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Altered States of Consciousness during an Extreme Ritual
#MMPMID27175897
Lee EM
; Klement KR
; Ambler JK
; Loewald T
; Comber EM
; Hanson SA
; Pruitt B
; Sagarin BJ
PLoS One
2016[]; 11
(5
): e0153126
PMID27175897
show ga
Extreme rituals (body-piercing, fire-walking, etc.) are anecdotally associated
with altered states of consciousness-subjective alterations of ordinary mental
functioning (Ward, 1984)-but empirical evidence of altered states using both
direct and indirect measures during extreme rituals in naturalistic settings is
limited. Participants in the "Dance of Souls", a 3.5-hour event during which
participants received temporary piercings with hooks or weights attached to the
piercings and danced to music provided by drummers, responded to measures of two
altered states of consciousness. Participants also completed measures of positive
and negative affect, salivary cortisol (a hormone associated with stress),
self-reported stress, sexual arousal, and intimacy. Both pierced participants
(pierced dancers) and non-pierced participants (piercers, piercing assistants,
observers, drummers, and event leaders) showed evidence of altered states aligned
with transient hypofrontality (Dietrich, 2003; measured with a Stroop test) and
flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; measured
with the Flow State Scale). Both pierced and non-pierced participants also
reported decreases in negative affect and psychological stress and increases in
intimacy from before to after the ritual. Pierced and non-pierced participants
showed different physiological reactions, however, with pierced participants
showing increases in cortisol and non-pierced participants showing decreases from
before to during the ritual. Overall, the ritual appeared to induce different
physiological effects but similar psychological effects in focal ritual
participants (i.e., pierced dancers) and in participants adopting other roles.
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