Expanded States of Consciousness

Expanded States of Consciousness (ESC)

During my first week-long silent meditation retreat — immersed in lessons from the Vedas and meditating three times a day for sittings of up to two-and-a-half hours — I was first confronted by a profound awareness: the dominant presence in my waking mind, with which I had been completely and unwittingly identified, was not the only one.

For the first time, I could observe how the voice of my conscious mind constructed a seamless narrative flow to rationalise and direct a uniform sense of identity. To say this realisation was life-changing is inaccurate; it was not my life that changed, but a fundamental understanding of who I am. This new awareness of being — and the potential to de-identify from "myself" (my physical body, energetic body, rational mind, creative mind, or blissful layer) — created space for a different response to what emerges, both externally and internally.

Experiencing ESCs

Expanded States of Consciousness (ESCs) can be experienced through deep meditation, spiritually transformative experiences (including mystical states and near-death experiences), psychedelics, and holotropic breathwork. Apart from the gradual onset and longer-lasting nuance in the perceptual changes, the experience of entering an ESC through sustained meditation practice is not dissimilar to the shifts brought about by psychedelics — a recognition that has been central to my own understanding of this terrain.

My First ESC

By the end of that first week of deep meditation, I realised I was experiencing the world differently. I had effectively entered an ESC and was "high" from the long hours of practice. I felt open and pliable, like a super-material that could be endlessly shaped and reshaped. I also had a heightened sense of receptivity to sensory inputs, including a strong sensitivity to artificial light and loud sounds.

I was barely able to sleep the first two days after I returned home. When I did, my dreams were filled with vivid images and sensations, as if I had stepped into an alternative dimension where things were just as "real" as in my waking life but simply worked differently.