Non-ordinary States Of Consciousness Research Articles

Changes in high-order interaction measures of synergy and redundancy during non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by meditation, hypnosis, and auto-induced cognitive trance

High-order interactions are required across brain regions to accomplish specific cognitive functions. These functional interdependencies are reflected by synergistic information that can be obtained by combining the information from all the sources considered and redundant information (i.e., common information provided by all the sources). However, electroencephalogram (EEG) functional connectivity is limited to pairwise interactions thereby precluding the estimation of high-order interactions. In this multicentric study, we used measures of synergistic and redundant information to study in parallel the high-order interactions between five EEG electrodes during three non-ordinary states of consciousness (NSCs): Rajyoga meditation (RM), hypnosis, and auto-induced cognitive trance (AICT). We analyzed EEG data from 22 long-term Rajyoga meditators, nine volunteers undergoing hypnosis, and 21 practitioners of AICT. We here report the within-group changes in synergy and redundancy for each NSC in comparison with their respective baseline. During RM, synergy increased at the whole brain level in the delta and theta bands. Redundancy decreased in frontal, right central, and posterior electrodes in delta, and frontal, central, and posterior electrodes in beta1 and beta2 bands. During hypnosis, synergy decreased in mid-frontal, temporal, and mid-centro-parietal electrodes in the delta band. The decrease was also observed in the beta2 band in the left frontal and right parietal electrodes. During AICT, synergy decreased in delta and theta bands in left-frontal, right-frontocentral, and posterior electrodes. The decrease was also observed at the whole brain level in the alpha band. However, redundancy changes during hypnosis and AICT were not significant. The subjective reports of absorption and dissociation during hypnosis and AICT, as well as the mystical experience questionnaires during AICT, showed no correlation with the high-order measures. The proposed study is the first exploratory attempt to utilize the concepts of synergy and redundancy in NSCs. The differences in synergy and redundancy during different NSCs warrant further studies to relate the extracted measures with the phenomenology of the NSCs.

Psychedelic-assisted Therapy Training: Firsthand Experience of Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness in the Development of Competence

Introduction This review explores the benefits of incorporating personal experience(s) with non-ordinary states of consciousness as a core component of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PaT) training.The program incorporates an optional experiential training component. We collaborate with professionals affiliated with a Canadian non-profit organization specializing in PaT experiential training. As do other stakeholders in this field– including program developers, educators, and researchers–we navigate a rapidly evolving and often ambiguous landscape, where infrastructure and regulations are lagging scientific data and best practices. Given the potential for differing perspectives, the authors acknowledge that their personal experiences could be a potential source of bias, influencing objectivity.ObjectivesConversely, these lived experiences could be seen as valuable contributions, enriching perspectives on the role of experiential training. In that context, our intention is to provide a comprehensive review, presenting arguments both in favour of and against the integration of experiential training in PaT.MethodsThere is an urgent need for establishing legal training and practice options, bridging the underground with best practices, with all practitioners operating within a regulated and ethically accountable framework. Such a proactive strategy would mitigate the risks associated with unregulated training in a field with relatively few guidelines on how to develop competency.ResultsAn in-training PaT experience supports personal comfort, self-assuredness, and confidence supporting others in non-ordinary states of consciousness, with contemporary researchers/experts highlighting the specific challenges among therapists who lack lived experience. These might include holding unrealistic expectations, being unaware of the impacts of set and setting, and misunderstandingConclusions Whether or not therapists engage in experiential training - serving a dual in one’s own healing process, it is imperative that they maintain their own wellness practices. This proactive/primary prevention strategy would improve well-being and resilience, reducing secondary mental health consequences for patients and providers. Cultivating a culture of self-care within the mental health field should be an overarching priority for training programs and professional organizations, without which we are left with broken people in support of broken people. Current rates of burnout, absenteeism and early retirement suggest that we are already on that trajectory and should serve as a call to action.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Spiritual health practitioners' contributions to psychedelic assisted therapy: A qualitative analysis.

Psychedelic-assisted therapies hold early promise for treating multiple psychiatric conditions. However, absent standards for the care, teams providing psychedelic-assisted therapy pose a major roadblock to safe administration. Psychedelics often produce spiritually and existentially meaningful experiences, and spiritual health practitioners have been involved in administering psychedelic-assisted therapies in multiple settings, suggesting important qualifications for delivering these therapies. However, the roles and competencies of spiritual health practitioners in psychedelic-assisted therapies have not been described in research. This study examined interviews with 15 spiritual health practitioners who have facilitated psychedelic-assisted therapy. Thematic analyses focused on their contributions, application of expertise and professional background, and roles in administering these therapies. Seven themes emerged, comprising two domains: unique and general contributions. Unique contributions included: competency to work with spiritual material, awareness of power dynamics, familiarity with non-ordinary states of consciousness, holding space, and offer a counterbalance to biomedical perspectives. General contributions included use of generalizable therapeutic repertoire when conducting PAT, and contributing to interdisciplinary collaboration. Spiritual health practitioners bring unique and specific expertise to psychedelic-assisted therapy based on their training and professional experience. They are skilled at interprofessional collaboration in a way that complements other clinical team members. Psychedelic-assisted therapy teams may benefit from including spiritual health practitioners. In order to ensure rigorous standards and quality care, further efforts to delineate the roles and necessary qualifications and training of spiritual health clinicians for psychedelic-assisted therapy are needed.

Hypnosis measured with monitors of anesthetic depth - EEG changes during the test for Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility.

Hypnotic trance can be defined as a non-ordinary state of consciousness that is accompanied by a number of neurophysiological changes, including brain electrophysiology. In addition to subjective measures, corresponding objective parameters are needed in experimental and clinical hypnosis research but are complex, impractical, or unspecific. A similar challenge exists for the measurement and monitoring of drug-induced hypnosis, namely general anesthesia. The observation of changes in EEG induced by narcotics has led to the development of monitors for the depth of anesthesia based on EEG parameters. We investigated whether two such monitors react to the induction and maintenance of hypnosis during a highly standardized procedure. A total of 56 volunteers were monitored for the bispectral index (BIS) and cerebral state index (CSI) (range 0-100, >95 considered "awake") during the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility test. For this test, trance is induced by a taped text and followed by 12 tasks performed under hypnosis. In contrast to random forms of hypnosis, this represents a standardized, worldwide-established condition. According to the resulting score, participants were classified into suggestibility groups in order to evaluate whether the electrophysiological measurements of BIS and CIS indices differ between high and low suggestible persons. Furthermore, participants were asked to rate their hypnotic depth (HD, 1-10) at every task of the test. Scores dropped significantly from a mean of 97.7 to 86.4 for BIS and from 94.6 to 77.7 for CSI with the induction of hypnosis to stay throughout hypnosis at levels of approximately 88.6 or 82.9, respectively. Results did not differ between high- and low-suggestible participants. The means of the subjective score of hypnotic depth and of the electrophysiological measurements showed a similar course. However, no correlation was found between BIS or CSI values and scores of hypnotic depths. Monitors for depth of anesthesia respond to changes in consciousness, including trance states of hypnosis. However, specificity is unclear. Practically, in hypnosis research with the exclusion of drug effects or sleep, these monitors might be helpful to test and compare the efficacy of induction texts and to detect disturbances of trance state.

Psychedelics and critical theory

AbstractIn the monograph Philosophy and Psychedelics: Frameworks for Exceptional Experience, Hauskeller raises the important subject of individualization and alienation in psychedelic psychotherapy. Under the prevailing conditions of neoliberalism, Hauskeller contends that psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy appropriates Indigenous knowledges in an oppressive fashion, may be instrumentalised to the ends of productivity gain and symptom suppression, and may be utilised to mask societal systems of alienation. Whilst offering a valuable socio-political critique of psychedelics' clinical uptake, we suggest that Hauskeller's view does not adequately acknowledge the ways in which psychedelics offer a challenge to the Western reductive bio-medical understanding of healing and wellbeing. It is contended herein that Indigenous knowledges, in alliance with a range of emerging sciences, offer both an engagement with ethnomedicines in a less harmfully appropriative fashion, and a renewed understanding of the means by which psychedelics achieve therapeutic change. With this understanding, what becomes apparent are the potential ways in which psychedelic medical usage may produce positive feedback upon the oppressive systems in which we are embedded. That is, transpersonal experience through encounters with the ineffable may offer a revisioning of Western psychology and cognitive science. Indeed, if psychedelics are approached with an understanding of the actual means by which they produce therapeutic outcomes—changing mental representations of the self, or self-insight derived through non-ordinary states of consciousness—then psychedelic psychotherapy offers a reimagining of psychiatric nosology, challenging conventional understandings of both pathology and wellbeing through an overturning of specified and discrete deficit models of psychopathology. This may provide both a critique of the prevailing categories used to describe madness and an expansion of our understanding of the mind-body relation, as well as an increased recognition of positive psychology grounded in cross-cultural contemplative traditions. This provides an implicit challenge to the pharmaceutical industrial-complex and its profit motives; and the corresponding neoliberalist, globalising tendencies which Hauskeller seeks to address.

Relationships Between Cultural Factors and Engaging in Guided Imagery and Music: An Exploratory Qualitative Study.

Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) is now practiced and taught on every inhabited continent. With this international growth of GIM, both GIM therapists and clients have unique cultural backgrounds that are often different from the US American context in which the method was originally developed. According to this reality, we undertook a cross-cultural study to explore how cultural factors relate to ways in which GIM clients engage in the therapeutic process. This research study is based on a qualitative and interpretivist approach that utilized thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews. Six GIM advanced trainees from three countries (Japan, Spain, and the US) participated in the study. Eight themes emerged that describe significant cultural factors that affected the initial stages of engaging in GIM as clients: personal experiences with non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC); spirituality; physical distance; linguistic expression; professional/academic background; socio-economic aspects; social norms/expectations; and non-directive facilitation/attitudes. The first seven of these themes constituted aspects of the participants' individual sociocultural backgrounds that shaped their initial experiences of and expectations for GIM sessions and affected their GIM engagement. The eighth theme emerged as a transcultural factor in which a non-directive approach used by their GIM therapists allowed participants to engage in GIM more readily and form a new set of norms and expectations within their GIM sessions. Our research suggests that as participants developed a new set of norms and expectations as they acclimated to GIM, the therapist's non-directive stance provided a bridge between these two sets of social or cultural norms.

The role of non-ordinary states of consciousness occasioned by mind-body practices in mental health illness

BackgroundResearch with hallucinogens suggests that non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSCs), particularly mystical-type experiences, predict improvements in various affective disorders and substance use disorders (SUDs). Little is known, however, about the therapeutic potential of NOSCs induced by mind-body practices such as meditation, yoga and breathwork. MethodsWe conducted a literature review in online databases (PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar) and preprint databases (SSRN, bioRxiv) to identify studies of NOSCs induced by mind-body practices and their effects in affective disorders and SUDs. ResultsA wide variety of mind-body practices involving physical movement (i.e., shamanic drumming, yoga) and deliberate immersive experiences (i.e., meditation, breathwork) have been reported in the literature. Preliminary evidence, mostly from qualitative studies and open label studies, suggest that mind-body practices produce NOSCs. These experiences have also been correlated with short-term reductions in anxiety and depression, with increased motivation to change addictive behaviors, and with enhanced self-awareness and well-being. LimitationsFindings are limited by the scarcity of literature in this field. Further rigorous and methodologically sound empirical research is needed, including comparative studies of NOSCs occasioned by different methods. ConclusionsMind-body practices may represent a promising approach for treating mental health disorders. The NOSCs induced by such practices may lead to beneficial shifts in perceptions, values, beliefs, and behaviors. Given the challenges with hallucinogen-based therapies, mind-body practices may represent a more accessible and acceptable way of eliciting potentially helpful NOSCs in clinical practice.

A neurophenomenological approach to non-ordinary states of consciousness: hypnosis, meditation, and psychedelics.

No contemporary unifying framework has been provided for the study of non-ordinary states of consciousness (NSCs) despite increased interest in hypnosis, meditation, and psychedelics. NSCs induce shifts in experiential contents (what appears to the experiencer) and/or structure (how it appears). This can allow the investigation of the plastic and dynamic nature of experience from a multiscale perspective that includes mind, brain, body, and context. We propose a neurophenomenological (NP) approach to the study of NSCs which highlights their role as catalysts of transformation in clinical practice by refining our understanding of the relationships between experiential (subjective) and neural dynamics. We outline the ethical implications of the NP approach for standard conceptions of health and pathology as well as the crucial role of experience-based know-how in NSC-related research and application.

Psychedelic Forum Member Preferences for Carer Experience and Consumption Behavior: Can “Trip Sitters” Help Inform Psychedelic Harm Reduction Services?

Background: There is limited research on the provision of harm reduction services to people who use psychedelics. Little is known about provision of care to people consuming psychedelics outside of clinical trials. Methods: We investigated how people who used psychedelics discussed their preferences for care (or “trip sitting”) on two online forums: The Shroomery and DMT Nexus. A thematic analysis of the discussion was conducted to better understand consumer preferences for harm reduction services and resources. Results: We identified two key themes: experience and remote sitting. Forum participants valued trip sitters who had experienced psychedelic and other non-ordinary states of consciousness, who had knowledge of the health and medical industry, psychedelic literature and/or had previously cared for other psychedelic consumers. Forum participants also identified the value of consuming a psychedelic without somebody who was in their physical proximity, through communicating their plans to a remote trip sitter. The use of online tools was identified as a way to maximize the benefit of privacy while retaining carer benefits. Conclusion: Demand for trip sitters with lived psychedelic experience is likely influenced by stigma and empathy. Trip sitters who could relate to the effects of psychedelics assisted consumers in avoiding stigma while vulnerable under the effects of psychedelics. As such, psychedelic harm reduction services should be delivered by peers to ensure care maximizes the benefits of empathy. Psychedelic harm reduction services should consider how remote workers could be employed. There is a clear demand for remote psychedelic care services and to our knowledge this has not yet been explored.

The Quantum Hologram Theory of Consciousness as a Framework for Altered States of Consciousness Research

We can learn more about how our reality is made and what non-ordinary states of consciousness are by studying the Quantum Hologram Theory of Physics and Consciousness (QHTC). The QHTC says that consciousness is not local and that altered states of consciousness can help us understand how our minds work in more than one way. That's what Schrödinger thought. He thought that the quantum mechanical wave function was a field of consciousness. QHTC is based on holographic theories for human consciousness. These theories say that the brain works like a hologram and that it processes images into interference patterns that are then turned into virtual images, just like a laser hologram. These quantum waves can store a lot of information, which our brains use to make our three-dimensional world. This article says that this last theory should be the main framework for research on altered states of consciousness, and it talks about how to get data for analysis and how to get into an altered state for possible experiments.

Hypnosis, Meditation, and Self-Induced Cognitive Trance to Improve Post-treatment Oncological Patients' Quality of Life: Study Protocol.

IntroductionA symptom cluster is very common among oncological patients: cancer-related fatigue (CRF), emotional distress, sleep difficulties, pain, and cognitive difficulties. Clinical applications of interventions based on non-ordinary states of consciousness, mostly hypnosis and meditation, are starting to be investigated in oncology settings. They revealed encouraging results in terms of improvements of these symptoms. However, these studies often focused on breast cancer patients, with methodological limitations (e.g., small sample size, no control group, and no follow-up). Another non-ordinary state of consciousness may also have therapeutic applications in oncology: self-induced cognitive trance (SICT). It seems to differ from hypnosis and meditation, as it involves the body more directly. Thus, investigating its clinical applications, along with hypnosis and meditation interventions, could improve available therapeutic options in oncology. This article details the study protocol of a preference-based longitudinal controlled superiority trial aiming to assess the effectiveness of 3 group interventions (hypnosis, meditation, and SICT) to improve oncological patients’ quality of life, and more specifically CRF, emotional distress, sleep, pain, and cognitive difficulties (primary outcomes).Methods and analysisA power analysis required a total sample of 160 patients. Main inclusion criteria are: cancer diagnosis, active treatments completed for less than a year, no practice of hypnosis, meditation, or SICT, and presence of at least one of these four symptoms: fatigue, sleep difficulties, depression, or anxiety. Each participant will choose the intervention in which they want to participate (hypnosis, mindful self-compassion meditation, SICT, or no intervention—control group). To test the effectiveness of the interventions, data will be collected by questionnaires and neurobiological measures and directly from the medical record at four time points: before inclusion in the study (baseline); immediately after the intervention; and at 3- and 12-month follow-up. The longitudinal data in each group will then be measured.DiscussionIn addition to standard cancer therapies, there is a growing interest from patients in complementary approaches, such as hypnosis, meditation, and SICT. The results of this study will be useful to increase knowledge about short- and long-term effectiveness of 3 group interventions for CRF, emotional distress, sleep, pain, and cognitive difficulties in patients with different cancers.Clinical Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov/ (NCT04873661). Retrospectively registered on the 29th of April 2021. url: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04873661

The Need for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy in the Black Community and the Burdens of Its Provision.

Psychedelic medicine is an emerging field that examines entheogens, psychoactive substances that produce non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC). 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is currently in phase-3 FDA clinical trials in the United States (US) and Canada to treat the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). MDMA is used in conjunction with manualized therapy, because of its effectiveness in reducing fear-driven stimuli that contribute to trauma and anxiety symptoms. In 2017, the FDA designated MDMA as a “breakthrough therapy,” signaling that it has advantages in safety, efficacy, and compliance over available medication for the treatment of trauma-, stress-, and anxiety-related disorders such as PTSD. In the US and Canada, historical and contemporary racial mistreatment is frequently experienced by Black people via a variety of macro and micro insults. Such experiences trigger physiological responses of anxiety and fear, which are associated with chronically elevated stress hormone levels (e.g., cortisol and epinephrine), similar to levels documented among those diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. This paper will explore the benefits of entheogens within psychedelic assisted-therapy and their potential benefits in addressing the sequelae of pervasive and frequent negative race-based experiences and promoting healing and thriving among Black, Indigenous and other People of Color (BIPOC). The author(s) discuss the ethical responsibility for providing psychedelic-assisted therapy within a culturally competent provider framework and the importance of psychedelic researchers to recruit and retain BIPOC populations in research and clinical training.

Transpersonal psychology as critical/radical psychology

Editor’s note: this article is a summary of the Keynote at the Section Annual Conference Transpersonal Activism on 12 September 2021.Despite its designation as the ‘Fourth Force,’ Transpersonal Psychology often occupies a peripheral and precarious place within mainstream Psychological approaches. Its historic focus on mystical/spiritual and non-ordinary states of consciousness, coupled with its continued emphasis on subjective and experiential inquiry, have often led to it being excluded in favour of more materialist, positivistic paradigms that currently dominate the discipline. Rather than attempt to simply adapt and assimilate into more mainstream, conventional forms of Psychology, Transpersonal Psychology has a unique opportunity to actively embrace its otherness and outsider status; to pursue authentic interdisciplinary encounters and pioneer more inclusive and radical approaches to research methods. In contemporary Humanistic and Engaged expressions of Eastern Wisdom Traditions (specifically Hinduism, Buddhism and Daoism) one may observe the increasing emphasis on ecological awareness, recovery of the Divine Feminine and more spiritually informed approaches to social justice. To avoid accusations of remoteness, solipsism and spiritual bypassing, Transpersonal Psychologists also need to better attend and creatively respond to prevailing political and socioeconomic conditions. In this keynote I will demonstrate how Transpersonal Psychology has at its heart, always constituted a critical/radical approach to Psychology and still retains the capacity to reinvigorate, re-enchant, transform and transcend.

Oscillatory Components of Psychedelic Experience

As humanity has been utilizing psychedelic substances for millennia, much knowledge has already been accumulated about the exploratory potential and therapeutic power of the psychedelic-induced nonordinary states of consciousness (NSC). However, we still have only a limited understanding of the process that unfolds in mind and the brain. Only recently have systematic investigations become possible, as the myths about psychedelics are abating and the legal strictures gradually loosening. With the availability of brain imaging techniques, exciting findings have been made about the associated dynamic brain processes. Our prospective observations of spontaneously generated NSC, major mood disorders, have been elucidating another dynamic aspect, the oscillatory brain processes. The findings indicate that the NSC’s propensity is markedly increased at the peaks of the oscillatory brain activity and that the NSC entirely unfolds when the oscillations exceed their normal range. The observation that neurobiological correlates of experientially opposite NSC, melancholy and mania, appear qualitatively the same is compatible with the concept that the experiential content is emerging from nonlocal consciousness. Psychedelic experiences are triggered by the administration of the psychedelic drug. However, they are influenced by nondrug factors and molded, in particular, by the individual’s mental set and the setting of the session. The transformative process can be utilized psychotherapeutically for healing and profound inner restructuring.

Psychedelics as a Training Experience for Psychedelic Therapists: Drawing on History to Inform Current Practice

The therapeutic use of psilocybin in psychedelic-assisted therapy models is currently being tested for a variety of indications, necessitating the training of hundreds of therapists. At present, training programs do not include the provision of a psilocybin experience for therapists, and the last time such an experience was offered with a similar compound was through the Spring Grove LSD Training Study between 1969 and 1974. This article explores archival Spring Grove data to inform training programs and efforts to establish or provide training experiences with psilocybin or otherwise include experiences with nonordinary states of consciousness in the training of psychedelic therapists.

Applying intervention mapping approach to a program for early intervention in first-episode mental crisis of a psychotic type

The holotropic mind perspective, an integral part of the framework of transpersonal psychology, has been considered a revolutionary approach to a certain spectrum of experiences in Non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC) which conventional approaches tend to treat indiscriminately as pathological processes, because PHM recognizes in these experiences their healing and evolutionary potential. This article describes the needs assessment, implementation, and evaluation of an experiential and educational program on the holotropic mind perspective and its praxis, Holotropic Breathwork® (HB), with students and professionals from the Group for Early Intervention in First-Episode Mental Crisis of a Psychotic Type of the University of Brasilia. The intervention aimed to establish change goals and objectives that would promote the adoption of the holotropic mind perspective’s elements, such as a framework to broaden and strengthen mental health programs that assist people experiencing NOSC. The stages developed, inspired by the Intervention Mapping protocol, included a needs assessment; elaboration of change objective matrices; selection and description of methods based on theory and their applications; conception, planning, and implementation of the intervention; and results evaluation. Participants reported that the intervention allowed the expansion of their theoretical-conceptual and technical frameworks, giving them a less pathologizing understanding of and approach to NOSC and allowing them to perceive and manage such states, not as indiscriminately pathological expressions, but as phenomena inherent to the human condition that can be accepted and cared for without the exclusionary and exhaustive bias of mental disorders. Limitations and practical implications are discussed.

Music, spirituality and wellbeing: Experiences of trans-subjective-participation in Guided Imagery and Music (GIM)

In this theoretical article I discuss case examples from Guided Imagery and Music (GIM), a music-centred form of psychotherapy. In GIM, the client’s imagery experience evolves whilst listening to a sequence of pre-recorded music in an altered or non-ordinary state of consciousness. In the article I explore spiritual experience in GIM as it relates to the trans-subjective-participation in which I believe clients’ personal experience to be grounded. This is at a level of consciousness which transcends individual existence, time and space, and even death. I illustrate my thinking with examples from work in palliative and bereavement care where clients have been able to experience the bonds with their loved ones being maintained beyond death, for instance. Such experiences of connectedness at a spiritual level can be very real for clients, even though they may be imagined. They are real-illusions, as I discuss, putting clients authentically in touch with the spiritual dimension, even though the latter as thing-in-itself remains utterly beyond imagining. Other case examples illustrate the collective dimension of trans-subjective-participation in GIM as this relates to trauma and its healing.

A Study on Reported Contact with Non-Human Intelligence Associated with Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

This study, conducted by the Dr. Edgar Mitchell Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial and Extraordinary Experiences (FREE), represents the first comprehensive investigation on individuals (N = 3,256) who have reported to have had various forms of contact experience (CE) with a non-human intelligent being (NHI) associated with or without an unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP). Our research methodology utilized two comprehensive quantitative surveys totaling 554 questions administered in subjects with reported non-hypnotic memory recall of their CE. This survey addressed a diverse range of physical, psychological, perceptual, and paranormal aspects of reported non-hypnotic based recall of both physical and/or non-physical interactions with a NHI being. The results revealed complex reported CEs that involve both physical and non-physical (psychological outcomes, non-ordinary states of consciousness, and paranormal experiences) events. What may be the most significant aspect of the interim results is that approximately 70% (N=2,279) of the study population claimed that their CE changed their life in a “positive way.” In contrast, only 15-20% reported a “negative” impact from their CE. Further, the majority of subjects did not report events typically associated with the traditional held beliefs regarding the “alien-abduction” phenomena. That is, the results suggest that the reported CE with NHI is largely non-physical and can occur via telepathy, during an out-of body experience, being floated into a matrix-like reality, as well as through physical interaction on board a craft. Consequently, the results suggest that a non-physical (“contactee”) CE is distinctly different than the physical (“abduction”) CE and should be studied as separate but interrelated anomalous events. In fact, the CE associated with a UAP is not the predominant form of CE and that sighting a UAP is not necessarily associated with a CE. Consequently, future studies should not focus exclusively on the analysis of UAP sightings and traces alone which, based on decades of research, have not advanced our understanding of the possible force which governs and regulates this complex phenomenon. This is an important consideration since the FREE study dispels the notion that contact with NHI beings must always entail either a physical abduction or a landed craft with beings interacting with humans. This study may serve as a needed foundation for researchers to build upon for validation purposes to better understand a unique and diverse range of reported physical and non-physical type CEs with a NHI associated with or without a UAP.

Healing, spirituality and integrative medicine.

Spirituality plays a prominent role in the lives of most palliative patients whether or not they formally adhere to a specific religion and belief. As a result, the palliative care team is frequently called upon to support families who are experiencing their "dark night of the soul" and struggling to make sense of their lives during a healthcare crisis. While conventional religious practices provide a source of comfort and guidance for many of our patients, a significant number of our patients do not have a strong religious community to which to turn. Over the last two decades, more people in Western countries identify themselves as spiritual but not religious and do not belong to an organized faith community. For those patients who express a strong spiritual connection or sense of 'something greater' or 'a higher power', encouraging the exploration of those feelings and beliefs through chaplains, clergypersons, or members of the interdisciplinary palliative care team can help provide context, meaning and purpose in their lives impacted by serious illness. One of the goals of effective palliative care is the facilitation of personal growth and psychological resilience in dealing with one's health challenges. Integrative medicine, also referred to as complementary and alternative medicine, provides a set of tools and philosophies intended to enhance wellness and a sense of wellbeing. Many of the modalities are derived from disciplines such as massage, acupuncture, Rei Ki, aromatherapy, and dietary supplements. The use of integrative medicine in North America is widespread and frequently not shared with one's clinician due to many patients' concerns that clinicians will disapprove of the patient's use of them. In addition to its efficacy in reducing symptoms commonly experienced by patients receiving palliative care (e.g., nausea, pain, depression, and existential suffering), integrative medicine offers non-verbal, non-cognitive avenues for many to achieve a peaceful and calm inner state. The calm state often achieved during integrative medicine treatments is similar to that seen during deep prayer or meditation. In such a transcendent or non-ordinary state of consciousness, many people experience new insights or understanding of their lives and choices they must make. Thus, integrative approaches facilitate patients attaining greater self-awareness and may meet their spiritual needs without the religious overtones that accompany traditional prayer. In so doing, patients may gain greater insight and find inner peace through simple, non-verbal approaches.

Characterizing the experiences of flotation-REST (Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique) treatment for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD): A phenomenological study

IntroductionAmong the anxiety disorders Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is currently the most treatment resistant, suggesting that treatment protocols could be enhanced. A promising treatment of GAD is flotation-REST (Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique), which in earlier studies has been shown to alleviate symptoms in GAD. Although, research on flotation-REST as a treatment of GAD has shown promising result no study has explored how treatment is experienced. By applying a phenomenological perspective the present study aims to characterize the experiences of undergoing flotation-REST treatment while suffering from GAD. MethodNine participants with GAD, as defined with self-report measures, participated. Data was collected by semi-structured interviews that were conducted after the completion of a twelve session treatment program with flotation-REST. The Empirical Phenomenological Psychological (EPP) method was used for gathering and analyzing the data. ResultsThe analysis resulted in six themes that characterize the experience of undergoing a flotation-REST treatment while having GAD: (1) obstacles in treatment, (2) a relaxed and safe vantage point, (3) non-ordinary states of consciousness, (4) connecting with oneself, (5) new attitudes and coping strategies, and (6) enhanced life-quality. ConclusionThe results highlights that flotation-REST treatment of GAD was experienced as a comprehensive process that were both challenging and pleasant. The results indicate that the method positively affected symptoms and the core issue associated with GAD on an experiential level. The present study also generated some initial understanding regarding potential mechanism that might mediate and maintain positive treatment effects when flotation-REST is applied as an intervention of GAD.