Billy Bardo 2003-09-08

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

I more or less echo the sentiments of the review from the Green Mountain state, below.

This is Grof's first of many, many books on related subjects, and it precedes the period of time when he began to develop his holotropic breathwork techniques. In this work, he attempts to report on the preliminary findings and interpretations from his years of extensive psychiatric research involving LSD-25 at the Prague Psychiatric Research Center. In many ways, the model which he developed from this work has a consistency and a clarity which diminishes with the elaboration of the complexity of his later discoveries. Don't get me wrong. The complexity that he realizes in the further refinement of his model is appropriate--its just that the results of LSD research are more unambiguous and less complex than the "therapeutic" experiences that emerge from non-drug sessions of any sort, whether brought on by a close encounter with death, spiritual practices, or spontaneous emergence. In many ways, the LSD research exposes with great clarity the mechanisms which underlie the mysterious phenomena of "transformation". This is somewhat natural and obvious. However, across the spectrum of what Grof calls--non ordinary states--we are dealing with the amplification of mental processes. LSD is like turning the amplifier up to 11, right away. Other methods of mental amplification are more gradual, and take greater time and effort. Therefore, even though the end results may often be just as dramatic--the theoretical interpretations can be more ambiguous and require greater sensitivity to nuance. The complexity of psychological factors are more difficult to sort out. Somehow, these distinctions find their way into the presentations in Grof's books, and consequently, I think the later works are more difficult for newcomers to grasp. This book is fairly straightforward, and direct, and consequently is a good introduction to Grof's thinking, and its evolution.

2002-06-25

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

REALMS OF THE HUMAN UNCONSCIOUS: OBSERVATIONS FROM LSD RESEARCH is Stanislav Grof's first book, and since all his books build on the previous ones, this one is the foundation for all the rest. For example, its descriptions of psychedelic-induced states, such as the experience of cosmic unity, are more detailed here than in any of his later books. Hence, REALMS... may be the best of Grof's books to start with.

Since this book focuses on the low-dose LSD psychotherapy (which developed in Europe during the 1960s), and low-dose LSD therapy more consistently brings up childhood traumas than does higher-doses, it may be of special interest to Freudian psychoanalysts and psychodynamic-minded psychiatrists who want to be guided gradually from their current understanding to a more comprehensive view of the unconscious mind. It may also be of particular interst to anyone involved in low-dose or low-medium dose psychedelic therapy, since it is Grof's only book about low-dose therapy. (Grof's later book LSD PSYCHOTHERAPY focuses more on the medium-high dose therapy he eventually developed.)

I recommend this book to you if you are a student of the human psyche willing to enlarge your understanding of the human unconscious, if you can get a copy of the original hardcover edition to read. (The first paperback edition may also be fine although I have not seen it.) However, the 1994 Souvenir Press edition which I now own has dark, rough paper and smaller print than the highly readable hardcover edition in which I originally read this book...so if you have strong eyesight and a determined motivation you may plow through the 1994 Souviner softcover edition but otherwise I advise seeking out a copy of the hardcover.

Other books by Grof which I like: LSD PSYCHOTHERAPY, guidelines for therapists administering the medium-high dose psychedelic therapy which Grof eventually developed out of his early low/medium dose method; BEYOND THE BRAIN: BIRTH, DEATH, AND TRANSCENDENCE IN PSYCHOTHERAPY, a distillation of the author's new views based on his LSD research (this is his masterpiece, a summary of his life's work, and my favorite of all his books which I've read except PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE which I have yet to read); and THE ADVENTURE OF SELF-DISCOVERY, describing Grof's group huperventilation therapy, which has therapeutic results similar to LSD therapy; I also enjoyed Sandra Ingerman's SOUL RETRIEVAL, about welcoming home one's lost "inner-child" self.