using Dissociation to further understand consciousness

first, let me explain what dissociation is and it's function as it's known in psychology and physiology.

in psychology, dissociation is a defensive mechanism the brain uses to protect itself against extreme forms of trauma. a car accident, a hostage situation, an overdose on drugs. any form of overwhelming trauma and it will kick in -- a person who suffers amnesia of a traumatic event is a person who has experienced a dissociative event. certain connections in the brain get inhibited and they are in a state where they are less aware and less conscious. it's a way to preserve the integrity of the mind and nervous system when being aware could be detrimental or harmful.
in addition, when you are in a fight-or-flight response and your life is in danger, your actions become a lot more primal, mechanical, and a lot less conscious. this is perhaps due to the event being overwhelming to the awareness and experience of the ego, to the point it resorts back to the reptilian brain (only basic survival processes and no reflective thought).

I also believe a coma is a form of full-fledged dissociation where the ego is completely detatched and unable to reroot itself into it's physical processes. I think we can agree that a coma is a loss of consciousness induced by a traumatic event, due to the trauma existing unto the ego not being able to be processed, resulting in the vessel lying dormant and inanimate. when an ego-state's experience has become overwhelming and beyond the capacity of coping, the ego pleads the 5th on the ownership of it's physical self and becomes displaced or de-rooted. their physical body is still living but there is no longer anything behind their eyes. this function is very similar to acute dissociative states, though varying greatly in severity on the spectrum.

there's also a class of drugs known as Dissociatives which when used, reduces (or blocks) signals to the conscious mind from other parts of the brain. it gives the sensation of being detatched or disconnected from the environment and self. sensory deprivation, loss of awareness and loss of memory are common effects. it is mostly used in addition with a sedative as a form of anesthesia in veterinary medicine. it's also sometimes used recreationally.

a form of dissociation can also be achieved through deep meditation by using a series of strategically placed thought or imagery that brings you to a certain trance-state where ego is reduced. this is practiced by many Buddhists. their whole philosophy is actually centered around ego reduction -- that ego is a false truth and one can find enlightenment or deeper understanding of existence through the meditative journey of breaking down one's individual ego and becoming more 'whole' with the environment. they believe being whole with everything as a single consciousness is our intrinsic state, and that individual identity is ephemeral and illusory.
in my personal opinion this meditative journey is self-destructive behavior as ego-reduction brings you to a very apathetic and indifferent state of being which doesn't seem very attractive, but I do find Buddhists to be very enlightening people, and I'm often impressed with their words when they talk about the universe and the grand scheme of things.


so now that we understand dissociation and ego-reduction, how can we use that to better our understanding of consciousness?

I think the fact traumatic events can put an end to or impede our perpetual stream of awareness while our physical bodies are alive and well tells us that individual consciousness is something fragile and delicate. this might be evidence that consciousness is ethereal and immaterial, or if it has a purely physiological model perhaps it's not fully developed yet and we are in the beginning stages of it's use, evolutionarily speaking, and we have a lot more to see from it, which is somewhat exciting.


has anyone here experimented with relevant levels of dissociation or ego-reduction in controlled, meditative settings? I've toyed with this a bit and have had some interesting revelations as a result, about existence and being in general. I think being in a different perspective, distant from the very subjective position of one's individual ego can bring lots of interesting things to light that you wouldn't ordinarily be aware of. still having an awareness while the ego is diminished gives the observer a greater understanding of that particular section of the universe of which you are taking up, which is a somewhat profound experience.

any related thoughts on this?

 

Have you ever read any of Dr. Stanislav Grof's books? Much of his work is based on LSD case histories and the use of LSD in therapeutic situations, and does not exactly apply to dissociation per se (though there are certainly parallels and so forth, if not outright cases of dissociation), but it is amazing what the conscious mind can do and experience in an ego-reduced state or even things as strange as case histories of what appear convincingly as one's own ego-consciousness experiencing another life's or time's subjective reality.

I meditated years ago, but I have found amazing results experimenting with Shamanistic States of consciousness.

My theory on Hindu meditation (which led to Buddhist Meditation) is that it was an attempt to regain the older shamanistic states of consciousness of the Soma eaters and their ancestral Indo-European shamans. But Hindu meditation, as you wrote, sought to repress the ego which thereby opening up the doorway to the subconscious which would potentially one day spill its contents into the conscious mind in a moment of ecstatic enlightenment.

The older shamanistic techniques (whether they use narcotics or not) did not seek to repress the ego, but instead opened up the doorway of the subconscious, allowing the ego to move into the subconscious and explore its contents at will. This is how the shaman explores the spirit world---he remains in a fully conscious state able to move around, communicate, and change things at will. In fact, the shaman is conscious in two states, his physical being in this world, and his spirit being in the other world at the same time, that is simultaneously experiencing both the subconscious and conscious minds.

That is my materialist explanation. If you experiment much with Shamanistic States of consciousness it may not take very long before the materialist explanation becomes an unusually simplistic, and probably overly misguided explanation of a reality that no longer fits rationality.

 

Thanks; I think I follow your unself-conscious notion for what needs too much clarifying for the Self-conscious referral by materialistic being in the world. There somehow would meaningfully be some constant Conscious effort to know that we live transcend and die for the passage by Life. You may be meaning that by some sense of belief we have the unconscious in itself and sub-conscious somatic Being. The ego either goes there in the fully living state of sleeping OR unliving state in dying. And the world goes on in it's merry way of violence and making peace.:2thumbsup: