Detachment plateaus

The process of sensory and cognitive detachment can be broken down into 5 distinct levels of increasing intensity,

1. partial detachment - This can be described as feelings of surreality and general detachment from the external environment. It is often accompanied by a sense of mild to moderate energetic stimulation.
2. partial detachment from environment - As the detachment increases the environment starts to become physically further away in distance and increasingly disconnected from a persons sensory perception. Blurred vision sets in while anaesthetic like effects and tactile numbness begin to take place. At this point motor control, coordination and balance become suppressed in a way that is proportional to dosage. In terms of sound, hearing also seems to become muffled and distant.
3. total detachment from environment - Complete disconnection from the body. It is here where the tripper finds themselves undergoing an out of body experience as they enter the dissociative hole.
4. detachment from self - The fourth level of dissociation and detachment occurs during the point at which the brains neurons have become so disconnected that a persons sense of "I", mind and self ceases to exist, resulting in ego death.
5. detachment from awareness - The highest level of detachment occurs when the neurons within a persons brain have become so disconnected from each other that the tripper literally passes out into total unconsciousness. This consistently leaves extended gaps in a persons memory and large periods of amnesia which are generally impossible to recall once the experience is over.

See also

• Dissociatives - Subjective effects
• Psychedelics - Subjective effects
• Deliriants - Subjective effects