• Psychedelic Drugs Welcome Guest
    View threads about
    Posting RulesBluelight Rules
    PD's Best Threads Index
    Social ThreadSupport Bluelight
    Psychedelic Beginner's FAQ

Naturally induced non-ordinary state of consciousness

doubleheadedeagle

doubleheadedeagle

Bluelighter
Joined
May 17, 2015
Messages
140
Today I stumbled upon an interesting technique developed by the psychiatrist called Stanislav Grof, he is a pioneer in transpersonal psychology and has dedicated most of his life on studying non-ordinary states of consciousness.
He believed that transcending into a transpersonal realm has many psychological and spiritual benefits, ex healing from past traumas, finding the source of your suffering, and in general gaining insight.
His early therapy, and research, was carried out with the aid of psychedelic substances such as lsd, psilocybin, mescaline, DPT, various mdxx substances. Later, when those substances were prohibited, he developed other methods of therapy, such as holotropic breathwork.
Holotropic breathwork is a kind of fast meditation which puts the patient into a state of deep meditation.

I am wondering, what does the bluelight society think about this? and if you have ever heard of it?

Quoting from www.holotropic.com/about.shtml: Holotropic Breathwork™ is a powerful approach to self-exploration and healing that integrates insights from modern consciousness research, anthropology, various depth psychologies, transpersonal psychology, Eastern spiritual practices, and mystical traditions of the world. The nameHolotropic means literally "moving toward wholeness" (from the Greek "holos"=whole and "trepein"=moving in the direction of something).The process itself uses very simple means: it combines accelerated breathing with evocative music in a special set and setting. With the eyes closed and lying on a mat, each person uses their own breath and the music in the room to enter a non-ordinary state of consciousness. This state activates the natural inner healing process of the individual's psyche, bringing him or her a particular set of internal experiences. With the inner healing intelligence guiding the process, the quality and content brought forth is unique to each person and for that particular time and place. While recurring themes are common, no two sessions are ever alike.
 
You can't go wrong with Stanislav Grof and his work; his insight into transpersonal awareness, birth-related trauma, the collective unconscious, archetypal experiences, etc etc is some of the most balanced, sane and relatable out there. Rather than sweep these experiences under the rug, pathologize or take detours into the occult, his work helps people integrate difficult experiences in real life. I wish more people would read his work honestly.

I have lots of experience with breathwork and have had numerous experiences that we can call non-ordinary its practice. The experiences obtained through breathwork have rivaled the psychedelic ones in terms of beneficial impact. The breathwork experiences are generally easier to navigate and clearer but less immersive and overpowering. I never practiced holotropic breathwork as taught by Dr Grof workshops but the fundamental mechanics of the breathwork are basically identical to rebirthing (Leonard Orr), transformational breath (Judith Kravitz), Presence process (Michael Brown). I've practiced all three at different points of my life and appreciate them for being geared towards self-facilitation. The breath has an in-built intelligence that will lead you towards many of the same states regardless of who you learn it from. What perhaps is lacking when compared to Grof's work is the detailed psychological understanding and depth. You can read his many books however to make up for this.

A word of caution when combining holotropic breathwork with psychedelics is that the experiences can be a bit confusing and jarring. This isn't to say they are of no value, but practice them separately first. Both help unconscious material to surface, but if you aren't able to deal with this material that surfaces the result can be dissociation and scattered awareness which is missing the point in my opinion. It's also more challenging to sustain breathwork under the influence. When psychedelics and breathwork are combined I've found chanting to be immensely valuable to help dissipate and integrate the overpowering energies that are stirred up. I encourage you to keep exploring, read books by these authors and practice them in both a facilitated and personal practice. They've been the most impactful in my own life.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
levelsBeyond said:
You can't go wrong with Stanislav Grof and his work; his insight into transpersonal awareness, birth-related trauma, the collective unconscious, archetypal experiences, etc etc is some of the most balanced, sane and relatable out there.
Click to expand...

Don't you think he was too stringent in applying Freudian psychology to psychedelics? Particularly since now most Freudian psychology is discredited. It seems as if he was determind to explain psychedelics in terms of Freud/Jung ideas regardless of whether there was any value to them. I find most of his work unreadable apart from the one he wrote about giving psychedelics to the dying. Interestingly that book reports little if any of the Freudian ideas he packs his other books with.

Grof's wife was anti-drugs and talked Grof into abandoning psychedelics. He then created this "breathwork" presumably in an attempt to maintain a money stream. If you see any value in breathing techniques then it might be worth exploring. But I certainly don't think breathwork is even in the same league as psychedelics - it's not even the same sport.
 
Stanislav Grof's background was as a psychiatrist, so in that sense yes, he relates a lot of his work to the prevailing paradigms of the day (paradigms that are still in play today). He frequently mentioned Freud but is very far from championing Freudian psychoanalysis, in fact, I'd say overall that what he describes about Freud is mildly disparaging. He adopts many Jungian ideas and has a far more favorable view of his work. I'll agree there, but I'd stop way short of calling him Jungian. His praise for Jung's ideas is that in a therapeutic settings his ideas often arise, particularly when dealing with experiences arising beyond the biographical narrative. One need look no further than Bluelight to see that there are archetypal experiences playing out all the time during psychedelic states. The ideas of Jung that he incorporates in his work are highly relevant in my own experience.

Grof has shown that there is value in navigating these states and that they are common themes arising during psychedelic/breathwork experience that have been mapped out by others and himself. His framework for relating and interacting with dysfunction as it arises during non-ordinary states and using these non-ordinary states to safely traverse this material towards healing is some of the most profound I've encountered. If you have better recommendations, please do tell, cause that stuff interests me. Some people when they encounter this material are poorly equipped to deal with it. Psychedelics in and of themselves don't automatically heal a person. You gotta interact with it. You learn to guide yourself through them or are guided through them by a facilitator. It's an acquired skill. I'm not claiming that his work is perfect, but if Grof is your starting point I think you are starting with some of the best out there IMO.

I've gone to psychiatrists, psychologist, tripped hundreds of times and have practiced breathwork. I still practice the breathwork to this day. I can honestly say breathwork is a skill that can take you very deep into your own experience. It takes a lot more practice than taking a psychedelic — just like meditation takes practice — but ultimately they are valuable skills worth learning in my opinion to induce experiences that are normally hidden in the unconscious and often reside as trauma at the body level. The experiences that arise during breathwork are a bit more difficult to access, but once you get there, they a lot less confusing to breath through. The type of breathing pattern that people adopt during LSD sessions when processing transpersonal material inspired holotropic breathwork.

Anyways, you don't like it, that's cool.
 
Certainly in the book "LSD psychotherapy" Grof is the most rabid Freudian I've ever read. He says his LSD patients talked about potty training and perinatal experiences so that means that "LSD can be considered laboratory proof of Freuds ideas". Obviously that's barking mad. If Grofs patients are talking about potty training on LSD that suggests one blindingly obvious thing to me - that they're familiar with freudian psychology and are telling Grof what he wants to hear.

To this day I don't think I've ever heard anyone else mention potty training in the same paragraph as LSD. It's not something that I ever think about during my trips anyway..thank god. I guess Grof is still worthy of respect for using psychedelics but he was obviously massively prejudiced and trying to make LSD serve Freuds ideas.

I've never really explored the breathwork apart from a few pages of his book and some of the blurb on his website. I do remember feeling a little uncomfortable at how he was selling it - sort of like psychedelics but without the psychedelics. But if there's any evidence that it's more effective than placebo and they don't mind spending the money then I suppose it's harmless.
 
Ismene, as I said earlier, Grof hasn't "abandoned" psychedelics at all.

TheBlackPirate said:
The truth is Grof is actively involved with psychedelic research and the psychedelic community. In fact Grof was on the CBC's international news program Ideas commenting on the value of LSD assisted psychotherapy as recently as October. Now let me include something you haven't included, evidence supporting my ideas. Here's the thread with the links:

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/778871-History-of-psychedelic-drugs-A-Canadian-perspective
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Grof abandoned psychedelics in favour of breathwork decades ago. Perhaps with his wife being dead now he's more willing to be more involved? I believe his first wife had a major mental breakdown that she blamed on LSD and his second wife was also very anti-drugs.
 
Ismene, I am pretty new about this topic but as far as my understanding goes I think that the whole "fourth force" of psychology aka transpersonal psychology is heavily influenced by psychoanalysis.
 
Certainly sounds like it when you read his books - they have the most bizarre trip reports in them I've ever heard. Certainly never experienced or read of anyone re-living potty training on LSD before.
 
Not to be overly cynical but I'm rather distrustful of spiritual/meditative techniques that someone felt the need to trademark.
Spreading the technique for money or attention is kind of antithetical to the idea of consciousness expansion imo
With that being said I know nothing about this guy or this technique and the other forumers are seeming to be speaking very highly of him :D
 
He's pretty legit, man! The trademarking thing is odd to me as well though 8(
 
I dunno how legit Grof is - I think it's a pretty safe bet that holotropic breathwork is as about effective as placebo.

I imagine most of his customers are people impressed by his history in psychedelics and willing to suspend belief and hand over the money.
 
Have you tried holotropic breathwork? Or breathwork of any kind? If not, you have no place to be making statements on it's credibility.
 
I find most spiritual exercises like these are types of pseudo-meditation which play on the person's suggestibility, and are quite gimmicky.
People have also reported powerful experiences using binaural frequencies even though they have no effect on the majority of people who try them.
I just tend to be skeptical of these spiritual/mental exercises which people claim to have powerful and relatively immediate effects.
I mean there are numerous people who can achieve highly altered states of consciousness using various types of meditation, but generally only after years and years of practice.
Unlike this exercise, meditation tends to be more honest about it's benefits and the amount of dedication you need to input to reap those benefits, plus meditation is absolutely free to learn and trademark free!
 
well, I've been to gimmicky seminars more than I care to admit, so one is wise to be cautious. The book "The Presence Process" by Michael Brown is entirely self-facilitated. It takes a bit longer to achieve results without facilitation on your own, but you become your own teacher in the process which is priceless, and well, I'd swear by the power of breath to transform awareness and give us access to unconscious material, but that'd be free publicity. It uses connected breath and is a joy to read, my top five book of all time. I'll remind people that living, singing, chanting, good sex, jogging and meditation all benefit from some form of breath awareness. Compared to placebo (zombies?) these activities have been shown to produce changes in consciousness. Anyways, I'd try it before bashing it. Please report back if you do, I'd love to hear your experience with it.

We have been able to confirm repeatedly Wilhelm Reich's observation that psychological resistances and defenses use the mechanism of restricting the breathing. Respiration has a special position among the physiological functions of the body. It is an autonomous function, but it can also be easily influenced by volition. Increase of the rate and depth of breathing typically loosens the psychological defenses and leads to release and emergence of the unconscious (and super conscious) material. -dr Grof
 
psy997 said:
Have you tried holotropic breathwork? Or breathwork of any kind? If not, you have no place to be making statements on it's credibility.
Click to expand...

I havn't tried scientology either, do you think that means I may have no thoughts on it's credibility? Don't be ridiculous.

If you're going to make incredible claims for some bizarre breathwork technique you need to provide peer-reviewed, double blind evidence to support your claims. I'm afraid "My patient says it's great" doesn't fly.
 
Also, a lack of "peer-reviewed, double blind evidence to support your claims" does not mean something is not real. Science is not needed to verify the truth. The truth does not need to be defended.

Be careful to not become so dogmatic with science that you become the same as the religious folks you would so quickly depose.
 
How do you verify the truth without science? What truth are you talking about?

Why be frightened of science if it can prove whether holotropic breathwork is any more effective than placebo? Surely if you had any care for your "patients" you'd want to make sure your "technique" was better than placebo before taking money off them?

EDIT: How far do you take this "science isn't truth" idea psy? Would you get in a plane because a christian preacher said it could fly? Or would you want the plane scientifically tested first?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top