The Components of Consciousness Awareness, Energy, Structures

People use the phrase states of consciousness to describe unusual alterations in the way consciousness functions. In this chapter we consider some of the experiences people use to judge what states they are in, in order to illustrate the complexity of experience. We then consider what basic concepts or components we need to make sense out of this variety of experiences. 

I have asked this question of many audiences, and I have only occasionally seen a hand go up. No one has stuck to defending this position. If you take this question to mean, How do you know you re not dreaming now you probably take a quick internal scan of the content and quality of your experience and find that some specific elements of it, as well as the overall 

I ask this question in order to remind the reader of a basic datum underlying my approach to consciousness—that a person sometimes scans the pattern of his ongoing experience and classifies it as being one or another state of consciousness. 

EXPERIENTIAL CRITERIA FOR DETECTING AN ALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 

Alteration in various sensory characteristics of the perceived world-glowing lights at the edges of things, attenuation or accentuation of visual depth 

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