Threads of Consciousness

Tag: mindfulness

  • Technologies of the Sacred: Tools for Expansion

    Technologies of the Sacred: Tools for Expansion

    I’ve always been drawn to the edges of awareness, the places where the ordinary gives way to something deeper and the familiar opens up to something more meaningful. In my own journey, I’ve found that certain practices, whether it’s meditation, breathwork, or even intentional stillness, have opened me in ways I couldn’t have predicted. These moments don’t feel like I’m escaping reality; they feel like I’m expanding into it.

    As I’ve studied these states more deeply, I’ve come to see they’re far from new. They’re ancient. Sacred. Across time and culture, humans have always sought ways to shift consciousness, not just to feel differently, but to remember more deeply who and what we truly are.

    Whether the goal was healing, transformation, or a deeper connection with the divine, people have developed powerful practices to shift consciousness. These techniques often engage our senses as portals into expanded states of being, such as chanting, drumming, dancing, fasting, music, movement, meditation, breathwork, and yoga. Each of these has been used to transcend ordinary perception and open a doorway into something deeper.

    You can find these methods woven throughout spiritual traditions around the world, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Taoism. Each holds practices designed to awaken and expand the mind. But long before organized religion, shamanic traditions around the globe were already using these “technologies of the sacred” to heal, connect, and guide.

    Shamanism is often considered the oldest spiritual and healing practice in the world. Despite cultural differences, shamans across continents have shared a remarkable understanding of how to access and navigate non-ordinary realms. In these states, reality is experienced as layered, alive, and deeply interconnected. Shamans have long used these altered states of consciousness as tools for healing – guiding others through emotional, physical, and spiritual transformation.

    So why does this matter for us now?

    Engaging with these ancient practices can help us break free from habitual patterns of thinking and being. They offer a way to step outside the default mode of consciousness – the everyday loop of thoughts, roles, and reactions – and glimpse something greater. In these expanded states, many people report a profound sense of connection: to themselves, to others, to nature, and often, to all of existence.

    Stanislav Grof, a pioneer in the study of non-ordinary states, described these experiences as gateways to “Cosmic Consciousness” – states that dissolve boundaries and reveal unity. He referred to the tools that lead us there as technologies of the sacred, because they allow us to cross from the mundane into the mystical.

    And yet, not all altered states are healing. Consciousness can also be disrupted by illness, trauma, or intoxication. The difference lies in the intention and context. When non-ordinary states are approached with care, purpose, and integration, they can become powerful vehicles for growth. Unlike pathological states, which can be disorienting or long-lasting, therapeutic journeys into altered consciousness are often short-lived and gently return us to baseline, though not without leaving something within us changed.

    In my own experience, I’ve come to know these states through several of the methods I’ve been studying. Most often, I’ve accessed them through meditation. In these meditative states, I’ve felt reality reveal itself as inherently interconnected. I feel connected to all things around me – even as I breathe, the world around me breathes too. That sense of unity has shifted the way I move through life, helping me step outside the automatic patterns of everyday awareness and glimpse something more true, more whole.

    Of course, integration isn’t always easy. Translating those expanded states into everyday life can be challenging. But even when the feeling fades, the memory remains, and it forms the foundation for ongoing transformation. As I continue to return to these states and integrate the insights learned, I can see the subtle ways that transformation is unfolding in my everyday life too.

    These states are not about escaping reality. They’re about expanding it. They show us what’s possible when we release our usual patterns of awareness, shifting our perspectives, allowing us to remember what it feels like to be whole.

    These ancient tools and expanded states invite us to explore not only the vastness of consciousness but also the sacredness of our own inner world. You don’t need a dramatic experience to begin, but rather a willingness to listen inward, and to notice what shifts when you soften into presence.

    So this week, I invite you to reflect: Have I ever experienced a moment that felt like more than ordinary awareness? What brought me there and what did it reveal about myself or the world around me?

    Let this be an exploration of experience. You might find that these “technologies of the sacred” have been touching your life in quiet ways all along.

    References

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

    Richards, W.A. (2016). Sacred knowledge: Psychedelics and religious experiences. Columbia University 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.