Saw this - tangentially and serendipitously - in reference to auditory hallucinations, within a review of a book by Dr. Michael Winkelman (the shamanic/ASC expert professor from the University of Arizona).
If I understand the reviewer's point (and the research he cites) correctly, he posits that it's the blockage of ordinary, normal auditory processing of internal dialogue which permits the formation of new neural networks; and that any auditory hallucinations are a feature of such novel neural nets that involve the brain's newly-released auditory centers. That, IMO, begs several questions (at least): First, that internal dialogue (despite the eponymous terminology, thereof) is exclusively - or even predominantly - auditory in nature. And second, (in terms of the Gomez/Lopera research, that schizophrenic auditory hallucinations behave identically to auditory hallucinations from other causes; adjunctively, that the foreign substance itself is not, itself, capable of producing/generating sounds within the head of the ingestor - which is what I'm going with, myself. If a spore falls in an empty forest, does anybody hear it?
But that's my understanding of the reviewer's, Richard Castillo's, interpretation of Winkelman's original point - and not Dr. Winkelman's idea, itself (cause that dude is amazing)
Journal of Ritual Studies 18 (1) 2004 Review Forum 101 "Shamanism. The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing" (Michael Winkelman, Bergin and Garvey, 2000);
Online Quote:…findings indicate that some regions of the auditory and speech processing pathways are abnormally
inactivated during auditory hallucinations, and other regions are abnormally activated. Shergill et al (2000) using fMRI concluded that auditory hallucinations arise through the disruption of normal cognitive processes, such as the monitoring of one’s own verbal thoughts. This disruption is hypothesized to be caused by a loss of the normal functional connectivity between brain regions that underlie the experience of inner speech. Their findings indicated that there was a lack of the normal correlation between inferior frontal and temporal activity in psychiatric patients prone to hearing voices. According to Gomez (2002; Gomez and Lopera 1999), abnormal inactivation in the frontal and temporal lobes interrupts the functional connectivity of the usual network and allows abnormal activation of other regions. This eventually generates independent neural networks. Gomez hypothesizes that independent networks are activated during auditory hallucinations which produce a “division of the consciousness or the will.” These hypothetical independent neural networks may be the neurophysiological basis of experiences of spirits, gods, demons, angels, and various “others” appearing in consciousness.
Or - as I believe - it could be the gnomes, saying "Hooray!"
dp
Look at the sky, look at the river
Isn't it good?
Winding, finding places to go.
And then one day - hooray!
Another way for gnomes to say
Whoooooooooooooam I ?
Whoooooooooooooooooooooam I
Syd Barrett