From Out of LSD? Just 15 Minutes of Sensory Deprivation Triggers Hallucinations:
You don’t need psychedelic drugs to start seeing colors and objects that aren’t really there. Just 15 minutes of near-total sensory deprivation can bring on hallucinations in many otherwise sane individuals.
Psychologists stuck 19 healthy volunteers into a sensory-deprivation room, completely devoid of light and sound, for 15 minutes. Without the normal barrage of sensory information flooding their brains, many people reported experiencing visual hallucinations, paranoia and a depressed mood.
“This is a pretty robust finding,” wrote psychiatrist Paul Fletcher of the University of Cambridge, who studies psychosis but was not involved in the study. “It appears that, when confronted by lack of sensory patterns in our environment, we have a natural tendency to superimpose our own patterns”….
Among the nine participants who scored high on the first survey, five reported having hallucinations of faces during the sensory deprivation, and six reported seeing other objects or shapes that weren’t there. Four also noted an unusually heightened sense of smell, and two sensed an “evil presence” in the room. Almost all reported that they had “experienced something very special or important” during the experiment.
Obviously, exactly the same principles would apply to “15 minutes of deep meditation.”
Geoff,
A much needed necessary quest you have undertaken. You should read Hancock’s Supernatural, Narby’s Serpent DNA and Rick Strassman’s DMT: The Spirit Molecule about Ayajuasca, Ibogaine, Psilocybin d and DMT experiments and their corelation to the origins of religions and mystical states. Also TErence McKenna’s Food of the Gods.
But one thing that is argued which is yet to be analyzed fully is whether or not trance states with or without halucinogens provide us with connectivity with other levels of informations. That might be worth exploring.
Thanks,
Raja