Altering Consciousness: Volume 2

Altering Consciousness: Multidisciplinary Perspectives.
Volume 2: Biological and Psychological Perspectives
Editors: Etzel Cardenas & Michael Winkelman.
Praeger. 2011. ISBN: 9780313383083.
 
Altering Consciousness, Volume 2 is a two‑volume set, edited by Etzel Cardeña and Michael J. Winkelman (see posting on February 3, 2026 for the editors' biographical profiles). The two volumes together provide an extensive, multidisciplinary treatment of altered states of consciousness (ASC), with Volume 1 centring on history, culture, and the humanities, and Volume 2 providing the biological and psychological complement and exploring implications for understanding and treating human suffering.
 
 
Volume 2 emphasises how neurochemistry, brain systems, and developmental processes underpin experiences such as hypnosis, dreaming, shamanic states, and mystical experiences. It also examines how these states relate to emotion, psychopathology, and therapeutic and healing processes, contrasting pathological alterations with adaptive and potentially salutogenic ones. A dedicated chapter on “Neurochemistry and Altered States of Consciousness” appears early in the biological portion of the set and is explicitly identified in library and catalogue descriptions of the work. This chapter surveys how major neurotransmitter systems (serotonergic, dopaminergic, noradrenergic, and related neuromodulators) underpin drug‑induced and spontaneous ASCs, including psychedelics, stimulants, and depressants, and links these to phenomenology (e.g., hallucinosis, ego dissolution, mystical-type states).