PSYCHEDELICS - Sciencemadness.org

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____________________________________________________ Psychedelics
rotic conflicts (by history and MMPI), but both subjects
were functioning relatively normally in their environments.
The experiment was conducted in a comfortable, carpeted
office, the lighting, colors, and atmosphere of which
were subdued. The subject sat in an armchair about ten feet
from a medium blue vase that rested on a simple brown end
table; the experimenter sat to one side and behind the subject,
at a desk on which there were two tape recorders. It
was necessary to move to a different experimental room twice
during the course of the experiment, but the general atmosphere
was maintained and the change did not seem to affect
the phenomena reported by the subjects.
Contemplative meditation requires that the subject relinquish
his customary mode of thinking and perceiving.
Thoughts must be stopped, sounds and peripheral sensations
put out of one's mind, and the contemplation of the meditative
object be conducted in a non-analytic, non-intellectual
manner. This aim determined the composition of the instructions
that were read by the experimenter to the subject
immediately preceding the first few sessions. Subject A, who
had begun the first experiment, received the following directions:
"The purpose of these sessions is to learn about concentration.
Your aim is to concentrate on the blue vase. By
concentration I do not mean analyzing the different parts of
the vase, or thinking a series of thoughts about the vase, or
associating ideas to the vase, but rather, trying to see the vase
as it exists in itself, without any connections to other things.
Exclude all other thoughts or feelings or sounds or body sensations.
Do not let them distract you, but keep them out so
that you can concentrate all your attention, all your awareness
on the vase itself. Let the perception of the vase fill your
entire mind."
Subject G received a differently worded set of instructions,
as an attempt had been made to present the required con-
cept more clearly for the second experiment and thus de-
crease the need for additional explanations: "This is an ex-
periment in how we see and experience things. Ordinarily we
look at the world around us with only part of our attention;
the rest is taken up with thinking about what we are seeing
or with unrelated thoughts. This experiment will explore the