What if you could dream 24 hours a day, even while awake? According to innovative psychotherapist Arnold Mindell, Ph.D., we already do. The seeds of dreaming arise in every moment of the day, in body symptoms, problems, relationships, subtile feelings, interactions, random thoughts, and fantasies. We're getting countless little cues from the unconscious every minute. All are signs from the world of dreaming. And, according to Mindell, we can be in this state of lucid dreaming all day long.

In Dreaming While Awake, Mindell shows how to become aware of these "flirts" from the dreamworld and how to interpret their message. The goal, he says, is to be wide awake and lucid 24 hours a day in the midst of this unending dreamfield of information.

Practicing 24-hour lucid dreaming:

• Helps you solve personal, physical, and emotional problems
• Serves as a preventive medicine for relationships and health, helping you catch the earliest warning signs before they turn into problems
• Helps resolve conflicts in relationships, families, large groups, corporations, even politics

Dreaming is the mystical source of reality, says Mindell. "My goal is to make the Dreaming roots of reality so accessible, so visceral, that your conscious mind will give you back your right to dream."

States of Consciousness extends Thomas Natsoulas' development of the psychology of consciousness by giving sustained attention to the stream of consciousness and its component 'pulses of experience'. Natsoulas' unrivalled scholarship across psychology, philosophy and cognate fields means that very often surprising connections are made between the works of leading theorists of consciousness, including Brentano, Mead, Bergmann, Strawson, James, Freud, Skinner, Hebb, Gibson, O'Shaughnessy and Woodruff Smith. At a time when interest in consciousness and the brain is growing rapidly, this book provides an in-depth analysis of sophisticated psychological accounts that pertain to consciousness. Its breadth of coverage and interdisciplinary nature will be of interest to postgraduates and specialists in a range of fields, particularly the history of psychology and philosophy of mind.

As Alice in Wonderland discovered, cave entrances, tunnels, spirals and mirrors can transport people to strange worlds where anything is possible. Portals investigates how we move beyond the conscious and physical world using our senses, into other realities of the spiritual and the divine. Portals looks at the techniques used to alter consciousness practised by shamans, monks and other religious specialists. These include the use of drugs, as well as drumming, chanting and meditation. The book provides a new, anthropologically-grounded perspective on the wide-ranging questions about the realities of human consciousness and mystical, spiritual and religious experience.

An argument that the meaning of written or auditory linguistic signals is not derived from the input but results from the brain's internal construction process. When we read a text or listen to speech, meaning seems to be given to us instantaneously, as if it were part of the input. In Meaning in the Brain, Giosue Baggio explains that this is an illusion created by the tremendous speed at which sensory systems and systems for meaning and grammar operate in the brain. Meaning, Baggio argues, is not derived from input but results from the brain's internal construction process. With this book, Baggio offers the first integrated, multilevel theory of semantics in the brain, describing how meaning is generated during language comprehension, production, and acquisition. Baggio's theory draws on recent advances in formal semantics and pragmatics, including vector-space semantics, discourse representation theory, and signaling game theory. It is designed to explain a growing body of experimental results on semantic processing that have accumulated in the absence of a unifying theory since the introduction of electrophysiology and neuroimaging methods. Baggio argues that there is evidence for the existence of three semantic systems in the brain-relational semantics, interpretive semantics, and evolutionary semantics-and he discusses each in turn, developing neural theories of meaning for all three. Moreover, in the course of his argument, Baggio addresses several long-standing issues in the neuroscience of language, including the role of compositionality as a principle of meaning construction in the brain, the role of sensory-motor processes in language comprehension, and the neural and evolutionary links among meaning, consciousness, sociality, and action.

Suchen Sie nach einer Entspannungsmethode, die Sie immer und A1/4berall anwenden kAnnen? MAchten Sie sich eine ruhige Oase inmitten der Hektik des Alltags aufbauen und selbst das kleine ruhige Zentrum eines rastlosen Kosmos sein? Dann ist dieses Buch genau das richtige fA1/4r Sie. Erlernen Sie Schritt fA1/4r Schritt einfache und wirksame A bungen und erlangen Sie Entspannung ganz bequem aus sich selbst heraus. Ob zu Hause, bei der Arbeit oder in der U-Bahn. Autogenes Training kAnnen Sie A1/4berall betreiben und es kostet Sie nur wenige Minuten am Tag. Wenige Minuten, die Ihnen Ihr KArper und Ihr Geist danken werden.

Consciousness concerns awareness and how we experience the world. How does awareness, a feature of the mental world, arise from the physical brain? Is a dog conscious, or a jellyfish, and what explains the difference? How is consciousness related to psychological processes such as perception and cognition? The Science of Consciousness covers the psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience of consciousness. Written for introductory courses in psychology and philosophy, this text examines consciousness with a special emphasis on current neuroscience research as well as comparisons of normal and damaged brains. The full range of normal and altered states of consciousness, including sleep and dreams, hypnotic and meditative states, anesthesia, and drug-induced states, as well as parapsychological phenomena and their importance for the science of consciousness is covered, as well as the 'higher' states and how we can attain them. Throughout the text attempts to relate consciousness to the brain.

The Cosmic Game discusses the broadest philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual insights gleaned in Grof's research concerning human nature and reality, addressing the most fundamental questions human beings have asked about the nature of existence since time immemorial.

Insights from research into nonordinary states of consciousness portray existence as an astonishing play of the cosmic creative principle that transcends time, space, linear causality; and polarities of every kind and suggest an identity of the individual psyche in its furthest reaches with the universal creative principle and the totality of existence. This identity of the human being with the Divine is the ultimate secret that lies at the core of all great spiritual traditions.

Meditation techniques, including mindfulness, have become popular wellbeing practices and the scientific study of their effects has recently turned 50 years old. But how much do we know about them: what were they developed for and by whom? How similar or different are they, how effective can they be in changing our minds and biology, what are their social and ethical implications? The Oxford Handbook of Meditation is the most comprehensive volume published on meditation, written in accessible language by world-leading experts on the science and history of these techniques. It covers the development of meditation across the world and the varieties of its practices and experiences. It includes approaches from various disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, history, anthropology, and sociology and it explores its potential for therapeutic and social change, as well as unusual or negative effects. Edited by practitioner-researchers, this book is the ultimate guide for all interested in meditation, including teachers, clinicians, therapists, researchers, or anyone who would like to learn more about this topic.

This book concerns the nature and character of conscious thinking from a philosophical perspective. One main aspect of conscious thinking addressed by the contributors is the phenomenal character involved in undergoing an episode of thinking or, in other words, the question of what it is like to think a certain thought, what has been called 'cognitive phenomenology'. This contested phenomenal character constitutes a form of phenomenal consciousness that needs clarification and further consideration within consciousness studies, cognitive psychology and philosophy. The present volume brings together chapters on the topic that contribute to clarify the notions and questions involved in the discussion, expanding the scope of the debate on cognitive phenomenology to other relevant aspects of conscious thinking and related domains. Several different topics are treated in the book, such as the relation of cognitive phenomenology with rationality, with the self, with attention or with the notion of cognitive access, as well as consideration of particular kinds of experiences of recognition and the so-called 'aha' experiences. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Philosophical Explorations.

Have you ever seen something that wasn't really there? Heard someone call your name in an empty house? Sensed someone following you and turned around to find nothing? Hallucinations don't belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness, or injury. In some conditions, hallucinations can lead to religious epiphanies or even the feeling of leaving one's own body. Humans have always sought such life-changing visions, and for thousands of years have used hallucinogenic compounds to achieve them. In Hallucinations, with his usual elegance, curiosity, and compassion, Dr Oliver Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences to illuminate what hallucinations tell us about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture's folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all, a vital part of the human condition.

Within a technological context, this volume addresses contemporary theories of consciousness, subjective experience, the creation of meaning and emotion, and relationships between cognition and location. Its focus is both on and beyond the digital culture, seeking to assimilate new ideas emanating from the physical sciences as well as embracing spiritual and artistic aspects of human experience. Developing on the studies published in Roy Ascott's successful Reframing Consciousness, the book documents the very latest work from those connected with the internationally acclaimed CAiiA-STAR centre and its conferences. Their artistic and theoretical research in new media and art includes aspects of:

When "The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense" was first published in German in 1936 it was at once recognized as a major contribution to psychoanalytic psychology, and its translation into English quickly followed. More than half a century later it enjoys the status of a classic. Written by a pioneer of child analysis, and illustrated by fascinating clinical pictures drawn from childhood and adolescence, it discusses those adaptive measures by which painful and unwanted feeling-states are kept at bay or made more bearable.Anna Freud's arguments have a clarity and cogency reminiscent of her father's and the work is remarkable undated. Nothing stands still, but "The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense" has unmistakably passed the test of time.

Consciousness, 'the last great mystery for science', remains a hot topic. How can a physical brain create our experience of the world? What creates our identity? Do we really have free will? Could consciousness itself be an illusion? Exciting new developments in brain science are continuing the debates on these issues, and the field has now expanded to include biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. This controversial book clarifies the potentially confusing arguments, and the major theories, whilst also outlining the amazing pace of discoveries in neuroscience. Covering areas such as the construction of self in the brain, mechanisms of attention, the neural correlates of consciousness, and the physiology of altered states of consciousness, Susan Blackmore highlights our latest findings. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Consciousness is undoubtedly one of the last remaining scientific mysteries and hence one of the greatest contemporary scientific challenges. How does the brain's activity result in the rich phenomenology that characterizes our waking life? Are animals conscious? Why did consciousness evolve? How does science proceed to answer such questions? Can we define what consciousness is? Can we measure it? Can we use experimental results to further our understanding of disorders of consciousness, such as those seen in schizophrenia, delirium, or altered states of consciousness? These questions are at the heart of contemporary research in the domain. Answering them requires a fundamentally interdisciplinary approach that engages not only philosophers, but also neuroscientists and psychologists in a joint effort to develop novel approaches that reflect both the stunning recent advances in imaging methods as well as the continuing refinement of our concepts of consciousness. In this light, the Oxford Companion to Consciousness is the most complete authoritative survey of contemporary research on consciousness. Five years in the making and including over 250 concise entries written by leaders in the field, the volume covers both fundamental knowledge as well as more recent advances in this rapidly changing domain. Structured as an easy-to-use dictionary and extensively cross-referenced, the Companion offers contributions from philosophy of mind to neuroscience, from experimental psychology to clinical findings, so reflecting the profoundly interdisciplinary nature of the domain. Particular care has been taken to ensure that each of the entries is accessible to the general reader and that the overall volume represents a comprehensive snapshot of the contemporary study of consciousness. The result is a unique compendium that will prove indispensable to anyone interested in consciousness, from beginning students wishing to clarify a concept to professional consciousness researchers looking for the best characterization of a particular phenomenon.

First published in 1974, this book established itself as a seminal text of the magical revival--a thinking person's guide to the unthinkable.

To understand the mind and its place in Nature is one of the great intellectual challenges of our time, a challenge that is both scientific and philosophical. How does cognition influence an animal's behaviour? What are its neural underpinnings? How is the inner life of a human being constituted? What are the neural underpinnings of the conscious condition?
Embodiment and the Inner Life approaches each of these questions from a scientific standpoint. But it contends that, before we can make progress on them, we have to give up the habit of thinking metaphysically, a habit that creates a fog of philosophical confusion. From this post-reflective point of view, the book argues for an intimate relationship between cognition, sensorimotor embodiment, and the integrative character of the conscious condition.
Drawing on insights from psychology, neuroscience, and dynamical systems, it proposes an empirical theory of this three-way relationship whose principles, not being tied to the contingencies of biology or physics, are applicable to the whole space of possible minds in which humans and other animals are included. Embodiment and the Inner Life is one of very few books that provides a properly joined-up theory of consciousness, and will be essential reading for all psychologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists with an interest in the enduring puzzle of consciousness.

How does conscious experience arise out of the functioning of the human brain? How is it related to the behaviour that it accompanies? How does the perceived world relate to the real world? Between them, these three questions constitute what is commonly known as the Hard Problem of consciousness. Despite vast knowledge of the relationship between brain and behaviour, and rapid advances in our knowledge of how brain activity correlates with conscious experience, the answers to all three questions remain controversial, even mysterious. This important book analyses these core issues and reviews the evidence from both introspection and experiment. To many its conclusions will be surprising and even unsettling: * The entire perceived world is constructed by the brain. The relationship between the world we perceive and the underlying physical reality is not as close as we might think * Much of our behaviour is accomplished with little or no participation from conscious experience. * Our conscious experience of our behaviour lags the behaviour itself by around a fifth of a second - we become aware of what we do only after we have done it. * The lag in conscious experience applies also to the decision to act - we only become aware of our decisions after they have been formed. * The self is as much a creation of the brain as is the rest of the perceived world. Written by a leading scientist, this accessible and compelling analysis of how conscious experience relates to brain and behaviour will have major implications for our understanding of human nature.

To understand what is happening in the brain in the moment you decide, at will, to summon to consciousness a passage of Mozart's music, or decide to take a deep breath, is like trying to "catch a phantom by the tail". Consciousness remains that most elusive of all human phenomena - one so mysterious, one that even our highly developed knowledge of brain function can only partly explain. This book is unique in tracing the origins of consciousness. It takes the investigation back many years in an attempt to uncover just how consciousness might have first emerged. Consciousness did not develop suddenly in humans - it evolved gradually. In 'The Primordial Emotions', Derek Denton, a world renowned expert on animal instinct and a leader in integrative physiology, investigates the evolution of consciousness. Central to the book is the idea that the primal emotions - elements of instinctive behaviour - were the first dawning of consciousness. Throughout he examines instinctive behaviours, such as hunger for air, hunger for minerals, thirst, and pain, arguing that the emotions elicited from these behaviours and desire for gratification culminated in the first conscious states. To develop the theory he looks at behaviour at different levels of the evolutionary tree, for example of octopuses, fish, snakes, birds, and elephants. Coupled with findings from neuroimaging studies, and the viewpoints on consciousness from some of the key figures in philosophy and neuroscience, the book presents an accessible and groundbreaking new look at the problem of consciousness.

Series blurb: This series presents the fruits of a joint philosophy and psychology research project whose aim is to advance understanding of the nature of consciousness and self-consciousness by integrating philosophical work with experimental and theoretical work in developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuropsychology.

Short copy: Time and Memory throws new light on fundamental aspects of human cognition and consciousness by bringing together, for the first time, psychological and philosophical approaches dealing with the connection between the capacity to represent and think about time, and the capacity to recollect the past. Fifteen specially written essays offer insights into current theories of memory processes and of the mechanisms and cognitive abilities underlying temporal judgements, and draw out key issues concerning the phenomenology and epistemology of memory and its role in our understanding of time.

A brief, radical defense of human uniqueness from acclaimed philosopher Roger Scruton In this short book, acclaimed writer and philosopher Roger Scruton presents an original and radical defense of human uniqueness. Confronting the views of evolutionary psychologists, utilitarian moralists, and philosophical materialists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, Scruton argues that human beings cannot be understood simply as biological objects. We are not only human animals; we are also persons, in essential relation with other persons, and bound to them by obligations and rights. Scruton develops and defends his account of human nature by ranging widely across intellectual history, from Plato and Averroes to Darwin and Wittgenstein. The book begins with Kant's suggestion that we are distinguished by our ability to say "I"-by our sense of ourselves as the centers of self-conscious reflection. This fact is manifested in our emotions, interests, and relations. It is the foundation of the moral sense, as well as of the aesthetic and religious conceptions through which we shape the human world and endow it with meaning. And it lies outside the scope of modern materialist philosophy, even though it is a natural and not a supernatural fact. Ultimately, Scruton offers a new way of understanding how self-consciousness affects the question of how we should live. The result is a rich view of human nature that challenges some of today's most fashionable ideas about our species.

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in consciousness, from a number of viewpoints. In this book, the place of consciousness in modern science is discussed by leading authorities from a variety of disciplines, including psychology, philosophy and neurology. They address several main issues: the theoretical status of different aspects of consciousness; the criteria for using the concept and for distinguishing instances of conscious and non-conscious behaviour; the basis of consciousness in cognition and in functional brain organization; the relationship between different levels of theoretical discourse; disorders of consciousness, especially neurological, and the functions of consciousness.

When Carl Jung and Carl Kerenyi got together to collaborate on this book, their aim was to elevate the study of mythology to a science. Kerenyi wrote on two of the most ubiquitous myths, the Divine Child and The Maiden, supporting the core 'stories' with both an introduction and a conclusion. Jung then provided a psychological analysis of both myths. He defined myth as a story about heroes interacting with the gods. Having long studied dreams and the subconscious, Jung identified certain dream patterns common to everyone. These 'archetypes' have developed through the centuries, and enable modern people to react to situations in much the same way as our ancestors. From nuclear annihilation to AIDS and Ebola, we continue to engage the gods in battle. Science of Mythology provides an account of the meaning and the purpose of mythic themes that is linked to modern life: the heroic battles between good and evil of yore are still played out, reflected in contemporary fears.

Table of Contents

Editorial Note Prolegomena, by C. Kerényi 1 The Primordial Child in Primordial Times, by C. Kerényi 1. Child gods 2. The orphan child 3. A Vogul god 4. Kullervo 5. Narayana 6. Apollo 7. Hermes 8. Zeus 9. Dionysus 2 The Psychology of the Child Archetype, by C. G. Jung I. Introduction II. The psychology of the child archetype 1. The archetype as a link with the past 2. The function of the archetype 3. The futurity of the archetype 4. Unity and plurality of the child-motif 5. Child-god and child-hero III. The special phenomenology of the child archetype 1. The abandonment of the child 2. The invincibility of the child 3. The hermaphroditism of the child 4. The child as beginning and end IV. Conclusion 3 Kore, by C. Kerényi 1. Anadyomene 2. The paradox of the mythological idea 3. Maiden-goddesses 4. Hecate 5. Demeter 6. Persephone 7. Indonesian Kore figures 8. The Kore in Eleusis 9. The Eleusinian paradox 4 The Psychological Aspects of the Kore, by C. G. Jung 1. Case X 2. Case Y 3. Case Z. Epilegomena: The Miracle of Eleusis, References Cited; Index

In this engaging book, diverse phenomena associated with death, such as apparent after-death communication and near-death experiences, are examined through a scientific lens and evaluated for the degree to which they offer evidence for the survival of consciousness after death. Is death the end of everything? Is life after death really possible? Considerable scientific support has emerged in recent years for the idea that death is best described as an altered state of consciousness. This survival hypothesis contrasts with predominant materialist thinking, which holds that there is only oblivion upon death. Chapters in this book investigate scientific evidence for mediumship, instrumental transcommunication, near-death experiences, after-death communication, and past-life experiences, among other anomalous death-related occurrences, and a framework is presented for understanding the nature of a potential afterlife. The phenomena described in this book will broaden the perspective of consciousness researchers, and fill an educational need for caregivers, grief counselors, and all who are interested in this understudied and misunderstood area.   

What constitutes enjoyment of life? Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness offers a comprehensive survey of theoretical and empirical investigations of the "flow" experience, a desirable or optimal state of consciousness that enhances a person's psychic state. "Flow" can be said to occur when people are able to meet the challenges of their environment with appropriate skills, and accordingly feel a sense of well-being, a sense of mastery, and a heightened sense of self-esteem. The authors show the diverse contexts and circumstances in which flow is reported in different cultures (e.g. Japan, Korea, Australia, Italy), and describe its positive emotional impacts. They reflect on the concept of flow vis-à-vis modern social structures, historical phenomena, and evolutionary biocultural selection. The ways in which the ability to experience flow affects work satisfaction, academic success, and the overall quality of life are suggested; and the childrearing practices that result in the ability to derive enjoyment from life, considered.