Altered State of Consciousness (ASC)

An altered state of consciousness is a brain state wherein one loses the sense of identity with one's body or with one's normal sense perceptions. A person may enter an altered state of consciousness through such things as sensory deprivation or overload, neurochemical imbalance, fever, or trauma. One may also achieve an altered state by chanting, meditating, entering a trance state, or ingesting psychedelic drugs.
As you can see there is several way to achieve your goal :accidental/pathological or intentional/recreational/religious. Even if the first one is very interesting, I will try to focus on the second one.

An ASC can sometimes be reached intentionally by the use of sensory deprivation, an isolation tank, sleep deprivation, lucid dreaming, or mind-control techniques, hypnosis, meditation, prayer, or disciplines (e.g. Mantra Meditation, Yoga, Sufism, dream yoga, or Surat Shabda Yoga).

It can also be attained through the ingestion of psychoactive drugs such as alcohol and opiates, but more commonly with entheogenic plants such as cannabis, salvia divinorum, psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, DXM, ayahuasca, or datura (though less common).

Another effective way to induce an altered state of consciousness is using a variety of Neurotechnology such as psychoacoustics, binaural beats, light and sound stimulation, cranial electrotherapy stimulation, and such; these methods attempt to induce specific brainwave patterns, and a particular altered state of consciousness

During our journey over this blogs, I will try to make you discover (for the novice) this state of mind, using divers medium such as meditation, reading, music ... relating my experience, and as well waiting for your feedback, comments and report as well

As an introduction I will quote wikipedia and specialy the list of States of consciouness and let you discover a bit more by yourself !

States of consciousness

Autoscopy Coma Convulsion Daydream Delirium Depersonalization Derealization Ego death

Extra sensory perception Hypnagogia Hypnopompia Hypnosis Hysteria Major depressive disorder Meditation Out of Body Experience

Presyncope Psychosis Sexual pleasure Sleep Sleep deprivation Sleep paralysis Syncope Wakefulness

Hope you will enjoy and open your mind !