How to use altered states of consciousness for ideas, solutions and guidance - David Luke

This week's show is with Dr David Luke. David is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Greenwich, UK, where he has been teaching an undergraduate course on the Psychology of Exceptional Human Experience since 2009, and he is also Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London, and Lecturer on the MSc Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology for Alef Trust and Liverpool John Moores University.

His research focuses on transpersonal experiences, anomalous phenomena and altered states of consciousness, especially via psychedelics, having published more than 100 academic papers in this area, including ten books, most recently Otherworlds: Psychedelics and Exceptional Human Experience (2^nd ed., 2019).

When he is not running clinical drug trials with LSD, conducting DMT field experiments or observing apparent weather control with Mexican shamans he directs the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness salon at the Institute of Ecotechnics, London, and is a cofounder and director of Breaking Convention: International Conference on Psychedelic Consciousness.

He has given over 300 invited public lectures and conference presentations; won teaching, research and writing awards; organised numerous festivals, conferences, symposia, seminars, retreats, expeditions, pagan cabarets and pilgrimages; and has studied techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Sussex, UK.

In this show we spoke about how we can use altered states of consciousness to receive ideas, solutions to problems and rich guidance for life, how those states are known and valued across the world and throughout time and it's only in modern culture that we've lost that knowledge, and finally how they're much more accessible than you might think. There's no need to fly across the world to take plant medicine unless that's what you really want to do.

I’d love to know what YOU think about this week's show. Let’s carry on the conversation…  please leave a comment below.

What you'll learn from this episode:

• Your birthright is to be polyphasic and you can reach altered states of consciousness in many ways including hypnotic trance, psychedelics plant medicines, drumming, dreams and dance.
• These states provide an extremely valuable, and yet much misunderstood in modern culture, as a portal to receiving new ideas, solutions and healing. They have been understood as valuable throughout history and across the world until fairly recently, and also by some of the greatest thinkers and creators in the last century. It really is the secret sauce behind some of the most incredible things humans have done.
• You can use your dreams as a powerful state of consciousness by setting the intention for revelatory dreams, writing them down every morning, and noticing symbols and patterns that are showing up for you. The longer you do this, the more you'll notice what they're providing for you.

Resources and stuff that we spoke about:

• breakingconvention.co.uk
• https://www.aleftrust.org/professional-certificates/certificate-psychedelics-altered-states-and-transpersonal-psychology/
• Original Wisdom by Robert Wolff

Thank you for listening!

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Thank you!
Lian & Jonathan