If there are styles of thinking we cannot master,
then there are kinds of thoughts we will not have.
“The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.”
— David Bohm, physicist
Episodic and Semantic, or Rational and Emotive
People commonly refer to thinking as either episodic or semantic. Episodic thinking is the rational process of projecting past experiences into the future. Semantic thinking involves deduction and induction based on facts. These reasonable kinds of thinking offer us a somewhat illusory sense of control.
We suppose common understandings—not reflexes and emotions—shape our thinking. It seems reasonable to consider the future based on what has happened and what could happen [3]. However, our perception, understanding, and recollection are neither objective nor entirely under our control.
These two styles of thinking give us ways to assess our future choices. Each is flexible in its own way, but I feel these two modes are insufficient. I find it unimportant to distinguish whether people base their conclusions on first- or second-hand experiences. I prefer to divide thinking into rational and emotional because these are the kinds of thoughts that motivate us.
Rational thinking involves building a chain of reasonable thoughts. It doesn’t have to be a chain; it can be a net, but it does have to involve thoughts. They don’t have to be particularly sane. In truth, the sense in most of our thinking is questionable.
Emotions are feelings or things closely linked to them. We might provide reasons for our emotions, but reasons don’t make feelings; feelings are independent things. What’s more, it’s feelings that motivate us. Reasons may point us in a direction, but it’s feelings that make us act.
In contrast, dreams and similar psychotic experiences are considered irrational and dysfunctional. Some researchers have argued dreams serve no purpose and are mental garbage or, more accurately, mental garbage collection [2]. This schism between endorsing rationality and appreciating the irrational is a fundamental source of misunderstanding and the main obstacle to integrating psychology with the experience of altered states.
“Associative thinking is more creative and exploratory than reasoned or emotional thought.”
— Lincoln Stoller, PhD, CHt, CCPCP
The Associative Mind
Altered states have their own predominant way of thinking. The sciences are rational; the arts are emotional. But in the dissociated states of dreaming, psychedelics, and hypnosis, the predominant mode of thinking is associative.
Associative thinking assembles thoughts according to their relationships, rather than through logical or emotional connections. Anything can constitute an “association.” These associations can be positive, negative, attractive, repulsive, satisfying and rewarding, or frightening and depressing. Most importantly, if any logical connections between these associated thoughts exist in our dreams, they’re not obvious.
Associative thinking is more creative and exploratory than reasoned or emotional thought. It can simultaneously be creative and destructive, breaking down familiar patterns and replacing them with new—often absurd—suggestions.
Associative thinking is dream thinking, whether night or daydreams, but the nightdreams are always wilder. That’s because our wants guide daydreams, while our fears usually guide nightdreams. Sometimes we have an ecstatic nightdream that keeps us hopeful, but those dreams are rare. People describe fewer than 25 percent of dreams as positive.
I suggest that we can learn to think more associatively. In doing so, we can be more creative and better understand our dreams. It also seems that by thinking more associatively in waking life, we become more lucid in dreams because we become accustomed to navigating ideas not obviously connected. We become more thoughtful.
Beyond dreaming, associative thinking predominates in psychedelic and hypnotic experiences, at least in the kind of unbounded hypnotic experiences that I encourage. Even in suggestive hypnosis, where the therapist is working to implant a client’s preferred attitude further, associations are key.
So, how does one become more adept at associative thinking? I suspect it’s by thinking less logically or emotionally and more associatively. It requires being more exploratory and imaginative, and going outside of one’s normal comfort zone.
Entering the Discomfort Zone
Despite the allure of the forbidden, breaching one’s comfort zone is often uncomfortable. I don’t know what one can say in the defense of associative thinking except that it leads to new ideas. Where reason connects pre-existing pieces and emotion amplifies pre-existing feelings, associative thinking leads to chaos, contradiction, conflict, and unfamiliar situations.
This disruption all amounts to new opportunities, but they require support, and we rarely get support for new ideas. I don’t know of any culture that strongly supports creative thinking, but ours only supports it within narrow limits. In fact, if you consider just how creative creative thinking can be, I’d say that thinking or acting in highly creative ways is not supported at all.
I explored alternative thinking in my article “Learning a New Way To Think” [4]. Given the ever-increasing novelty in today’s world, it is tremendously important that we start thinking in novel ways. It’s time we started not just having different ideas, but thinking differently.
Other States Versus Altered States
We live in an outwardly focused waking state, one disconnected from our inner reality. Similarly, our deeply focused inner state—the state of dreams and hypnosis—is disconnected from our outer reality.
Childhood was my first experience of an altered state. All of childhood is an altered state, and it covers a wide range. A kid goes from an accepting imaginary world to a threatening social context, to a disciplined home environment without preparation or control. It’s confusing and makes little sense at the time—it doesn’t make much sense ever, actually—and the most that most of us do is survive.
I began mountaineering at 13, and mountaineering is painful. At first, I didn’t know how to get myself to enter a trance, but eventually I learned. Those years of climbing remind me of the myth of Sisyphus. You accomplish nothing of substance, and a lot of what you do is in a trance.
Putting oneself into an altered state is a valuable skill. There are many ways to learn how to do it, and it can be easier if you are aware of what you’re trying to accomplish. Remembering how to play is the technique I recommend to my adult clients to help them disconnect from their normal awareness.
Explore Related Perspectives on Altered States
Dreaming, Hypnosis, and Psychedelics
We all dream several hours each night, and we forget most of those dreams. You can learn to remember your dreams better, and as you do, you’ll become more lucid in them. It’s not that you recognize you’re dreaming per se, though that can happen, it’s rather that you find you have more intentional control. You realize you have choices and decide where to go and what to say.
The ceremonial use of psychedelics is similar to dreamwork. Both require you to prepare for the experience, attempt to retain control, and return with some useful memories. Mountaineering taught me how to control my altered states. This lesson was useful in my experience with psychedelics.
Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is popular these days. I don’t think much of it. It’s a Western invention that’s more about psychopharmacology than personal transcendence. It’s another case of the disjuncture that exists between endorsing the rational and appreciating the irrational. Psychotherapists are selling it, but until they embrace altered states, they won’t understand it.
The value of a psychedelic experience lies in your ability to navigate within it. If the experience just tosses you around like a leaf in the wind, then there’s little chance it will provide clarity.
Dreamwork is an easily available opportunity to learn to control one’s psychosis, but dreamwork is not easy. It’s not enough to remember your dreams; you need to learn how to incubate and achieve a gentle level of lucidity within them.
Hypnotherapy is a great place to learn how to control your psychotic experience. A hypnotic level of guided visualization shares the irrational, unpredictable elements of a nighttime dream. It combines being in a trance state with the unfettered creation of images and feelings.
Learning Altered State Skills
Dreamwork requires focus and commitment. It’s easy enough to start, but it takes time to appreciate. However, you can feel its depth right away. A person tends to get serious quickly. My book, Dreaming Yourself Into Being, can be purchased online in print, digital, and audio formats [5].
This site, Psychedelic Support, provides a broad range of lectures and courses on the use of psychedelics and psychedelic therapy. I’ve been disappointed by other psychedelic therapy training programs, but Psychedelic Support is committed to raising the bar and educating both users and practitioners. See their Educational products.
If you do engage in a psychedelic training program, pick one that offers plenty of support with experienced practitioners and actual psychedelic experiences, not just discussions of them. Do your homework, get references, and do what feels right. If it’s effective, you won’t feel the same afterward.
To learn altered state work in the context of waking life and our thoroughly crazy culture, I suggest neurofeedback. Brain training will heighten your self-awareness, integrate brain function, and calm your nervous system. You can access it at various price points.
Brain Training
Mindful meditation is free, but it requires time and skill. You are not just sitting quietly; you are learning to control your brain. Adding inexpensive brain-entertainment tools can put your brain into a focused, hypnotic state that can enhance mindfulness. Look at the transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) units sold by Neuromyst.
The next higher level is the gentle, do-it-yourself, home neurofeedback units sold at Muse. The companies behind these devices explicitly market them as meditation aids. They offer only one neurofeedback protocol, but also offer various other forms of biofeedback, such as heart rate variability (HRV). A more therapeutic application of these devices is available through Myndlift at a higher price.
Few therapists combine neurofeedback, cognitive-behavioral, and altered-state therapies. I do, but I can’t provide that combination of therapy remotely. Providers do not widely advertise combined modalities because consumers don’t understand the connections between them. But their effects become obvious quickly, and you can learn a great deal from them. In that regard, personal training offers high value and unique benefits.
Therapy as a Crossing of Boundaries
Altered state work is about crossing boundaries. In psychological work, the boundary of contraindication is not a boundary between good and bad; it’s a boundary between comfort and discomfort. This boundary is a fundamental truth in altered state work: change often presents itself as unattractive. If you think it’s going to hurt, then it probably will, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad, and it doesn’t mean the pain is real or necessary.
Dreams, hypnosis, and psychedelics often take a person to threatening situations. In the realms of trauma, grief, depression, and conflict, the path to change appears painful. The cure is often on the other side of the painful boundary, and the fear of pain keeps many people from going there. The truth is often different from one’s expectations.
“I am being chased by a gorilla. He is very large and menacing. I run away. Finally, I realize I must face him or keep running away. As I stop and face him, he turns into a man who tells me [that] I must be more specific when talking about my feelings.”
— Joseph Hart et al. (1980, p. 63) [1]
A crucial part of making progress with altered states is distinguishing fear from pain. The therapist plays an important role in navigating between the two by serving as a guide, protector, supporter, and instigator.
Just Do The Work
In rational therapy, a client’s inner censor protects them from re-traumatizing. In dreamwork, one’s subconscious will trouble you, but it is not trying to paralyze you. Psychedelic work is safe when carefully prepared, dosed, monitored, and given with ongoing support, but it’s easy to take shortcuts.
My favorite form of altered state work is to go off by myself for a few days. The vision quest is a tried-and-true altered-state experience, and it’s easy to do safely. You must get away from your normal environment. I’ve tried staying at home alone, but found that didn’t work. So buy a tent and go into the woods, or rent a cabin at a retreat center. Remaining undisturbed, solitary, and silent for three days is quite a bit harder than you might think!
There is only one rule that applies to everyone: you must act. You must invest in yourself, and few of us do. If this applies to you, it’s easy enough to remedy: just do it!
References
- Hart, J., MD, Corriere, R., PhD, Karle, W., PhD, & Woldenberg, L., PhD (1980). Dreaming and Waking: The Functional Approach to Using Dreams (1st ed.). Center Foundation Press, CA. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283346916_Dreaming_and_Waking_the_Functional_Approach_to_Using_Dreams
- Hobson, J. A., & McCarley, R. W. (1977, December 1). The Brain as a Dream State Generator: An Activation-Synthesis Hypothesis of the Dream Process.” American Journal of Psychiatry. 134(12): 1335-1348. https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.134.12.1335
- Schacter, D. L., Benoit, R. G., De Brigard, F., & Szpunar, K. K. (2013, December 25). “Episodic Future Thinking and Episodic Counterfactual Thinking: Intersections Between Memory and Decisions.” Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. 117, 14–21. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2013.12.008
- Stoller, L., PhD, CHt, CCPCP. (2025). Learning a New Way To Think. Mind Strength Balance. https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com/paywall/learning-a-new-way-to-think-2/
- Stoller, L. (2026, February 15). Dreaming Yourself into Being. Mind Strength Balance. https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com/dreaming-yourself-into-being-home/
