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Quantum Approaches To Consciousness

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It is widely accepted that consciousness or, more generally, mental activity is in some way correlated to the behavior of the material brain. Since quantum theory is the most fundamental theory of matter that is currently available, it is a legitimate question to ask whether quantum theory can help us to understand consciousness. Several approaches answering this question affirmatively, proposed in recent decades, will be surveyed. There are three basic types of corresponding approaches: consciousness is a manifestation of quantum processes in the brain, quantum concepts are used to understand conscious mental activity without referring to brain activity, matter and consciousness are regarded as dual aspects of one underlying reality. The problem of how mind and matter are related to each other has many facets, and it can be approached from many different starting points. The historically leading disciplines in this respect are philosophy and psychology, which were later joined by beha...
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Focal Points Of Dark Matter

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A unifying theory of physics and biological information through consciousness This article represents a transdisciplinary theory that attempts, in a nonmathematical way, to reconcile some contemporary concepts of physics with a novel theory of the mind. It represents a thought experiment that consolidates complexity by melding certain unifying natural science concepts into a coherent reality. The foundations of quantum mechanics and the cosmological mysteries of dark energy, dark matter, and normal matter non-dogmatically explained may be accessible to individuals other than those immersed in mathematical formulas. Through reasoning and models, terms are defined and illustrations provided, further clarifying concepts. In this theory, consciousness represents dynamic differences that come to an end. It exists through interdependent relationships between dark energy, focal points of dark matter (FPDMs), and normal matter with associated states of mind: pure awareness, pure mental state, ...
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Lucid Dreaming Technique

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The premise of the Cycle Adjustment Technique is essentially the idea that the chemistry of our sleeping brain is just as important to our success at attaining lucidity as are our psychological preparations. The effectiveness of chemicals such as Galantamine demonstrates this fact rather clearly. CAT was designed as a natural alternative to such supplements, as a way to enhance our brain chemistry through behavioral changes in our sleeping patterns. It was also devised to be a method that would be more suitable to people locked into a regular sleeping pattern (those with strict working hours), and to whom many of the usual lucid dreaming practices were impractical or only viable during weekends and days off. Essentially the technique in a nutshell (and as the name suggests) is that the practitioner makes calculated changes in their sleeping cycle designed to increase their alertness during REM sleep. CAT is slightly more involved than some of the simpler techniques, and certainly requi...
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Lucid Dreaming : Virtual Reality

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As technology continues to move us towards more immersive dreamlike experiences, one can only wonder what digital wonders lay just beyond the horizon of tomorrow. We may also question just how the future of virtual reality will impact the study and practice of lucid dreaming. Are we, perhaps, the last generation to whom lucid dreaming will maintain an appeal? Will our descendants forgo the challenges faced in attaining lucidity in favour of effortless virtual worlds? I expect this may be the case for many, however, one fact should keep the flame of lucidity alight, in spite of the growing competition from ever improving digital alternatives: Dreams, unlike man-made simulations, are a natural phenomenon replete with the inherent mysteries of our universe and the unknown. Our digital worlds are crafted in code, born from man's imagination but limited by a predefined structure. In any software simulation - all that can be known, experienced or discovered within it, already exists. It ...
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Hypnosis: An Altered State of Consciousness

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The term 'hypnosis' is derived from the Ancient Greek word for sleep (hypnos). Hypnosis is a psychological state characterized by increased receptiveness and responsiveness, relaxation and heightened imagination. It is not precisely like sleep because the subject remains conscious during the process. The person focuses intently on the subject at hand. In conventional hypnosis, we follow the suggestions of the hypnotist, or our own ideas, as if they were real. Hypnosis has the power to alter both body and mind and people experience an altered state of consciousness during this phenomenon. In patients who can be easily hypnotized, hypnosis sessions have been shown to be effective in lessening chronic pain, the pain of childbirth and other medical procedures, treating smoking addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder, and easing anxiety or phobias. The neuropsychological basis of hypnosis involves two main elements: induction and suggestions. The hypnotic induction is the phase...
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How DMT Works

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Arguably the most remarkable property of the human brain is its ability to construct the world that appears to consciousness. The brain is capable of building worlds during waking life, but also in the complete absence of extrinsic sensory data, entirely from intrinsic thalamocortical activity, as during dreaming. DMT, an extraordinary psychedelic, perturbs brain activity such that indescribably bizarre and apparently alien worlds are built. This property of DMT continues to defy explanation. However, by regarding this unique molecule as equivalent to serotonin, an endogenous neuromodulator with a long-standing relationship with the brain, DMT's effects may be explained. Serotonin has evolved to hold the brain's thalamocortical system in a state in which the consensus world is built. When serotonin is replaced by DMT, the thalamocortical system shifts into an equivalent state, but one in which an apparently alien world is built. This suggests that DMT may be an ancestral neurom...
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How DMT Works

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You are in possession of an exquisite machine motionlessly buoyant in the softly circulating fluids of your skull. A world-building machine. And psychedelic molecules are the tools for tuning and operating this machine. From LSD to magic mushrooms to DMT to Salvia divinorum, psychedelics are used across the globe to stimulate the brain and change the nature of the subjective world. In sufficient doses, these molecules have the potential, not only to alter the structure of the normal waking world, but to replace it entirely – to hurl the tripper into fantastical realms of immense complexity and strangeness, bursting with extraordinary ecologies of apparently intelligent and communicative beings. Whilst these effects seem almost impossible to comprehend, let alone explain, as our understanding the brain’s ability to construct our model of reality in normal waking life deepens, the mechanism by which psychedelic molecules perturb its world-building machinery such that entirely novel and u...
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