Altered States of Consciousness

Marc Wittmann is Research Fellow at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany, and the author of Felt Time: The Psychology of How We Perceive Time (MIT Press).

Prologue: An "I" Awakes ix
1 On Time Consciousness 1
Time Expansion and Moments of Terror 1
Time and Space: The Intoxication of Drugs 11
At One with the World 23
Timeless in Near-Death 30
2 The Moment 41
Absolutely in the Moment 41
The Duration of a Moment 44
Mindfulness and Time 54
Beyond the Moment to Timelessness 63
Daydreams and Mind Wandering 74
3 Loss of Time and Self 77
A Puzzling Patient 77
Body, Emotions, Time 81
Me, Myself, and I: Boredom, Depression, Meditation 85
Epilepsy and Timelessness 91
Schizophrenia, or When Time Stands Still 95
Timeless through the Doors of Perception 104
Epilogue: On Scientific Awakening 115
Acknowledgments 123
Notes 129
Index 173