Peak Performance

In Stealing Fire, altered states are broken down into three categories:

• Mystical states: Induced by practices such as meditation.
• Flow states: Often triggered by physical activities and movement.
• Psychedelic states: Pharmacologically primed or induced.

"In altered states, people tend to report four core experiences: feelings of selflessness, timelessness, effortlessness, and richness (STER). In part, we can identify these attributes thanks to recent advances in the fields surrounding the study of altered states—psychology, technology, neurobiology, and pharmacology."

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