“In the final stage of ego-lessness there is an ‘obscure knowledge’ that All is In all - that All is actually each. This is as near, I take it, as a finite mind can ever come to ‘perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe’.”
― Aldous Huxley, from The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell
I’ve edited and republished a piece titled “The Larger World of Altered State Thinking,” subtitled “how altered states, dreams, hypnosis, and psychedelics can expand creativity, deepen self-understanding, and reshape how we think.” This version is written to be a faster read. You can find it on psychedelic.support: https://psychedelic.support/resources/larger-world-altered-states-thinking/.
The piece explores our two common, conscious modes of rational and emotional thought. It emphasizes we are less familiar and less adept in using our associative mode of thought. Associative thought is the stream of unpremeditated thoughts and feelings that jostle for attention in the backs of our minds. Associative thought is going on more often than our conscious thought but it’s subconscious. Associations are the origins of the words we speak to ourselves.
Associative Thinking
Associative thinking appears in our minds as a kind of jumping between associated topics. There may be any sort of association linking the topics that spring to mind. We’re usually unaware of the connections when these thoughts come into our minds, and we make sense of them only after some reflection. Most of the time we don’t even trace the origin of our thoughts and, instead, simply follow an erratic line of focus between topics whose relationships we barely explore. In the many cases where we’re not focused we don’t bother to stop and make sense of what we’re thinking or where it’s taking us.
Jumping from topic to topic is our normal way of interacting with the world. We excuse our disorganization on the basis that our worlds’ are unpredictable while our alternatives are numerous, but this is not really true. Disorganized, associative thinking is the way we naturally process perceptions, and we get bored and lose our direction when things are too organized. We need constant stimulation to remain engaged, and we find relaxation in being comfortably distracted.
Our thinking is less directed than we think it to be. Our mind’s associative engine is constantly presenting us with new impressions, reactions, and perspectives because that’s how we remain situationally aware. This is how we’re best able to recognize and react to important changes in our environment.
Whereas most animals live in a state of repetitive awareness, navigating a repetitive and limited environment, humans have built social and personal environments of great variety. Even the most boring and repetitive person spends much of their time daydreaming about unrelated circumstances and events. We’ll ascribe this to memory of the past or orientation to the future, but the truth is that we chose our degree of variety and we could live more regular lives.
We Can Think Better
I focus on associative thinking because I think we could be better at it, see more, learn more, and be more effective in every regard if we were more agile associative thinkers. I suggest that to improve ourselves in this regard requires taking more responsibility for the thoughts that come into our minds. This does not mean limiting them, it means the opposite. It means enhancing them, being more engaged, seeing more, and thinking more creative thoughts. It means not believing what we see, think, or are told. It means being more of a disruptor.
This may sound like fun in some regards, but it should be taken seriously. There are many implicit rules of perception and interpretation that keep us safe and operations normal. Most of us are attracted to the comfort of normalcy and the relaxation of having no responsibility. When you start creatively mixing things up you risk becoming responsible and needing to act. If you violate protocol by acting creatively you may find yourself unappreciated or unsafe. The first rule of creativity is having boundaries and knowing limits.
There are situations that lack boundaries or whose boundaries allow you greater latitude. These are learning situations that reward exploration. They include self expression, contemplation, and struggle. You may have a goal you’re heading toward or something you want to get away from.
I published this piece in the online magazine psychedelic.support because associative thinking is what is unleashed during psychedelic experiences. They are learning opportunities if you know how to use them, but they won’t be useful if you don’t take advantage of engaging with the new thoughts and perceptions they present.
Hallucinations as Insight
The same applies to your dreams and your problems. All three of these situations—psychedelics, dreams, and problems—offer the chance to see things differently. And new thoughts emerge much more readily through new associations than through rational or emotional thought.
Rational and emotional thought, though different in how they make you feel, are both reactive and normalizing. When you reason you organize ideas in a familiar manner, and when you’re emotional you’re reacting to experiences in accordance with your preestablished patterns. It’s mostly by association that you put unusual ideas together.
Associative thoughts don’t tell you, they show you. They present ideas related by feeling and memory that you cannot, or cannot yet explain. These are the forward looking things. They orient you in mood, not in reason but reason follows. The ideas that come to you without reason are the ideas you’re starting to assemble. Their emergence in your mind reminds you that they convey something of importance.
You need to understand, translate, or interpret what comes to mind, just take it as it comes in moods, visions, words, or feelings. The attitudes, insights, and conclusions come later.
Let the Batter Set
As I recently learned about making pancakes (Colins 2025), you must let the batter set as that is the time when the natural and necessary chemistry proceeds. Let the ideas that come you in dreams and visions set. They have a natural chemistry; you do not need to interfere.
My conclusion is that becoming more associative, like becoming more creative, requires a concerted effort. It will not happen on its own. Left to your normal devices you will not think differently or creatively, and if you have problems that are not being solved through reason or emotion, then it will be largely through associative thinking that you’ll have any hope of progress.
This leads me to endorse my role as a counselor because a good counselor can introduce useful problems and encourage promising behaviors. New ideas rarely appear risk-free or entirely attractive, and more critical thinking will often discount their potential. It takes feedback outside your normal context to encourage creative behavior.
Next time you have a serious problem or an adventurous opportunity, consider engaging a counselor to encourage change and disentangle alternatives. You want someone who will share your dissatisfaction and appreciate your potential. You don’t want what’s normal, secure, regular, compliant, fashionable, or traditional. You might not even be looking for what’s successful.
It’s not simply that you should beware of advertised rewards, you should recognize the deeper opportunities that are offered by conflicts and contradictions. Those are the things that will break you out of your box, not comfort and contentment.
Nighttime dreams are almost entirely associative. Dreams do not “make sense” but appear as emotional thoughts for you to make sense of. To learn more about how to develop dream thinking look at my book Dreaming Yourself Into Being (Stoller 2026). To learn more about altered state thinking, see my book Operating Manual for Enlightenment (Stoller 2025).
References
Colins, L. (2025). “The Easiest, Fluffiest Pancakes.” Serious Eats. https://www.seriouseats.com/the-easiest-fluffiest-pancake-recipe-from-a-pro-who-s-flipped-thousands-of-them-11729596
Stoller, L. (2025). Operating Manual for Enlightenment. Mind Strength Balance. https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com/operatingmanualhome/
Stoller, L. (2025). Dreaming Yourself Into Being. Mind Strength Balance. https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com/dreaming-yourself-into-being-home/
