Threads of Consciousness

Tag: expansive states

  • Psychedelics and the Path to Expansion: Catalysts of Consciousness

    Psychedelics and the Path to Expansion: Catalysts of Consciousness

    Throughout history, humans have turned to sacred tools to shift awareness: ritual, breath, stillness, and sound. But among these technologies of the sacred, few have been as potent, or as controversial, as psychedelics.

    In both traditional and clinical settings, psychedelic substances have been used to induce non-ordinary states of consciousness that foster healing, insight, and transformation. While practices like meditation or breathwork often rely on personal rhythm and repetition over time, psychedelics act as catalysts, compressing what might otherwise take months of therapeutic work into a matter of hours. They can open the psyche in powerful ways, unveiling unconscious material, loosening rigid patterns, and allowing new ways of being to emerge.

    The word psychedelic itself comes from Greek – psyche, meaning “mind” or “soul,” and delos, meaning “to make visible.” And that’s exactly what these substances seem to do: they make the hidden parts of ourselves visible. They bring forth what has been buried, suppressed, or forgotten in order to process, resolve, and ultimately integrate.

    From ancient shamanic rituals to contemporary clinical trials, psychedelics have long been used as tools for transformation. Indigenous traditions around the world have used plant medicines like ayahuasca, peyote, and iboga in ceremonial contexts, viewing them not as drugs, but as sacred guides to deeper truths and spiritual healing.

    In the West, psychedelic research began in earnest in the mid-20th century. Early studies with LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline revealed the power of these substances to enhance creativity, alleviate anxiety and depression, and support individuals facing terminal illness. At their best, these experiences created space for people to reconnect with their core selves, release long-held emotional pain, and develop new insight into their lives.

    The golden era of psychedelic research was brief, however, as cultural backlash and political fear led to widespread criminalization and the halt of scientific exploration. But in recent years, we’ve seen a resurgence; a psychedelic renaissance driven by promising studies on the therapeutic potential of substances like psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, and ketamine.

    Today, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is showing extraordinary promise. When used with intention, preparation, and integration, psychedelics appear to activate what Michael Mithoefer calls the “inner healing intelligence” – a deep, innate capacity for psychological and spiritual healing. They help us to access the grief, shame, fear, or trauma that often live just beneath the surface of our everyday awareness, shaping our lives in unseen ways.

    Through this research and my own lived experience, I’ve come to understand these states not as distortions of reality, but as expansions of it. They allow us to step outside our everyday awareness and touch something deeper, more whole. In my own journey, these states have helped me begin to see my true self. For so long, I defined myself solely as the human ‘me’ walking the earth, full of fear, grief, and shame. I have held onto those feelings, mistaking them for who I was. However, in expansive moments of consciousness, I have come to understand that I am so much more.

    I am expansive. I am love.

    I have seen how my soul radiates far beyond the limits of my physical body, connected to everything around me. I am no longer the fear and pain that I once held so tightly, but rather a vessel of love, interwoven with all of life. Such experiences have been truly transformational, allowing for a shift in perspective and in my interactions with the world. They’ve altered the way I see myself and the way in which I move through the world.

    Psychedelic experiences don’t always show you something new; more often, they reveal what was already within. Sometimes that’s pain, waiting to be felt. Sometimes its insight, whispering beneath the noise. And sometimes, it’s a part of yourself you didn’t realize you’d forgotten.

    While psychedelics are not magic bullets – and they are certainly not for everyone – they can offer a powerful mirror. When held with care and intention, they reflect back what needs to be seen, felt, and healed. They offer us a glimpse at our true potential, our true self.

    It’s not just about what rises to the surface. The real healing happens when what emerges is met with compassion, understanding, and support, when it’s held in a space that allows for reprocessing, release, and integration.

    They are not the path themselves, but they can help us remember that the path was within us all along.

    These experiences, whether held in memory or still unfolding, invite us to keep listening inward. Even without the use of psychedelics, we all carry the capacity to tune into what’s beneath the surface. Sometimes all it takes is a question asked with honesty and openness.

    So this week I invite you to reflect: If I saw myself not as a problem to fix, but as a vessel of love and possibility, how would that shit the way I move through the world? Whatever comes up, trust that its part of your unfolding.

    References

    Grof, S. (2019). The way of the psychonaut: Encyclopedia for inner journeys (Volume One).MAPS.

    Mithoefer, M. (2013). MDMA-assissted psychotherapy: How different is it from other psychotherapy? In R. Doblin & B.Burge (Eds.), Manifesting minds: A review of psychedelics in science, medicine, sex, and spirituality (pp. 125-135). MAPS.

    Otso, D. (2006). Altered states: Buddhism and psychedelic spirituality in America. Columbia University Press.

    Pollan, M. (2018). How to change your mind: What the new science of psychedelics teaches us about consciousness, dying, addiction, depression, and transcendence. Penguin Press.

  • From Altered to Expansive: Reframing Consciousness

    From Altered to Expansive: Reframing Consciousness

    When you start exploring states of consciousness that go beyond everyday awareness, you’ll find yourself navigating a landscape of language – altered, non-ordinary, expanded, expansive – and at first, they all seem to be talking about the same thing.

    As I began studying consciousness more deeply, I realized how nuanced this language can ne. These words are often used interchangeably, but each one carries its own energy, its own history – and that matters. The language we use doesn’t just describe our experiences; it shapes how we interpret them and how open we are to their potential. And in a field as personal as consciousness, that distinction becomes more than just semantics – it becomes sacred. The language we use can either limit or liberate our understanding.

    The term altered states of consciousness was first introduced in the 1960s by psychiatrist Arnold Ludwig. He defined it as any mental state that significantly deviates from what we’d consider normal, alert, waking consciousness—whether that’s through psychological shifts, physical conditions, substances, or spontaneous experiences. It’s a broad definition, and intentionally so. It includes everything from deeply transcendent mystical experiences to states caused by physiological illness or psychological distress.

    But this term – altered – often carries a subtle negative undertone. It implies that something has changed in a way that feels unnatural or distorted, rather than simply different. And that implication matters, especially when talking about states that, for many people, can be deeply healing, expansive, and transformative.

    Stanislav Grof, one of the most influential figures in transpersonal psychology, later introduced the term non-ordinary states of consciousness as an alternative. It was a step in a better direction – softening some of the negative connotation that altered often implies. Grof noted that altered can sound like a deviation from health or wholeness, whereas non-ordinary feels more neutral. But even this term is still somewhat vague. It tells us that something is different, but not whether that difference is helpful, healing, disorienting, or divine. Accordingly, it still does not fully express the positive, expansive potential that many of these states hold.

    That’s why I often gravitate toward terms like expanded or expansive consciousness—language that reflects the potential these states hold. Grof referred to these specific experiences as holotropic states, meaning “oriented toward wholeness.” These are the states that help us remember who we are beneath the surface. They connect us to something greater and allow us to experience life with a renewed sense of depth, clarity, and meaning.

    These states don’t just alter our awareness—they open it. They create space to explore, to reconnect, and to transform. And in that way, the words we use to describe them aren’t just labels, but instead shape how we relate to these experiences whether we see them as disorienting or as doorways to deeper truth.

    In my own experience, I’ve come to know these states of consciousness not as altered or non-ordinary, but as deeply expansive. They don’t feel like a distortion of reality or a departure from self, but rather a returning – an unfolding into something more whole. These states do not always require external substances or extreme circumstances to access. Often, they arise by turning inward, through meditation, mindfulness, stillness, or simply being present,

    In these moments of quiet awareness, I feel a profound sense of connection. I become acutely aware of my humanness, yet at the same time feel myself stretching beyond it. I feel connected to my own self, to this vessel that my soul resides in, to the emotions moving through me, to those I love, and also beyond to something vast and universal. It’s not a stepping away from reality, but a widening of it. A soft dissolving of boundaries. A gentle transcendence of the personal to the transpersonal.

    This connection of not something non-ordinary, but rather an innate characteristic of existence itself. In these states, I’m not escaping who I am in an alternate reality, but rather I am expanding into the fullness of what I already am.

    These moments of expansion may look different for everyone—sometimes quiet and subtle, other times overwhelming in their magnitude—but they often carry a shared quality: a sense of remembering something we’ve always known.

    So I invite you to turn inward and reflect: When have I felt my awareness expand beyond the ordinary? What did it feel like in my body, my mind, my heart? And what, if anything, did I connect to in that space beyond myself?

    Allow this to be a space of gentle remembering—not to analyze, but to feel into the edges of what’s already within you.

    References

    Grof, S. (2019). The way of the psychonaut: Encyclopedia for inner journeys (Volume One). MAPS.