Altered States of Consciousness

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Chapter 4 Consciousness
SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES IN ROCK
MUSIC? These picketers are protesting
at the site of a Marilyn Manson concert.
Some people claim that Manson’s music,
as well as that of rock stars ranging from
Michael Jackson to Madonna, contains
subliminal messages advocating drug
use, violence, and Satanism.
messages at a conscious level. Could they do so subconsciously? To find out, the
researchers asked the participants to sort the backward statements they heard into one
of five categories: nursery rhymes, Christian, satanic, pornographic, or advertising. They
reasoned that if some sort of meaning could be subconsciously understood, the participants would be able to sort the statements nonrandomly. As it turned out, however,
the participants did no better at this task than random chance would predict.
Perhaps backward messages might influence people’s behavior even if the messages
were not perceived consciously. To check on this possibility, Vokey and Read (1985)
conducted another study. This time, they presented a backward version of a message
whose sentences contained homophones (words that sound alike but have two spellings
and two different meanings, such as feat and feet). When heard in the normal forward
direction, such messages affect people’s spelling of ambiguous words that are read aloud
to them at a later time. (For example, they tend to spell out f-e-a-t rather than f-e-e-t
if they had previously heard the sentence “It was a great feat of strength.”) This example of priming occurs even if people do not recall having heard the message. After hearing a backward version of the message, however, the participants in this study did not
produce the expected spelling bias.
■ What do the results mean?
Obviously, it wasn’t possible for the participants to subconsciously understand meaning in the backward messages. Backward messages are evidently not consciously or
unconsciously understood, nor do they influence behavior (Vokey, 2002).
■ What do we still need to know?
Researchers would like to understand why the incorrect idea persists that backward
messages can influence behavior. Beliefs and suspicions do not simply disappear in the
face of contrary scientific evidence (Sagan, 1996; Vyse, 2000; Winer et al., 2002). Perhaps
such evidence needs to be publicized more widely in order to lay the misconceptions
to rest, but it seems likely that some people so deeply want to believe in the existence
and power of backward messages in rock music that such beliefs will forever hold the
status of folk myths in Western culture.
altered state of consciousness A condition that exists when changes in mental processes are extensive enough to
produce noticeable differences in psychological and behavioral functioning.
Altered States of Consciousness
When changes in mental processes are great enough for you or others to notice significant differences in how you function, you are said to have entered an altered state
of consciousness. In an altered state, mental processing shows distinct changes unique
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The Scope of Consciousness
to that state. Cognitive processes or perceptions of yourself or the world may change,
and normal inhibitions or self-control may weaken (Vaitl et al., 2005).
The phrase altered states of consciousness recognizes waking consciousness as the
most common state, a baseline against which “altered” states are compared. However,
this is not to say that waking consciousness is universally considered more normal,
proper, or valued than other states. In fact, judgments about the status and meaning of
certain states of consciousness vary considerably across cultures (Ward, 1994).
Consider, for instance, hallucinations, which are perceptual experiences (such as hearing voices) that occur without sensory stimuli. In the United States, hallucinations are usually viewed as so undesirable that even normal people who develop visual hallucinations
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permissions restrictions.
Cultures differ in
their definitions of which altered states of consciousness are approved
and which are inappropriate. Here we see members of a Brazilian spirit
possession cult in various stages of trance and, in Peru, a Moche curandero, or “curer,” attempting to heal an ailing patient by using fumes from
a potion—and a drug from the San Pedro cactus—to put himself in an altered state of consciousness.
ALTERED STATES AND CULTURAL VALUES