The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness

In The Head Trip, science journalist Jeff Warren explores twelve distinct, natural states of consciousness we can experience in a twenty-four-hour day, each state offering its own kind of knowledge and insight and its own adventure. The hypnagogic state, when our minds hover between waking and sleeping, can be a rich source of creativity and even compassion. The Watch is an almost magical waking experience in the middle of the night that has been all but lost to electric light and modern sleep patterns. Daydreaming and trance, lucid dreaming, the Zone, and the Pure Conscious Event–from sleep laboratory to remote northern cabin, neurofeedback clinic to Buddhist retreat, Warren fearlessly tries them all. Along the way, he talks to neuroscientists, chronobiologists, anthropologists, monks, and many others who illuminate his stories with cutting-edge science and age-old wisdom.