Consciousness and altered states

A simple shift in focus

Life is often experienced as a demanding, ongoing story. But with a little practice, a new space opens for peaceful presence

James Carmody

Kind of confusing

Is consciousness like jazz, something hard to pin down? Or is it more like the biology of dolphins, odd but natural?

Tim Bayne

What do screens depicting serene natural scenes mean to those living in lock-up?

12 minutes

‘I want me back’ – after a head injury, Nick struggles with his altered reality

7 minutes

Why nothing matters

It took centuries for people to embrace the zero. Now it’s helping neuroscientists understand how the brain perceives absences

Benjy Barnett

We need raw awe

In this tech-vexed age, our life on screens prevents us from experiencing the mysteries and transformative wonder of life

Kirk Schneider

Tomorrow people

For the entire 20th century, it had felt like telepathy was just around the corner. Why is that especially true now?

Roger Luckhurst

Acid media

How perforated squares of trippy blotter paper allowed outlaw chemists and wizard-alchemists to dose the world with LSD

Erik Davis

A reader’s guide to microdosing

How to use small doses of psychedelics to lift your mood, enhance your focus, and fire your creativity

Tunde Aideyan

Psychosis and psychedelics

In the 1960s, psychedelic research was driven underground. Now it’s re-emerging – with lessons for the study of psychosis

Phoebe Friesen

Déjà vu

Have you been here before? The eerie sensation is the shadow of your mind searching inward for clues to its own survival

Anne Cleary

Animal, vegetable, mineral

Cruel and unscientific, the ‘vegetative state’ diagnosis stems from a hierarchical and bigoted view of all living things

Ben Platts-Mills

Stuck with the soul

The idea of the soul is obviously a nonsense, yet its immaterial mysterious nature has deep hooks in the human psyche

David P Barash