PSYCHEDELICS - Sciencemadness.org

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____________________________________________________ Psychedelics
tively stabilized retinal image, are additional factors capable
of producing perceptual and cognitive disorganization. If we
add all these forces together, we see that the experimental
meditation procedure is potentially a very powerful technique
for undoing the normal cognitive and perceptual modes. Such
an undoing might be expected to result in a mobility of
"reality quality," permitting its displacement to internal stimuli,
a displacement congruent with the regressive push of
the specific experimental situation.
DE-AUTOMATIZATION
At this point it would be appropriate to discuss the concept
of "de-automatization," as it is relevant to the understanding
of meditation as well as other altered states of consciousness.
Hartmann explicates the concept of automatization as fol-
lows: "In well-established achievements, they (motor appa-
ratuses) function automatically: the integration of the so-
matic systems involved in the action is automatized, and so
is the integration of the individual mental acts involved in it.
With increasing exercise of the action, its intermediate steps
disappear from consciousness ... not only motor behavior,
but perception and thinking, too, show automatization." "It
is obvious that automatization may have economic advantages
in saving attention cathexis in particular and simple cathexis
of consciousness in general. ... Here, as in most adaptation
processes, we have a purpose of provision for the average ex-
pectable range of tasks." Thus, automatization performs the
function of eliminating details and intermediate steps of
awareness so that attention is freed for other purposes.
Gill and Brenman developed further the concept of de-
automatization: "De-automatization is an undoing of the
automatizations of apparatuses—both means and goal struc-
tures—directed toward the environment. De-automatization
is, as it were, a shakeup which can be followed by an advance
or a retreat in the level of organization. ... Some manipula-
tion of the attention directed toward the functioning of an
apparatus is necessary if it is to be de-automatized." Thus,
de-automatization is the undoing of automatization, presum-
ably by reinvesting actions and percepts with attention.
The experimental procedure produces a de-automatization