TMI Journal 2011-1&2 (Winter/Spring)

Next Page 19 TMI JOURNAL Winter/Spring 2011 distinguished in their application to daily life. Tart (1986) refers to “the nature of the pattern and the elements that make up the pattern [which] determine what you can and cannot do in that state” (p. 4). Among those who mapped out different states of consciousness we find Fischer (1971); Krippner (1972); and Tart (1969, 1986). Especially in his Waking Up, Tart (1986) spoke of obstacles of human potential and discussed methods to overcome them. Winkelman (1986) surveyed psychophysiological research on the effects of trance-inducing proce- dures and states of “parasympathetic dominance in which the frontal cortex is dominated by slow wave patterns origi- nating in the limbic system and related projections into the frontal parts of the brain” (p. 174). Our “hidden observer,” according to Hilgard (1978), watches the fluctuations of our consciousness between ordi- nary and non-ordinary realities, but may not always be prepared for uncharted (i.e., previously not explored) territory. cf. Heinze 1993, p. 203 Although the range of possible altered states of consciousness has not yet been fully explored, I am presenting the diagram above to serve as a working model for our discussion. When we begin to cultivate awareness, we progress on the diagonal, from the lower-left to the upper-right quadrant. With growing insight, our control over the successive states also increases until we achieve intuitive knowledge, the highest point in the upper-right quadrant. This state indicates full control and complete awareness (i.e., the state of Being—knowing without objectification and detour through discursive thinking). The lowest point in the lower-left quadrant indicates complete dissociation (i.e., multiple personality, schizophrenia, possession with complete loss of control). Jung (1963) spoke of “unconscious, autonomic complexes” which appear in such a state “as projections because they are not associated with the ego” (p. 95). To give an example for the caution we have to exercise when we want to define the state in which an individual is operating, I am reminded of the dilemma with shamans and mediums who say they go on magical flights and also call spirits into their body. In the latter case, they maintain that they are surrendering their consciousness to Next Page 20 TMI JOURNAL Winter/Spring 2011 the spirit who begins to act through them. In some cultures, the dissociative state of unexpected possession may be treated with exorcism; however, in most cultures, shamans will explore whether the possessed can be trained to use this state professionally for healing and information retrieval. According to my model, trained practitioners descend from the point of consensus reality to dissociate into the lower-right quadrant (i.e., they retain a certain degree of control). Only at the depth of their possession do they surrender (i.e., experience flooding) and have to be plotted temporarily in the lower-left quadrant. They have, however, been trained to leave this state after its purpose has been fulfilled and ascend on pathways paved during their training, upward from the lower-right into the upper- right quadrant. Schizophrenics have to be plotted at the lowest point in the lower-left quadrant because they have neither recall nor control over this state of consciousness. On the other hand, when going on magical flights, shamans and mediums have to be plotted ascending on the diagonal into the upper-right quadrant because they experience expansion of consciousness which they control to the point where they enter intuitive knowledge and the state of Being. We recognize the fact that shamans as well as mediums use two qualitatively different states of consciousness (either mind-expanding or dissociating) for information retrieval, whenever required by their clients. Furthermore, training manuals in spiritual traditions (e.g., Patanjali; Prabhavananda & Isherwood, 1969) and St. Ignatius of Loyola (Mottola, 1964) spell out a wide range of states that can be accessed for similar reasons. Are there states that can be used by untrained practitioners who want to expand their field of experience? The answer is “yes.” For nearly 10 years, I have conducted workshops during which I motivate individuals to explore less accessible levels of their mind. The state is entered through partially controlled dissociation that lowers emotional barriers repressing traumatic events. It evacuates the ego and annihilates both the mechanisms of repression as well as muscle tensions. In this state, one can experience pure “energy discharge” and “archetype-like patterns of func- tioning” (Fitremann, 1994). At the climax of the workshop, I invite participants to look for messages that have been received but not yet risen to waking consciousness. Fieldwork From a sample of several hundred cases that I recorded during workshops conducted in the United States, Russia, Lithuania, and Estonia, I will now present three reports. They exemplify the nature of the material that has been retrieved during this specific state of consciousness. First report. In September 1989, a participant reported that the drumming brought up the image of a white bird. She got on the bird and was taken high in the sky to her father’s grave at Cape Cod. She saw a Star of David made out of twigs and her father rising from the grave. He told her that he had accepted his death and her mother had allowed him to rise. He, too, had freed himself from the ties that had kept him from claiming his spirithood. This was a “tearful experience” for the participant. The next day, she found six twigs like she had seen in her vision near the retreat center. Comment: There had not been any stimulus other than the 10 minutes of rhythmic drumming. Tired after a long day of professional discussions, the participant followed the drumbeat without any interference of discursive thought. The right circumstances had been provided and the message arose as if it had waited for this moment of relaxed attention. Second report. In 1994, a participant reported that she walked down on wide, shallow stone stairs in a park near her mother’s house. When she got to the bottom, she was no longer in the park but in Carlsbad Caverns. She became afraid. She did not know if the next step was level ground, up a hill, a drop of a few inches, or into an abyss. She could not step forward. Finally, she stepped out. It was dark and down. Then she was lying on an operating table, in a cold, bright room, scared and alone. The drumming, strong and steady, was all she could hear. She was on the operating table with toxemia, and her blood pressure was in the stroke range. She knew that she might die at any moment and that her unborn baby was far too young to survive. The lights were too bright, and the people were maintaining that awful silence that medical people keep when they don’t want to alarm the patient. She was in the sorrowful company of women who died in childbirth. At this point, the drumming was becoming Next Page 21 TMI JOURNAL Winter/Spring 2011 more and more intense. She cried in fear. She left the vision and considered whether she should get up and leave the room without disrupting the others but decided she couldn’t. Back in the operating room, she was being cut on. It hurt. She was as afraid in the vision as she had been during the real operation. The drumming was most intense now. Why didn’t it stop or at least back off? Why can’t she forget? She wanted to get out. She wanted a different vision to happen. She became angry but the drum continued beating. She couldn’t separate from the memories, from the fear. She listened to the drum and tried to ride it. Drum surfing. Any place else had to be better. She became the drum, became the beat. Then she was no longer the drum but the sound. Pulsing. Tensing, relaxing. Breathing, flowing, moving. She rode the top of the sound like a wave. She didn’t sink but began to laugh. A full belly laugh. The grass was green, like spring. Life had burst forth. She was dancing to the beat of life. The dance was strong and she was the beat. Life was joy. She began to dance more forcefully, like Shiva, with many arms, dancing, stamping the creation into being. Wake up! Be solid! Be real! She became one with Life. It was time to come back. She was still alone but no longer afraid of either the dark or the aloneness or herself. She was empow- ered in the fullest sense. She walked back up the stairs, into the forest. When it was time to open her eyes, she did not hesitate to leave the vision. Comment. The participant had been through the door of life. She had gone through a wide range of emotions. Familiar scenes led her to facing past traumas. However, she felt empowered and dealt with the horror. She remem- bered that she could use the sound of the drum. She also overcame her aversion to the driving force of the drum and rode the sound until she was able to dance freely and joyfully the dance of creation. Third report. In July 1992, a participant wrote after her first drumming session: I began to wait for something to emerge. A giant snake started crawling up from a far comer of the room. It was big and powerful. Some great energy and power were felt in all of its movements. The giant snake kept approach- ing me, as if some energy were flooding the room. I felt neither fear nor despair. “Is there any way out?” Suddenly I noticed that the small head of the snake started coming out of the crown of my head, it was very small and kept moving up. I felt that the snake was crawling through me, flooding my body. I felt it moving, in my legs, belly, arms, breast, and head, filling my body very powerful, strong, and big. I turned into a light green stone. I felt neither panic nor tension, but I wanted to find a way out. To my surprise I was no longer a stone, I was ice. The transpar- ent light green color was the color of ice in sunlight. I was relieved, I now had a way out. The sun melted me and I became a light blue cloud, floating higher and higher. I heard a voice, “You must come back into the room.” I didn’t know how I possibly could come down again, being so light and evaporated. It seemed absolutely impossible. I became a big drop of water, concentrated myself, and came down into the comfortable room. Walking up the stairs, I opened my eyes. A feeling of freshness and inner clarity with a pervading sense of great mystery surrounded me. Comment: This vision was experienced in Russia before the 1992 coup. The political tension was palpable every- where. The faces of the people on the streets reflected fear, uncertainty, hopelessness, and lack of orientation. The participant expressed her surprise about the stages of transformation and the richness of her first experience. Clarity, hope, and renewed strength arose from less accessible regions of her being. I do not want to interpret her experience further because the meaning of the symbols is the personal property of the visionary. The Technique I have designed a technique by which we can access a state of consciousness to: (1) find out whether inner and outer experiences need to be balanced (e.g., grief or trauma need to be resolved);