to a perceptualsituation. This is donein Figure 4-1. A man is looking at a cat and believing that the imageof the real cat enters his eye and is, in effect, faithfully

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reproduced on a screen in his mind, so that he sees the cat as it is.This naive view of perception was rejected long ago by psychologists,who have collected immense amounts of evidence to show that it is aridiculously oversimplified, misleading, and just plain wrong view ofperception. Interestingly, these same psychologists seldom apply theirunderstanding of the complexity of perception to their own lives, andthe person in the street does so even less.While there are a great many simple perceptions we can very wellagree on, there are many others, especially the more important ones inhuman life, on which there is really little agreement. I would be thatalmost all adult, non-institutionalized humans in our society wouldagree that this object in your hand is called a book, but as we definemore complex things the bet gets riskier. If you go to a courtroomtrial and listen to the testimony of several eyewitnesses, all of whompresumably has basically the same stimuli reaching their receptors,you may hear several different versions of reality. Or, if you discussthe meaning of current events with your acquaintances, you will findthat there are many other points of view besides your own. Most of ourinterest is directed by complex, multifaceted social reality of thissort.Most of us deal with this disagreement by simply assuming thatthose who disagree with us are wrong, that our own perceptions andconsciousness are the standard of normality and rightness, and thatother people cannot observe or think well and/or are lying, evil, ormentally ill.A Sufi teaching story called "Bread and Jewels" {58, p. 113}illustrates this nicely:A king once decided to give away a part of his wealth bydisinterested charity. At the same time he wanted to watchwhat happened to it. So he called a baker whom he couldtrust and told him to bake two loaves of bread. In the firstwas to be baked a number of jewels, and in the other,nothing but flour and water.These were to be given to the most and least piouspeople whom the baker could find.The following morning two men presented themselves atthe oven. One was dressed as a dervish and seemed mostpious, though he was in reality a mere pretender. The otherwho said nothing at all, reminded the baker of a man whom hedid not like, by a coincidence of facial resemblance.The baker gave the bread with jewels in it to the man inthe dervish robe, and the ordinary loaf to the second man.

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As soon as he got his loaf the false dervish felt it andweighed it in his hand. He felt the jewels, and to him theyseemed like lumps in the loaf, unblended flour. He weighedthe bread in his hand and the weight of the jewels made itseem to him to be too heavy. He looked at the baker, andrealized that he was not a man to trifle with. So he turnedto the second man and said: "Why not exchange your loaf formine? You look hungry, and his one is larger."The second man, prepared to accept whatever befell,willfully exchanged loaves.The king, who was watching through a crack in thebakehouse door, was surprised, but did not realize therelative merits of the two men.The false dervish got the ordinary loaf. The kingconcluded that Fate had intervened to keep the dervishprotected from wealth. The really good man found the jewelsand was able to make good use of the. The king could notinterpret this happening."I did what I was told to do," said the baker."You cannot tamper with Fate," said the king."How clever I was!" said the false dervish.The king, the baker, and the false dervish all had their own viewsof what reality was. None of them was likely ever to correct hisimpression of this particular experience.Consciousness, then, including perception, feeling, thinking, andacting, is a semi-arbitrary construction. I emphasize semi-arbitrarybecause I make the assumption, common to our culture that there aresome fixed rules governing physical reality whose violation producesinevitable consequences. If someone walks off the edge of a tallcliff, I believe he will fall to the bottom and probably be killed,regardless of his beliefs about cliffs, gravity, or life and death.Thus people in cultures whose belief systems do not, to a fair degree,match physical reality, are not likely to survive long enough to arguewith us. But once the minimal degree of coincidence with physicalreality necessary to enable physical survival has been attained, theperception/consciousness of an action in the complex social realitythat then exists may be very arbitrary indeed.We must face the fact, now amply documented by the scientificevidence presented in any elementary psychology textbook, thatperception can be highly selective. Simple images of things out thereare not clearly projected onto a mental screen, where we simply see

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What happens when we arefaced by the unknown, bythings we have not beentrained to see? Figure 4-3,using the same kind ofanalogy as the previousfigure, depicts this. We maynot see the stimulus at all:the information passes rightthrough the mind withoutleaving a trace. Or we maysee a distortedrepresentation of thestimulus: some of the fewfeatures it has in commonwith known stimuli trigger representations of the known features, andthat is what we perceive. We "sophisticated" Westerners do not believein angels. If we actually confronted one, we might not be able to seeit correctly. The triangle in its hands is a familiar figure, however,so we might perceive the triangle readily. In fact, we might seelittle but the triangle—maybe a triangle in the hands of a sweet oldlady wearing a white robe.Don Juan, the Yaqui man of knowledge, puts it quite succinctly: "Ithink you are only alert about things you know" {10}.I mentioned above the curious fact about psychologists, who knowabout the complexities of perception, almost never seem to apply thisinformation to their own perceptions. Even though they study the oftenlarge and obvious distortions in other people's perceptions, theymaintain an image of themselves as realistic perceivers. Somepsychologists even argue that perception is actually quite realistic.But what does "realistic" mean?We like to believe that it means perception of the real world, thephysical world. But the world we spend most of our time perceiving isnot just any segment of the physical world, but a highly socializedpart of the physical world that has been built into cities,automobiles, television sets. So our perception may indeed berealistic, but it is so only with respect to a very tailored segmentof reality, a consensus reality, a small selection of things we haveagreed are "real" and "important." thus, within our particularcultural framework, we can easily set up what seem to be excellentscientific experiments that will show that our perceptions are indeedrealistic, in the sense that we agree with each other on theseselected items from our consensus reality.

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This is a way of saying that our perceptions are highly selectiveand filtered, that there is a major subsystem of consciousness, Input-Processing discussed at length later, that filters the outside worldfor us. If two people have similar filtering systems, as, for example,if they are from the same culture, they can agree on many things. Butagain, as Don Juan says, "I think you are only alert about things youknow." If we want to develop a science to study consciousness, andwant that science to go beyond our own cultural limitations, we mustbegin by recognizing the limitations and arbitrariness of much of ourordinary state of consciousness.I have now mentioned several times that we believe certain thingsimply because we were trained to believe them. Let us now look at thetraining process by which our current "normal" or ordinary state ofconsciousness came about.

Enculturation

Figure 4-4illustrates the conceptof the spectrum of humanpotential. By the simplefact of being bornhuman, having a certaintype of body and nervoussystem, existing in theenvironmental conditionsof the planet earth, a large (but certainly not infinite) number ofpotentials are possible for you. Because you are born into aparticular culture, existing at a particular time and place on thesurface of the planet, however, only a small (perhaps a very small)number of these potentials will ever be realized and becomeactualities. We can think of a culture[1]as a group of people who,through various historical processes, have come to an agreement thatcertain human potentials they know of are "good," "holy," "natural,"or whatever local word is used for positively valuing them, and shouldbe developed. They are defined as the essence of being human. Otherpotentials, also known to the culture, are considered "bad," "evil,""unnatural." The culture actively inhibits the development of thesepotentials in its children, not always successfully. A large number ofother human potentials are simply not known to that particularculture, and while some of them develop owing to accidental

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circumstances in a particular person's life, most do not develop forlack of stimulation. Some of these potentials remain latent, capableof being developed if circumstances are right in later life; othersdisappear completely through not being developed at an early, criticalstage.Most of us know how to do arithmetic, speak English, write acheck, drive an automobile, and most of us know about things, likeeating with our hands, which are repellent to us (naturally or throughtraining?). Not many of us, though, were trained early in childhood toenter a d-ASC where we can be, for example, possessed by a friendlyspirit that will teach us songs and dances as is done by somecultures. Nor were most of us trained to gain control over our dreamsand acquire spirit guides in those dreams who will teach us usefulthings, as the Senoi of Malaysia are {88 or 115, ch. 9}. Each of us issimultaneously the beneficiary of his cultural heritage and the victimand slave of his culture's narrowness. What I believe is worse is thatfew of us have any realization of this situation. Like almost allpeople in all cultures at all times, we think our local culture is thebest and other peoples are uncivilized or savages.Figure 4-4 shows two different cultures making differentselections from and inhibitions of the spectrum of human potential.There is some overlap: all cultures, for example, develop a languageof some sort and so use those particular human potentials. Manypotentials are not selected by any culture.We can change the labels in Figure 4-4 slightly and depict variouspossible experiences selected in either of two states ofconsciousness. Then we have the spectrum of experiential potentials,the possible kinds of experiences or modes of functioning of humanconsciousness. The two foci of selection are two states ofconsciousness. These may be two "normal" states of consciousness intwo different cultures or, as discussed later, two states ofconsciousness that exist within a single individual. The fact thatcertain human potentials can be tapped in state of consciousness Athat cannot be tapped in state of consciousness B is a major factorbehind the current interest in altered states of consciousness.Figure 4-4, then, indicates that in developing a "normal" state ofconsciousness, a particular culture selects certain human potentialsand structures them into a functioning system. This is the process ofenculturation. It begins in infancy, possibly even before birth: therehas been speculation, for example, that the particular language soundsthat penetrate the walls of the womb from outside before birth maybegin shaping the potentials for sound production in the unborn baby.

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the other hand, grow up in environments where vertical and horizontallines predominate. In more ways than we can even begin to think of,the enculturation process affects perception, and ultimatelyconsciousness, even in infancy.Note also that the structuring/programming of our consciousnessthat takes place in early infancy is probably the most persistent andmost implicit of all our programming and learning, for at that time wehave no other framework to compare it with. It is the only thing wehave, and it is closely connected with our physical survival and ourbeing loved and accepted. It gives us a loyalty and a bond to ourculture's particular world-view that may be almost impossible for usto break, but again, one whose limitations we must be aware of if weare really to understand the workings of our minds. Another Sufiteaching story, "The Bird and the Egg" {58, p. 130}, illustrates thepower of this early programming:Once upon a time there was bird which did not have thepower of flight. Like a chicken, he walked about on theground, although he knew that some birds did fly.It so happened that, through a combination ofcircumstances, the egg of a flying bird was incubated bythis flightless one.In due time the chick came forth, still with thepotentiality for flight which he had always had, even fromthe time he was in the egg.It spoke to its foster-parent, saying: "When will Ifly?" And the landbound bird said: "Persist in your attemptsto fly, just like the others."For he did not know how to take the fledgling for itslesson in flying: even how to topple it from the nest sothat it might learn.And it is curious, in a way, that the young bird did notsee this. His recognition of the situation was confused bythe fact that he felt gratitude to the bird who had hatchedhim."Without this service," he said to himself, "surely Iwould still be in the egg?"And, again, sometimes he said to himself: "Anyone whocan hatch me, surely he can teach me to fly. It must be justa matter of time, or of my own unaided efforts, or of somegreat wisdom: yes, that is it. Suddenly one day I will becarried to the next stage by him who has brought me thusfar."

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Charles T. Tart - States of Consciousness (1975)

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