What consciousness is and how much we can know are two of the most important unanswered questions in science (Scientific American, 2018). The questions aren’t new. Philosophers and theologians have thought about who we are and the nature of reality for eons. Psychologists explore behavior, perception and how we make meaning. Neuroscientists have joined the game too. They’re interested in what produces consciousness and how, the assumption being that its origin is the brain.
As a sociologist, I’m interested in the ways who we are affect our human systems, and conversely, how those systems influence who we are. What can we know about the world from various states of consciousness (SOC), how do we experience these states, and how can they be used?
Photo by Christina Leimer
The imminent late 19th century psychologist William James, founder of the American Society for Psychical Research, believed thinkers from a wide range of fields would be necessary to crack this enigma.
James thought that the brain’s role in consciousness isn’t as a producer but more of a transmitter, admitting and transferring information (Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the NDE, pg. 289). In her book Infinite Mind: Science of the Human Vibrations of Consciousness, UCLA physiologist Valerie Hunt agreed, saying “the brain has been studied in an airtight glass jar, a closed system, while we have tried to deduct from it an open system—the mind.” (pg. 87) Shamans, across the wide range of cultures and traditions, experience alternate states of consciousness, dreams and visions as real places we can go to and information that exists independently of individual human brains.
In my own experience, watching my different SOCs, it appears that consciousness is a non-linear spectrum with states shading into other states. (Hunt believes too that consciousness is a continuum. p. 91). If we can balance ourselves in the mixing zones, we can operate from multiple SOCs simultaneously. The place in the spectrum that my brain produces seems to be the analytical. When I’m thinking, reasoning, that process feels solidly centered in my brain. If I’m obsessing, churning over thoughts and worries, that too feels rooted in brain and nervous system functioning.
Most often, when original ideas occur to me, I’m not thinking about it at all. I might be riding my bike, or working around the house or in the tub. The thought or image or words just appear in my awareness whole. If I don’t act on the idea—write about it, let’s say—then I sometimes see it start showing up elsewhere. Others are writing about it. It’s as if the idea is in the air for anyone who can tune into it.
Recently, I’ve experienced sensation that felt like it was behind me, outside of my physical body, but that entered my body and appeared to me as song or images. In the case of the music, my brain must have been involved somehow, but the tones felt like they were moving from behind my shoulder blades through my chest and I simply allowed them to flow through me, singing them. In the case of the image, it seemed to originate from behind—in the region of the visual cortex—while near-simultaneously emerging from my chest where I could see it as a vision in front of me. Again, my brain didn’t seem to be the producer.
Another SOC that may involve the brain and its interaction with something else—whatever mind turns out to be, or whatever we would call those places, those realities, shamans visit—is in dreams. For me, it’s common to simultaneously experience the I that’s observing my dream and the I that’s in the dream. I know while dreaming that I’m dreaming.
My own experience makes me believe, like William James, that only open-minded, multidisciplinary exploration and willingness to accept unusual, extraordinary or exceptional human experiences—as parapsychologist Rhea White called them—rather than explain them away will get us to answers to this puzzle.
Currently, with the encouragement of the Dalai Lama, scientists and Buddhist monks are collaborating to find out what each can contribute to these vexing questions. Contemplatives in the Buddhist tradition, and some others, have thousands of years of experience observing the mind and states of consciousness. David Presti, University of California neurobiologist and psychologist who’s coordinating these studies, believes this collaboration could result in a revolution of understanding as big as any ever made in science (Presti, Mind Beyond Brain: Buddhism, Science and the Paranormal).
What I still see missing is social science. In Communing with the Gods: Consciousness, Culture and the Dreaming Brain, neuroanthropologist Charles Laughlin points out that we don’t pay much attention to the social and cultural information in dreams. I know we’re inherently curious about ourselves. No problem. We need to be. But we don’t live in a vacuum. We’re impacted by the culture and systems we live in. They are the impetus for science disbelieving and ignoring our anomalous human experiences. Our cultural beliefs and practices are cutting us off from knowing and being all that we are. As we come to understand our new capabilities, we need to set ourselves free to use them. That means changing culture and social systems to support the new us. That’s why sociologists should be part of this revolution.