Books & Researches

NEW! Visit www.consciousness-quotient.com for detailed information about Consciousness Quotient!

My latest book: “Consciousness Experience. Studies and researches on states of consciousness” (may, 2010)

The book presents an up-to-date prezentation of all the major research and theories developed by scientists all over the world, along with religious and mystical perspectives, quantum physics and other non-orthodox points of view on the consciousness experience.

Two of my own researches are included:

- The EEG research on “laya yoga” meditation, a study developed in partnership with Romanian Neuroscience Society

- The electrographical (Kirilian photo method) research on altering the body energy field by mental yoga techniques, in partnership with Cornelia Guja, PhD,  from the Institute of Anthropology at the Romanian Academy of  Science.

The book also presents various other scientific researches on altered states of consciousness, and includes the latest perspectives on neuropsychology of consciousness.

Romanian website of the book available at www.experienta-constientizarii.ro

Consciousness Quotient-CQ Research and CQ Scale (2008)

See details at www.consciousness-quotient.com

This study was developed during my PhD research, between 2003-2008, at the Institute of Anthropology of the Romanian Academy of Science, under coordination of Cornelia Guja, PhD and professor Constantin Bălăceanu-Stolnici, PhD. 

The research was first presented at the Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference in Hong Kong (June 11th to 14th, 2009).

The development of the consciousness quotient is a totally new perspective in the field of consciousness research: my assumption was that the experience of being conscious is a quantifiable and measurable phenomenon, with factors and subfactors that can be identified and measured, and in the end all leading to a general consciousness quotient, which describes the human ability to acces inside and outside information.

I have defined the regular CQ as the level of consciousness that appears after 1/2- 1 hour after waking up naturally in the morning after a refreshing sleep, without being exposed after waking up to any stimulus such as coffee, music, TV or discussions.

The CQ is similar to the Intelligence Quotient (IQ). Both describe the ability of human being to process information: while intelligence is the speed of processing information, the consciousness (and in a general way awareness, lucidity) is the ability to access this information, leading finally to the subjective experience of being conscious and aware. My perspective toward the conscious experience is mainly a cognitive one, focused on the concept of information and information acccesing and processing during the conscious experience.

Image from the first public presentation of the CQ theory and CQ Scale, as a part of my PhD thesis (10th of dec, 2008). From left to right: Cristiana Glavce, Phd (head of the Anthropological Institute in Bucharest); Dumitru Constantin-Dulcan, PhD (neurologist); Acad. Constantin-Bălăceanu Stolnici, PhD (psychologist and neurologist); Cornelia Guja, PhD (anthropologist and author of the interfaces theory of human being) and myself.

Taking into consideration all the available models and researches in the field of anthropology and psychology, I have created a model of conscious experience, with measurable factors. So it was born the CQ Scale. The instrument was validated experimentally on a sample of 2474 persons from “premium” category (high education, high income). Alpha was very good (=.924), and also good results were obtained at the factorial analysis, and in the process of test-retest had very good results, which confirmed the validy and fidelity of the CQ Scale.

The results for the romanian population are presented below (percentiles, 100 is maximum):

Global Consciousness Quotient CQ=56
Physical CQ=60
Emotional CQ=57
Mental CQ=54
Social-Relational CQ=52
Self CQ (being conscious of your personal identity)= 59

The CQ theory and CQ Scale is under process of debating with my colleagues all over the world. I hope to be applied in many countries and in time to be refined and finalized, and after that to become an international validated tool. I will soon put here a post with a summary in english with CQ theory and CQ Scale.

“Multidimensional Consciousness” (2003, co-author)

Written with Ion Manzat, PD “Multidimensional Consciousness” is the first compendium in Romania that exhaustively presents the consciousness phenomenon. We have realized interesting connections with new discoveries in the field of quantum physics, anthropology, neuropsychology, transpersonal psychology. Summaries of all the major theories and researches on consciousness are presented (Tart, Chalmers, Wilber, Searle, Baars, Krick&Koch, Ornstein, Lilly, Grof, Hilgard, Dennett, Engler, Coan, Jackendorf, Forman, Flanagan, Stapp, Globus, Velmans, Lycan, Cohen, Amit, Lockwood, Penrose and others).

I have written 6 of the 10 chapters:
- Quantum Physics reveals multidimensional consciousness
- Consciousness Transformations: Expansion of human consiousness and psycho-spiritual development from western and eastern perspectives
- A Science of Consciousness: history of the consciousness research movement, multidisciplinary approaches, transpersonal and cognitive views
- Scientific experiments: summary of the state of the science in consciousness research
- Cosmic consciousness: toward a spiritual trans-psychology
- Methods and techniques for transforming and inducing states of consciousness

The book is still the reference work in Romania for presenting altogether all the theories and researches on consciousness.

“Psychology of Self-Actualization. A Journey Toward the Center of Being (2001, co-author)”

 

Cover Psihologia Sinelui

This volume was written by 10 psychologists, under coordination of  Ion Manzat, PhD. I have written chapter no. 6: Process of Self-Actualization. Experiemental Research. The material is a summary of my faculty graduation thesis, including  the results of the research on romanian population of the mature personality characteristics.
For this research I have adapted to romanian population the Scale Styles of Living Preferences, developed in 1983 by Gail Maul from Riverside City College and Terry Maul from San Bernadino Valley College. This inventory measures the characteristics of a fully functioning person, described by C. Rogers and A. Maslow

The results shows that the romanian sample obtained a level of self-actualizing of 68,7%, compared to the US sample, which scored 63,3%.