Born again

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_again

To be born again, or to experience the new birth, is a phrase, particularly in evangelicalism, that refers to a "spiritual rebirth", or a regeneration of the human spirit. In contrast to one's physical birth, being "born again" is distinctly and separately caused by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and it is not caused by baptism in water. It is a core doctrine of the denominations of the Anabaptist, Moravian, Methodist, Baptist, Plymouth Brethren and Pentecostal Churches along with all other evangelical Christian denominations. All of these Churches strongly believe Jesus's words in the Gospels: "You must be born again before you can see, or enter, the Kingdom of Heaven" stated in John 3:6-7 in the bible. Their doctrines also mandate that to be both "born again" and "saved", one must have a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

The term born again has its origin in the New Testament. In the First Epistle of Peter, the author describes the new birth as taking place from the seed which is the Word of God. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus himself refers to the Word of God as the seed.

In contemporary Christian usage and apart from evangelicalism, the term is distinct from similar terms which are sometimes used in Christianity in reference to a person who is, or is becoming, a Christian. This usage of the term is usually linked to baptism with water and the related doctrine of baptismal regeneration. Individuals who profess to be "born again" (meaning born in the "Holy Spirit") often state that they have a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ".

In addition to using this phrase with those who do not profess to be Christians, some Evangelical Christians use the phrase and evangelize those who belong to other Christian denominations or groups. This practice is based on the belief that non-Evangelical Christians, even those Christians who are professed Christians, are not "born again" and do not have a "personal relationship with Jesus." They therefore believe that they should evangelize to non-Evangelical Christians in the same way that they would evangelize to people who do not profess the Christian faith.

The phrase "born again" is also used as an adjective to describe individual members of the movement who espouse this belief, and it is also used as an adjective to describe the movement itself ("born-again Christian" and the "born-again movement").

Origin

Jesus and Nicodemus, painting by Alexandre Bida, 1874

The term is derived from an event in the Gospel of John in which the words of Jesus were not understood by a Jewish Pharisee, Nicodemus:

Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again." "How can someone be born when they are old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit."

— Gospel of John, chapter 3, verses 3–5, New International Version

The Gospel of John was written in Koine Greek, and the original text is ambiguous which results in a double entendre that Nicodemus misunderstands. The word translated as 'again' is ἄνωθεν (ánōtʰen), which could mean either 'again', or 'from above'. The double entendre is a figure of speech that the gospel writer uses to create bewilderment or misunderstanding in the hearer; the misunderstanding is then clarified by either Jesus or the narrator. Nicodemus takes only the literal meaning from Jesus's statement, while Jesus clarifies that he means more of a spiritual rebirth from above. English translations have to pick one sense of the phrase or another; the NIV, King James Version, and Revised Version use "born again", while the New Revised Standard Version and the New English Translation prefer the "born from above" translation. Most versions will note the alternative sense of the phrase ánōtʰen in a footnote.

Edwyn Hoskyns argues that "born from above" is to be preferred as the fundamental meaning and he drew attention to phrases such as "birth of the Spirit", "birth from God", but maintains that this necessarily carries with it an emphasis upon the newness of the life as given by God himself.

The final use of the phrase occurs in the First Epistle of Peter, rendered in the King James Version as:

Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, [see that ye] love one another with a pure heart fervently: / Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

— 1 Peter 1:22–23

Here, the Greek word translated as 'born again' is ἀναγεγεννημένοι (anagegennēménoi).

Interpretations

The traditional Jewish understanding of the promise of salvation is interpreted as being rooted in "the seed of Abraham"; that is, physical lineage from Abraham. Jesus explained to Nicodemus that this doctrine was in error – that every person must have two births – natural birth of the physical body and another of the water and the spirit. This discourse with Nicodemus established the Christian belief that all human beings – whether Jew or Gentile – must be "born again" of the spiritual seed of Christ. This understanding is further reinforced in 1 Peter 1:23. The Catholic Encyclopedia states that "[a] controversy existed in the primitive church over the interpretation of the expression the seed of Abraham. It is [the First Epistle of Peter's] teaching in one instance that all who are Christ's by faith are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to promise. He is concerned, however, with the fact that the promise is not being fulfilled to the seed of Abraham (referring to the Jews)."

Charles Hodge writes that "The subjective change wrought in the soul by the grace of God, is variously designated in Scripture" with terms such as new birth, resurrection, new life, new creation, renewing of the mind, dying to sin and living to righteousness, and translation from darkness to light.

Jesus used the "birth" analogy in tracing spiritual newness of life to a divine beginning. Contemporary Christian theologians have provided explanations for "born from above" being a more accurate translation of the original Greek word transliterated ánōtʰen. Theologian Frank Stagg cites two reasons why the newer translation is significant:

1. The emphasis "from above" (implying "from Heaven") calls attention to the source of the "newness of life". Stagg writes that the word 'again' does not include the source of the new kind of beginning;
2. More than personal improvement is needed; "a new destiny requires a new origin, and the new origin must be from God."

An early example of the term in its more modern use appears in the sermons of John Wesley. In the sermon entitled A New Birth he writes, "none can be holy unless he be born again", and "except he be born again, none can be happy even in this world. For [...] a man should not be happy who is not holy." Also, "I say, [a man] may be born again and so become an heir of salvation." Wesley also states infants who are baptized are born again, but for adults it is different:

our church supposes, that all who are baptized in their infancy, are at the same time born again. [...] But [...] it is sure all of riper years, who are baptized, are not at the same time born again.

A Unitarian work called The Gospel Anchor noted in the 1830s that the phrase was not mentioned in any of the Gospels, nor by any Epistles except in that of 1 Peter. "It was not regarded by any of the Evangelists but John of sufficient importance to record." It adds that without John, "we should hardly have known that it was necessary for one to be born again." This suggests that "the text and context was meant to apply to Nicodemus particularly, and not to the world."

Historicity

Scholars of the historical Jesus, who attempt to ascertain how closely the stories of Jesus match the historical events they are based on, generally treat Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus in John 3 with skepticism. It details what is presumably a private conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, with none of the disciples seemingly attending, making it unclear how a record of this conversation was acquired. In addition, the conversation is recorded in no other ancient Christian source other than John and works based on John. According to Bart Ehrman, the larger issue is that the same problem English translations of the Bible have with the Greek ἄνωθεν (ánōtʰen) is a problem in the Aramaic language as well: there is no single word in Aramaic that means both 'again' and 'from above', yet the conversation rests on Nicodemus making this misunderstanding. As the conversation was between two Jews in Jerusalem, where Aramaic was the native language, there is no reason to think that they would have spoken in Greek. This implies that even if based on a real conversation, the author of John heavily modified it to include Greek wordplay and idiom.

Denominational positions

Catholicism

Historically, the classic text from John 3 was consistently interpreted by early Church Fathers as a reference to baptism. Modern Catholic interpreters have noted that the phrase 'born from above' or 'born again' is clarified as 'being born of water and Spirit'.

Catholic commentator John F. McHugh notes, "Rebirth, and the commencement of this new life, are said to come about ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος, of water and spirit. This phrase (without the article) refers to a rebirth which the early Church regarded as taking place through baptism."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) notes that the essential elements of Christian initiation are: "proclamation of the Word, acceptance of the Gospel entailing conversion, profession of faith, Baptism itself, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and admission to Eucharistic communion." Baptism gives the person the grace of forgiveness for all prior sins; it makes the newly baptized person a new creature and an adopted child of God; it incorporates them into the Body of Christ and creates a sacramental bond of unity leaving an indelible mark on the person's soul. "Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, the person baptized is configured to Christ. Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark (character) of his belonging to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation. Given once for all, Baptism cannot be repeated." The Holy Spirit is involved with each aspect of the movement of grace. "The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion. [...] Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high."

The Catholic Church also teaches that under special circumstances, the need for water baptism can be superseded by the Holy Spirit in a 'Baptism of desire', such as when catechumens die or are martyred prior to Baptism.

Pope John Paul II wrote in Catechesi Tradendae about "the problem of children baptized in infancy [who] come for catechesis in the parish without receiving any other initiation into the faith and still without any explicit personal attachment to Jesus Christ." He noted that "being a Christian means saying 'yes' to Jesus Christ, but let us remember that this 'yes' has two levels: It consists of surrendering to the word of God and relying on it, but it also means, at a later stage, endeavoring to know better—and better the profound meaning of this word."

The modern expression being "born again" is really about the concept of "conversion".

The National Directory of Catechesis (published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB) defines conversion as, "the acceptance of a personal relationship with Christ, a sincere adherence to him, and a willingness to conform one's life to his." To put it more simply, "Conversion to Christ involves making a genuine commitment to him and a personal decision to follow him as his disciple."

Echoing the writings of Pope John Paul II, the National Directory of Catechesis describes a new intervention required by the modern world called the "New Evangelization". This is directed to the Church, to the baptized who were never effectively evangelized before, to those who have never made a personal commitment to Christ and the Gospel, to those formed by the values of secular culture, to those who have lost a sense of faith, and to those who are alienated.

Declan O'Sullivan, co-founder of the Catholic Men's Fellowship and knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, wrote that the "New Evangelization emphasizes the personal encounter with Jesus Christ as a pre-condition for spreading the gospel. The born-again experience is not just an emotional, mystical high; the really important matter is what happened in the convert's life after the moment or period of radical change."

Lutheranism

The Lutheran Church holds that "we are cleansed of our sins and born again and renewed in Holy Baptism by the Holy Ghost. But some Lutherans also teach that whoever is baptized must, through daily contrition and repentance, drown The Old Adam so that daily a new man come forth and arise who walks before God in righteousness and purity forever. Conservative Lutherans teach that whoever lives in sins after his baptism has again lost the grace of baptism."

Moravianism

With regard to the new birth, the Moravian Church holds that a personal conversion to Christianity is a joyful experience, in which the individual "accepts Christ as Lord" after which faith "daily grows inside the person." For Moravians, "Christ lived as a man because he wanted to provide a blueprint for future generations" and "a converted person could attempt to live in his image and daily become more like Jesus." As such, "heart religion" characterizes Moravian Christianity. The Moravian Church has historically emphasized evangelism, especially missionary work, to spread the faith.

Anabaptism

Anabaptist denominations, such as the Mennonites, teach that "True faith entails a new birth, a spiritual regeneration by God's grace and power; 'believers' are those who have become the spiritual children of God." In Anabaptist theology, the pathway to salvation, is "marked not by a forensic understanding of salvation by 'faith alone', but by the entire process of repentance, self-denial, faith rebirth and obedience." Those who wish to tarry this path receive baptism after the new birth.

Anglicanism

The phrase born again is mentioned in the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church in article XV, entitled "Of Christ alone without Sin". In part, it reads: "sin, as S. John saith, was not in Him. But all we the rest, although baptized and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things: and if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."

Although the phrase "baptized and born again in Christ" occurs in Article XV, the reference is clearly to the scripture passage in John 3:3.

Reformed

In Reformed theology, Holy Baptism is the sign and the seal of one's regeneration, which is of comfort to the believer. The time of one's regeneration, however, is a mystery to oneself according to the Canons of Dort.

According to the Reformed churches being born again refers to "the inward working of the Spirit which induces the sinner to respond to the effectual call". According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q 88, "the outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption are, his ordinances, especially the word, sacraments, and prayer; all of which are made effectual to the elect for salvation." Effectual calling is "the work of God's Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel."

In Reformed theology, "regeneration precedes faith." Samuel Storms writes that, "Calvinists insist that the sole cause of regeneration or being born again is the will of God. God first sovereignly and efficaciously regenerates, and only in consequence of that do we act. Therefore, the individual is passive in regeneration, neither preparing himself nor making himself receptive to what God will do. Regeneration is a change wrought in us by God, not an autonomous act performed by us for ourselves."

Quakerism

The majority of the world's Quakers are evangelical in churchmanship and teach a born-again experience (cf. Evangelical Friends Church International).

The Central Yearly Meeting of Friends, a Holiness Quaker denomination, teaches that regeneration is the "divine work of initial salvation (Tit. 3:5), or conversion, which involves the accompanying works of justification (Rom. 5:18) and adoption (Rom. 8:15, 16)." In regeneration, which occurs in the new birth, there is a "transformation in the heart of the believer wherein he finds himself a new creation in Christ (II Cor. 5:17; Col. 1:27)."

Following the new birth, George Fox taught the possibility of "holiness of heart and life through the instantaneous baptism with the Holy Spirit subsequent to the new birth" (cf. Christian perfection).

Methodism

Methodist preachers are known for promulgating the doctrines of the new birth and entire sanctification to the public at events such as tent revivals and camp meetings, which they believe is the reason that God raised them up into existence.

In Methodism, the "new birth is necessary for salvation because it marks the move toward holiness. That comes with faith." John Wesley held that the New Birth "is that great change which God works in the soul when he brings it into life, when he raises it from the death of sin to the life of righteousness." In the life of a Christian, the new birth is considered the first work of grace. In keeping with Wesleyan-Arminian covenant theology, the Articles of Religion, in Article XVII – Of Baptism, state that baptism is a "sign of regeneration or the new birth." The Methodist Visitor in describing this doctrine, admonishes individuals: "'Ye must be born again.' Yield to God that He may perform this work in and for you. Admit Him to your heart. 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'" Methodist theology teaches that the new birth contains two phases that occur together, justification and regeneration:

Though these two phases of the new birth occur simultaneously, they are, in fact, two separate and distinct acts. Justification is that gracious and judicial act of God whereby a soul is granted complete absolution from all guilt and a full release from the penalty of sin (Romans 3:23–25). This act of divine grace is wrought by faith in the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). Regeneration is the impartation of divine life which is manifested in that radical change in the moral character of man, from the love and life of sin to the love of God and the life of righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 Peter 1:23). —Principles of Faith, Emmanuel Association of Churches

Baptists

Baptists teach that people are born again when they believe that Jesus died for their sin, and was buried, and rose again, and that by believing/trusting in Jesus' death, burial and resurrection, eternal life shall be granted as a gift by God. Those who have been born again, according to Baptist teaching, know that they are "[children] of God because the Holy Spirit witnesses to them that they are" (cf. assurance).

Plymouth Brethren

The Plymouth Brethren teach that the new birth effects salvation and those who testify that they have been born again, repented, and have faith in the Scriptures are given the right hand of fellowship, after which they can partake of the Lord's Supper.

Pentecostalism

Pentecost by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Woodcut for "Die Bibel in Bildern", 1860.

Holiness Pentecostals historically teach the new birth (first work of grace), entire sanctification (second work of grace) and baptism with the Holy Spirit, as evidenced by glossolalia, as the third work of grace. The new birth, according to Pentecostal teaching, imparts "spiritual life".

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that individuals do not have the power to choose to be born again, but that God calls and selects his followers "from above". Only those belonging to the "144,000" are considered to be born again.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Book of Mormon emphasizes the need for everyone to be reborn of God.

Latter Day Saints believe that to be born again is referring to a true repentance. In otherwords, rejecting the carnal sinful nature of men and making a covenant with God to live a righteous, Christ like life. This covenant is done initially as baptism by immersion at the age of 8, or age of accountability, or when someone newly converts. It is then renewed weekly through partaking of sacrament during church meetings.

It is a common misconception that the Church of Jesus Christ teaches that these ordinances are required works to be "saved". It is actually taught that Christ has already saved all mankind from physical death and will save from spiritual death through repentance and obeying God's commandments at judgement day, after death and resurrection..Baptism and Sacrament are done as according to the faith of a person as an outward expression of an inward commitment to serve God and live a righteous life.

Disagreements between denominations

The term "born again" is used by several Christian denominations, but there are disagreements on what the term means, and whether members of other denominations are justified in claiming to be born-again Christians.

Catholic Answers says:

Catholics should ask [Evangelical] Protestants, "Are you born again – the way the Bible understands that concept?" If the Evangelical has not been properly water baptized, he has not been born again "the Bible way," regardless of what he may think.

On the other hand, an Evangelical site argues:

Another of many examples is the Catholic who claims he also is "born again." ... However, what the committed Catholic means is that he received his spiritual birth when he was baptized – either as an infant or when as an adult he converted to Catholicism. That's not what Jesus meant when He told Nicodemus he "must be born again." The deliberate adoption of biblical terms which have different meanings for Catholics has become an effective tool in Rome's ecumenical agenda.

The Reformed view of regeneration may be set apart from other outlooks in at least two ways.

First, classical Roman Catholicism teaches that regeneration occurs at baptism, a view known as baptismal regeneration. Reformed theology has insisted that regeneration may take place at any time in a person's life, even in the womb. It is not somehow the automatic result of baptism. Second, it is common for many other evangelical branches of the church to speak of repentance and faith leading to regeneration (i.e., people are born again only after they exercise saving faith). By contrast, Reformed theology teaches that original sin and total depravity deprive all people of the moral ability and will to exercise saving faith. ... Regeneration is entirely the work of God the Holy Spirit – we can do nothing on our own to obtain it. God alone raises the elect from spiritual death to new life in Christ.

History and usage

Historically, Christianity has used various metaphors to describe its rite of initiation, that is, spiritual regeneration via the sacrament of baptism by the power of the water and the spirit. This remains the common understanding in most of Christendom, held, for example, in Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and in other historic branches of Protestantism. However, sometime after the Reformation, Evangelicalism attributed greater significance to the expression born again as an experience of religious conversion, symbolized by deep-water baptism, and rooted in a commitment to one's own personal faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. This same belief is, historically, also an integral part of Methodist doctrine, and is connected with the doctrine of Justification.

According to Encyclopædia Britannica:

'Rebirth' has often been identified with a definite, temporally datable form of 'conversion'. ... With the voluntaristic type, rebirth is expressed in a new alignment of the will, in the liberation of new capabilities and powers that were hitherto undeveloped in the person concerned. With the intellectual type, it leads to an activation of the capabilities for understanding, to the breakthrough of a "vision". With others it leads to the discovery of an unexpected beauty in the order of nature or to the discovery of the mysterious meaning of history. With still others it leads to a new vision of the moral life and its orders, to a selfless realization of love of neighbour. ... each person affected perceives his life in Christ at any given time as "newness of life."

According to J. Gordon Melton:

Born again is a phrase used by many Protestants to describe the phenomenon of gaining faith in Jesus Christ. It is an experience when everything they have been taught as Christians becomes real, and they develop a direct and personal relationship with God.

According to Andrew Purves and Charles Partee:

Sometimes the phrase seems to be judgmental, making a distinction between genuine and nominal Christians. Sometimes ... descriptive, like the distinction between liberal and conservative Christians. Occasionally, the phrase seems historic, like the division between Catholic and Protestant Christians. ... [the term] usually includes the notion of human choice in salvation and excludes a view of divine election by grace alone.

The term born again has become widely associated with the evangelical Christian renewal since the late 1960s, first in the United States and then around the world. Associated perhaps initially with Jesus People and the Christian counterculture, born again came to refer to a conversion experience, accepting Jesus Christ as lord and savior in order to be saved from hell and given eternal life with God in heaven, and was increasingly used as a term to identify devout believers. By the mid-1970s, born again Christians were increasingly referred to in the mainstream media as part of the born again movement.

In 1976, Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson's book Born Again gained international notice. Time magazine named him "One of the 25 most influential Evangelicals in America." The term was sufficiently prevalent so that during the year's presidential campaign, Democratic party nominee Jimmy Carter described himself as "born again" in the first Playboy magazine interview of an American presidential candidate.

Colson describes his path to faith in conjunction with his criminal imprisonment and played a significant role in solidifying the "born again" identity as a cultural construct in the US. He writes that his spiritual experience followed considerable struggle and hesitancy to have a "personal encounter with God." He recalls:

while I sat alone staring at the sea I love, words I had not been certain I could understand or say fell from my lips: "Lord Jesus, I believe in You. I accept You. Please come into my life. I commit it to You." With these few words...came a sureness of mind that matched the depth of feeling in my heart. There came something more: strength and serenity, a wonderful new assurance about life, a fresh perception of myself in the world around me.

Jimmy Carter was the first President of the United States to publicly declare that he was born-again, in 1976. By the 1980 campaign, all three major candidates stated that they had been born again.

Sider and Knippers state that "Ronald Reagan's election that fall [was] aided by the votes of 61% of 'born-again' white Protestants."

The Gallup Organization reported that "In 2003, 42% of U.S. adults said they were born-again or evangelical; the 2004 percentage is 41%" and that, "Black Americans are far more likely to identify themselves as born-again or evangelical, with 63% of blacks saying they are born-again, compared with 39% of white Americans. Republicans are far more likely to say they are born-again (52%) than Democrats (36%) or independents (32%)."

The Oxford Handbook of Religion and American Politics, referring to several studies, reports "that 'born-again' identification is associated with lower support for government anti-poverty programs." It also notes that "self-reported born-again" Christianity, "strongly shapes attitudes towards economic policy."

Names which have been inspired by the term

Main article: Renatus

The idea of "rebirth in Christ" has inspired some common European forenames: French René/Renée, Dutch Renaat/Renate, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Croatian Renato/Renata, Latin Renatus/Renata, all of which mean "reborn", "born again".

Statistics

The Oxford Handbook of Religion and American Politics notes: "The GSS ... has asked a born-again question on three occasions ... 'Would you say you have been 'born again' or have had a 'born-again' experience?" The Handbook says that "Evangelical, black, and Latino Protestants tend to respond similarly, with about two-thirds of each group answering in the affirmative. In contrast, only about one third of mainline Protestants and one sixth of Catholics (Anglo and Latino) claim a born-again experience." However, the handbook suggests that "born-again questions are poor measures even for capturing evangelical respondents. ... it is likely that people who report a born-again experience also claim it as an identity."

Bad trip

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_trip

 

A bad trip (also known as challenging experiences, acute intoxication from hallucinogens, psychedelic crisis, or emergence phenomenon) is a term describing an acute adverse psychological reaction to effects produced under the influence of psychoactive substances, namely hallucinogens. With proper screening, preparation, and support in a regulated setting these are usually benign. A bad trip on psilocybin, for instance, often features intense anxiety, confusion, agitation, and psychosis. They manifest as a range of feelings, such as anxiety, paranoia, the unshakeable sense of one's inevitable and imminent personal demise or states of unrelieved terror that they believe will persist after the substance's effects have worn off. As of 2011, exact data on the frequency of bad trips are not available.

Bad trips can be exacerbated by the inexperience or irresponsibility of the user or the lack of proper preparation and environment for the trip, and are often reflective of unresolved psychological tensions triggered during the course of the experience. In clinical research settings, precautions including the screening and preparation of participants, the training of the session monitors who will be present during the experience, and the selection of appropriate physical setting can minimize the likelihood of psychological distress. Researchers have suggested that the presence of professional "trip sitters" (i.e., session monitors) may significantly reduce the negative experiences associated with a bad trip. In most cases in which anxiety arises during a supervised psychedelic experience, reassurance from the session monitor is adequate to resolve it; however, if distress becomes intense it can be treated pharmacologically, for example with the benzodiazepine diazepam.

The psychiatrist Stanislav Grof wrote that unpleasant psychedelic experiences are not necessarily unhealthy or undesirable, arguing that they may have the potential for psychological healing and lead to breakthrough and resolution of unresolved psychic issues. Drawing on narrative theory, the authors of a 2021 study of 50 users of psychedelics found that many described bad trips as having been sources of insight or even turning points in life.

Intervention

Medical treatment consists of supportive therapy and minimization of external stimuli. In some cases, sedation is used when necessary to control self-destructive behavior, or when hyperthermia occurs. Diazepam is the most frequently used sedative for such treatment, but other benzodiazepines such as lorazepam are also effective. Such sedatives will only decrease fear and anxiety, but will not subdue hallucinations. In severe cases, antipsychotics such as haloperidol can reduce or stop hallucinations. Haloperidol is effective against acute intoxication caused by LSD and other tryptamines, amphetamines, ketamine, and phencyclidine.

Effects

Bad trips may cause hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD).

Perspectives

Stanislav Grof

Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof once said in an interview:

There is a tremendous danger of confusing the inner world with the outer world, so you'll be dealing with your inner realities but at the same time you are not even aware of what's happening, You perceive a sort of distortion of the world out there. So you can end up in a situation where you're weakening the resistances, your conscious is becoming more aware, but you're not really in touch with it properly, you're not really fully experiencing what's there, not seeing it for what it is. You get kind of deluded and caught into this.

In a 1975 book, Grof suggested that painful and difficult experiences during a trip could be a result of the mind reliving experiences associated with birth, and that experiences of imprisonment, eschatological terror, or suffering far beyond anything imaginable in a normal state, if seen through to conclusion, often resolve into emotional, intellectual and spiritual breakthroughs. From this perspective, Grof suggests that interrupting a bad trip, while initially seen as beneficial, could potentially trap the tripper in unresolved psychological states. Grof also suggests that many cathartic experiences within psychedelic states, while not necessarily crises, may be the effects of consciousness entering a perinatal space.

Rick Strassman

Professor of psychiatry Rick Strassman is critical of reframing the experience of bad trips as one of "challenging experiences".

Ego death

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death

 

Ego death is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity". The term is used in various intertwined contexts, with related meanings. Jungian psychology uses the synonymous term psychic death, referring to a fundamental transformation of the psyche. In death and rebirth mythology, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition, as described by Joseph Campbell in his research on the mythology of the Hero's Journey. It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary western thinking.

In descriptions of drugs, the term is used synonymously with ego-loss to refer to (temporary) loss of one's sense of self due to the use of drugs. The term was used as such by Timothy Leary et al. to describe the death of the ego in the first phase of an LSD trip, in which a "complete transcendence" of the self occurs.

The concept is also used in contemporary New Age spirituality and in the modern understanding of Eastern religions to describe a permanent loss of "attachment to a separate sense of self" and self-centeredness. This conception is an influential part of Eckhart Tolle's teachings, where Ego is presented as an accumulation of thoughts and emotions, continuously identified with, which creates the idea and feeling of being a separate entity from one's self, and only by disidentifying one's consciousness from it can one truly be free from suffering.

Definitions

Ego death and the related term "ego loss" have been defined in the context of mysticism by the religious studies scholar Daniel Merkur as "an imageless experience in which there is no sense of personal identity. It is the experience that remains possible in a state of extremely deep trance when the ego-functions of reality-testing, sense-perception, memory, reason, fantasy and self-representation are repressed [...] Muslim Sufis call it fana ('annihilation'), and medieval Jewish kabbalists termed it 'the kiss of death'".

Carter Phipps equates enlightenment and ego death, which he defines as "the renunciation, rejection and, ultimately, the death of the need to hold on to a separate, self-centered existence".

In Jungian psychology, Ventegodt and Merrick define ego death as "a fundamental transformation of the psyche". Such a shift in personality has been labeled an "ego death" in Buddhism, or a psychic death by Jung.

In comparative mythology, ego death is the second phase of Joseph Campbell's description of the Hero's Journey, which includes a phase of separation, transition, and incorporation. The second phase is a phase of self-surrender and ego-death, after which the hero returns to enrich the world with their discoveries.

In psychedelic culture, Leary, Metzner and Alpert (1964) define ego death, or ego loss as they call it, as part of the (symbolic) experience of death in which the old ego must die before one can be spiritually reborn. They define ego loss as "... complete transcendence − beyond words, beyond spacetime, beyond self. There are no visions, no sense of self, no thoughts. There are only pure awareness and ecstatic freedom".

Several psychologists working on psychedelics have defined ego-death. Alnaes (1964) defines ego death as "[L]oss of ego-feeling". Stanislav Grof (1988) defines it as "a sense of total annihilation [...] This experience of "ego death" seems to entail an instant merciless destruction of all previous reference points in the life of the individual [...] [E]go death means an irreversible end to one's philosophical identification with what Alan Watts called "skin-encapsulated ego". The psychologist John Harrison (2010) defines "[T]emporary ego death [as the] loss of the separate self[,] or, in the affirmative, [...] a deep and profound merging with the transcendent other. Johnson, Richards and Griffiths (2008), paraphrasing Leary et al. and Grof define ego death as "temporarily experienc[ing] a complete loss of subjective self-identity.

Conceptual development

The concept of "ego death" developed along a number of intertwined strands of thought, including especially the following: romantic movements and subcultures; Theosophy; anthropological research on rites de passage and shamanism; Joseph Campbell's comparative mythology; Jungian psychology; the psychedelic scene of the 1960s; and transpersonal psychology.

Western mysticism

According to Merkur,

The conceptualisation of mystical union as the soul's death, and its replacement by God's consciousness, has been a standard Roman Catholic trope since St. Teresa of Ávila; the motif traces back through Marguerite Porete, in the 13th century, to the fana, "annihilation", of the Islamic Sufis.

Jungian psychology

According to Ventegodt and Merrick, the Jungian term "psychic death" is a synonym for "ego death":

In order to radically improve global quality of life, it seems necessary to have a fundamental transformation of the psyche. Such a shift in personality has been labeled an "ego death" in Buddhism or a psychic death by Jung, because it implies a shift back to the existential position of the natural self, i.e., living the true purpose of life. The problem of healing and improving the global quality of life seems strongly connected to the unpleasantness of the ego-death experience.

Ventegodt and Merrick refer to Jung's publications The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, first published 1933, and Psychology and Alchemy, first published in 1944.

In Jungian psychology, a unification of archetypal opposites has to be reached, during a process of conscious suffering, in which consciousness "dies" and resurrects. Jung called this process "the transcendent function", which leads to a "more inclusive and synthetic consciousness".

Jung used analogies with alchemy to describe the individuation process, and the transference-processes which occur during therapy.

According to Leeming et al., from a religious point of view psychic death is related to St. John of the Cross' Ascent of Mt. Carmel and Dark Night of the Soul.

Mythology – The Hero with a Thousand Faces

See also: Dying-and-rising god and Descent to the underworld

The Hero's Journey

In 1949, Joseph Campbell published The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a study on the archetype of the Hero's Journey. It describes a common theme found in many cultures worldwide, and is also described in many contemporary theories on personal transformation. In traditional cultures it describes the "wilderness passage", the transition from adolescence into adulthood. It typically includes a phase of separation, transition, and incorporation. The second phase is a phase of self-surrender and ego-death, whereafter the hero returns to enrich the world with his discoveries. Campbell describes the basic theme as follows:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder. Fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won. The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

This journey is based on the archetype of death and rebirth, in which the "false self" is surrendered and the "true self" emerges. A well known example is Dante's Divine Comedy, in which the hero descends into the underworld.

Psychedelics

See also: Shamanism, Neo-shamanism, and Beat Generation

Main articles: The Psychedelic Experience and Bardo

Concepts and ideas from mysticism and bohemianism were inherited by the Beat Generation. When Aldous Huxley helped popularize the use of psychedelics, starting with The Doors of Perception, published in 1954,  Huxley also promoted a set of analogies with eastern religions, as described in The Perennial Philosophy. This book helped inspire the 1960s belief in a revolution in western consciousness  and included the Tibetan Book of the Dead as a source. Similarly, Alan Watts, in his opening statement on mystical experiences in This Is It, draws parallels with Richard Bucke's 1901 book Cosmic Consciousness, describing the "central core" of the experience as

... the conviction, or insight, that the immediate now, whatever its nature, is the goal and fulfillment of all living.

This interest in mysticism helped shape the emerging research and popular conversation around psychedelics in the 1960s. In 1964 William S. Burroughs drew a distinction between "sedative" and "conscious-expanding" drugs. In the 1940s and 1950s the use of LSD was restricted to military and psychiatric researchers. One of those researchers was Timothy Leary, a clinical psychologist who first encountered psychedelic drugs while on vacation in 1960, and started to research the effects of psilocybin in 1961. He sought advice from Aldous Huxley, who advised him to propagate psychedelic drugs among society's elites, including artists and intellectuals. On insistence of Allen Ginsberg, Leary, together with his younger colleague Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) also made LSD available to students. In 1962 Leary was fired, and Harvard's psychedelic research program was shut down. In 1962 Leary founded the Castalia Foundation, and in 1963 he and his colleagues founded the journal The Psychedelic Review.

Following Huxley's advice, Leary wrote a manual for LSD-usage. The Psychedelic Experience, published in 1964, is a guide for LSD-trips, written by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert, loosely based on Walter Evans-Wentz's translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Aldous Huxley introduced the Tibetan Book of the Dead to Timothy Leary. According to Leary, Metzner and Alpert, the Tibetan Book of the Dead is

... a key to the innermost recesses of the human mind, and a guide for initiates, and for those who are seeking the spiritual path of liberation.

They construed the effect of LSD as a "stripping away" of ego-defenses, finding parallels between the stages of death and rebirth in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and the stages of psychological "death" and "rebirth" which Leary had identified during his research. According to Leary, Metzner and Alpert it is....

... one of the oldest and most universal practices for the initiate to go through the experience of death before he can be spiritually reborn. Symbolically he must die to his past, and to his old ego, before he can take his place in the new spiritual life into which he has been initiated.

Also in 1964 Randolf Alnaes published "Therapeutic applications of the change in consciousness produced by psycholytica (LSD, Psilocybin, etc.)." Alnaes notes that patients may become involved in existential problems as a consequence of the LSD experience. Psycholytic drugs may facilitate insight. With a short psychological treatment, patients may benefit from changes brought about by the effects of the experience.

One of the LSD-experiences may be the death crisis. Alnaes discerns three stages in this kind of experience:

1. Psychosomatic symptoms lead up to the "loss of ego feeling (ego death)";
2. A sense of separation of the observing subject from the body. The body is beheld to undergo death or an associated event;
3. "Rebirth", the return to normal, conscious mentation, "characteristically involving a tremendous sense of relief, which is cathartic in nature and may lead to insight".

Timothy Leary's description of "ego-death"

In The Psychedelic Experience, three stages are discerned:

1. Chikhai Bardo: ego loss, a "complete transcendence" of the self and game;
2. Chonyid Bardo: The Period of Hallucinations;
3. Sidpa Bardo: the return to routine game reality and the self.

Each Bardo is described in the first part of The Psychedelic Experience. In the second part, instructions are given which can be read to the "voyager". The instructions for the First Bardo state:

O (name of voyager)
The time has come for you to seek new levels of reality.
Your ego and the (name) game are about to cease.
You are about to be set face to face with the Clear Light
You are about to experience it in its reality.
In the ego−free state, wherein all things are like the void and cloudless sky,
And the naked spotless intellect is like a transparent vacuum;
At this moment, know yourself and abide in that state.
O (name of voyager),
That which is called ego−death is coming to you.
Remember:
This is now the hour of death and rebirth;
Take advantage of this temporary death to obtain the perfect state −
Enlightenment.
[...]

Scientific research

Stanislav Grof

Stanislav Grof has researched the effects of psychedelic substances, which can also be induced by nonpharmacological means. Grof has developed a "cartography of the psyche" based on his clinical work with psychedelics, which describe the "basic types of experience that become available to an average person" when using psychedelics or "various powerful non-pharmacological experiential techniques".

According to Grof, traditional psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy use a model of the human personality that is limited to biography and the individual consciousness, as described by Freud. This model is inadequate to describe the experiences which result from the use of psychedelics and the use of "powerful techniques", which activate and mobilize "deep unconscious and superconscious levels of the human psyche". These levels include:

• The sensory barrier and the recollective-biographical barrier
• The perinatal matrices:
  • BPM I: The amniotic universe. Maternal womb; symbiotic unity of the fetus with the maternal organism; lack of boundaries and obstructions;
  • BPM II: Cosmic engulfment and no exit. Onset of labor; alteration of blissful connection with the mother and its pristine universe;
  • BPM III: The death-rebirth struggle. Movement through the birth channel and struggle for survival;
  • BPM IV: The death-rebirth experience. Birth and release.
• The transpersonal dimensions of the psyche

Ego death appears in the fourth perinatal matrix. This matrix is related to the stage of delivery, the actual birth of the child. The build up of tension, pain and anxiety is suddenly released. The symbolic counterpart is the death-rebirth experience, in which the individual may have a strong feeling of impending catastrophe, and may be desperately struggling to stop this process. The transition from BPM III to BPM IV may involve a sense of total annihilation:

This experience of ego death seems to entail an instant merciless destruction of all previous reference points in the life of the individual.

According to Grof what dies in this process is "a basically paranoid attitude toward the world which reflects the negative experience of the subject during childbirth and later". When experienced in its final and most complete form,

...ego death means an irreversible end to one's philosophical identification with what Alan Watts called skin-encapsulated ego."

Recent research

Recent research also mentions that ego loss is sometimes experienced by those under the influence of psychedelic drugs.

The Ego-Dissolution Inventory is a validated self-report questionnaire that allows for the measurement of transient ego-dissolution experiences occasioned by psychedelic drugs.

View of spiritual traditions

Following the interest in psychedelics and spirituality, the term "ego death" has been used to describe the eastern notion of "enlightenment" (bodhi) or moksha.

Buddhism

Zen practice is said to lead to ego-death. Ego-death is also called "great death", in contrast to the physical "small death". According to Jin Y. Park, the ego death that Buddhism encourages makes an end to the "usually-unconsciousness-and-automated quest" to understand the sense-of-self as a thing, instead of as a process. According to Park, meditation is learning how to die by learning to "forget" the sense of self:

Enlightenment occurs when the usually automatized reflexivity of consciousness ceases, which is experienced as a letting-go and falling into the void and being wiped out of existence [...] [W]hen consciousness stops trying to catch its own tail, I become nothing, and discover that I am everything.

According to Welwood, "egolessness" is a common experience. Egolessness appears "in the gaps and spaces between thoughts, which usually go unnoticed". Existential anxiety arises when one realizes that the feeling of "I" is nothing more than a perception. According to Welwood, only egoless awareness allows us to face and accept death in all forms.

David Loy also mentions the fear of death, and the need to undergo ego-death to realize our true nature. According to Loy, our fear of egolessness may even be stronger than our fear of death.

"Egolessness" is not the same as anatta (non-self). Where the former is more of a personal experience, Anatta is a doctrine common to all of Buddhism – describing how the constituents of a person (or any other phenomena) contain no permanent entity (one has no "essence of themself"):

the Buddha, almost ad nauseam, spoke against wrong identification with the Five Aggregates, or the same, wrong identification with the psychophysical believing it is our self. These aggregates of form, feeling, thought, inclination, and sensory consciousness, he went on to say, were illusory; they belonged to Mara the Evil One; they were impermanent and painful. And for these reasons, the aggregates cannot be our self.

Taoism

The Taoist internal martial artist Bruce Frantzis reports an experience of fear of ego annihilation, or "ru ding":

I was in Hong Kong, beginning to learn the old Yang style of Tai Chi Chaun when ru ding first struck me… It was late at night, at a still and quiet terrace on the Peak, where few people came after midnight…the park was quiet, and the moon and the sky felt as though they were descending downward, putting enormous pressure on every square inch of my skin, as I tried to life my arms with the expansive energy of tai chi…I felt as if Chi from the moonlight, stars, and sky penetrated my body against my will. My body and mind became immensely still, as though they had dropped into a bottomless abyss, even though I was doing the rhythmic slow motion movements…At the depth of the stillness, an overwhelming, formless fear began to develop in my belly…. Then it happened: an all-consuming, paralyzing fear seemed all at once to invade every cell in my body… I knew if I kept practicing there would be nothing left of me in a few seconds… I stopped practicing… and ran down the hill praying hard that this terror would leave me…. The ego, goes into a mortal fear when the false reality of being separate from the universal life force is threatened by your consciousness having reached an awareness of connection to everything in existence. The ego spews forth all sorts of terrifying psychological and physiological reactions in the body and mind to make meditators petrified of leaving the state of separation.

Bernadette Roberts

Bernadette Roberts makes a distinction between "no ego" and "no self". According to Roberts, the falling away of the ego is not the same as the falling away of the self. "No ego" comes prior to the unitive state; with the falling away of the unitive state comes "no self". "Ego" is defined by Roberts as

... the immature self or consciousness prior to the falling away of its self-center and the revelation of a divine center.

Roberts defines "self" as

... the totality of consciousness, the entire human dimension of knowing, feeling and experiencing from the consciousness and unconsciousness to the unitive, transcendental or God-consciousness.

Ultimately, all experiences on which these definitions are based are wiped out or dissolved. Jeff Shore further explains that "no self" means "the permanent ceasing, the falling away once and for all, of the entire mechanism of reflective self-consciousness".

According to Roberts, both the Buddha and Christ embody the falling away of self, and the state of "no self". The falling away is represented by the Buddha prior to his enlightenment, starving himself by ascetic practices, and by the dying Jesus on the cross; the state of "no self" is represented by the enlightened Buddha with his serenity, and by the resurrected Christ.

Integration after ego-death experiences

Psychedelics

According to Nick Bromell, ego death is a tempering though frightening experience, which may lead to a reconciliation with the insight that there is no real self.

According to Grof, death crises may occur over a series of psychedelic sessions until they cease to lead to panic. A conscious effort not to panic may lead to a "pseudohallucinatory sense of transcending physical death". According to Merkur,

Repeated experience of the death crisis and its confrontation with the idea of physical death leads finally to an acceptance of personal mortality, without further illusions. The death crisis is then greeted with equanimity.

Vedanta and Zen

Both the Vedanta and the Zen-Buddhist tradition warn that insight into the emptiness of the self, or so-called "enlightenment experiences", are not sufficient; further practice is necessary.

Jacobs warns that Advaita Vedanta practice takes years of committed practice to sever the "occlusion" of the so-called "vasanas, samskaras, bodily sheaths and vrittis", and the "granthi or knot forming identification between Self and mind".

Zen Buddhist training does not end with kenshō, or insight into one's true nature. Practice is to be continued to deepen the insight and to express it in daily life. According to Hakuin, the main aim of "post-satori practice" (gogo no shugyo or kojo, "going beyond") is to cultivate the "Mind of Enlightenment". According to Yamada Koun, "if you cannot weep with a person who is crying, there is no kensho".

Dark Night and depersonalisation

See also: Depersonalisation

Shinzen Young, an American Buddhist teacher, has pointed at the difficulty integrating the experience of no self. He calls this "the Dark Night", or

... "falling into the Pit of the Void." It entails an authentic and irreversible insight into Emptiness and No Self. What makes it problematic is that the person interprets it as a bad trip. Instead of being empowering and fulfilling, the way Buddhist literature claims it will be, it turns into the opposite. In a sense, it's Enlightenment's Evil Twin.

Willoughby Britton is conducting research on such phenomena which may occur during meditation, in a research program called "The Dark Night of the Soul". She has searched texts from various traditions to find descriptions of difficult periods on the spiritual path, and conducted interviews to find out more on the difficult sides of meditation.

Influence

See also: Influence of Timothy Leary

The propagation of LSD-induced "mystical experiences", and the concept of ego death, had some influence in the 1960s, but Leary's brand of LSD-spirituality never "quite caught on".

Reports of psychedelic experiences

Leary's terminology influenced the understanding and description of the effects of psychedelics. Various reports by hippies of their psychedelic experiences describe states of diminished consciousness which were labelled as "ego death", but do not match Leary's descriptions. Panic attacks were occasionally also labeled as "ego death".

The Beatles

John Lennon read The Psychedelic Experience, and was strongly affected by it. He wrote "Tomorrow Never Knows" after reading the book, as a guide for his LSD trips. Lennon took about a thousand acid trips, but it only exacerbated his personal difficulties. He eventually stopped using the drug. George Harrison and Paul McCartney also concluded that LSD use didn't result in any worthwhile changes.

Radical pluralism

According to Bromell, the experience of ego death confirms a radical pluralism that most people experience in their youth, but prefer to flee from, instead believing in a stable self and a fixed reality. He further states this also led to a different attitude among youngsters in the 1960s, rejecting the lifestyle of their parents as being deceitful and false.

Controversy

The relationship between ego death and LSD has been disputed. Hunter S. Thompson, who tried LSD, saw a self-centered base in Leary's work, noting that Leary placed himself at the centre of his texts, using his persona as "an exemplary ego, not a dissolved one".  Dan Merkur notes that the use of LSD in combination with Leary's manual often did not lead to ego-death, but to horrifying bad trips.

The relationship between LSD use and enlightenment has also been criticized. Sōtō-Zen teacher Brad Warner has repeatedly criticized the idea that psychedelic experiences lead to "enlightenment experiences". In response to The Psychedelic Experience he wrote:

While I was at Starwood, I was getting mightily annoyed by all the people out there who were deluding themselves and others into believing that a cheap dose of acid, 'shrooms, peyote, "molly" or whatever was going to get them to a higher spiritual plane [...] While I was at that campsite I sat and read most of the book The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (aka Baba Ram Dass, later of Be Here Now fame). It's a book about the authors' deeply mistaken reading of the Tibetan Book of the Dead as a guide for the drug taking experience [...] It was one thing to believe in 1964 that a brave new tripped out age was about to dawn. It's quite another to still believe that now, having seen what the last 47 years have shown us about where that path leads. If you want some examples, how about Jimi Hendrix, Sid Vicious, Syd Barrett, John Entwistle, Kurt Cobain... Do I really need to get so cliched with this? Come on now.

The concept that ego-death or a similar experience might be considered a common basis for religion has been disputed by scholars in religious studies but "has lost none of its popularity". Scholars have also criticized Leary and Alpert's attempt to tie ego-death and psychedelics with Tibetan Buddhism. John Myrdhin Reynolds, has disputed Leary and Jung's use of the Evans-Wentz's translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, arguing that it introduces a number of misunderstandings about Dzogchen. Reynolds argues that Evans-Wentz's was not familiar with Tibetan Buddhism, and that his view of Tibetan Buddhism was "fundamentally neither Tibetan nor Buddhist, but Theosophical and Vedantist". Nonetheless, Reynolds confirms that the nonsubstantiality of the ego is the ultimate goal of the Hinayana system.

Dormancy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dormancy 

During winter dormancy, plant metabolism comes to a virtual standstill, due in part to low temperatures that slow chemical activity.

Dormancy is a period in an organism's life cycle when growth, development, and (in animals) physical activity are temporarily stopped. This minimizes metabolic activity and therefore helps an organism to conserve energy. Dormancy tends to be closely associated with environmental conditions. Organisms can synchronize entry to a dormant phase with their environment through predictive or consequential means. Predictive dormancy occurs when an organism enters a dormant phase before the onset of adverse conditions. For example, photoperiod and decreasing temperature are used by many plants to predict the onset of winter. Consequential dormancy occurs when organisms enter a dormant phase after adverse conditions have arisen. This is commonly found in areas with an unpredictable climate. While very sudden changes in conditions may lead to a high mortality rate among animals relying on consequential dormancy, its use can be advantageous, as organisms remain active longer and are therefore able to make greater use of available resources.

Animals

Hibernation

Main article: Hibernation

Hibernation is a mechanism used by many mammals to reduce energy expenditure and survive food shortages over the winter. Hibernation may be predictive or consequential. An animal prepares for hibernation by building up a thick layer of body fat during late summer and autumn that will provide it with energy during the dormant period. During hibernation, the animal undergoes many physiological changes, including decreased heart rate (by as much as 95%) and decreased body temperature. In addition to shivering, some hibernating animals also produce body heat by non-shivering thermogenesis to avoid freezing. Non-shivering thermogenesis is a regulated process in which the proton gradient generated by electron transport in mitochondria is used to produce heat instead of ATP in brown adipose tissue. Animals that hibernate include bats, ground squirrels and other rodents, mouse lemurs, the European hedgehog and other insectivores, monotremes and marsupials. Although hibernation is almost exclusively seen in mammals, some birds, such as the common poorwill, may hibernate.

Diapause

Main article: Diapause

Further information: Embryonic diapause

Diapause is a predictive strategy that is predetermined by an animal's genotype. Diapause is common in insects, allowing them to suspend development between autumn and spring, and in mammals such as the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus, the only ungulate with embryonic diapause), in which a delay in attachment of the embryo to the uterine lining ensures that offspring are born in spring, when conditions are most favorable.

Aestivation

Main article: Aestivation

Aestivation, also spelled estivation, is an example of consequential dormancy in response to very hot or dry conditions. It is common in invertebrates such as the garden snail and worm but also occurs in other animals such as lungfish, salamanders, desert tortoises, and crocodiles.

Brumation

While endotherms and other heterotherms are described scientifically as hibernating, the way ectotherms such as lizards become dormant in cold is very different, and a separate name was invented for it in the 1920s: brumation. It differs from hibernation in the metabolic processes involved.

Reptiles generally begin brumation in late autumn (more specific times depend on the species). They often wake up to drink water and return to "sleep". They can go for months without food. Reptiles may eat more than usual before the brumation time but eat less or refuse food as the temperature drops. However, they do need to drink water. The brumation period is anywhere from one to eight months depending on the air temperature and the size, age, and health of the reptile. During the first year of life, many small reptiles do not fully brumate, but rather slow down and eat less often. Brumation is triggered by a lack of heat and a decrease in the hours of daylight in winter, similar to hibernation.

Plants

In plant physiology, dormancy is a period of arrested plant growth. It is a survival strategy exhibited by many plant species, which enables them to survive in harsh conditions and climates where part of the year is unsuitable for growth, such as winter or dry seasons.

Many plant species that exhibit dormancy have a biological clock that tells them when to slow activity and to prepare soft tissues for a period of freezing temperatures or water shortage. On the other hand, dormancy can be triggered after a normal growing season by decreasing temperatures, shortened day length, and/or a reduction in rainfall. Chemical treatment on dormant plants has been proven to be an effective method to break dormancy, particularly in woody plants such as grapes, berries, apples, peaches, and kiwis. Specifically, hydrogen cyanamide stimulates cell division and growth in dormant plants, causing buds to break when the plant is on the edge of breaking dormancy. Slight injury of cells may play a role in the mechanism of action. The injury is thought to result in increased permeability of cellular membranes. The injury is associated with the inhibition of catalase, which in turn stimulates the pentose phosphate cycle. Hydrogen cyanamide interacts with the cytokinin metabolic cycle, which results in triggering a new growth cycle. The images below show two particularly widespread dormancy patterns amongst sympodially growing orchids:

Annual life cycle of sympodially growing orchids with dormancy after completion of new growth/pseudobulb, e.g., Miltonia, or Odontoglossum

 

Annual life cycle of sympodially growing orchids with dormancy after blooming, e.g., Cycnoches ventricosum, Dendrobium nobile, or Laelia

Seeds

When a mature and viable seed under a favorable condition fails to germinate, it is said to be dormant. Seed dormancy is referred to as embryo dormancy or internal dormancy and is caused by endogenous characteristics of the embryo that prevent germination (Black M, Butler J, Hughes M. 1987). Dormancy should not be confused with seed coat dormancy, external dormancy, or hardheadedness, which is caused by the presence of a hard seed covering or seed coat that prevents water and oxygen from reaching and activating the embryo. It is a physical barrier to germination, not a true form of dormancy (Quinliven, 1971; Quinliven and Nichol, 1971).

Seed dormancy is desired in nature, but the opposite in the agriculture field. This is because agricultural practice desires rapid germination and growth for food whereas in nature, most plants are only capable of germinating once every year, making it favorable for plants to pick a specific time to reproduce. For many plants, it is preferable to reproduce in spring as opposed to fall even when there are similar conditions in terms of light and temperature due to the ensuing winter that follows fall. Many plants and seeds recognize this and enter a dormant period in the fall to stop growing. The grain is a popular example in this aspect, where they would die above ground during the winter, so dormancy is favorable to its seedlings but extensive domestication and crossbreeding has removed most dormancy mechanisms that their ancestors had.

While seed dormancy is linked to many genes, abscisic acid (ABA), a plant hormone, has been linked as a major influencer to seed dormancy. In a study on rice and tobacco plants, plants defective in zeaxanthin epoxidase gene, which are linked to ABA-synthesis pathway. Seeds with higher ABA content, from over-expressing zeaxanthin epoxidase, led to an increased dormancy period while plants with lower numbers of zeaxanthin epoxidase were shown to have a shorter period of dormancy. A simple diagram can be drawn of ABA inhibits seed germination, while gibberellin (GA, also plant hormone) inhibits ABA production and promotes seed germination.

Trees

Main article: Vernalization

Typically, temperate woody perennial plants require chilling temperatures to overcome winter dormancy (rest). The effect of chilling temperatures depends on species and growth stage (Fuchigami et al. 1987). In some species, rest can be broken within hours at any stage of dormancy, with either chemicals, heat, or freezing temperatures, effective dosages of which would seem to be a function of sublethal stress, which results in stimulation of ethylene production and increased cell membrane permeability.

Dormancy is a general term applicable to any instance in which a tissue predisposed to elongate or grow in some other manner does not do so (Nienstaedt 1966). Quiescence is dormancy imposed by the external environment. Correlated inhibition is a kind of physiological dormancy maintained by agents or conditions originating within the plant, but not within the dormant tissue itself. Rest (winter dormancy) is a kind of physiological dormancy maintained by agents or conditions within the organ itself. However, physiological subdivisions of dormancy do not coincide with the morphological dormancy found in white spruce (Picea glauca) and other conifers (Owens et al. 1977). Physiological dormancy often includes early stages of bud-scale initiation before measurable shoot elongation or before flushing. It may also include late leaf initiation after shoot elongation has been completed. In either of those cases, buds that appear to be dormant are nevertheless very active morphologically and physiologically.

Dormancy of various kinds is expressed in white spruce (Romberger 1963). White spruce, like many woody plants in temperate and cooler regions, requires exposure to low temperature for a period of weeks before it can resume normal growth and development. This "chilling requirement" for white spruce is satisfied by uninterrupted exposure to temperatures below 7 °C for 4 to 8 weeks, depending on physiological condition (Nienstaedt 1966, 1967).

Tree species that have well-developed dormancy needs may be tricked to some degree, but not completely. For instance, if a Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) is given an "eternal summer" through exposure to additional daylight, it grows continuously for as long as two years. Eventually, however, a temperate-climate plant automatically goes dormant, no matter what environmental conditions it experiences. Deciduous plants lose their leaves; evergreens curtail all new growth. Going through an "eternal summer" and the resultant automatic dormancy is stressful to the plant and usually fatal. The fatality rate increases to 100% if the plant does not receive the necessary period of cold temperatures required to break the dormancy. Most plants require a certain number of hours of "chilling" at temperatures between about 0 °C and 10 °C to be able to break dormancy (Bewley, Black, K.D 1994).

Short photoperiods induce dormancy and permit the formation of needle primordia. Primordia formation requires 8 to 10 weeks and must be followed by 6 weeks of chilling at 2 °C. Bud break occurs promptly if seedlings are then exposed to 16-hour photoperiods at the 25 °C/20 °C temperature regime. The free growth mode, a juvenile characteristic that is lost after 5 years or so, ceases in seedlings experiencing environmental stress (Logan and Pollard 1976, Logan 1977).

Bacteria

Many bacteria can survive adverse conditions such as temperature, desiccation, and antibiotics by forming endospores, cysts, or states of reduced metabolic activity lacking specialized cellular structures. Up to 80% of the bacteria in samples from the wild appear to be metabolically inactive—many of which can be resuscitated. Such dormancy is responsible for the high diversity levels of most natural ecosystems.

Recent research has characterized the bacterial cytoplasm as a glass forming fluid approaching the liquid-glass transition, such that large cytoplasmic components require the aid of metabolic activity to fluidize the surrounding cytoplasm, allowing them to move through a viscous, glass-like cytoplasm. During dormancy, when such metabolic activities are put on hold, the cytoplasm behaves like a solid glass, 'freezing' subcellular structures in place and perhaps protecting them, while allowing small molecules like metabolites to move freely through the cell, which may be helpful in cells transitioning out of dormancy.

Viruses

Further information: Virus latency

Dormancy, in its rigid definition, does not apply to viruses, as they are not metabolically active. However, some viruses such as poxviruses and picornaviruses, after entering the host, can become latent for long periods of time, or even indefinitely until they are externally activated. Herpesviruses, for example, can become latent after infecting the host, and after years they can activate again if the host is under stress or exposed to ultraviolet radiation.

Torpor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpor

 

Torpor is a state of decreased physiological activity in an animal, usually marked by a reduced body temperature and metabolic rate. Torpor enables animals to survive periods of reduced food availability. The term "torpor" can refer to the time a hibernator spends at low body temperature, lasting days to weeks, or it can refer to a period of low body temperature and metabolism lasting less than 24 hours, as in "daily torpor".

Animals that undergo daily torpor include birds (even tiny hummingbirds, notably Cypselomorphae) and some mammals, including many marsupial species, rodent species (such as mice), and bats. During the active part of their day, such animals maintain normal body temperature and activity levels, but their metabolic rate and body temperature drop during a portion of the day (usually night) to conserve energy.

Some animals seasonally go into long periods of inactivity, with reduced body temperature and metabolism, made up of multiple bouts of torpor. This is known as hibernation if it occurs during winter or aestivation if it occurs during the summer. Daily torpor, on the other hand, is not seasonally dependent and can be an important part of energy conservation at any time of year.

Torpor is a well-controlled thermoregulatory process and not, as previously thought, the result of switching off thermoregulation. Marsupial torpor differs from non-marsupial mammalian (eutherian) torpor in the characteristics of arousal. Eutherian arousal relies on a heat-producing brown adipose tissue as a mechanism to accelerate rewarming. The mechanism of marsupial arousal is unknown, but appears not to rely on brown adipose tissue.

Evolution

The evolution of torpor likely accompanied the development of homeothermy. Animals capable of maintaining a body temperature above ambient temperature when other members of its species would not have a fitness advantage. Benefits of maintaining internal temperatures include increased foraging time and less susceptibility to extreme drops in temperature. This adaptation of increasing body temperature to forage has been observed in small nocturnal mammals when they first wake up in the evening.

Although homeothermy lends advantages such as increased activity levels, small mammals and birds maintaining an internal body temperature spend up to 100 times more energy in low ambient temperatures compared to ectotherms. To cope with this challenge, these animals maintain a much lower body temperature, staying just over ambient temperature rather than at normal operating temperature. This reduction in body temperature and metabolic rate allows the prolonged survival of animals capable of entering torpid states.

In 2020, scientists reported evidence of the torpor in Lystrosaurus living ~250 Mya in Antarctica – the oldest evidence of a hibernation-like state in a vertebrate animal.

Functions

Slowing metabolic rate to conserve energy in times of insufficient resources is the primarily noted purpose of torpor. This conclusion is largely based on laboratory studies where torpor was observed to follow food deprivation. There is evidence for other adaptive functions of torpor where animals are observed in natural contexts:

Circadian rhythm during torpor

Animals that can enter torpor rely on biological rhythms such as circadian and circannual rhythms to continue natural functions. Different animals will manage their circadian rhythm differently, and in some species it's seen to completely stop (such as in European hamsters). Other organisms, such as a black bear, enter torpor and switch to multi-day cycles rather than rely on a circadian rhythm. However, it is seen that both captive and wild bears express similar circadian rhythms when entering torpor. Bears entering torpor in a simulated den with no light expressed normal but low functioning rhythms. The same was observed in wild bears denning in natural areas. The function of circadian rhythms in black, brown, and polar bears suggest that their system of torpor is evolutionarily advanced.

Energy conservation in small birds

Anna's hummingbird (Calypte anna) in nocturnal torpor during a cold winter night (−8 °C (18 °F) near Vancouver, British Columbia. The bird remained in torpor with an unchanged position for more than 12 hours.

Torpor has been shown to be a strategy of small migrant birds to preserve their body energy stores. Hummingbirds, resting at night during migration, were observed to enter torpor which helped to conserve fat stores during migration or cold nights at high altitude.

This strategy of using torpor to preserve energy stores, such as fat, has also been observed in wintering chickadees. Black-capped chickadees, living in temperate forests of North America, do not migrate south during winter. The chickadee can maintain a body temperature 12 °C lower than normal. This reduction in metabolism allows it to conserve 30% of fat stores amassed from the previous day.

Advantage in environments with unpredictable food sources

Torpor can be a strategy of animals with unpredictable food supplies. For example, high-latitude living rodents use torpor seasonally when not reproducing. These rodents use torpor as means to survive winter and live to reproduce in the next reproduction cycle when food sources are plentiful, separating periods of torpor from the reproduction period. The eastern long-eared bat uses torpor during winter and is able to arouse and forage during warm periods. Some animals use torpor during their reproductive cycle, as seen in unpredictable habitats. They experience the cost of a prolonged reproduction period but the payoff is survival to be able to reproduce at all.

Survival during mass extinctions

It is suggested that this daily torpor use may have allowed survival through mass extinction events. Heterotherms make up only four out of 61 mammals confirmed to have gone extinct over the last 500 years. Torpor enables animals to reduce energy requirements allowing them to better survive harsh conditions.

Inter-species competition

Interspecific competition occurs when two species require the same resource for energy production. Torpor increases fitness in the case of inter-specific competition with the nocturnal common spiny mouse. When the golden spiny mouse experiences reduced food availability by diet overlap with the common spiny mouse it spends more time in a torpid state.

Parasite resistance by bats

A drop in temperature from torpor has been shown to reduce the ability of parasites to reproduce. In temperate zones, the reproductive rates of ectoparasites on bats decrease when the bats enter torpor. In regions where bats don't undergo torpor, the parasites maintain a consistent reproductive rate throughout the year.

NASA deep sleep option for a mission to Mars

In 2013, SpaceWorks Engineering began researching a way to dramatically cut the cost of a human expedition to Mars by putting the crew in extended torpor for 90 to 180 days. Traveling while hibernating would reduce astronauts' metabolic functions and minimize requirements for life support during multi-year missions.