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Mikala Adelman
Ring
Body & Mind Research Paper
21 September 2015
The Effects of Hypnosis and Psychedelic Drugs on your Consciousness

People in altered states of mind can explore their conscious brain to solve problems.
Consciousness is a sort of gray space when talked about in Psychology and Neuroscience, it is
still being researched by scientists today. One altered state is hypnosis, it can change peoples
consciousness to alter their mind after hypnotherapy. Other altered states of mind, like drugs, can
affect a persons consciousness. Scientists can use altered states of mind where psychoactive
drugs interact with the central nervous system as research into the conscious mind. This is how
we find that various psychedelic drugs can highly affect a persons brain. Hypnosis and
psychedelic drugs can alter a persons consciousness in many different ways.
Hypnosis is an altered state of mind where the person becomes highly responsive to
suggestions and directions. In 1770, Franz Mesmer discovered hypnosis. He thought that humans
had a universal force that carried through to animals which mesmerized them into a sleep state.
This is where the experiments begin, and scientists or doctors use it for research. Hypnotherapy
is used often to help people quit habits, and other various reasons. A vast majority of the things
we do is unconscious, our brain and body are constantly doing things that we dont even have to
think about. Hypnosis on the unconscious mind is like updating the brain with new, and more
helpful information. The mind can retain that information and immediately do as followed. This
can get a smoker to stop smoking, and it can get a tense person to calm down very subtly.

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Hypnotherapy is used for stress relief, confidence issues, depression, weight loss,
phobias, sports, and children. Hypnotherapy is very helpful to some people, and get great results
from it. However, studies show that is does not work for some people, and it gets better results
from more intelligent people. For example, hypnosis on a patient with a phobia starts with
directly talking to the hypnotist and having them try to reconstruct how they think. The
unconscious mind literally thinks that they are in a life threatening state when presented with that
phobia. Hypnosis can be used to reframe how that object or situation is perceived, so the patient
can see the object or situation as realistic, and less frightening.
Discovering other altered states of consciousness evolved originally as a result of the
study of subjects who were habituated to drugs like LSD. Albert Hofmann is a scientist who
synthesized a well known psychedelic drug called LSD. Once he discovered it, he experimented
and found that he got a lot more information with the drug. Here is a quote from Hofmann after
LSD was pronounced illegal in all states. This early work was very well documented, and
shows how well research with LSD went until it became part of the drug scene in the 1960s. So,
from originally being part of the therapeutic pharmacopeia, LSD became a drug of the street and
inevitably it was made illegal. Because of this reputation, it became unavailable to the medical
field, and so the research, which had been very open, was stopped.. Hofmann found great value
in LSD and its scientific research. He thought that if he had a first hand psychedelic experience,
he could give the psychedelic to his patients and then talk to them through the drug as therapy.
Psychoanalytic research with psychedelic drugs involved is very complex. For example,
learning about the neurotransmitter paths in the brain. A dream like state occurs in the frontal
lobe when drugs are active; without that, the drugs would not affect us. The brain has the same
compounds as drugs, its just that the drugs enhance the chemicals inside us that weve had all

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along. When a person takes psychedelics, they become more conscious of everything around
them. Consciousness is to know ones environment and ones self. The psychedelic state is
considered a primary state of consciousness that developed a way of normal waking
consciousness. It is argued that Psilocybin, another classic psychedelic, is held back from its
primary state because of its high entropy, or disorder. Psychedelic drugs enhance your hearing
and touching receptors in the body. All of this can be tested by checking other primary states
such as rapid eye movement(REM), and then comparing those to other non-primary states such
as normal waking consciousness. After a person continuously takes LSD they develop this extra
sense of ego. Some people call it ego death when a person believes they know more after going
through such an experience, and they only believe in themselves spiritually, and physically. Ego
is simply our sense of self. Research says that people become more close to their consciousness,
than they do their unconsciousness. However, research states that kids with developing brains
still, should not explore hallucinogens. This is because a childs consciousness is not wise
enough to cope with the drugs that would say, affect a more experienced person like an adults
consciousness.
In conclusion, altered states of mind and consciousness are fairly new, and complicated
subjects to explain. Hypnotherapy can help people with various obstacles in their lives, and
psychedelic drugs can help scientists research more about consciousness to expand our brains
knowledge. We can use this information to learn things that the world has never seen or heard of
before. Inform the people on how powerful their brains are, and that they can all achieve
greatness. This is how we can help people. Discover more about the power of mind and body.
The effects of hypnosis are positive, and psychedelic research has always been positive.

Works Cited
V. George Mathew. Psychology of Consciousness. Psychology4all.com. April 28 2012.
Mathew. 2001. Electronic source. September 19 2015.

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Michael Persinger. How Psychedelic Drugs Affect Consciousness. Video. Youtube.com. Feb
16 2011. Sep 19 2015.

Stephen Walkin. About Hypnosis. Walkin. 2015. Website. Sep 19 2015.

Division of Brain Sciences. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3909994/. Frontiers

in Human Neuroscience. 3 Feb 2014. Website. Sep 19 2015.

Hank Green. Youtube.com. Crash Course. March 24 2014. Website. Sep 19 2015.