Altered States: Dreams, Drugs, Hallucinations, and the Brain New

What makes a dream feel real while we are asleep? Why can a chemical compound dramatically change how we experience time, color, emotion, or even our sense of self? What happens to consciousness under anesthesia? And how can scientists objectively study experiences that exist entirely within someone else's mind?

This course explores the neuroscience of altered states of consciousness—the many ways in which our perception of ourselves and the world can depart from ordinary waking experience. Students will begin by examining a deceptively difficult question: What counts as "normal" perception? Rather than simply recording the outside world, the brain actively constructs our experience of reality from sensory information, expectations, memories, emotions, and ongoing neural activity. Understanding this process provides a foundation for investigating what happens when consciousness and perception change.

Students will explore naturally occurring altered states such as sleep and dreaming, as well as hallucinations, sensory deprivation, and meditation. We will examine how disruptions in perception and thought can emerge during psychosis and consider what these experiences reveal about the neural processes that ordinarily allow us to distinguish internal experiences from the external world. We will also investigate profound changes in consciousness produced by anesthesia, the use of mind-altering substances in psychiatric research and clinical care, and have a robust conversation about what we know (and don't know) about human consciousness.