ASC. It stands for Alternative States of Consciousness. Last week in my psychological anthropology class, we talked about alternative states of consciousness. For those who don’t know, alternative states of consciousness occur “as a result of biological and/or physical pathology, and in women during childbirth”. ASC may be intentional (via meditation, ingestion of drugs, religious experience, etc.) or it may be accidental. In our lecture, the professor said that some characteristics or features of ASC are altered thought, perceptual distortion, disrupted sense in time, changes in the expression of emotions, changes in body image, changes in meaning and significance assigned to experiences or perceptions, loss of control, a sense of the ineffable, hyper-suggestibility, and feelings of rejuvenation. Anyways, as we were discussing about ASC, a memory from my high school days started to enter my mind.

I’m not sure when and how old I was but I somehow distinctly remember that this event took place sometime during my high school years. From my memory, it seemed like every Saturday morning my dad would go to some community center or community college to practice Tai Chi. One morning, my dad decided to take me along. I don’t remember why I decided to go with him or what I was even doing being awake so early. I also don’t recollect what my sister was doing but from her habit, my guess of her sleeping in is 99% accurate. I remember that when we got there, my dad asks the teacher if I can stay and just follow along for fun. I vaguely remember the teacher saying something along the lines of how I can’t be there because I’m a minor and not officially enrolled in the class… but since I’m there, why not?! So I stayed there and with the other 10-ish adults (males and females who all seemed to be middle-aged or elderly in my memory) started to follow along to the teacher’s movements and stances. Sometime during the lesson/practice I notice the teacher going around fixing the other people’s movements. He also came up to me and praised me for doing a very good job. When he went on to continuing to fix the other people’s movements, he would refer to my movements and say something like “see how it’s curved, not straight (indicating at the fluidity of my arms and how my movements flow and are not rigid). At that time, I was thinking that maybe because I’m still a kid that I adapt to my surrounding more easily than these adults around me. I don’t know if that thinking is true, correct, or accurate… but I still believe it it now… At the end of the class, I think we really only learned one stance but it consisted of multiple movements. It’s because you don’t get to something right away! There’s a process to everything! Anyways, now that I have set up the story, here’s where ASC comes in.

After the class ended, my dad and I proceeded back to our car. As I was walking, I had a floating sensation. I felt very light and my feet didn’t feel like they were touching the ground although obviously, when I looked down, they were indeed touching the ground. As we walked back to our car, I asked my dad (in Vietnamese of course), “Daddy, I feel really light, like I’m floating. Why?!” My dad responded with “Hmm… It’s probably because of how slowly we were breathing during the exercise earlier and how focused we were on the movements. Tai Chi is good for your health!” At that time, I just accepted my dad’s response.

Now after that lecture on alternative states of consciousness in my psychological anthropology class, I wonder… that moment after my Tai Chi lesson, was I experiencing an alternative state of consciousness? If yes, then Tai Chi is a method to intentionally achieve ASC. This is really interesting to me… I wonder if this has anything related to qi/qigong (chi). I would really like to practice Tai Chi again and see if I can once again achieve that alternative state of consciousness that I had once achieved when I was in high school.