ALTERED CONSCIOUSNESS IN FLOTATION-REST AND CHAMBER-REST: EXPERIENCE OF EXPERIMENTAL PAIN AND SUBJECTIVE STRESS

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anette Kjellgren ◽  
Ulf Sundequist ◽  
Ulla Sundholm ◽  
Torsten Norlander ◽  
Trevor Archer
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Experimental Pain ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Experienced Pain ◽  
Pressure Cuff ◽  
Environmental Stimulation ◽  
Rest Condition ◽  
Distinguishing Features ◽  
Stimulation Technique

Twenty-three sportsmen were given one 45-minute exposure to flotation-REST and one exposure to chamber-REST on two occasions, incorporating random assignment to either flotation-REST followed by chamber-REST or vice versa. On each occasion, the Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique (REST) procedure was followed immediately by testing experimentally induced pain to one arm using a blood pressure cuff. It was found that flotation-REST induced a significantly higher degree of altered states of consciousness (ASC), as measured with an instrument assessing experienced deviation from normal state (EDN), than did chamber-REST. Participants experiencing High EDN in the flotation-REST condition reported higher levels of both “experienced pain” and “experienced stress” than did those experiencing Low EDN. These results suggest that the particular distinguishing features of flotation-REST and chamber-REST may cause selective deviations from normal levels of consciousness, under experimental conditions, that may underlie the subjective experience of pain and stress thresholds.

Synaesthetic Overdrive

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Weinel
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Altered States Of Consciousness ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Visual Music ◽  
Background Theory ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Expanded Cinema ◽  
Improved Accuracy

This chapter discusses altered states of consciousness in audio-visual media, such as films, psychedelic light shows, and VJ performances. First, some background theory is introduced, explaining the main categories of film sound, and what research tells us regarding the way in which sound influences the perception of visual images and vice versa. Following this background section, a tour is provided through various films that represent altered states of consciousness, including surrealist movies, ‘trance films’, and Hollywood feature films. These demonstrate a progression, where more recent movies are able to make use of digital audio and visual effects to represent the subjective experience of altered states with improved accuracy. Meanwhile, beyond the traditional confines of the cinema, ‘expanded cinema’ works such as visual music, psychedelic light shows, and VJ performances have provided increasingly sophisticated synaesthetic experiences, which are designed to transform the consciousness of their audience.

scholarly journals A psychological analysis of factors affecting acute pain in postoperative patients

2019 ◽  
Vol 129 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-12
Author(s):  
Lilia Suchocka ◽  
Kazimierz Popielski ◽  
Małgorzata Pasek
Keyword(s):  
Acute Pain ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Test Methods ◽  
Mcgill Pain Questionnaire ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Future Goals ◽  
Psychological Analysis ◽  
Preoperative Stage ◽  
Experienced Pain ◽  
Study Results

Abstract Introduction. The most frequent type of acute pain is the postoperative pain. The postoperative situation consists of three stages: the preoperative stage, the surgical phase, and the postoperative stage. Each of the stages is equally important, and it is crucial that medical staff should minimize the stress and discomfort related to hospitalization. Specialists suggest that the preparation to surgery should correspond to the patient’s style of responding to stress. The level of individually experienced pain depends not only on the type of surgery, but also on psychological factors and the patient’s personality traits. Aim. The aim of the study was to analyze the factors that affect the experience of acute pain in postoperative patients. Material and methods. The study was conducted in Lublin, Poland, and comprised 100 patients of the local surgical wards. After incomplete tests were excluded, the group of 68 patients (37 women and 31 men, aged 20-73) was selected. The following test methods were used: The McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) by R. Melzack, Test Noo-dynamiki [The Test of Noo-Dynamics] (T.N-D) by K. Popielski, Kwestionariusz Poczucia Odpowiedzialności [The Sense of Responsibility Questionnaire] (KPO) by L. Suchocka, The IPAT Anxiety Scale Questionnaire (Self Analysis Form) by R.B. Cattell. Results. The study results show that the evaluation of pain is affected, at the statistically significant level, by the patients’ subjective experience of feeling ill, their surgery-related discomfort, and the intensity of pain. The patients who are not oriented towards future goals and tasks, closing upon themselves, evaluate the postoperative situation as difficult and distressing. The orientation towards new goals motivates the patients to fast recovery. Conclusion. The test results confirmed the research hypotheses. The study findings may be useful for medical professionals interested in the functioning of an individual in the situation of disease.

scholarly journals Pleasure and Instruction: Generic Conventions in Emma Hart Willard’s 
Journal and Letters, from France and Great Britain

2019 ◽  
pp. 49-61
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Rutkowska
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Travel Writing ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Travel Narrative ◽  
New Type ◽  
Distinguishing Features

The purpose of the present paper is to analyse epistolary and descriptive conventions in Journal and Letters, from France and Great Britain (1833) by Emma Willard. The article argues that Willard attempts to combine the standards of 18th-century travelogue with its emphasis on instruction with a new type of autobiographical travel narrative which puts the persona of a traveller in the foreground. In this respect, Willard’s Journal and Travels, for all its didacticism, testifies to an increasing value attached to subjective experience, which was to become one of the distinguishing features of nineteenth-century travel writing.

Cognition and States of Consciousness: The Necessity for Empirical Study of Ordinary and Nonordinary Consciousness for Contemporary Cognitive Psychology

1985 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry T. Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
Altered States ◽  
Altered State ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
And Function ◽  
Symbolic Processes ◽  
Natural Series ◽  
Self Reference

Recent criticisms of the place and function of “consciousness” in “cognitive science” are considered and rejected. Contrary to current orthodoxy subjective experience during abstract cognitive activity, especially when placed in its natural series with phenomenal accounts of so-called “altered states of consciousness,” can provide unique and crucial evidence concerning just that core of “semantics” which eludes the automatized “syntax” of computer simulation. The “noetic” aspect of extreme altered states can be placed in relation to introspective descriptions of “insight.” Various altered state features—synaesthesias, geometric/mandala imagery, reorganizations of “perceptual” dimensions and enhanced “self-reference”—can be taken as direct “exteriorizations” of abstract symbolic processes as discussed by Neisser, Geschwind, Mead, and Arnheim. A genuine cognitive psychology cannot continue to ignore the qualitative-experiential bases of symbolization. More specifically, the sense that insight just comes to us as if from “outside,” its preliminary microgenetic processes masked, does not show the failure of introspective phenomenology but rather offers a unique and positive clue to the imaginal dialogic structure of higher mental processes. Thinking, as one phase of imaginal “conversation,” must be “sent” from the phenomenal “other” to an attenuated, receptive phenomenal “self.” A reconsideration of the Würzburg controversy, adding closely related altered state phenomena to the transitional series between “impalpable awareness” and specific imagery, suggests that the normally masked processes underlying the “felt meaning” or “insight” state are most directly exteriorized as what Klüver termed “complex” or geometric-dynamic synaesthesias. Finally, a reinterpretation of classical introspectionism's “sensation” shows the “mechanism” by which the metaphorical/synaesthetic processes of cognition are generated. Titchener's “sensation” plays the crucial role in metaphor it so conspicuously lacked in functional perception.

scholarly journals Web-Based Relaxation Intervention for Stress During Social Isolation: Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Francesca Maria Pizzoli ◽  
Chiara Marzorati ◽  
Davide Mazzoni ◽  
Gabriella Pravettoni
Keyword(s):  
Social Isolation ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Emotional State ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Randomized Study ◽  
Natural Sounds ◽  
Body Scan ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Psychomotor Activation

BACKGROUND Relaxation practices might be helpful exercises for coping with anxiety and stressful sensations. They may be of particular utility when used in web-based interventions during periods of social isolation. OBJECTIVE This randomized study aimed to test whether web-based relaxation practices like natural sounds, deep respiration, and body scans can promote relaxation and a positive emotional state, and reduce psychomotor activation and preoccupation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS Participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions. Each condition was characterized by a single online session of a guided square breathing exercise, a guided body scan exercise, or natural sounds. The participants listened to one of the fully automated audio clips for 7 minutes and pre-post completed self-assessed scales on perceived relaxation, psychomotor activation, level of preoccupation associated with COVID-19, and emotional state. At the end of the session, qualitative reports on subjective experience were also collected. RESULTS Overall, 294 participants completed 75% of the survey and 240 completed the entire survey as well as one of three randomly assigned interventions. Perceived relaxation, psychomotor activation/stress, and preoccupation related to COVID-19 showed a positive improvement after participants listened to the audio clips. The same pattern was observed for the valence and perceived dominance of the emotional state. The square breathing and body scan exercises yielded superior results compared to natural sounds in lowering perceived stress. CONCLUSIONS This study provides a novel insight that can guide the development of future low-cost web-based interventions to reduce preoccupation and stress in the general population. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT RR2-10.2196/19236

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