In this book I relate my distillation of almost five decades of research, psychotherapy, shamanic and yogic practices, as well as teaching experience, on the role of changing states of consciousness in psychological health and spiritual growth. Each state of consciousness that we experience, ranging from the familiar states of waking, sleeping, dreaming and meditating, to the expansive spiritual states of psychedelic explorers, mystics and mediums, has its own distinctly different mind-space and time-stream. We need to learn how to use the expansive, positive states for spiritual growth and creative expression and navigate out of the contractive, unhealthy states of fear and rage, addictions and compulsions, into healthier, life-affirming states. --RM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Altered States
2 Consciousness, Space and Time
3 Consciousness as Context and Subjectivity
4 Radical Empiricism
5 States, Stages and Levels of Consciousness
6 The Set and Setting Model
7 Waking, Sleeping, Dreaming, Meditating
8 The Dimensions of Energy and Pleasure/Pain
9 Expansions of Consciousness
10 Contractions of Consciousness
11 Dissociation and State Transitions
12 Association and Dissociation in Various States
13 NDE, OBE and Mediumistic States

Appendix A: The Altered State Graphic Profile
Appendix B: Neurochemical Correlates of the Two Dimensions
Appendix C: Dissociative Drug States
Appendix D: Biochemical and Hormonal Basis of Sexual Experience

References and Select Bibliography