Altered states of consciousness are often associated with drugs and shamans, but the truth is that the mind can be altered by many things. Even everyday activities, when done in the right way, can push the mind out of its normal state and cause new moods, emotions, changes in perception and even mild hallucinations.
Neuroscientists define an altered state of consciousness as a measurable change in awareness, attention, emotion, or sense of self, often accompanied by changes in brain wave patterns or neurotransmitter activity. While some altered states can be intense, many are brief, harmless, and surprisingly common. From spinning to skipping meals, here are ten of the most surprising things people are already doing that can change their minds.
Related: 10 Crazy Things Your Body and Brain Do (Explained)
10 Riding Merry-Go-Rounds and Swings
“Kids” and “mind-altering” are terms that, put together in a sentence, will surely hit the hearts of all responsible parents. But while parents tend to take a hard line when it comes to keeping their children away from mind-altering drugs, there are other ways to alter consciousness that they may be unconsciously tolerant of. Take the classic childhood activities of riding carousels or swings.
Some researchers believe that children are more than just happy when they do these things. These activities actually alter their conscious state, similar to how religious groups such as Sufi dervishes whirl to induce ecstatic, hypnotic states. The spinning stimulates the vestibular system in the inner ear, where fluid-filled channels help regulate balance and spatial awareness.
When this system is repeatedly activated, it can temporarily disrupt orientation, distort a child’s sense of time and movement, and even produce mild dizziness or visual changes. Parents needn’t worry though. Philosopher Roger Caillois in his 1958 book Man, play and playclassified this as a normal form of play for children, along with competitive play, gambling and imaginary play.[1]
9 Hula hooping
It’s not just children and mystics who like to induce unusual states of consciousness through movements like spinning. Many adults do, too, and it helped turn a popular 1950s plastic toy into something anthropologists have described as “akin to a religion.” The humble hula hoop has unexpectedly resulted in many adults having transformative spiritual experiences, even though most of them only took up the hobby for fun and fitness.
So what makes hooping so intoxicating? The intense concentration it requires, combined with the rhythmic, repetitive movements, can induce a state of flow. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term, described flow as complete absorption in an activity to the point that self-awareness fades and time seems to speed up or slow down.
Neurologically, flow is associated with changes in dopamine regulation and decreased activity in parts of the brain associated with internal chatter. It’s a blissful state, and one that Csikszentmihalyi famously called “the secret of happiness.”[2]
8 Going for a run
While new runners find it difficult to work up the motivation to run, long-distance runners often describe withdrawal symptoms when they can’t walk. This is a result of the reportedly “drug-like” phenomenon known as the runner’s high. Typical experiences of runner’s high include dulling of aches and pains, losing track of time, and feeling calm or euphoric. Described like that, it sounds not unlike taking a strong pain reliever, such as morphine.
For decades, researchers believed that the body’s internal pain relievers, known as endogenous opioids, were responsible. However, recent research suggests that endocannabinoids may play a major role instead. One such compound, anandamide — sometimes called the “happiness molecule” — increases in the bloodstream during sustained aerobic exercise.
Unlike endorphins, endocannabinoids can more easily cross the blood-brain barrier, allowing them to directly affect mood and perception. That may help explain why intense exercise can temporarily alter consciousness in ways that feel strikingly similar to certain drugs.[3]
7 Looking at (or thinking about) nature
When viewing the planet from such a great height, astronauts may experience what psychologists call the “overview effect.” It is an overwhelming emotional state where they are suddenly struck with a sense of their own smallness compared to humanity and planet Earth as a whole. It is not a state most people can evoke every day, but it is similar to one experienced by those on Earth: awe.
Psychologists describe awe as an emotion involving perceived grandeur and a need for the mind to adjust its existing mental framework. It is often a mixture of adoration, admiration and wonder, powerful enough to change people’s perspectives on life. In some studies, experiences of awe have been associated with reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety and with measurable changes in inflammatory markers.
Despite its power, awe is a state that anyone can achieve. It can be induced by seeing, or even just thinking about, beautiful natural scenes and also through virtual reality and mindfulness practices.[4]
6 Get or give a massage
Massage is much more than just relieving tension. They trigger ancient circuits in the brain that can leave people with a deep sense of calm that reaches far beyond their deepest tissues. And those who get them aren’t the only ones who benefit either. Massage therapists can also enter meditative states of calm while they work, and psychologists think they know why this practice is so good at changing minds and moods.
Gentle, slow stroking activates specialized nerve fibers known as C-tactile afferents, which respond specifically to pleasant touch. These signals are processed in areas such as the posterior insula and are closely linked to the parasympathetic nervous system, the branch responsible for rest and relaxation. As a result, cortisol levels often decrease while endorphins, dopamine, and oxytocin increase.
This neurochemical cascade can create a profoundly altered state of trust, calm, and a softened sense of self that feels strikingly different from everyday vigilance.[5]
5 Listening to dance music
Listening to music causes a similar neurochemical cascade to massage, which is why so many people find it enjoyable. But electronic music stands out as particularly good at inducing an altered state of consciousness, and this may be because, like massage, it is a modern form of an old, widespread practice. Beating drums and other forms of percussion have been used for thousands of years in rituals around the world to induce trance-like states.
The repetitive rhythms can help listeners enter a state of flow, and they can also synchronize with electrical patterns in the brain, a process sometimes called brainwave entrainment. Faster beats tend to increase alertness by encouraging beta wave activity, while slower, steady rhythms can promote alpha wave patterns associated with relaxation.
Many listeners report that prolonged exposure to repetitive beats distorts their sense of time, blurs their awareness of self, and produces a deep sense of immersion similar to meditation or hypnosis.[6]
4 Turn lights on and off
Dance music is often played with flashing lights, and this can help increase the mind-altering effects among attendees at raves or festivals. This is due to a phenomenon known as ganzflicker, which can induce psychedelic-style hallucinations. Ganzflimmer occurs when flickering light patterns, such as strobe lights, are viewed through closed eyelids. It can cause people to see geometric shapes, changing colors, animals, faces, and other living forms that aren’t really there.
The effect was first recorded by physiologist Jan E. Purkinje in 1819 when he stood facing the sun with his eyes closed and waved his fingers in front of it to create rhythmic flashes. Researchers have since found that flicker frequencies in the range of about 8 to 13 hertz—corresponding to the brain’s natural alpha waves—are particularly likely to produce visual phenomena.
Although the exact mechanism is still debated, a leading theory suggests that the rhythmic light temporarily synchronizes neural firing patterns in the visual cortex, creating internally generated images. For most people, the effects are short-lived and harmless, disappearing as soon as the flickering stops.[7]
3 Going to bed
Being asleep is the most obvious example of an altered mental state that people regularly enter, but it’s hard to say that they actually experience it while unconscious. What can really be experienced is hypnagogia, the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep. It is at this point that people often begin to hallucinate, seeing random sequences of dream-like scenes and images, hearing snippets of sound or feeling brief sensations – but they are not fully dreaming.
EEG studies show that during hypnagogia the brain begins to switch from alarming beta waves to slower theta waves, even while parts of the cortex remain active. These vivid experiences are sometimes called hypnagogic hallucinations and are distinct from hypnopompic hallucinations, which occur while awake.
Surrealist painter Salvador Dali famously used what he called the “key-drop” method, holding a key while drifting off so that it would fall and wake him on the edge of sleep, allowing him to capture images from this altered state. Thomas Edison reportedly used a similar technique to trigger creative insights.[8]
2 Feeling hungry
While no one gets taken on a psychedelic trip because they worked through their lunch break, fasting has long been used by shamans and religious practitioners to alter consciousness. Prolonged ritual fasts are often combined with sleep deprivation, chanting, or isolation, but fasting alone can sometimes be enough to produce unusual sensory experiences and intensified emotions.
One proposed explanation involves ketosis, a metabolic state in which the body switches from using glucose to using ketone bodies derived from fat as its primary fuel source. This change can affect brain chemistry and energy metabolism, especially during prolonged fasting.
At the same time, physiological stress from lack of food can increase suggestibility and sensory sensitivity. Hallucinations are more commonly reported during extreme or prolonged fasting and may resemble those seen during other high-stress conditions. Importantly, such practices carry real health risks, and most psychologically healthy individuals who experience fasting-related hallucinations remain aware that the perceptions are not real.[9]
1 Breathing
It’s hard to believe that something people do not just every day, but every second, could have the power to change consciousness, but it really does. Simply breathing normally will not send someone into a trance. But specific breathing techniques can change mental states very quickly, sometimes within just five minutes.
For example, “box breathing,” which involves inhaling, holding, exhaling, and holding again in equal numbers, can activate the parasympathetic nervous system through stimulation of the vagus nerve, promoting calmness and reducing anxiety.
At the other end of the spectrum, more intense techniques, such as the Wim Hof method, involve rapid, deep breathing that lowers carbon dioxide levels in the blood. This temporary drop in carbon dioxide can change the pH of the blood and induce dizziness, tingling sensations and feelings that some describe as psychedelic-like. Although these conditions are usually short-lived, improper or excessive hyperventilation can cause dizziness or fainting, showing how powerfully something as simple as breathing can alter the mind.[10]
