In the occult community altered states of consciousness are something we regularly pursue in order to affect consciousness on an ongoing basis after a return to baseline. The sort of breathwork talked about in this article (tummo/bellows breath) are big parts of a lot of people's practices, myself included. We also do physical ordeals, flow states, and psychoactive drugs in efforts to take manual control of our perceptions of things. Personally, I meditate for about 20 minutes, then lift heavy weights or do medium-distance high intensity cardio (20-30 minutes of going as hard as I can) then smoke marijuana, then play hand drums and hyperventilate in an effort to induce a ritual mindset, then use mantras and sigils to try to create a mindset that's more conducive to my goals. I can't say empirically that it works, of course, but anecdotally before I started doing this I was a 30 year old obese, hopeless college drop-out pillhead living in my childhood bedroom and now I'm a 40 year old married homeowner full stack engineer with 10 years off pills who can benchpress his dad and I've learned to play the banjo and the drums in the mean time. All of those good things I've listed came to me through tons of mundane effort, smart decisions and good luck but also at least correlated with me using the ritual structure I outlined above to choose them as goals to focus on and rewrite myself into the kind of person who picks goals, focuses on them and completes them.
Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness
151–160 of 173 posts
Re: Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our current understanding is that no amount of CO2 is dangerous as long as everything else is fine, but in reality CO2 acts like the canary in the coal mine. When it climbs, it shows accumulation of stuff you don't want to deal with. Measurement of compounds is best done using a monitor like Aranet, but incidental bumps in different values don't mean much. Long trends matter. If Radon is an issue in your region, a de…
Aren't there several studies showing markedly worse performance at tasks at CO2 levels easily reached in a home? Or you just mean you won't die as the meaning of not dangerous?
Studies have shown correlation with CO2 levels and performance but pinpointing the effect to CO2 alone hasn't been established. In fact, CO2's presence chemically helps with the oxygenation of the blood.
CO2 is an indicator. I don't let it climb in my home, and you shouldn't either. The problem is when people fixate on the CO2 levels. For example, you paint your walls with high VOC compounds, your flooring/furniture off-gas a lot, your vacuum cleaner doesn't have the proper filtration but you don't recognize your issues because your CO2 monitor shows 700ppm. That 700ppm can be a lot worse than a 700ppm your see in a home that has all of those considered.
Re: Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness
#153I don't understand: shouldn't hypocapnia or respiratory alkalosis in all forms lead to reports of altered states of consciousness if decreased CO2 saturation is believed to be the cause of this breathwork's effect?
Re: Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness
#154Re: Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness
#155Is default a pre-altered state of consciousness?
I would argue that at least a shitload of people don't get enough air via breathing and that's why they are in whatever state of consciousness they are in.
Shitty posture, 'toxic' (compared to, again, default) air, water, soil, food and constantly being pounded by annoying stuff on the peripheral of perception disrupts our CNS.
I believe we skipped a few important beats in our cognitive evolution because of that and a lot of people would be a lot smoother ... at least less pretentiously pre-modern-evolution "animalistic", or less obedient to and uncritical about liquidity-and-status-based hierarchies, and other stuff that obviously has a net-negative impact on pretty much everything ... ( lots of which has already been quantified ... multiple times over multiple decades )
.. but peeps just laugh and call this world a gangsters paradise or something ...
Re: Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness
#156Am I missing something? It looked like the findings were all done from surveying people instead of actually measuring anything objectively?
Surveying people is pretty important in a study like this, and valid science.
Regardless, if you read the paper, you'd learn that they did do objective measurements, namely etCO2 levels and bio-markers from saliva.
Of note: "when etCO2 fell below approx. 20 mmHg, it was virtually guaranteed to trigger at least some (and often a strong) departure from ordinary waking consciousness. This effect is particularly intriguing because in non-breathwork-related circumstances, an etCO2 of 20 mmHg or less would be considered a sign of severe physiological malfunctions, e.g. of the heart or lungs"
But anyone who tried breathwork, especially in group settings with accompanying music, knows such practices can lead to intense trance-like states.
Re: Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness
#157Astronauts in the Gemini and Apollo programs breathed 100 percent oxygen at reduced pressure for up to two weeks There are no reports of "altered states of consciousness" I know of. There would have been rigorous testing before. Similarly divers, I've never heard of lack/decreased CO2 causing their hallucinations vs nitrogen narcosis or hydrogen narcosis. This sounds made up, have they been getting high on their own…
Those astronauts maintain normal CO2 levels, and divers can experience increased CO2 buildup if they don't exhale properly, which is the opposite.
It's not made up. Plenty of people here who tried breathwork can attest to its power to bring you in strong trance-like states.
Try it yourself. Ideally in group setting, because doing this on your own (with a YouTube video or whatever) won't give you the same experience at all, and could be dangerous if you take it too far.
Re: Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness
#158I don't understand: shouldn't hypocapnia or respiratory alkalosis in all forms lead to reports of altered states of consciousness if decreased CO2 saturation is believed to be the cause of this breathwork's effect?
I'm not sure about other forms of respiratory alkalosis, but I do know that it's quite common for people to claim that breath work leads to altered states of consciousness.
Re: Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does this help? I am a physicist with interest in these subjects and have always been wary of breathwork because of tetany and the following studies. What do experts closer to this field make of these? [1] "Brain Damage in Commercial Breath-Hold Divers" https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [2] "Do elite breath-hold divers suffer from mild short-term memory impairments?" https://cdnsciencepu…
So the tetany in breathwork is generally caused by the decreased CO2 concentration causing respiratory alkalosis (ie blood gets more alkaline and has a ph balance of > 7.5), which in turn causes the protein albumin to bind more strongly to calcium and not release it as it's supposed to, and calcium is an important regulator in voltage gated ion channels in neurons. Long story short, your neurons get just a tad bit mo…
I've done breathwork for years, and at some point the tetany simply stopped happening and hasn't returned.
Re: Decreased CO2 during breathwork: emergence of altered states of consciousness
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a philosopher, not a medical professional. But I can tell you that philosophy and deep breathing are inextricably linked. Breathing deeply in of itself is a philosophical exercise, one that centers and grounds oneself in the here and now of the universe that surrounds you, and the universe that lies deep within you. It's a cosmic balance between the metaphysical and the empirical. As a philosopher, one must be ab…
Ah yes, the philosopher’s breath: inhale the cosmos, exhale epistemology. Repeat until the loop collapses or you do.
This made me laugh out loud; thank you haha