What Is Healthy Awakening?

Help us create an extraordinary public conversation about the promises and risks of expanding human consciousness.

Can experiences that promise greater awareness, healing, and spiritual transformation also put our psychological health at risk? How can we distinguish genuine awakening from experiences that may produce confusion, dependency, psychological destabilization, or harm?

These questions have become increasingly urgent.

Meditation and mindfulness have moved into everyday life. Cannabis is widely available in many states, including Vermont. Public interest in psychedelics is expanding and spiritual practices promising personal transformation are reaching new audiences.

These developments offer genuine possibilities for healing, insight, creativity and human flourishing. But they also raise serious questions about brain health, psychological vulnerability, personal responsibility and the difference between extraordinary experiences and lasting human development.

We need more than enthusiasm on one side and fear on the other. We need trustworthy information, thoughtful disagreement and the ability to listen to one another.

That is why the nonprofit Center for Real Dialogue™ is developing What Is Healthy Awakening?, a one-day public conference and dialogue to be held in Vermont, with online participation planned for people elsewhere.

We are raising an initial $15,000 to help make this conference possible, with an expanded fundraising goal of $30,000.

A Different Kind of Conference

This will not be a conventional conference in which experts speak and audiences simply listen.

We are designing a participatory event that brings together science, psychology, contemplative wisdom, personal experience and genuine disagreement.

Our proposed program includes:

A panel of experts representing different perspectives on meditation and mindfulness, psychedelics, cannabis and religious or spiritual transformation. They will address both the benefits and risks of practices intended to expand consciousness.

A special conversation with neuroscientist and bestselling author Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD, whose remarkable recovery from a major stroke informed her books My Stroke of Insight and Whole Brain Living. We are planning a live or recorded conversation exploring the human brain, consciousness and healthy development. Final participation arrangements remain to be confirmed.

An introduction to the Skill of Real Dialogue™, teaching participants how to speak for themselves, listen mindfully and remain curious when encountering opposing views.

A live demonstration of Real Dialogue Facilitation™, in which two people holding meaningfully different positions on a controversial question engage in a guided conversation. The audience will help select the question.

An opportunity for participants to identify what they have learned, where important disagreements remain and what responsible public education about consciousness might require.

The conference will welcome the general public, including people involved in meditation, cannabis and psychedelic businesses, mental health, healthcare, education, religious and spiritual communities and public policy.

No specialized background will be required.

Why This Matters Now

As access to practices and substances that change consciousness expands, the need for informed public discussion becomes increasingly important.

How do we evaluate claims of transformation? What distinguishes psychological and spiritual development from temporary altered states? How can individuals and communities recognize potential harm without dismissing genuine benefits?

These are not questions that can be settled by slogans, promotional claims or polarization.

The Center for Real Dialogue believes that healthy conflict is essential to a healthy society. We need opportunities to explore what we know, what we do not know and where meaningful disagreement remains.

This conference is not simply about healthy awakening. It is an experiment in how a healthy, conscious community talks about awakening.

Who Is Organizing This Event?

The Center for Real Dialogue™ is a Vermont-based nonprofit founded by Polly Young-Eisendrath, PhD, an internationally recognized psychologist, Jungian psychoanalyst, mindfulness teacher and author of 19 books translated into more than 20 languages.

Dr. Young-Eisendrath developed Real Dialogue™ and Dialogue Therapy™ to help people engage differences and conflicts without falling into dehumanization, polarization or avoidance.

She will lead the conference with Peggy Dippen, MA, senior faculty member and Co-Director of Training at the Center for Real Dialogue. Together they will introduce the Skill of Real Dialogue and facilitate the live demonstration.

The Center's larger mission is to help people develop the emotional literacy, self-awareness and conversational skills needed to live and work with differences.

What Will Your Donation Support?

Our initial goal is $15,000. Our expanded goal is $30,000.

The initial funding will help us move from proposal to implementation by supporting the planning, coordination, speaker arrangements, venue and technical preparations and outreach needed to establish a viable event.

With additional funding toward $30,000, we hope to broaden public participation, strengthen hybrid access, support community outreach and make the conference more accessible to people who might otherwise be unable to attend.

We anticipate charging a reasonable admission fee to help offset conference costs. Donations will provide the additional support needed to organize the event and advance its public educational mission.

The conference is currently in the planning and fundraising stage. A Vermont venue and date have not yet been selected. We will share updates as arrangements and funding progress.

Our larger hope is that this conference will become the beginning of an ongoing series of public Real Dialogues about consciousness, psychological development and healthy awakening.

Please Help Us Make This Conversation Possible

Whether you are a practitioner, researcher, business owner, parent, educator, spiritual seeker or simply someone who cares about human well-being, this conversation concerns you.

A contribution of any size will help us move forward.

You can also help by sharing this campaign with friends, colleagues, organizations, and communities interested in consciousness, brain health, meditation, psychedelics, cannabis and responsible public education.

Please donate and share this campaign. Help us create a public conversation in which knowledge, experience, uncertainty, and disagreement can meet with curiosity and integrity.

Thank you for supporting the Center for Real Dialogue™ and helping us bring What Is Healthy Awakening? to life.

To see the full Proposal for the One Day Conference please go to this link -- What is Healthy Awakening?