Higher States Of Consciousness Research Articles

Exploring Pure Consciousness: How Oxytocin Modulates the Neurobiology of Awareness

Pure consciousness, often described as a state of heightened awareness or transcendence beyond ordinary perception, has long intrigued philosophers, neuroscientists, and psychologists alike. Recent advances in neuroendocrinology suggest that oxytocin, a hormone traditionally associated with social bonding, empathy, and trust, may play a significant role in modulating states of pure consciousness. This review explores the intersection between oxytocin and the neurobiology of awareness, investigating how the hormone influences various neural pathways and brain structures involved in consciousness. By examining current research on oxytocin’s effects on the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus—regions crucial for emotional regulation, memory, and self-awareness—we propose a model where oxytocin acts as a biochemical facilitator of deeper, more connected states of consciousness. Furthermore, we explore how oxytocin's role in social bonding may extend beyond interpersonal connections, fostering a sense of unity and interconnectedness often reported in higher states of consciousness. By bridging the neurochemical, psychological, and philosophical dimensions of consciousness, this review aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of oxytocin’s potential to shape human awareness, offering new insights into both the scientific and experiential dimensions of pure consciousness.

The impact of gender differences on the clinical characteristics of critically ill patients with venous thromboembolism: A retrospective, observational study.

The aim of this study is to describe the general information, disease and treatment of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in critically ill patients, to explore the characteristics of severe patients with deep venous VTE and provide clinical reference data for the prevention and treatment of VTE in critically ill patients. This study carried out a retrospective study on the medical records of patients who were treated in the intensive care unit of Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical College from 2020 to 2022. The general data, general conditions, drug use, past history, VTE prevention measures, post-VTE conditions, and Padua risk score of 297 patients with VTE during the period of hospitalization in intensive care unit (ICU) were classified and statistically analyzed. A total of 297 including 171 male and 126 male patient medical records were included in the analysis, we compared multiple clinical indicators between male and female patients. Compared to women, male patients have a higher acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II score(APACHE-II score) (P = .027), a higher state of consciousness (P = .003), a higher rate of smoking and drinking history (P < .001), a lower rate of heart failure (P = .003) and chronic depression (P = .013), and a higher rate of recommended operations for male patients after VTE (P = .031). The prothrombin time (PT) (P = .041) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) (P = .040) of male patients were significantly higher than those of female patients, while triglyceride (P = .009) and total cholesterol (TC) (P = .001) were significantly lower than those of female patients. The difference in D-dimer (P = .739) was not significant. This study shows that male and female patients with VTE in the ICU have significant differences in general characteristics, general clinical conditions, history of past illness, thrombosis character, and examination items, this may be the reason for the different rates of VTE between male and female patients in the ICU.

Creativity and Higher States of Consciousness

Dream reality and artist-created virtual reality, combined with the reality we perceive as physical, form three realities of human experience. Taking this into account, primary senses seem incomplete without extrasensory senses, which allow access to higher states of consciousness. Artists sometimes use those states as the source of creativity, inspiration, and ideas.The real-time neurofeedback shows brainwave activity in the theta frequency range in a creativity-related Hypnagogic state. Alpha and delta frequencies are also creativity-related. Alpha is observed during the inspiration stage of creative thinking, while theta occurs during transcendental meditation and deep sleep. Neurofeedback is also used to create works of art. Higher states of consciousness-inducing techniques include dream machines, mind machines, binaural beats, hallucinogenic drugs, and most advantageous – float tanks. Holistic methods like meditation, hypnotherapy, and energy healing are also helpful. Meditation seems to be the most effective, with the ability to control lucid dreaming and out-of-body experiences to an extent.The generation of creative ideas is a phenomenon that defies scientific explanation. The author’s experiences in higher states of consciousness in art, meditation, and energy healing, make him confident that higher states of consciousness are legitimate sources of creativity and essential to the overall health of body, mind, and soul.

Платоновская «сотериология» в контексте классической йоги

Introduction. In the article, the connection between the «soteriological» aspects of philosophy of Plato and the principles of classical yoga presented in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is considered in the framework of the comparative methodology. The aim of the study is to establish conceptual parallels in the approaches of Plato and classical yoga to solving the issue of the form of the highest spiritual realization of a person. Theoretical analysis. The most common points of the contact of Plato with classical yoga in the form of a system of eight practical principles of working with the human body and psyche are presented by analogy with the eight-step yoga of Patanjali. The practice of maintaining the physical and mental health of a person, continuous nature of this practice, internal and external purity, self-control, subordination of the senses, maintaining mental peace and balance, eliminating ignorance and the practice of meditation constitute the semantic core of Plato’s «yoga system». The main position of this system is the meditative practice of achieving a higher state of consciousness. Conclusions. The practice of meditation in Plato is realized gradually and ends with the same soteriological result as the mastery of the «internal» means of yoga in the Patanjali system. The deep and complex connection between psychotechnics, philosophy and religious wisdom in the studied systems is emphasized. The study of this relationship is an important direction in modern philosophical and religious comparative studies.

Transformative perspectives of tourism: dialogical perceptiveness

ABSTRACT This introductory paper offers an overview of transformational paths suggested by the contributors of this issue and the recent work of other scholars. Going forward, by drawing on the essence of existing scholarship, it suggests an inner transformation pathway for the suppliers, facilitators and receivers of tourism. The ultimate goal is to embark on a journey towards a state of awakening that transcends to the higher self of consciousness and a sense of connectedness (and therefore mindfulness) towards all living beings and the earth in general. To address the question of “how to move towards a higher state of consciousness?,” a transformational tourism paradigm is presented, which suggests an inner path towards a state of “Being,” stimulated by peak travel experiences and B-cognition, which can initiate harmony of the gross and subtle elements of human existence and transcend the self to the ultimate higher purpose of life.

High Consciousness Manager – Who Are We Bringing Back in Management?

The Academy’s theme for 2021 is Bringing the Manager Back in Management. How should one interpret and model the manager that needs to be brought back? It is unlikely to be the qualities that were factored out of management by digital technologies. The qualities needed in the new manager could be the empathizing and synergizing quality, the visionary and transformative quality, the moral quality (Laszlo, 2020), and more. All these and similar qualities can be subsumed under the idea of an integral (Wilber, 2000) or holistic (Dhiman, 2019) or higher state of consciousness (Maheshwari & Gupta, 2020), towards the appreciation of the total interconnectedness (Tsao & Laszlo, 2019) and oneness of the world (Laloux, 2014). A manager being brought back ideally would be self-aware, self-regulating, and flexible enough to work at higher levels of consciousness. The ability to raise consciousness around him/her/them could be a key role for the new High Consciousness Manager (HCM). From an increasing convergence of quantum science and spirituality, also identified as the Unified Field Theory (Hagelin, 1987), we hope to offer useful, grounded and generative perspectives that could offer a new ontology and epistemology for the new HCMs (Lazslo, 2020; Pavlovich, 2020). This may be also the key to accelerating the kind of pro-social and pro-environmental behavior needed for business-led flourishing and expansion of happiness. Some of the challenges to be discussed on this path are (a) What are the structural and personal rewards and incentives, as well as obstacles and challenges, for organizations to develop and deploy HCMs? (b) What new concepts, holistic and functional, are emerging to model the future of HCMs in organizations? (c) What are the characteristics of the experiences of organizations that have progressed on this path of deploying HCMs? This symposium plans to provide a rich unfoldment of these questions from multiple perspectives

ANOTHER postmodern (human nature and religious-mystical culture)

The aim of the study is to clarify and shed light on the phenomenon of OTHER postmodernism, the importance and significance of its characteristics as another within man himself, which regulates and purifies what is in human nature, which is reflected in religious and mystical culture and art. Also on the materials of psychology, as a parallel with OTHER postmodern, the phenomenon of compensatory enlightenment, the importance and significance of its characteristics as the spontaneous loss of insignificant, unimportant, shallow thoughts and vanity that exists in human nature. The importance and significance of compensatory enlightenment is demonstrated by the example of the connection with the transcendence of philosophical culture, as well as religious-mystical and aesthetic-artistic cultures. When we speak of the transcendence of philosophical culture, we mean the consideration by this culture of those states of man which cannot be reliably conveyed in words, but which are nevertheless presented in documentary as higher states of consciousness. The methodology of obtaining new knowledge is based on a comparative method of research, collecting the characteristics of another postmodern and inductive reasoning in this regard. Documentary texts are compared, generalizations of these texts are found. At the same time, different human states are compared on the examples of religious and mystical culture. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that for the first time such a phenomenon of human nature as the recognition of one’s own other within oneself is considered, which can be recorded in such categories as "compensatory enlightenment", "transcendent", "numinous". , "Sacred". The subject of research is considered in connection with the transcendence of philosophical culture, with such areas of culture as religious-mystical and aesthetic-artistic. Conclusions. It has been found that the other post-modern, as the inner recognition of one’s own other within oneself, can be understood as a compensatory enlightenment, which is a non-negative phenomenon of human nature. Another postmodern is related to the creative process at the stage of "maturation", in which a person destroys his outdated personality. This is highlighted in the demonstration of the transcendence of philosophy, as well as religious and mystical culture.

The Incredible Shrinking Man in Paul Auster’s Report from the Interior: The Film and the Myths

The Incredible Shrinking Man, one of the two “written films” (quoted in Gonzales 18) that Auster narrates in Report from the Interior, turns the book, as in The Book of Illusions, into a virtual screen, showing how influential the 1957 Universal Pictures production was to fabricate both Auster’s auctorial identity and his various characters’ identities. The Incredible Shrinking Man exclusively focuses on the physical metamorphosis of the protagonist who is submitted to a sudden, corporeal diminishment, and then on his rebirth at a higher state of consciousness: after dying to his old self, he struggles to survive, overcoming obstacles and trials as he is confined in the cellar of his own house. The plot undeniably recalls the process of regression, the so-called “art of hunger” that most Austerian protagonists experience. It also casts a light on the theme of the depletion of material resources which pervades Auster’s fictions and conveys, in multiple ways, the idea of “a return to origins” as Mircea Eliade, for instance, analyzed it. Carey’s initiatory and transformative adventure, which resembles a fairy tale, explains, at least partly, Auster’s fascination for this genre which has always inspired him, and Auster’s analysis of the film in Report from the Interior unveils his vision on initiation, on life and fiction, along with his obsession with enclosed spaces.

Relevance of pineal gland: Science versus religion

The pineal gland is a small but critical hormonal gland in our body. It is considered as a regulating or master gland that regulates the cycles within our bodies. Its purpose and function are still largely a mystery to science, and research on it is yielding very interesting discoveries, especially on its connection to spirituality and higher states of consciousness. Descriptions of the human anatomy derived from religious texts are often omitted from the medical literature. It may be that over time, science will validate many of these spiritual truths and statements as being based in scientific and medical fact.

Jung’s Theory Of Mind. Individuality: Lost, Gained, And Transcended

The perception of Jung’s psychology as superstitious, mystical, or out of date is largely an illusion. My aim is to show that Jung’s theory still stands out, endures the test of time, and needs to be acknowledged as an integral and indispensable part of modern academic thinking. This paper deals with individual and collective attitudes, how they are represented to the brain as personified images, projected and identified with, and finally, transcended in order to be renewed. Jung showed that higher states of consciousness are not possible without the transcendence of psychological opposites. This thought is still fairly unknown, although it could solve many problems related to identity and fanaticism. A failure to transcend means a return to unconscious collectivism, as shown by Lenin’s radical materialism, a large-scale experiment with human consciousness. The tendency towards materialism is nevertheless viable also in the Western World and has dominated interpretation of psychological theories and religious symbolism for generations. Literal interpretation of religious symbolism, together with confounding the distinction between descriptive and evaluative opposites, actualises the unrecognised, or neglected shadow of all human characteristics and values. The rise and fall of nations and cultures, as well as ideology and the psychology of an individual are influenced by it. KEYWORDS Individuality, Consciousness, Collectivism, The battle of the sexes, Pairs of opposites, Transcendence, God-image.

Specyfika, funkcje i mechanizmy stanów medytacyjnych na podstawie badań neuropsychologicznych nad uważnością

Neuropsychological findings suggest that mindfulness state (meditation state) can be shown as higher state of consciousness, which differs from relaxation state (requires much more energy) and alertness (domination of parasympathetic activation). At the higher level of meditation (low demand for energy), there occur increased activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), left insula and striatum, and reduction of activation of the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and parietal cortex. Meditation plays an important role in top-down switching (early noticing of the stimulus – 100 msec. after appearance of the stimulus) and maintenance of the attention (dealing with mind wandering). Crucial mechanisms occurring during meditation states are: vertical synchronization of brain steam, limbic system and neocortex (higher attention of stimuli), bilateral hemispheric activation (deeper insight on negative emotions and unconsciousness) and domination of gamma band fluctuations (high speed of information propagation). Specificity, functions and mechanisms occurring in meditative states have a positive influence on many aspects of the humane life (bodily regulation, attuned communication, emotional balance, fear extinction, response flexibility, insight, empathy, intuition and morality).

Concept and Nature of Consciousness in Shiva-Sutra: An Applied Scientific Approach

This paper provides a theoretical introduction and review of research on higher states of consciousness described in the Psychology of Shiva Sutra. Consciousness is a natural human phenomenon. It is associated with the human mind-body problem. A many efforts have been in exploring and discovering the reality of consciousness. Modern sciences have tries to solve this Knott. Ancient literature and traditions have also attempted to handle the case. Shiva Sutra is valuable corpus of knowledge, science and logic. It represents a unique encoding and explanation of consciousness. Within the Shiva Sutra it is customary to trace fundamental nature of consciousness. Shiva sutra presents the modern methodologies and techniques in understanding of enquiry. It keeps resemblances with modern sciences and scientific understanding.

Higher States of Consciousness: Scale Development and Validation

Accompanying the higher states of consciousness the physiological correlates involving the activity of the brain, whether electrical or chemical, are being measured and documented with brain imagin...

The ever-transcending quest in the poetry of Sri Chinmoy: the human quest for God-Realisation; God’s quest for manifestation

This is a discussion paper that sets out to explore an approach to the writings of the spiritual master Sri Chinmoy, through the motif of the Quest. In particular, it explores his own journey to God-realisation, or Self-realisation, and his teaching of the interdependence of the relationship between aspiring humanity and the ever-transcending nature of the Supreme Being. The Quest is defined in general terms as a journey towards humanity’s inner divinity, and corresponds to the three traditional steps of Separation, Trial and Return, which are illustrated throughout the writings, particularly in the poetry. The human soul, separated from the divine Oneness of existence, descends into the physical world to enter God’s Cosmic Game of hide and seek. Endless trials and cycles of life eventually awaken man to his higher purpose and fulfillment in seeking union with the Beloved. It is aspiration through the heart that Sri Chinmoy claims will cause the descent of divine Compassion and the bestowing of the Union, and he illustrates this through his own journey to the highest. He portrays the exalted states of blissful absorption in the divine Consciousness, and illustrates that his poetry and writings then become a pathway for all seekers to enter a higher state of consciousness – which he calls the ‘manifestation’, the divine purpose of God to fulfil himself and humanity at the same time. The cross-referencing of Sri Chinmoy’s poetry and prose writings both supports and explains many of the mysteries of the ever-transcending Quest of the Supreme for divine manifestation in the sphere of the physical world and offers a bright new path of spirituality which itself transcends boundaries of East and West.

From 'management by materialism' to 'management by spiritual wisdom'

The goal of a firm is to make money appear to be the fundamental assumption of classical management culture. Management by spiritual wisdom proposes, instead, to contribute socially to the benefit of all, including material needs and spiritual needs. Detachment of the results of actions is required to be fully confident in the outcomes provided by The Divine Hand. Clearly, this approach does not lead to a complete disinterest of the work, this is the opposite: work becomes worship, or ‘workship’, where workers are alert of each and every detail. They find purpose and meaning in what they are doing. These efforts in a union with the divine lead them to higher state of consciousness where they are able to achieve more and take decisions spontaneously and intuitively. These management wisdom lessons have been drawn from the study on the Mata Amritanandamayi Math and Indian Management Wisdom.

Concept of Reality

In the essay entitled 'Concept of Reality' the author probes for a comprehension of reality, the nature of its evolution, and if life is an orderly, evolving and continuous process with an innate consciousness of purpose. The paper formulates a conceptual framework that describes how reality consciously create the evolutionary conditions for life through its own internal mechanisms of information and knowledge management systems that evolves into reality’s consciousness of being. The work expounds a view that the cosmos operates as a bio-knowledge matrix that holographically photosynthesises the different stages of reality, which informs the continuous evolution of higher states of consciousness within the cosmos. The essay concludes with the thesis that reality is an integrated infinite information ecosystem with a hierarchical interconnected consciousness synchronized in unison of being, which supports a life system of evolutionary consensus seeking organisation for the manifestation of knowledge, achieved through harnessing the equality in ‘free-will’ of being into an harmonious union of diversified existence.

Mythic Conjunctions in Transit: Ontopoiesis in Ben Okri's An African Elegy and Mental Fight and Wole Soyinka's A Shuttle in the Crypt

Summary Drawing on Ben Okri's A Time for New Dreams (2011) and Wole Soyinka's Myth, Literature and the African World ([1976]1995), this article adopts a literary aesthetics approach, explaining that mythic conjunctions are inherent in ontopoiesis or the self-induced development of consciousness (Tymeniecka 1992). Okri (2011: 27) argues that self-creativity or innovation “come from being able first to see what is there, and not there; to hear what is said, and not said …. And … the art of intuition”, whereas for Soyinka ([1976]1995: 3) “man's attempt to externalise and communicate his inner intuitions” gives rise to cultural mythology. “In Asian and European antiquity … man did, like the African, exist within a cosmic totality, did possess a consciousness in which his own earth being, his gravity-bound apprehension of self, was inseparable from the entire cosmic pheno-menon,” he asserts (p. 3.). The poems selected reveal that mythic conjunctions are inherent in such non-dualistic insights. In Okri's poetry (1992 & 1999), a higher state of consciousness or “illumination” is the basis for life's transitions wrought largely through spirit awakenings via a retrieval of traditional geocosmic horizons; in Soyinka's (1972), such transitions accrue from a conscious reconstruction of the human self, affected by the trauma of solitary confinement.

Corrigendum to “Genome-wide expression changes in a higher state of consciousness [Consciousness and Cognition (2012) 1322–1344

Corrigendum to “Genome-wide expression changes in a higher state of consciousness [Consciousness and Cognition (2012) 1322–1344

Following the Raven: The Paradoxical Path Toward a Depth Ecopsychology

Abstract Comparing two very different genres of writing, Richard Nelson's nature writing about his experiences among the Koyukon tribe in northern Alaska and Carl Jung's work on the primitive psyche, this article highlights the need for modern, Western people to recover an indigenous relationship with the natural world. Jung declares that one of the biggest tragedies of Western civilization is the loss of the numinous that has resulted in the dehumanizing of the natural world. Examining Jung's controversial use of the terms “primitive” and participation mystique, we discover that what modern man has considered to be a more “civilized” higher state of consciousness has been wrongly equated with ego-consciousness, thus resulting in a limited understanding of the unconscious psyche. This article points out that the way beyond the “cult of consciousnesses” is to attend to that which the rational mind does not understand: dreams, symptoms, and the presence of archetypes. By doing so, the Western heroic ego, al...

Genome-wide expression changes in a higher state of consciousness

Higher states of consciousness in which the human mind can transcend the boundaries of logic and reason are envisioned as natural to the experience and potential growth of every human being. So far they have been mostly monitored by electrophysiological methods. In this study we were particularly interested in discovering the molecular transcriptional basis of higher states of consciousness. In addition to phenomenological reports of meditators who participated in this study the generated higher states of consciousness were also EEG recorded. We assessed the whole genome gene expression analysis of long-term meditators in four separate trials and detected significant differential gene expression in association with higher states of consciousness. The number of differently expressed genes as well as high proportion of genes themselves differed between meditators. Despite this, gene ontology enrichment analysis found significant biological and molecular processes shared among meditators' higher state of consciousness.