Connection Axes
Connection Axes are aspects of a Connection Experience upon which an individual may evaluate and categorize a connection experience. The LP identifies five connection axes, these being quality, intensity duration, content, and outcome.
Connection Axes
Connection : Connection Axes > Connection Content, Connection Duration, Connection Intensity, Connection Outcome, Connection Quality
Related LP Terms
Connection Axes > Connection Experience, Connection Experience Type, Connection Practice, Connection Supplement
Related Terms
Notes
Connection quality refers to the general emotional tone of the CE. Quality may either be positive and uplifting, which is identified as a Zenith Experience, or negative and frightening, in which case it is a Nadir Experience.
Connection intensity refers to the intensity of the connection to consciousness. Connection intensity ranges from subtle and weak to transformative, enlightening, and overpowering.
Connection duration refers to the duration of the CE. The duration may range from only a second or two to several hours.
Connection content refers to the emotional and intellectual content of the experience. Content may be personal, social, political, economic, or even cosmic.
Harner identifies intensity and content as two connection axes. "The [[[SSC]]] has differing intensities, from light to deep, and can have different effects, particularly if a properly prepared powerful hallucinogen like ayahuasca (yagé) is used". [1]
Charles Tart suggests that one analyzes "states of consciousness" (i.e. states of connection) not by looking at any particular type of content, behaviour, or physiological change, but "in terms of the overall patterning of psychological functioning."[2] Tart notes that an "altered state of consciousness" is analogous to changing the program in a computer, different functionality, different inputs, different outputs.
Footnotes
- ↑ Harner, Michael. Cave and Cosmos: Shamanic Encounters with Another Reality. Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books, 2013
- ↑ Tart, Charles T. “The Changing Scientific Attitude in Psychology.” In Consciousness and Reality: The Human Pivot Point, edited by Charles Muses and Arthur M Young, 73–85. New York: Discus Books, 1972. p. 77.
