Mediative Brain States
 

http://comp.uark.edu/~dmorton/images/misc/spect1.gif
http://comp.uark.edu/~dmorton/images/misc/spect2.gif
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This is a SPECT brain scan of a Tibetan Monk during during deep meditation.

From the Institute for the Scientific Study of Meditation webpage:

<i>The figure below was obtained during an ongoing study of the neurophysiological correlates of meditation. Briefly, we have been studying highly experienced Tibetan Buddhist meditators using a brain imaging technology called single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). SPECT imaging allows us to image the brain and determine which areas are active by measuring blood flow. The more blood flow an area has, the more active it is. The image below shows the results from a baseline scan on the left (i.e. at rest) and during a "peak" of meditation shown on the right.

Two sets of images were taken, showing slightly different parts of the brain. The first image (above) shows that the front part of the brain, which is usually involved in focusing attention and concentration, is more active during meditation. This makes sense since meditation requires a high degree of concentration. The second image shows that there is decreased activity in the parietal lobe. This area of the brain is responsible for giving us a sense of our orientation in space and time. We hypothesized that blocking all sensory and cognitive input into this area during meditation results in the sense of no space and no time which is so often described in meditation. </i>


I'm pretty sure these are the same guys that were on Nightline about a week ago.

I'm really getting into that sort of thing. The other day someone published a study that found that depressed people showed the same increases in brain function whether they were given anti-depressant drugs or whether they were just given placebos.

Is it possible that the placebo patients improved <i>because they thought they would?</i> In other words... could their conscious beliefs change their unconscious brain activity?

This, too explains (to non-believers like myself) why prayer is positive for people. Studies showed that people who were being prayed for had higher than average recovery rates. Other studies were then done where the patient being prayed for was not *told* they were being prayed for. That set of patients only had average recovery rates.

It is chillingly simple: <i>believe that you will get well, and you improve your chances of getting well.</i>

meditation rocks.
nuff said.

meditation while listening to mp3s really whips the lama's ass! :)

doesn't that defeate the purpose? Need to block as much external stimuli as possible and concentrate no yourself, just let thought flow without interuption.

It's not so much *stimulus* that's to be blocked as *arousal*. Some regular or highly-structured stimuli actually have a calming, relaxing, quieting or regularizing effect, the opposite of arousal...such as a mother's heartbeat and breathing, or white noise. Music has been used for centuries to help induce altered stated of conciousness, including meditative states. A regular stimulus can serve to mask random distractions in the external environment.

My fav is the meditation that occurs naturally around mile 5 ....

http://www.krishna.org/images/Misc/cabh.jpg

Hare Krishna