Preface

Juan C. Gonzlez

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Philosophers and scientists interested in cognition have for a long time beenintrigued by abnormal states of consciousness and, specially, by hallucinations.These uncommon states involve an alteration of habitual mental patterns and amodification of the cognitive links between agent and world, changing thus ourordinary experience of reality. Hallucinations have been traditionally evoked in orderto, among other things, support philosophical skepticism, defend indirect theories ofperception, investigate the nature and mechanisms of consciousness, articulate theidea of veridical perception, analyze other mental states and cognitive functions,clarify and delimitate our mental-health concepts, explore therapies in clinicalpsychology, appreciate neuropharmacological effects, inspire the work of artists,conduct and assess inquiries in cognitive neuroscience, describe phenomena in socialanthropology and, finally, better understand what William James called the varietiesof religious experience.

This notwithstanding, the hallucinatory experience itselfwhether in regard to itsconceptual analysis, precise phenomenology, underlying mechanisms, explanatorymodels, epistemological implications or methodological approachremains puzzlingand understudied in the academic community. To make matters worse, the informationwe have about hallucinations is scattered in a myriad of fields and disciplines such as art,psychiatry, history, ethnobotany, anthropology, psychology, neurosciences, philosophyand religion.

This special issue modestly proposes to start reversing this by providing a state-of-the-art and multi-disciplinary perspective for approaching hallucinations or aspectsthereof. So it is only natural that here we find articles from diverse disciplinary horizonssuch as psychology, psychiatry, cognitive neuroscience, and philosophy. As for thecontents covered in this issue, there is a wide span of topics: hallucinogenic plants, theirclassification and effects on consciousness; relationships between sensory andnon-sensory hallucinations; myth-busting techniques for optimal investigation of

Phenom Cogn Sci (2010) 9:157158DOI 10.1007/s11097-010-9166-y

J. C. Gonzlez (*)Universidad Autnoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, Mexicoe-mail: entedemente@gmail.com

hallucinations; auditory verbal hallucinations in the hypnagogic and hypnopompicstates, and as a case study for the cognitive sciences and phenomenology; conceptualand methodological procedures to approach hallucinations; hallucinations as they relateto imagery and memory illusions; epistemology of the Ayahuasca hallucinogenicexperience; hallucinations, philosophy of perception and disjunctivism; dreaming andhallucinating. Indeed, an interdisciplinary (and, ideally, integrating) approach tohallucinations is clearly desirable given the complexity and scope of the subject, andthis journals orientation has made this possible.

My gratitude therefore goes in the first place to Shaun Gallagher and Dan Zahavi,the general editors of this journal, for their kind invitation to be special editor of thisissue. Many thanks as well to the impressive staff of Springer, and especially toCharisse Cometa. I also appreciate the initiative and efforts of Markus Werning forhelping launch and support this project. I want to thank the Institut Jean-Nicod andthe cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and specially JrmeDokic, for their kind sabbatical invitation that allowed me to study hallucinationsearnestly. The same goes for Alexandre Lehmann, Guillaume Dumas, Jess Vegaand all the speakers and staff that participated in the seminars, workshops andconferences on hallucinations and modified states of consciousness held in Parissince 2006and still going on! (more info: http://hallucinations.risc.cnrs.fr).Finally, my gratitude goes to all the reviewers and authors (whether theirmanuscripts made it to this issue or not) for helping develop a worthy and growingfield of study.

158 J.C. Gonzlez

Preface

/ColorImageDict > /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict > /JPEG2000ColorImageDict > /AntiAliasGrayImages false /CropGrayImages true /GrayImageMinResolution 150 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /Warning /DownsampleGrayImages true /GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /GrayImageResolution 150 /GrayImageDepth -1 /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages true /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict > /GrayImageDict > /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict > /JPEG2000GrayImageDict > /AntiAliasMonoImages false /CropMonoImages true /MonoImageMinResolution 600 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /Warning /DownsampleMonoImages true /MonoImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /MonoImageResolution 600 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict > /AllowPSXObjects false /CheckCompliance [ /None ] /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false /PDFXNoTrimBoxError true /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox true /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile (None) /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier () /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName () /PDFXTrapped /False

/Description > /Namespace [ (Adobe) (Common) (1.0) ] /OtherNamespaces [ > /FormElements false /GenerateStructure false /IncludeBookmarks false /IncludeHyperlinks false /IncludeInteractive false /IncludeLayers false /IncludeProfiles true /MultimediaHandling /UseObjectSettings /Namespace [ (Adobe) (CreativeSuite) (2.0) ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfileSelector /NA /PreserveEditing false /UntaggedCMYKHandling /UseDocumentProfile /UntaggedRGBHandling /UseDocumentProfile /UseDocumentBleed false >> ]>> setdistillerparams> setpagedevice