Pivotal Mental States: Difference between revisions

Yuri Gagarin, upon his return as the first human in space, marvelled at the planet from orbit in 1961. “''People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty — not destroy it'',” . A half-century later, ex-NASA astronaut José Hernández said that the view aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 2009 turned him into “''an instant treehugger''.” On Christmas Eve 1968, NASA astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders were aboard Apollo 8, the first manned mission to orbit the Moon. They had spent most of the day photographing the Moon’s surface when Borman turned the spaceship around, and Earth came into view. ‘Oh my God, look at that picture over there. Here’s the Earth coming up,’ shouted Anders. Like the astronauts themselves, the world was awestruck by the first images of the whole Earth from space, which are today widely credited with triggering the birth of the modern environmental movement.

A Near-death-experience (NDE) is an intense psychological experience characterized by an atypical state of consciousness usually in life-threatening conditions<ref>'''The phenomenology of near-death experiences.''' ''Am. J. Psychiatry'' 137, 1193–1196. Greyson, B., and Stevenson, I. (1980). Accessed on 24th September 2022 via https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7416264/</ref>. NDEs in general are typically characterised by [[Out of Body Experiences]] and hallucinations<ref>'''Near-Death Experiences are Hallucinations'''. Keith Augustine. In Keith Augustine & Michael Martin (eds.), The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 529-569 (2015)</ref><ref>'''Three cases of near death experience''': Is it physiology, physics or philosophy? Purkayastha M, Mukherjee KK.  Ann Neurosci. 2012 Jul;19(3):104-6. doi: 10.5214/ans.0972.7531.190303. PMID: 25205979; PMCID: PMC4117086.</ref> which are affected by set and setting much like psychedelics<ref>'''Comparison of psychedelic and near-death or other non-ordinary experiences in changing attitudes about death and dying'''. Mary M. Sweeney ,Sandeep Nayak,Ethan S. Hurwitz, Lisa N. Mitchell,T. Cody Swift,Roland R. Griffiths. Published: August 24, 2022. Accessed on 26th August 2022 via <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271926</nowiki></ref>. Some evidence suggests that dissociatives such as ketamine<ref>'''Anomalous Psychedelic Experiences''': At the Neurochemical Juncture of the Humanistic and Parapsychological, Volume 62, Issue 2. Accessed on 15th September 2022 via: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022167820917767</ref><ref>'''The Ketamine Model of the Near-Death Experience''': A Central Role for the N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor. Jansen, K.L.R. Journal of Near-Death Studies 16, 5–26 (1997). <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025055109480</nowiki></ref> or classical psychedelics such as DMT can induce this state<ref>'''DMT Models the Near-Death Experience'''. Christopher Timmermann1,2*, Leor Roseman1,2, Luke Williams1, David Erritzoe1, Charlotte Martial3, Héléna Cassol3, Steven Laureys3, David Nutt1 and Robin Carhart-Harris. Front. Psychol., 15 August 2018 | <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01424</nowiki> </ref> however historically, a defunct class of drugs called the pseudohallucinogens<ref>Schultes, Richard Evans (1976). Hallucinogenic Plants. illus. Elmer W. Smith. New York: Golden Press. <nowiki>ISBN 0-307-24362-1</nowiki>.</ref> is also thought to bridge this gap by actually causing a near death experience! These compounds consist of a diverse range of chemicals the effects of which broadly are considered poisonous, these include:  

* ''Wisteria sinenis''

===Stroboscopics===

[[Stroboscopics]] is a technique that flashes a bright light into the eyes of patients that in turn induces visual hallucinations. The process works as the speed at which the light is flashing is the same speed as the transmission rate of the optical nerve, this causes an temporary interference pattern which disorientates optical transmission to the brain leading to visual hallucinations similar to effects induced by psychedelic substances<ref>'''Altered states phenomena induced by visual flicker light stimulation'''. Marie Therese Bartossek, Johanna Kemmerer, Timo Torsten Schmidt. Published: July 1, 2021. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253779</nowiki></ref>.   

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