Self-Experiments with Consciousness and Hypnagogia: A scientist's personal exploration of consciousness at the threshold of sleep and beyond - Paperback

by Sirley Marques Bonham Ph. D. (Author)

Synopsis This book tells about the author's personal experience with subjective phenomena of the human mind and consciousness, with special emphasis on phenomena perceived at the threshold of sleep and wakefulness, known as hypnopompic and hypnogogic experiences (or in short "hypnagogia"), which she considers quite special, as it will allow a person to maintain awareness, or lucidity, while the physical body falls asleep, therefore having the chance to explore out-of-body experiences and lucid dreams. However, it is not all about out-of-body experiences or lucid dreams, as she tells about her personal experiences from her involvement with esoteric philosophy and the Brazilian spiritism, and discusses several special issues from the development of her knowledge on other subjects, like for example remote viewing, starting with her involvement with the Society for Scientific Exploration where she met with the first explorers and the initiators of remote viewing research. The author also improved her knowledge of the mind through her involvement with neuroscience, as well as psychological theories of cognition, and research on memory and learning. Her personal experiences also lead her to study the literature on the subject of bio-energetic phenomena (the so-called Kundalini phenomena) and other interesting areas that address the subjective phenomena of the mind in many forms. One important subject discussed is that of "sleep paralysis," which can produce problematic hypnagogias. In fact she has published a scientific paper, along with Jean-Christophe Terrillon, on recurrent sleep paralysis, which has been widely referred in the literature on this subject, after its publication by the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 2001. This paper is included in the book as an appendix, due to its importance in helping people suffering from this condition. Finally, this book assesses the present panorama with personal subjective experiences in general, which the author strongly believes may produce important developments in the understanding of the mind and consciousness in general, consequently increasing the possibility of experiencing the worlds beyond the physical, or beyond death.

Author Biography

About the Author Sirley Marques Bonham is a Ph.D. physicist by education, but due to her long-time involvement with the subject of consciousness and cognition within neuroscience, she also considers herself somewhat of a neuroscientist. Though she has learned about the paranormal through her father's interest in this area, it has been her practice to approach this subject strongly rooted in a scientific perspective, which has influenced her personal self-experimen- tation with the phenomenon of awareness or lucidity during sleep, repre- sented by the modern approach to the so-called out-of-body experiences and lucid-dreaming. Dr. Bonham was born in central Brazil and first came to the US in 1986 to follow post-doctoral research with the Astrophysics Group at the University of Chicago and the NASA-financed Theoretical Astrophysics Group at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located in Batavia (Illinois), near Chicago. Her main scientific work was done in an extension of Einstein's unified field theory. Her involvement with the phenomenon of consciousness and cognition, as viewed by neuroscience, started in 1992 through a group of scientists at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, followed by a brief work with a group for research in neuroscience, specifi- cally in the processes of memory and learning, at the University of Texas at Austin. She has also done work in theoretical nuclear physics at the Univer- sity of Pretoria, South Africa, and in biophysics for the US Air Force in San Antonio (Texas), as well as taught at universities in Brazil, South Africa, and the US. Presently Dr. Bonham develops research with the Relativity Group at the Center for Theoretical Physics at University of Texas at Austin. She has also been a member and scientist of the Institute for Neurosciences and Con- sciousness Studies (INACS) from 2006 through 2013. She is a member of the Society for Scientific Exploration since 1997.