KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA32 (Muller)

Commentary 5

CONSCIOUSNESS AND MATTER
by Claude Rifat
30 November 2000, posted 12 December 2000

<1>
How do you define thinking and how do you define thought and brain ? I am afraid that examining the brain based only on exogenous methods cannot give a full understanding of how a brain works. As we inhabit a brain it is very useful to observe two different states of consciousness endogenously, namely the waking state of consciousness and the oneiric state of consciousness.

As these two states of consciousness differ substantially it becomes possible, by the comparison of the oneiric endoreality and the waking state exoreality, to construct models of consciousness which can be tested exogenously.

<2>
A result of such a comparison, for example, revealed that there existed a crucially important structure in the CNS of which the purpose is to control information flow from Memory to consciousness. This structure has been named the attenuator, in 1976-79, and it was subsequently discovered that this attenuator was functional during the waking state but non-functional during the oneiric state. The discovery of the attenuator had predictive scientific value as it implied that a major aspect of the serotoninergic system was to attenuate information transfer between Memory and consciousness.

This was confirmed when it was observed that specific serotoninergic re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) had attenuating properties on recalls and that these attenuating properties led to a state of consciousness where the amount of thoughts per unit of time was drastically reduced,thus explaining the pseudo "anti-depressant" effects of SSRIs which are, in fact, conceptually, not "anti-depressant" effects but *thymoanaesthetic effects*.

<3>
Contrarily, psychotropic molecules decreasing serotoninergic neurotransmission also increased information transfer ("disattenuation") from Memory to consciousness, as predicted, leading, for example, to a novel serotoninergic anti-depressant which really deserved its name because it acted by increasing emotions instead of decreasing emotions,like the thymoanaesthetics.

This anti-depressant is called tianeptine and it is a specific serotonin re-uptake accelerator (SSRA). The concept of the attenuator system led to many fundamental developments and to the "paradoxical" discovery that the combination of two amnesogenic drugs could lead to mutual suppression of their amnesogenic properties (cannabinoids and benzodiazepines) !

<4>
This is one of the most beautiful discovery which arose from a combination of both exogenous and endogenous strategies in order to unravel brain functioning. The antagonistic properties of cannabinoids and benzodiazepines confirmed another fundamental concept which arose from dream study and study of the cannabinic state of consciousness, namely "consciousness radiation" as I wrote in a previous letter.

Cannabinoids increase consciousness radiation and,because of the way Memory is organised, this leads to amnesia. Benzodiazepines decrease consciousness radiation(like, also, the SSRIs) and, for the same structural reason, they produce amnesia.

<5>
The combination of both molecules mutually suppress their negative effects on Memory. From this it was deduced that novel compounds having both cannabinic and benzodiazepinic properties would modulate the recall properties of Memory in way which might be useful in certain pathologies, such as Alzheimer disease.

Better : it was also predicted from the theory that compounds having anti-cannabinic properties should lead to an entirely novel class of antipsychotics because it was discovered that the core pathology of schizophrenia was a metabolic increase in memory domains leading to thought discontinuities due to increased consciousness radiation.

This core pathology of schizophrenia is linked to decreased dopamine neurotransmission between the limbic system and the pre-frontal cortex which has, as a consequence, an increase in metabolism of our memory areas which manifests, in schizophrenics, as over-consciousness radiation. Schizophrenia is, essentially, over-consciousness radiation.

This little discussion shows how the combination of traditional neurosciences and endogenous scientific observations can lead to decisive advance in our understanding of consciousness.

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Claude Rifat