Out of Your Mind and Off Your Head

Conscious awareness, as we understand it, is seen as the crowning jewel of animal evolution. It developed in the human species as our brains generated the kind of complexity needed to support such a capacity. As men devised elaborate hunting strategies and women taught themselves how to find and cultivate plants for food, tens of thousands of years ago, people first created art on walls and deep inside caves. At the same time, a curious trick was also discovered – the ability to switch off the conscious state in favour of an altered state.