by Brian RiveraI was hesitant to share this selection both because of its length and because it is a
narrative review of a topic that can seem out of left field. But as I was reading it, I felt it provided strong neuroscientific grounding in the descriptions of Altered States of Consciousness (ASC) and it did so in a very accessible way. This topic seemed extremely relevant because it offers a unique window to study the human brain and its functions through the different manifestations elicited by cultural practices such as meditation, mindfulness, dance, yoga, starvation and diet, etc. To me, it is a direct study of how different cultures and cultural practices have adapted brain capacities for different purposes, especially ones relevant to group cohesion and healing. The induction of ASC in shamanic practices is widespread in human cultures and is perhaps as old as cultural practices themselves. Although it has been the subject of interest of some anthropologists, it has been mainly ignored by psychology and neuroscience. This is in spite of the fact that William James, the father of American Psychology, had a strong interested in how consciousness changed during religious experiences. Thus it seems that ASC are a core aspect of human behavior. In this book chapter Mishara and Schwartz introduced Altered States of Consciousness (ASC), a wide range of conscious experiences demarcated perhaps only by how they differ from normal waking consciousness, and describe how they are used in shamanic practices to induce healing effects mainly through the neurocircuitry of the human social brain. The authors present the multiple problems with attempts to study these phenomena that range from the methodological problems of how to study them (many have only nonrandomized groups without a control), to the difficulty of making sense of extremely subjective experiences (i.e. inner journey). While there might be an impulse to dismiss shamanic practices as acting as a placebo, the authors state that the enactment of the ritual is a mechanism exploited by practitioners to provide healing effects by enhancing feelings of belonging to a community. Thus there is something to be said for how prevalent such practices are across the world. The authors also present evidence of change of patterns of brain activity during hypnotic states that might coincide with the phenomenology of an ASC. Furthermore, the authors argue that such an experience might contribute to healing by allowing the experiencer to gain a new reflective perspective as if outside of him or herself. They also describe that the use of narrative, especially that of death and re-birth, might serve as a way to optimize reflective awareness. This last conclusion is taken to be the paradoxical healing power of the ASC. I thought this article was relevant to the end of the semester because it offers a perspective of what it would look like to have a more unified description of cultural dependent aspects of psychology and nervous system variation while maintaining grounding in neuroscience. I though it provided a rich depiction of a whole class of phenomena not widely discussed but relevant to discussions of neuroanthropology.
4 Comments
Vanessa Marshall
4/24/2019 07:50:21 am
My comment is kinda out of left field, but the section on story-telling in the article was interesting to me because it fits in with a discussion my early British literature class had a few weeks ago. We were discussing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and how that poem suggested people in the middle ages viewed reality differently than people today. The reason for this analysis was that thought the poem, stories and reality seemed to be interchangeable. King Arthur refuses to eat until after a story is told, but then eats after the fantastical Green Knight comes into his hall and issues a challenge that shocks everyone. Your article said "The act of narrating requires an ongoing shifting between internal and external perspectives or reference frames with regard to the experience of one’s own body." I think this is exemplify in SGGK, and could be a historical example of different brain trainings and perspectives.
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Jennifer Fortunato
4/24/2019 08:11:05 am
I agree that using a unified description of cultural psychology and nervous system variation while maintaining a basis in neuroscience will help advance the field of neuroanthropology. I think that this paper shows a great way for neuroanthropology to be used in a way that can help explain phenomenon, like altered states of consciousness in shamanic practices, that have not been greatly studied or dismissed. Neuroanthropology can help build bridges across domains of study that can take into account phenomenon that have not been well studied based on the vastness of the issue at hand.
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AuthorThis blog is group authored by Dr. DeCaro and the students in his ANT 474/574: Neuroanthropology. Archives
April 2019
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