Allan Combs

California Institute of Integral Studies, Faculty Emeritus of Conscious Studies, Emeritus

University of North Carolina at Asheville, Psychology, Emeritus

California Institute for Human Science, Research Professor, Faculty Member

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Allan Combs, PhD, is Professor Emeritus, consciousness researcher, neuropsychologist, and systems theorist at The California Institute of Integral Studies and The University of North Carolina-Asheville. He is author of over 250 publications on consciousness and the brain, and is the Founder and Past President of the international Society for Consciousness Studies, as well as the recent recipient of their Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also co-founder of The Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and the Life Sciences. Combs is Editor of the journals, CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century, and The Journal of Conscious Evolution. He was also the winner of the National Teaching Award of the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies. Professor Combs' most widely read books include Consciousness Explained Better: Towards an Integral Understanding of the Multifaceted Nature of Consciousness, and The Radiance of Being: Understanding the Grand Integral Vision, Living the Integral Life.
Address: CUENCA, ECUADOR

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Allan Combs on Collective Consciousness Yale, June 2019 Society for Consciousness Studies Conference

Informal talk on intersubjectivity and collective consciousness.

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31:39

EVOLUTIONARY FUTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

An optimistic speculation on the future evolution of consciousness, presented at the Spring Integ... more

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Papers by Allan Combs

OPTIMISTIC FUTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Routledge handbook for creative futures, 2022

The future of human consciousness is indefinite in these troubled times. Nevertheless, in the big... more The future of human consciousness is indefinite in these troubled times. Nevertheless, in the big picture of human nature seen over time there seems to be an evolutionary urge toward increasing intelligence and a broadening awareness of our place in the cosmos. This urge is shown to be consistent with a larger picture of the evolution of the cosmos in which we live, and is supported by modern understanding of the physical nature of reality itself. Consistent with this, the essay explores modern ideas of human growth and transformation, including recommendations of how best to take advantage of these in our own individual lives.

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Remembering David Loye

Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies

Systems theorist, consciousness researcher, and neuropsychologist Allan Leslie Combs presents a b... more

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Inner and Outer Realities Jean Gebser in a Cultural/Historical Perspective

Integrative Explorations

Commentaries on "Darwin’s Lost Theory: Bridge to a Better World

Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies

Evolutionary systems theorist David Loye wrote many pioneering and engaging books throughout his ... more Evolutionary systems theorist David Loye wrote many pioneering and engaging books throughout his lifetime; one of the best-known is Darwin’s Lost Theory: Bridge to a Better World (2007), a book that explores and overturns the longstanding notions of distinct Darwinism based upon a ‘survival of the fittest’ human mentality. Instead, Loye discovered and sought to bring to light Darwin’s long-ignored insights and a complete theory into the evolution of human morality as guided by moral action and love. In this article, colleagues of David Loye comment on this important book.

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Changing Visions

The four authors of this book recognize that no one on the common human journey to the 21st centu... more The four authors of this book recognize that no one on the common human journey to the 21st century can pick the best route without consulting a map―that is to say, an interconnected set of understandings about what in a given situation is important, what demands action and attention, and what does not. The problem, they contend, is that the picture of the world we each carry in our mind may not be a true mapping of the reality that surrounds us. This picture, the cognitive map, could always be sharper. The authors prompt us to become more conscious of our own cognitive map, and explain how it can be adapted to the exigencies of our changing world so that it can be better-used to guide our steps toward the 21st century. We all carry a picture of the world in our mind, but is that map an assuredly true layout of the reality that surrounds us? If not, how can we use it to guide our steps toward the 21st century and beyond without creating shocks and surprises that impair our well-bein...

Creativity, Consciousness, and the Direction for Human Development

… a fully human …, 2004

States of Consciousness and Self-Organization

This multitude of ideas, existing absolutely, yet clinging together, and weaving an endless carpe... more This multitude of ideas, existing absolutely, yet clinging together, and weaving an endless carpet of themselves, …like dominoes in ceaseless change, or the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope-whence do they get their fantastic laws of clinging, and why do they cling in just the shapes they do? William James (1890) Principles of Psychology, p.3 This is the question that has been central to my professional life. How do these ideas, by which James meant all the elements of conscious experience, cling together to form the many states and structures of consciousness that characterize the onflow of our experiential lives? I have approached this question chiefly through nonlinear dynamics, and more specifically through chaos theory. Nonlinear Dynamics We live in a nonlinear universe, central to and even defining life. What this means in plain English is that nothing turns out exactly as one might expect based on projections from the past. This is true in physics and astronomy, but even more true in the realms of biological systems and the mind. Galileo's illustrative demonstrations of the linear behavior of falling bodies, involving feathers, cannon balls, and the Tower of Pisa, were in truth probably thought experiments (Wootton, 2013). The point, however, was to show that objects of different mass all fall without variation at

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The radiance of being: Understanding the grand integral vision: Living the integral life

BOOK: With the possible exception of the rise of the great Idealist movements two centuries ago, ... more BOOK: With the possible exception of the rise of the great Idealist movements two centuries ago, today is the most gripping period of research in consciousness that we have ever seen. For the first time in history we have access to almost all accumulated information about human consciousness and its potential. Zen Buddhism, shamanism, body/mind disciplines, the great contemplative traditions, mysticism, and many more have given us an extraordinary map of human consciousness based on direct meditative experience, right up to contemporary marvels of scientific research, giving the enquiring mind an all-inclusive model of human consciousness and its unfolding.

A Fractal Topology of Transcendent Experience

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 2020

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Growth and Happiness in the Human Personality Rien Havens California Institute for Integral Studies

This paper explores stages and styles of meaning making in a population at Kegan’s (1982) develop... more This paper explores stages and styles of meaning making in a population at Kegan’s (1982) developmental levels 3 through 5. It is a qualitative study of the relationship between adult personality development and how individuals speak about meaning and wellbeing in their lives. Nineteen participants ranging widely in age and socio-economic class were selected informally through connections with the researchers, and snowball sampling. They were chosen from an original group of 50, based on informal interviews suggesting that they had achieved Kegan’s developmental levels of “Socialized Mind” (stage 3), or especially “Self-Authoring Mind” (stage 4) or “Self-Transforming Mind” (stage 5). The subject-object interview (Lahey et al., 1988) was chosen for the study because it is a powerful instrument for examining adult developmental complexity in the context of a flexible variety of topics, in our case especially how the participants describe experiences of meaning making around the topic ...

format_quoteHigher developmental stages correlated with altruistic behaviors and increased wellbeing, suggesting deep connections between personal growth and social values.format_quote

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Growth and Happiness in the Human Personality

This paper explores stages and styles of meaning making in a population at Kegan's (1982) develop... more This paper explores stages and styles of meaning making in a population at Kegan's (1982) developmental levels 3 through 5. It is a qualitative study of the relationship between adult personality development and how individuals speak about meaning and wellbeing in their lives. Nineteen participants ranging widely in age and socioeconomic class were selected informally through connections with the researchers, and snowball sampling. They were chosen from an original group of 50, based on informal interviews suggesting that they had achieved Kegan's developmental levels of "Socialized Mind" (stage 3), or especially "Self-Authoring Mind" (stage 4) or "Self-Transforming Mind" (stage 5). The subject-object interview (Lahey et al., 1988) was chosen for the study because it is a powerful instrument for examining adult developmental complexity in the context of a flexible variety of topics, in our case especially how the participants describe experiences of meaning making around the topic of wellbeing. In this investigation it was found that people experience wellbeing differently as meaning-making structures shift from concrete to more flexible and expansive developmental organizations. Here wellbeing was examined in exploratory interviews, allowing participants to talk openly. The study was able to capture and organize ways experiences of wellbeing shift in conscious across these three developmental levels. The participants articulated conscious links between experiences of wellbeing and experiences of more complex developmental stages, and many of the participants at higher developmental stages described a connection between altruistic thoughts and behaviors, and the highest levels of wellbeing.

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Jung and the evolution of consciousness

Psychological Perspectives, 1996

Spiritual growth and the evolution of consciousness: Complexity, evolution, and the farther reaches of human nature

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 1999

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Walter Freeman III and the Chaotic Nature of Dreams

Nonlinear dynamics, psychology, and life sciences, Oct 1, 2017

The contributions and life of Walter Freeman III are celebrated through an understanding of the n... more The contributions and life of Walter Freeman III are celebrated through an understanding of the neurodynamics of the dreaming brain. Beginning with a brief review of the universal dynamics of self-organizing systems, this paper turns to an exploration of dreaming through the application of concepts from chaos theory to brain activity during REM-state dreaming. Recent studies of the electrophysiology of the brain during REM state dreaming are reviewed, such as the active inhibition of sensory stimulation and, especially in REM sleep, alterations in the brain's dominant neuromodulatory systems, bombardment of the visual cortex with bursts of PGO activity, increased limbic system activity, and a reduction of activity in the brain's prefrontal regions. The paper briefly examines these findings in terms of the experience of dreaming itself as revealed by dream reports. The results suggest a reconciliation of brain-based and content-based attempts to understand the nature of dream...

format_quoteBrain scans reveal significant emotional arousal during REM sleep, with reduced logic and memory, highlighting unique brain processing in dreaming.format_quote

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Process, Structure, and Form: An Evolutionary Transpersonal Psychology of Consciousness

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

tates of consciousness believed to be sacred, and drugs to induce them have been remarkably wides... more tates of consciousness believed to be sacred, and drugs to induce them have been remarkably widespread throughout human history De Ropp, 1987). Historical examples include Hinduism's soma, the Zoroastrian haoma, the Australian Aboriginals' Pituri, Zen's tea, the kykeon of the Greek Eleusinian mysteries (Smith, 1964), and the wine of Dionysis Eleutherios (Dionysis the Liberator) (Marrero, 2003). Contemporary examples include the native American peyote, the Rastafarian ganja (marijuana), and the South American shamans' ayahuasca (Harner, 1973; Walsh, 1990). Clearly there has been wide spread agreement across centuries and cultures that psychedelics are capable of inducing genuine religious experiences

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Seeing into the sun: True intelligence

World futures, 1997

ABSTRACT Intelligence is explored from the perspective of an ecological understanding of mind and... more ABSTRACT Intelligence is explored from the perspective of an ecological understanding of mind and consciousness. Consciousness itself is seen in terms of a hierarchical organization ofstates of mind, states of consciousness, and structures of consciousness. In this framework, intelligence is viewed as the product both of the constructive building up of powerful and flexible schemata, and of the clearing away of impediments to the expression of a more spontaneous natural creative intelligence.

Daddy, Why are People so Complex?

World Futures, 2006

ABSTRACT The implications of Warren McCulloch&#39;s 1945 concept of heterarchy are analyzed i... more ABSTRACT The implications of Warren McCulloch&#39;s 1945 concept of heterarchy are analyzed in terms of human value and motivational systems. The results demonstrate the near-impossibility of predicting behavior on the basis of any hierarchical scheme, or even which among a set of hierarchical schemes will be selected as the basis of a behavioral choice. Thus, for example, people regularly say one thing and do another.

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Reviewed by

psychology Since the appearance of Abraham Maslow’s needs hierarchy in the 1950s, devel-opmental ... more psychology Since the appearance of Abraham Maslow’s needs hierarchy in the 1950s, devel-opmental theories have played an important role in understanding the forms and directions of human growth and development. The applications of such theories range from management strategies to psychotherapy but also play an important role in understanding transformation processes in education. Spiral Dynamics,1 (Beck & Cowen, 1996) a developmental model of value structures, is nearly as popular today as Maslow’s model was in the 1970s. Curiously, it is based almost entirely on the work of Clare Graves, an obscure academic psychologist who did most of his research from the 1950s through the 1970s. It is hoped that this review, and The Never Ending Quest itself, will shed light on these all but forgotten origins. The book under review here was compiled from Clare Graves’s unpublished manuscript, with reconstructions of missing chapters drawn from his papers and audiotapes. It recounts the fascinati...

All of The Myriad Worlds: Life in the Akashic Plenum

World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution, 2006

This article explores some experiential implications of Laszlo’s Akashic field hypothesis as well... more This article explores some experiential implications of Laszlo’s Akashic field hypothesis as well as similar information-rich field models such as those suggested by Bohm and Sheldrake. It examines the implications of such models for both ordinary and anomalous human experience, and proposes the idea that these models allow for the possibility of alternative experiential worlds as real as ordinary “material” reality. Such alternative realities are posited by many, if not all, major mythic and religious systems, and are said to be directly experienced in certain contemplative and shamanic traditions as well as during postmortem and near-death experiences. We note that information-rich holographic fields may be able to store concentrated non-overlapping quantities of information that can be selectively activated by distinct eliciting stimuli. Individual human consciousness itself might constitute just such a stimulus, thus accounting for the individual and cultural variations on commonly shared motifs in shamanic, near death, and other experiences of alternative realities.

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Consciousness Studies – An Overview

This essay is a survey of the field of consciousness studies, its history, scope, and a little ab... more This essay is a survey of the field of consciousness studies, its history, scope, and a little about its future. It’s principally focus is on Western thinking about consciousness beginning in classical times and continuing down to the present. It highlights and briefly describes major streams of thought including ideas from ancient Greece, German Idealism, British Empiricism, 20 century European phenomenology, and important contemporary areas of research and scholarship. These include American pragmatism, developmental psychology, transpersonalism, analytic philosophy, computationalism, neural networks, and physics. The essay also briefly explores possible future trends in the study of consciousness.

format_quoteReifying consciousness creates confusion by treating it as a solid entity rather than a complex experiential phenomenon.format_quote

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