Consciousness – the Science of Subjectivity

At last, here is an undergraduate psychology textbook that extends the field into areas not normally covered in universities, albeit at the end of the book. This is a magisterial treatment of the whole field of scientific consciousness studies divided into two main parts: the background to the science of consciousness and central domains of consciousness science. Beginning with the philosophical foundations of consciousness science and moving on to the historical and conceptual foundations, the author gives exemplary definitions and coverage of the competing theories and approaches. He runs through the main features of the history of consciousness science, with the notable omission of Jung (and the term transpersonal does not appear in the index). There follows an extensive section on neuropsychology in relation to visual consciousness and self-awareness, moving on to neural correlates of consciousness. He reviews the philosophical and empirical theories of consciousness in separate chapters before explaining the nature of altered states of consciousness and discussing dreaming, sleep and hypnosis.

The final chapter deals with meditation, out of body experiences, near death and mystical experiences. He argues that there is no solid objective evidence for anyone bringing back information from an out of body state - he does not cite the work of Charles Tart in this respect and thinks that OBEs can be explained as distortions of the phenomenal world and the phenomenal body image, 'all safely remaining within the brain.' Thus the applecart of materialism is not upset. It comes closer to being toppled with NDEs, where the author discusses the famous false teeth case from van Lommel but fails to draw the obvious conclusion given the veridical nature of the evidence. He also mentions that the afterlife hypothesis, implying as it does a dualistic theory of consciousness, is impossible to integrate with the current physicalist worldview of science. His hope is that NDEs will eventually be explained by different neural systems breaking down, which will 'demystify' the phenomenon. The book stops short of discussing telepathy or the evidence for memories from previous lives or survival of consciousness, which make a purely brain-based account unworkable. However, the author is to be congratulated on extending the scope of conventional consciousness studies and for the brilliant clarity of his exposition.