The search for a "higher level of consciousness" is one that seems to be as old as consciousness itself. Practices such as the ritualistic or religious consumption of peyote, ayahuasca, psilocybe mushrooms or other such naturally-occuring hallucinogenic drugs, self-deprivation and transcendental meditation are just a few of the countless ways in which mankind has sought to expand the limits of human experience; these practices are still a mainstay in many modern countercultures. They are also very well-known and documented practices. There exists, however, a radical surgical procedure, as old as the aforementioned practices but far less notorious in the general public, which purports to result in the same sort of enlightenment: trepanation, also known as trephination.
(Be prepared: likely, the primary reason that trepanation has not received so much attention from popular culture is that it is far more extreme than the other methods mentioned above.) What is trepanation? Strictly speaking, it is the practice of drilling, scraping or in any other way creating a small hole in the skull down to, but not through, the dura mater, or the thick, tough membrane that contains the brain. Archeological evidence tells us that it was performed by ancient cultures on every continent; the oldest trepanned skulls that have currently been found date as far back as 3000 B.C (approximately). In almost all cases, the evidence points to the trepanation having been performed with skill and a great deal of precision - it was clearly a procedure that had ritualistic import. (1)
What purpose could this operation possibly serve? In early documented incarnations, trepanation existed as a cure for mental illness - it was believed that mental illnesses were the result of demons living within the skull, and thus a hole was made in the skull through which these demons could escape. The more modern perspective on trepanation as a means of expanding consciousness was started in by Bart Hughes when his text "The Mechanism of Brainbloodvolume ('BBV')" was published in 1962. (1) Bart Hughes' theory can be summed up as follows: "...as we mature and age our skulls harden, restricting blood flow to the capillaries of the brain....children, especially babies with their "soft spot", had a clearer outlook on the world because their brains were free to receive more cerebral blood volume than...our adult brains with hermetically-sealed skulls." (1) There are many ways to increase brainbloodvolume (the self-explanatory term coined by Hughes, hereafter referred to as BBV) temporarily, such as standing on one's head, quickly moving from a hot to a cold bath, or the consumption of psychedelic drugs; however, according to Hughes trepanation is the only way to increase BBV permanently.
I-Chieh Chen (2015) in The study The Scale for the Loneliness of College Students in Taiwan (http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jedp/article/download/46795/25238) stated that Loneliness was initially studied by Sullivan (1953) (A Peplau, D Perlman, LA Peplau… - Loneliness: A …, 1982 - peplaulab.ucla.edu) who proposed that loneliness was an unpleasant and intense experience related to unsatisfied requirements for intimacy (http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jedp/article/download/46795/25238). Sullivan’s research was all but neglected in his time. This neglect lasted until 1973, when Weiss, an American scholar who was an adherent of Bowlby’s attachment theory, published an article entitled “Loneliness: the experience of emotional and social isolation” (RS Weiss - 1973 - psycnet.apa.org).
In “The House on Mango Street”, by Sandra Cisneros, a little girl named Esperanza struggles with loneliness and low self esteem. Esperanza just moved to Mango Street. She was expecting a nice house and a nice neighborhood. “They told us that one day we would move into a house, a real house that would be ours for always so we wouldn’t have to move each year.” (Pg. 4) Esperanza was not happy when she saw the house. The bricks were crumbling in places and the door was swollen. Esperanza then knew she would be judged based by the looks of her house. Esperanza met a nun in her neighborhood, and she asked Esperanza where she lived. When Esperanza showed where she lived the nun said “You live there?”(Pg. 5) That comment made Esperanza feel bad about
Sessa, B. "Is It Time to Revisit the Role of Psychedelic Drugs in Enhancing Human
In his lecture, Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre discusses common misconceptions people, specifically Communists and Christians, have about existentialism and extentanitalists (18). He wants to explain why these misconceptions are wrong and defend existentialism for what he believes it is. Sartre argues people are free to create themselves through their decisions and actions. This idea is illustrated in the movie 13 Going on Thirty, where one characters’ decision at her thirteenth birthday party and her actions afterwards make her become awful person by the time she turns thirty. She was free to make these decisions but she was also alone. Often the idea of having complete free will at first sounds refreshing, but when people
Sabbatini, Renato M.E. “The History of Psychosurgery” June/August 1997. Brain & Mind Magazine. 14 Jun.1997. State University of Campinus, Brazil. 6 Oct. 2002
Loneliness is the central theme in the novel Of Mice and Men. Many of the characters show signs of being lonely, some more than others. Loneliness haunts Crooks deep inside. Crooks accepts things the way they are though. Crooks does not talk to the other men and they do not talk to him. This causes the greatest amount of loneliness in Crooks out of all the characters. Rejection can cause most people to become crazy, as it
...s: each was licensed to a much larger firm because the originator firm lacked the capability to market the drug. the larger analysis of blockbuster drugs showed that this thread is common across blockbusters that originated with smaller firms. The largest firms appear to hold a significant advantage in commercialization—they are highly effective at extracting the value of innovative drugs . The study suggests some qualified reasons for skepticism that the end of the blockbuster era will bring a major upheaval in the industry. Large firms’ advantage in commercialization suggests that they may maintain their dominant position. Marketing of pharmaceuticals may move from broad-based to targeted approaches, but a company with a broad reach may still have an advantage in identifying markets for niche drugs and commercializing the drugs within those more narrow market
T.S. Eliot and William Butler Yeats portray their characters as two men, who are trying to deal with the idea of loneliness. Both men are presently depressed with their existing lifestyles and crave to become a part of an entirely different state of affairs. As these authors present their characters desires to live a separate life from their recent one, Prufrock and the narrator (Yeats) take a different approach to expressing their ideas of loneliness. Eliot chooses to depict his character as an overly educated man, whose mental state is deteriorating because he longs for companionship, while Yeats chooses to depict his character as a man, who wants to live-out his childhood dream in solitude. Both authors show their characters as men who are trying to cope with their feelings toward seclusion.
The treatment involved passing electrical currents through the brain which would trigger a small seizure and ease the symptoms of certain mental illnesses, however the procedure was used without anesthesia and caused the patient to jerk uncontrollably, this treatment would sometimes result in fractures, memory loss, and other side effects. The treatment is still used today, although with much weaker currents and anesthesia. Another popular treatment used in the asylums was the injection of insulin into a patient to induce a coma. This treatment was thought to reset an individual’s brain and bring them back to “normal”, however, insulin coma therapy proved to be not very effective and was phased out in the 1960s. One of the most inhumane treatments for the mentally ill was the lobotomy, or the prefrontal leucotomy. This surgical procedure involved opening a hole in the head to sever nerve pathways in the prefrontal cortex. The lobotomy was performed at least 15,000 times in Britain before being phased out in the late 1950s. Another type of brain surgery discussed in the film, was one done on patient, Maggi Chapman, who underwent a surgery in which an electrode was attached to a part of her brain and then turned on to fry that part of the brain. Maggi goes on to describe how the next few years she felt like a zombie and had a difficult time going through life (BBC,
Famous German physician Albert Schweitzer said, “We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.” In the novel Of Mice and Men, written during the Great Depression, loneliness is a very important theme. I am going to write about how loneliness has impacted the lives of George, Crooks and Curley's wife, in this essay.
Danvers, an insane asylum in Boston, Massachusetts was the rumored birthplace of the procedure known as lobotomy (Taylor). Dr. Walter Freeman studied lobotomy, and he was the first to practice the procedure. Lobotomy began with electric shock to the forehead. Then the eye lids were folded back and an ice pick was used to sever the frontal lobes. The patient would have black eyes after this awful procedure. This was supposed to cure an insane person (“YouTube”).
Once the rat experiment finished, he further tried to optimize his technology. Those implants were made after a membrane called Dura mater which covers the spinal cord and brain. The next step was to implement it on humans. The implementation was done on a man who was partially paralyzed because of an injury to his spinal cord 5 years before the implant. Those electrodes were implanted on the surface of the lower spinal cord just below the affected area.
Throughout human history people have sought experiences that somehow transcend every day life. Some sort of wisdom that might progress their knowledge of self and of the world that they live in. For some reason they believed that the tangible world just could not be all there is to life. Some believed in a greater force that controlled them, some believed of invisible beings that influenced their lives, some of an actual other world that paralleled their own. Many of these people also believed that it was possible to catch a glimpse of these forces, beings, or worlds through a variety of means that propel individuals into altered states of consciousness. These techniques include meditation, hypnosis, sleep deprivation, and (what will be discussed here) psychoactive drugs, more specifically psychedelic drugs.
In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", written by T. S. Elliot in 1917, J. Alfred Prufrock makes the reader privy to his innermost thoughts on an evening out. Prufrock wants to lead the reader to an overwhelming question, raising expectations, but he is a bitterly disappointing man; he never asks the question. He lacks self-esteem, women are intimidating to him, and he is too much of a coward to ever be successful with women. The title is "The Love Song,", not "A Love Song." So whenever Prufrock is around women, he behaves the same way. He always has and always will. Because of his inability to change he will die a lonely man.
I feel uncomfortable in my own world. Being alone unnerves me. I always have felt the need to share my world, my mind and my feelings with somebody. My feelings about myself seem less important than what others think of me. I'm scared of being lonely. And so are we all. We all seem to be on a continuous search for someone who will really love and understand us. Someone to provide us with a purpose for life. And yet I think we are all essentially alone. We are alone in our thoughts an emotions.