Can BDSM be good for your mind?

The practice of BDSM can alter your consciousness

If you have been to a public bdsm scene you will often notice how a couple will be engaged in intense play. They will often not notice what is going on around them. When they are finished, they are often in a stupor.

In This Kind of Sex Can Create an Altered Mental State 

people in the BDSM community often talk about being transported into a state of flow: “the idea that the rest of the world drops away and someone is completely focused on what they’re doing,” says study author Brad Sagarin, professor in the department of psychology at Northern Illinois University.

 

In BDSM a dominant will often get the full attention of his submissive

in Joe Magliano Ph.D. ‘s  The Surprising Psychology of BDSM ,

[a Magliano’s study he] revealed that both bottoms and tops entered altered states of consciousness, but they entered different altered states. Bottoms entered an altered state called “transient hypofrontality” (Dietrich, 2003), which is associated with reductions in pain, feelings of floating, feelings of peacefulness, feelings of living in the here and now and time distortions. Tops, in contrast, entered the altered state known as “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991), which is associated with focused attention, a loss of self-consciousness and optimal performance of a task. We believe that these pleasurable altered states of consciousness might be one of the motivations that people have for engaging in BDSM activities.

Dietrich proposed the transient hypofrontality hypothesis

transient hypofrontality is the unifying feature of all altered states …

 

in Kate F. Hays Ph.D. ‘s The Transient Hypofrontality Edge

under certain conditions, the focused thinking part of our brain gets a rest…which allows other parts and functions of our brain to become more predominant…[by entering into a ] state such as experiences of timelessness, living in the here and now, reduced awareness of one’s surroundings, peacefulness (being less analytical), and floating (diminished working memory and attentional capacities),

 

Adapting  MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI  ‘s theory of “flow” , when the dominant goes into intense concentration (dominating his sub) he loses his self, time gets distorted and nothing else matters

 

A top must concentrate on what she is doing to her bottom

In MASTERMARC ‘s Topspace – Go with the Flow

Tops achieve flow through mental focus, particularly when engaged in activities that
require intense concentration. Depending on your skill levels and what you’re into, that might include scenes such as knife play, needle play and advanced bondage, or it could be the meditative rhythm of whipping, flogging or spanking, juxtaposed with the concentration required to do so safely.

 

In  Yasmin Tayag ‘s BDSM Research Shows Couples Should Hurt, Not Run, Together

Scientists flummoxed by the appeal of leather and chains have long theorized that BDSM …draws people in by providing access to an altered psychological state…

[flow is ] the lucid, completely absorptive state that people enter when they feel like they’re performing their best during certain types of activities..

BDSM participants enjoy the experience of getting away from their day-to-day concerns and attending to things that really matter to them

BDSM can also increase sexual arousal

Additional results suggest that BDSM activities were associated with reductions in psychological stress and negative affect, and increases in sexual arousal…participants were less psychologically stressed, less negative, and hornier.