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The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness Hardcover – December 4, 2007

by Jeff Warren (Author)

23 customer reviews

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A world at once familiar and unimaginably strange exists all around us–and within us. It is the world of consciousness, a protean mental landscape that each of us knows intimately in bits and pieces yet understands in its totality scarcely at all. Tied to the body and the brain, consciousness is nonetheless beyond our ability to measure or quantify. Despite the attempts of scientists and mystics, poets and dreamers, crackpots and geniuses, to map its contours and explain its secret workings, the mind remains mysterious. And the more we learn about it, the more mysterious it becomes.

But that is not to say that we know nothing about consciousness. In fact, as gonzo science journalist Jeff Warren demonstrates in this provocative, often hilarious, and always fascinating synthesis of cutting-edge research and personal experience, just how much we do know is little short of astonishing. And when Warren fits the pieces together, the implications of that knowledge are, well, mind-blowing.

Warren begins with the insight that consciousness is not a simple on-off proposition, with rigid demarcations separating waking awareness from the murky depths of sleep, but rather a round-the-clock continuum regulated by natural biorhythms. He then sets out to explore, and to experience for himself, the seemingly miraculous, all-but-untapped potential of the human mind.

From the full-immersion virtual realities of lucid dreaming to the esoteric disciplines of Eastern meditative practices that have reached outposts of consciousness far beyond the grasp of Western science, from techniques of hypnosis and neurofeedback to such exotic states of awareness as the Watch and the Pure Conscious Event, Warren takes us on an incredible journey through our own heads–a journey conducted with the adventurous spirit and intellectual curiosity of a Darwin coupled with the sensibility of a stand-up comedian.

Part user’s manual and part travel guide, The Head Trip is an instant classic, a brilliant summation of consciousness studies that is also a practical guide to enhancing creativity, mental health, and the experience of what it means to be human. Many books claim that they will change you. This one gives you the tools to change yourself.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Warren, a Canadian science journalist, combines the rigorous self-experimentation of Steven Johnson's Mind Wide Open with the wacky self-experimentation of A.J. Jacobs's The Know-It-All in this entertaining field guide to the varying levels of mental awareness. Beginning with the mild hallucinogenic state that comes just before true sleep, he tries to hone his skills at lucid dreaming, subjects himself to hypnosis and joins a Buddhist meditation retreat, among other adventures. Along the way, he begins to realize that dreaming and waking are equivalent states, and that we can learn how to induce the subtle gradations of consciousness within ourselves. This could come off as New Age psychobabble, but Warren is well versed in the scientific literature, and he provides detailed accounts of his own research. (During one three-week period, for example, he goes to bed at sundown to recreate a period of wakefulness before returning to sleep that used to be common before electric light reconfigured our sleep schedules.) His self-mocking attitude toward his inability to achieve instant nirvana, along with a steady stream of cartoon illustrations, ensures that his ideas remain accessible. More important than the theories, though, may be the basic tools—and the visionary spirit—that Warren hands off to those interested in hacking their own minds. B&w illus. (Nov. 27)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Jeff Warren is a freelance producer for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio. He has lived and worked in Paris, London, Montreal, San Francisco, and Vancouver, and currently lives in Toronto.

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Product details

Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Random House; First Edition edition (December 4, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1400064848
ISBN-13: 978-1400064847
Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 1.2 x 9.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
Average Customer Review: 23 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #124,021 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #71 in Books > Science & Math > Experiments, Instruments & Measurement > Experiments & Projects
- #217 in Books > Medical Books > Medicine > Internal Medicine > Neurology > Neuroscience
- #291 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Neuropsychology

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Michael P. McCullough

Amazing Journey

December 4, 2008

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is a remarkable and interesting book about human consciousness. Really - it is much more interesting than it sounds like it would be. This is not a New Age-y manifesto but a amusing trip through sleep and waking life.

It is written by a journalist, not a scientist or doctor, and it has a fun, quirky style with a lot of humorous comic book style diagrams.

The first, most interesting, half is about sleep. Different stages of sleep and types of dreams. The best parts are the sections about lucid dreaming and the watch. I am a person who strives to achieve lucid dreams and I liked the stories about people who are tremendously successful lucid dreamers, and ways to improve the chances of having lucid dreams.

The section on "the watch" changed the way I looked at sleep. Our modern expectation is that we will have an Ambien night - go to bet, konk out, and wake up in the morning remembering nothing of the night while we were asleep. Historically, the author tells s, people fully expected to lie awake for a while in the middle of the night. It turns out that this is, to quote the Talking Heads, a "good place to get some thinking done."

This book has actually changed my life, in a sense, because I now no longer dread lying awake for a while in the middle of the night, but see it as a positive thing. Plus, f you no longer fear "the watch" it doesn't last as long. If I'm not afraid of being awake for a while I get back to sleep much more quickly.
The second half on waking consciousness, regrettably, was not nearly as interesting.

But seriously, I would highly recommend this book to anybody who ever sleeps (or is awake). Ha ha - sleep is a huge part of our lives, but how much do we even know about it?

5 people found this helpful

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Janis Grummitt

Consciousness Continued...after an interruption of 40 years...

April 14, 2011

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Jeff Warren is an interesting dude. The Head Trip is a book about states of consciousness. The difference between this and other books is the author's style and the amount of new objective research data now available. Warren himself is the traveler and this is an account of his trip through experiences of personal research in each of the states.

Consciousness, the focus of the hippy era in the 70's, has come full circle and is now a serious study. Warren recreates the atmosphere of the classic film `Easy Rider' with his metaphors and language. He even looks like Art Garfunkle from that era.

His wheel of consciousness is the easiest way for us to understand an incredible complex topic. It gives the reader a linear, tangible series of states that we can grasp. It is illusory; a metaphor that Warren admits towards the end; all states are capable of `bleeding' into the others and capable of being `re-mixed' like music.

This book is not easy to understand unless you have some existing knowledge. Thankfully each chapter ends with a summary in the form of a passport with the words `Thank you for visiting the SMR state'.
This book combines of psychology, neurobiology and spirituality with offbeat humour. If you are wondering if this book is for you, I advise checking out his You Tube video `The Head Trip - a tour through your mind'.

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Winsor C

Funny, interesting head trip!

February 28, 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This book is awesome. Lot's of interesting information on the stages of sleep and consciousness. The author adds a lot of humor that really makes this book shine. It's full of great illustrations and a lot of new and interesting ideas to explore.

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Raven

He has a light sense of humor that is easy to read

July 26, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Jeff is very clear as he explains complex, unclear sleep phenomenon. He has a light sense of humor that is easy to read. This is a great book where personal observation meets science. He is a story teller and I hope he writes more as he takes the reader into the unknown!

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L. Jacob Zweig

A fun, engaging, and informative read!

May 12, 2011

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I truly enjoyed reading The Head Trip. I've always had a fascination with consciousness, yet much of the material on this topic is often very "new-agey". This book, however focuses on the scientific perspective (though some of the experiments are pretty far out there!). Unlike textbook scientific literature, however, the author uses personal anecdotes strung together with facts to present a great overview of present and historical consciousness research. The author's smart prose and use of engaging stories makes it a pleasure to read. I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in a scientific understanding of alternate states of consciousness (sleep, dreaming, trance, etc). I'd also recommend this book to fans of Mary Roach's work, as it has similar style and wit.

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Peter Fellows

Engaging and Enlightening

December 4, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Reminds me of a cross between Tart's ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS and Smith's POWERS OF MIND. An engaging and educating ride through waking and sleep. I enjoyed it immensely.

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February 15, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Super interesting. I've read this a few times now.

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Domestic Wolverine

Still worth it for psychonauts: a User's Guide to the brain for normal humans

January 29, 2008

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

The concepts here may not be new for those who've gone of the way to get experienced with their consciousness, but the level of detail (dig that bibliography!) and attention to recent developments in various fields -- sleep science, neurofeedback, even hypnosis -- is enough to inspire all sorts of new inquiry.

For the "layperson," however, or "non-freak," this condenses what it took your average freak ten years of living to explore and confirm on his own. Read it and save yourself the time!

11 people found this helpful

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