Mapping Cloud Nine

Neuroscience, Flow, and the Upper Possibility Space of Human Experience

By: Steven Kotler

Narrated by: Steven Kotler

Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

What are the upper limits of human potential?

At the intersection of flow states, mystical experiences, peak performance, and psychedelics lies a mysterious space of possibility. In Mapping Cloud Nine, best-selling author and award-winning journalist Steven Kotler takes us on a heady thrill ride through the history of human potential - and how what we’ve learned so far might unlock even greater levels of creativity, performance, and meaning in our lives.

From Nietzsche to now - a tour of human consciousness

In this six-part audio program, Kotler bridges science and spirituality to explore how our understanding of peak experiences has evolved over time - from early inquiries into altered and mystical states; to the birth of positive psychology and research on high performers; to pioneering studies on meditation and near-death experiences; and into current explorations of psychedelics, flow states, and technological breakthroughs.

A brilliant synthesizer and gifted storyteller, Kotler paints a compelling portrait of our greatest human potential, inspiring us to leverage this growing body of research and step into new realms of possibility.

Highlights

• The evolutionary impulse for altered states of mind - psychedelics throughout time
• The neurobiology of flow states, mystical experiences, and hallucinations
• The spiritual path and the high-performance path - are they one and the same?
• Altered states lead to altered traits - the next wave of consciousness hacking
• Why bridging the gap between science and spirituality leads to even greater breakthroughs
• How you can leverage flow states for a more meaningful - and interesting - life

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2019 Steven Kotler (P)2019 Sounds True

Fantastic flow work!

I mean—Flow by Mihaly is considered the best introduction to Flow—but Mapping Cloud Nine is a fantastic update into the last twenty years of Flow research and a nice deep dive into where we are now and what we still need to find out. Life changing and paradigm shifting book!

I could not stop listening

With a powerful narration the author gives insight with amazing stories. Learning about the new scientific advances in spiritual understanding then into plant medicine , this book is amazing!

Amazing

Truly amazing. A must listen. It’s brilliant and really breaks down flow and how to get it. 🙏🙏

Good Book

Enjoyed this book except for a few areas, he seemed to over state a number of his claims. Other then that was truly better,than stealing fire.

mountaintop views

a masterful insight ful next edge great data and science - follow up to Stealing Fire. nice work.

LOVE! Incredibly exciting and informative book!

I just couldn’t stop listening!

I love how Kotler brings science, philosophy and spirituality together! Listen to this book if you seek more flow, spirituality, high performance in you life. Personally, I find that when I get more educated on a topic I can better understand it and thus commit to it!

You’ll be left with a greater understanding of your inner Self and he will even serve you flow triggers; both on an individual level, social level and cooperate level where he gives examples of how Google, Amazon, Meta, Patagonia have incorporated some of these ‘flow habits’ into their businesses!

I will certainly listen again and I highly recommend this to anyone on a spiritual path or high performance path, leadership path or creative path - so I guess anyone really.

Go get it!

i need to read many time

a ton of stuff going on here. fascinating. hopeful. amazing stuff! This is a book I'll need and want to read more than once.

Extremely educational!

I’m glad I listened to this book, and I learned a lot of very interesting things about the history of psychology and neuroscience research.

The real gems of the book are chapters 38-46, where you finally learn how to apply the information leading up to them to your own life should you chose.

I most definitely have to re-listen to this book multiple times because this amazing scientist/author has so much to teach us and he’s so excited about this information that he’s speaking so fast that if you’re not listening carefully, you’ll miss important examples. I’ll admit it did take me a while to get used to his pronunciation of the “H” at the beginning of words (or lack thereof—lol).

When it finished, I felt like the author was in the middle of something big and I was left feeling a sense of incompletion. If that makes sense.

Will totally listen again and recommend—and buy more of his books! Haha!

Steven unloads 6 hours of knowledge in what I suspect was an epic flow state…

Some of the knowledge was rehashing other work of Steven’s, but altogether I really enjoyed the content. Definitely true to its focus of mapping cloud 9, this work is required for the modern spiritualist who intends to elevate the ancient knowledge in a functional way.

Right?

Great content and subject. I like the way it was done. I got really distracted with the narrator saying "right" constantly.