Figure 5.1 An unscheduled visit to the emergency room of University Hospital Freiburg after investigating the effects of a floating tank on consciousness.
As researchers we are not alone. In order to pursue certain questions, to investigate unusual phenomena, or to interview particular patients, we need enthusiastic colleagues to collaborate with. These research colleagues complement our own position with their years of experience as well as their special methods and individual opinions. The importance of these associations is not just about viewpoints and knowledge, but always about very personal interaction and the willingness to try new things as well. We are richly rewarded by research work with sympathetic, like-minded people.
I am very lucky in my collaborations, for example with Stefan Schmidt of the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine at the University Medical Center Freiburg. With his team we are investigating the influence of meditation on time perception, as well as the mechanisms of voluntary motor skills, linking them conceptually with the question of free will. In our work with Tilmann Lhündrup Borghardt, we collaborate with a meditation master who can exactly describe the subjective viewpoint during meditation and when performing voluntary actions. I am delighted to be able to conduct research with Anne Giersch from the University Hospital of Strasbourg and her motivated colleagues on the topics of mindfulness and meditation, but also especially on schizophrenia. In this endeavor, the recording of patients’ descriptions of phenomena involved in time perception is combined with objective ways of measuring temporal experience, as described in chapter 3. I have joined Franz Vollenweider and his colleagues Lukasz Smigielski, Kathrin Preller, and Michael Kometer from the University of Zurich in thinking about some exciting studies on alterations in the perception of time, space, and the self under the influence of psilocybin.
Crucial to the success of our own research is winning third-party funding. The BIAL Foundation (Fundação BIAL in Porto) supported me, Stefan Schmidt, Han-Gue Jo, and Karin Meissner in two experimental studies with experienced meditators. In this way, the already successful collaboration with Karin Meissner of the Institute of Medical Psychology in Munich on the physiological correlates of time perception can be pursued through a dual-center study in both Freiburg and Munich. The doctoral students Simone Otten, Eva Schötz, and Damisela Linares Gutierrez, as well as student assistants Anna Sarikaya, Hanna Lehnen, Ursula Nothdurft, and Sebastian Kübel, should be mentioned here for their commitment and their creativity.
Over the past few years, my lecture tours to conferences and workshops have been financed above all by TIMELY, the European Union–funded association of researchers working in the area of time, in particular ISCH COST Action TD0904, “Time In MEntaL activitY: Theoretical, behavioral, bioimaging, and clinical perspectives.” Without this support I would not have been able to present my work internationally and would have missed out on exchanges with wonderful professional colleagues. Through TIMELY’s activities, I and many others have come to know and value Wolfgang Tschacher, Claudia Bergomi, Helena Sgouramani, Mark Elliott, Sean Power, Cintia Retz Lucci, Zhuanghua “Strongway” Shi, Ian Phillips, Christoph Hoerl, Hedderik van Rijn, Martin Riemer, Sven Thönes, Justin Kiverstein, and Valtteri Arstila. I should mention in particular Argiro Vatakis, coordinator of the Cognitive Systems Research Institute in Athens, who brought the group into being and has supported it tirelessly.
I have discussed the themes of this book with many other colleagues, including Niko Kohls, Ulrich Ott, Harald Walach, Wolfgang Achtner, Jannis Wernery, Jirí Wackermann, Kai Vogeley, David Vogel, Thilo Hinterberger, Jürgen Kornmeier, Harald Atmanspacher, Sylvie Droit-Volet, Yuliya Zaytseva, Yan Bao, Ernst Pöppel, Martin Offenbächer, Eric Pfeifer, Carlos Montemayor, Mauro Dorato, Heinrich Paes, Olga Pollatos, Tanja Vollmer, Gemma Koppen, Tobias Esch, Anja Weber, Vanessa Deinzer, Liam Clancy, Rui M. Costa, Julia Mossbridge, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Tijana Jokic, Dan Zakay, Oleksiy Polunin, Virginie van Wassenhove, Bud Craig, Justin Feinstein, Sahib Khalsa, and Martin Paulus. In addition, at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health (IGPP), which was founded in 1950 by Hans Bender and where I am employed, I am learning a lot about extraordinary experiences. With four colleagues there, I probably discuss reports of such experiences most frequently. They are Eberhard Bauer, Gerhard Meyer, Ina Schmied-Knittel, and Uwe Schellinger. I have also profited enormously from my contact with many other colleagues at the institute. Thanks to all at the IGPP.
Lastly, my thanks go to all those friends and colleagues who have read and commented on parts of the book. They are Lukasz Smigielski, Barbara Herzberger, Stefan Schmidt, Katharina Weikl, Tilmann Lhündrup Borghardt, Dirk Thiel, Michael Kometer, Felix Hasler, Johannes Angenvoort, Klaus Meffert, and Oksana Gutina.
Figure 5.1 An unscheduled visit to the emergency room of University Hospital Freiburg after investigating the effects of a floating tank on consciousness.
That the experience of altered states of consciousness is not without danger was brought home by my experience in a floating tank I visited in Freiburg. Surrendering to my researcher’s curiosity, I booked 45 minutes in a floating tank (also known as the Samadhi Floating Tank). In the tank you float, suspended in body-temperature salt water; you can see nothing; and can hardly hear or smell anything. You are alone with yourself and your physical sensations. Astonishingly, the smallest movement is experienced as a major displacement. You travel—weightlessly, so it feels to you—into the dark universe beyond. I like to call this “instant meditation” because after a while you can get into states of consciousness that, normally, only experienced meditators have: there is a diminished sense of an individuated self and a feeling of oneness with the surroundings. Justin Feinstein is the director of the LIBR Float Clinic and Research Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has begun testing the efficacy of repeated floating exposure on people with and without mental disorders. Individuals may feel that they lose some of their self-centeredness and their anxieties. I am particularly happy about this cooperative research with Justin.
In Freiburg, however, gravity got me in the end (figure 5.1). Still completely under the effects of my experience as I stepped out of the shower afterward, I slipped, fell to earth, and struck a sharp edge, sustaining a deep cut to my elbow. And so I experienced, physically and painfully, the earthly foundation of my consciousness.