Check It Out!!!

In Tart’s Chapter 6 I was very much interested in the four major ways of stabilizing a system that’s constitutes a d-SOC. Before reading this Chapter I was aware of some stabilization but none that I could really understand deeply, if you could say. For example, the loading of a person’s conscious constantly busy so that desired types of activities are left with too little energy to allow disruption of the system’s operations. We are ordinary people with our day- to- day activities not aware of what we can be capable of. It would be too weird for me to wake up and see part of my body disappearing. Tart states, “ If you suddenly felt half your body starting to disappear you would question whether you were in your ordinary d-SOC.” (Tart pg.65) The section which Tart says if he took a drug and wants to keep from having his body and mind from being affected by it; he does things to make himself feel good so that by the end of absorption the energy is not on the drug but what he is doing to stabilize his state of consciousness by loading it.
But what would you say about someone who drinks and can presumably get happy or dangerous. Do you think that since a person who drinks profusely can stabilize their d-SOC by using one or more of the types of stabilization?

Chapter 1 Hughes
These two chapters were definitely interesting and challenging to understand at times but I did like very much the part on Transpersonal Psychology and the Paranormal. It’s interesting to know that conventional psychologists have concentrated on “ordinary consciousness which here is generally perceived to cover transactions with the external objective world” (Hughes pg. 8).
I do like Transperonal Psychology because they have identified many experiences that have been scientifically proved. When I was a child my mom dated a man who will have "special powers" as he used to call it. I never realized that his experiences were real to him (when it comes to the paranormal I mean). He had "dreams" that people who were deceased could tell him when someone will become ill or pass away. He always had this "sixth sense" if you will and many other paranormal experiences. I found it fascinating and we used to have long conversations about the "normal" and "abnormal". Of course I was to young to understand but as a grew older people would have different opinions of him, almost like the book says, " As a free spirit who does not observe existing rules, the creative may be envied and feared as well as admired by the normality" (Hughes, pg.11)

In chapter 3
I really enjoyed reading about now second sights and senses can enhance ones consciousness and perception. One who is blind like Helen Keller would have enhanced senses do to the lack of vision for example, touch and smell. It's incredible to know and learn how our brain functions and how we can alter different personalities like the case about SYBIL who had 16 different personalities, eventually when treated she "became conscious of them and the original traumas that had led her to their existence." (Hughes pg. 43) From my experience I can say that Text Messaging and emails and Instant messaging gives us different personalities because sometimes I wouldn't say things that I say when I am (IMing) or (txing) because my physical self isn't present therefore, allowing me to be more free and aware of my other altered states that I would not be other wise. This is true about many, wouldn't you say.