Exploring the Edge Realms of Consciousness: Liminal Zones, Psychic Science, and the Hidden Dimensions of the Mind

A diverse group of authors journey into the fringes of human consciousness, tackling psychic and paranormal phenomena, lucid dreaming, synchronistic encounters, and more. Collected from the online magazine Reality Sandwich, these essays explore regions of the mind often traversed by shamans, mystics, and visionary artists; adjacent and contiguous to our normal waking state, these realms may be encountered in dreams or out-of-body experiences, accessed through meditation or plant medicines, and marked by psychic phenomena and uncanny synchronicities. From demons encountered in sleep paralysis visions to psychic research conducted by the CIA, the seemingly disparate topics covered here congeal to form a larger picture of what these extraordinary states of consciousness might have to tell us about the nature of reality itself.

Daniel Pinchbeck is the editorial director of Reality Sandwich and cofounder of Evolver.net. He is the author of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism, among other works.

Ken Jordan is the publisher and executive producer of Reality Sandwich and Evolver.net and has written for Wired, Index, and The Paris Review. Pinchbeck and Jordan have coedited two other anthologies, Toward 2012 and What Comes After Money? Both live in New York City.