Association of Art & Science Rome, ITALY

ABSTRACTS

 Altered states of consciousness – Dr Ashraf Virmani

Powerpoint Presentation (partly in Italian) (Takes few minutes to load)

Emergence of Consciousness, Creativity and Ideas: A question of Mind and Matter.

Consciousness emerged as an evolutionary property from the interaction of genetic and environmental factors, which favoured adaptive processes like memory, and intelligence. Fear and emotion probably evolved from this and eventually consciousness and the ability to be creative. Indeed, emotions have been described as the bridge between the mind and body. 

Creativity is also an emergent property associated with enhanced consciousness (understanding). Thus to increase creativity it is necessary to enter a higher level of consciousness i.e. to probe the inner spirit and the external complex phenomenon of nature.

Internal: To bridge the gap between the spirit and matter thereby understanding oneself, and the fundamental importance of dignity and individuality and to release the creative potential which is the essence of every living being.

External: To develop an objective consciousness which enables a being to penetrate the deepest secrets of the material realty. Remember, all knowledge already exists within the cosmic bank.

To examine how creativity emerges within us I would like to discuss the following:

Lucid dreams:  Strangely meaningful images and bizarre images may all be part of the dreaming brains efforts to review memories, evaluate recent experiences and plot new strategies for surviving challenges in the waking world. This almost subconscious process plays an important role in processing internal thoughts and expresses the innermost desires, fears and tries to make sense of the reality puzzle. This too can be enhanced.

The inner state of equilibrium is altered also in the following conditions:

Madness - the dynamic equilibrium of normal thought is replaced by obsessive or crazy ideas thoughts which are at times extremely creative.

Prodigy - When this equilibrium is achieved for specific talent only e.g. art, it is very creative and the person is NOT crazy, which is good ! The creative spark arises probably by some changes in the brain circuitry.  Bouts of depression and manic energy are unusually common among gifted artists, musicians and writers. The painful roller coaster of their emotions may deepen their creative appreciation of the ambiguities of everyday life.

Other ways to increase consciousness and creativity are more controversial:

Meditation - To confront oneself psychologically. Most people have fear to do this for various reasons: 1. Cannot admit to aspire to a fairy-tale world 2. Cannot sacrifice the comforts of conformity and risk social and economic isolation 3. Have inner fear of the unknown, to go mad and to accept some inner limitation. Many people are inacapacited by bitterness and resentment, immersed in self-pity and cannot overcome this barrier. Thus only by independence of spirit can one overcome these limitations.

Many people use Drugs to try to alter consciousness and thereby increase creativity, but this is escapism and can produce random and hallucinogenic effects only.

            Genetic engineering and hypercomputers in the future will alter the brain circuitry but whether this will actually increase consciousness and creativity is doubtful.

Emotions - Emotional memories such as the strongly felt associations behind phobias form in a way that bypasses the brains higher centers. This route ensures faster responses when danger looms. Autistic individuals seem lost in their own inner world. Their isolation stems from biological abnormalities that may in part interfere with the ability to imagine other peoples mental states.

In conclusion, I think that the creative mind is generated by the human spirit, neither algorithmic or non-linear (fuzzy logic), not just through intellectual processes and not just artistic or emotional, it is a mind that for an instant (or longer) finds the true harmony with the universe. In other words, it is our thoughts that control and sculpt our brain, our lives our society and our world.

Abstract in Italian