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conditions of consciousness
Dec. 4th, 2007 11:49 amErik Davis, whose techgnosis.com website I recommend frequently, has reviewed Jeff Warren's new book regarding various conditions of consciousness, including the odd hypnagogic state that Davis says is not merely a boundary between sleep and waking but a condition "that allows waking awareness access to the creative and associative logic of the dream."
Davis complains that the book barely acknowledges the psychedelic experience, an omission that makes me happy. Discussions of consciousness invariably get bogged down in narratives of drug trips (cf. my many discussions of Daniel Pinchbeck) and as one who has never ventured into psychedelia, I feel unqualified to offer judgment. I am, however, fascinated by the difficult question of how consciousness constructs "our" world out of "the" world...the many reasons why what we perceive and what we overlook is shaped by what we believe to be true, and by what stories we tell ourselves without pondering their implications one way or the other. If what we perceive is sufficiently out of whack vis-à-vis what is out there that we don't perceive, the world at large will make clear which of us creates the more effectual reality. But no matter how close we get to perceiving all that there is to perceive (collectively, that is), our own constructed and agreed-upon versions of reality leave discomfiting gaps, of varying sizes and degrees of seriousness.
I am most intrigued, therefore, by those who can't quite account for their own experiences either in terms of what they believe or in terms of the stories they like to make up in their spare time. People who make sense of their experience in terms of prior belief systems usually write books expounding their metaphysic or their conviction that the world's polarities will shift catastrophically on May 5, 2000 (there was a "whatever happened to" newspaper story about that fellow just yesterday, I believe). People who can't make sense of their experience sometimes add up all the contradictory possibilities and write books anyway, Daniel Pinchbeck being a case in point. Sometimes they become prophets in spite of themselves.
But the ones I like are the ones who write small blog posts that say, "Uhh...anybody else ever have this happen to them?"
Looking at the appalling cover design and the title of Warren's book, I don't think I can force myself to buy a copy. But I am used to the strategy of repelling the people whom one wishes to repel, so I may rethink my decision.
Davis complains that the book barely acknowledges the psychedelic experience, an omission that makes me happy. Discussions of consciousness invariably get bogged down in narratives of drug trips (cf. my many discussions of Daniel Pinchbeck) and as one who has never ventured into psychedelia, I feel unqualified to offer judgment. I am, however, fascinated by the difficult question of how consciousness constructs "our" world out of "the" world...the many reasons why what we perceive and what we overlook is shaped by what we believe to be true, and by what stories we tell ourselves without pondering their implications one way or the other. If what we perceive is sufficiently out of whack vis-à-vis what is out there that we don't perceive, the world at large will make clear which of us creates the more effectual reality. But no matter how close we get to perceiving all that there is to perceive (collectively, that is), our own constructed and agreed-upon versions of reality leave discomfiting gaps, of varying sizes and degrees of seriousness.
I am most intrigued, therefore, by those who can't quite account for their own experiences either in terms of what they believe or in terms of the stories they like to make up in their spare time. People who make sense of their experience in terms of prior belief systems usually write books expounding their metaphysic or their conviction that the world's polarities will shift catastrophically on May 5, 2000 (there was a "whatever happened to" newspaper story about that fellow just yesterday, I believe). People who can't make sense of their experience sometimes add up all the contradictory possibilities and write books anyway, Daniel Pinchbeck being a case in point. Sometimes they become prophets in spite of themselves.
But the ones I like are the ones who write small blog posts that say, "Uhh...anybody else ever have this happen to them?"
Looking at the appalling cover design and the title of Warren's book, I don't think I can force myself to buy a copy. But I am used to the strategy of repelling the people whom one wishes to repel, so I may rethink my decision.
