17 Seconds

I watched an incredible interview on Gaiam TV the other day with Regina Merideth - you may remember her from Conscious Media Network.

Anyway, this one was with Jeff Fannin of the Center for Cognitive Enhancement. His group has unearthed some fascinating new research in brainmapping and neurofeedback. The gist of which is that it is now possible to see the frequency of our thoughts in real time. This opens up the possibility of actually being able to change the function of our brain. Through the quantitative EEG, researchers are able to actually see different colors of different frequencies in the brain. For instance, when a person is being a certain way - courageous, duplicitous, deceptive, etc, certain parts of the brain fire up. This can now be mapped in real time. We can actually see the effects of our thoughts on our brains!

So what does this mean? It means that there is a very real possibility that we can tune our brains and change certain things in our lives simply by learning to control our thought processes. It is their assertion that the brain is actually a tuning device for the energy field that we interact with. One of the most basic laws of physics is that like attracts like. In fact it takes just 17 seconds of thinking to start attracting energy that is similar. Just 17 seconds! 68 seconds puts us on a path of familiarity. We've talked about these mind loops here before. So we literally have 17 seconds to change a negative thought into a positive one if we don't want to start attracting negative energy, and just 68 seconds before our brains create a familiar neural pathway.

75% of our thoughts are negative. This is normal because we actually learn what we want by determining what we don't want. The amgydala (a small almond shape deep in the brain related to emotion) is designed to get us out of the way of danger. But if it over fires because we are constantly watching, reading, hearing, scary things - we become fearful. The media is designed to give us negative news because that is what we want - because it is familiar to us.

This may be a good way of bridging science and spirituality. By resonating at a higher frequency we may actually be able to evolve. This is what my book is about and I am so excited to come across this research. By understanding that our thoughts have different frequencies, we can choose the higher ones.

Remember, you have just 17 seconds to change your thought processes if it is negative. If you are mad, it is a good idea to just drop it. Don't replay it to your significant other, don't think about how angry you are, don't tell your friends about it. Just move on. Otherwise in 68 seconds that anger is familiar.

And we always go back to the familiar.

Music & the Brain

It seems that listening to music does more for our brains than just aesthetics. In fact, a research team from Stanford University showed that music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, memory, and making predictions. High school students that study music have higher grade point averages and develop faster physically. They also develop better listening skills. Children exposed to music before age seven have a greater increase in the size of the corpus callosum. These fibers are instrumental in joining the left and right hemispheres and may increase the processing of information between both sides of the brain. Actively taught students were found to have a greater cerebral cortex activation.

Listening to certain baroque-period music causes the heart beat and pulse rate to relax to the beat of the music and as the body becomes relaxed and alert, the mind is able to concentrate more easily. Mozart's music, with a 60 beats per minute beat pattern, activates the left and right side of the brain - this in turn maximizes learning and retention.

Music also affects all living things. Music such as the Blue Danube has shown to aid hens in laying more eggs. Wheat will grow faster when exposed to special ultrasonic and musical sounds. Plants grow well for almost every type of music except rock and acid rock, in fact they withered and died when exposed to those genres. In the 1970's teens would bring raw eggs to a rock concert and put them in front of the stage - by the end of the concert the eggs would be hard boiled by the music and could be eaten. Researchers showed that proteins in a liquid medium were coagulated when subjected to piercing high-pitched sounds.

Music is much more than a distraction. All the more reason to incorporate it into a life well-lived. 

Some fugue!

How does a young, 23-year-old girl, go out for a jog and end up, three weeks later, being pulled from the water by a Staten Island ferry Captain? And she just remembers going out for the jog. What in the world could have happened to make her mind decide to dump her identity, and go for a little walkabout? 

Dissociative Fugue, not to be confused with amnesia, is a rare, usually short-lived, complex neurological process whereby a person loses all personal identity, memories, and any other personal identifying characteristics of individuality. They often just take off, taking on whole new identities and jobs. They have been known to travel over many miles, countries, even continents. This condition is usually precipitated by something stressful, that is forgotten while in the fugue state, and often never remembered. It is felt the mind creates a defensive personality. 

So what happened to that young girl?

People in this state often show significant distress or impairment, yet she is seen on a security camera logging onto a computer, checking her e-mail, speaking with a male student of Pace University, where she was studying for her masters degree. She'd been all over the news, yet was standing there in shorts and sports bra, just as she was reported to have been wearing when she disappeared. This was weeks later. She said, when asked by the fellow student, that she was not the missing girl...

This type of fugue was made famous by Jason Bourne, of the Bourne Trilogy, written by Robert Ludlum. But is is most often found in war veterans that have experienced trauma. It is considered psychogenic because it involves psychological factors that impinge on the neurological bases of memory retrieval, formed in the hippocampus. The memory loss is reversible, as viewed by her complete surprise in the hospital when her friends and family seemed so excited to see her. It was unclear when, exactly, she retrieved her memory, but she recognized friends and family while there. This type of amnesia is usually undiagnosed until the person recalls their real identity. Until then they just wander about, completely capable of remembering how to do routine tasks, just nothing to do with who they are. What remains a mystery is how she was able to maneuver in a city, (New York), that is not easy when one is in total control. She had no money, wallet, cell-phone, ID, nothing. Yet she ate, slept, walked until the giant blister she had either pushed her to take off her shoes, or, even stranger, to enter the water from a pier, in the night, and swim for hours to a small reef with a lighthouse. It is then believed she spent the day on the rocks around the lighthouse, then entered the water again around 11:00 a.m. the following day. Can you imagine? Entering the water at night? Black, inky, dirty, freezing water, all alone?

When they found her she was face-down in the water, and only showed any sign of life when they lifted her out. She was a mile southwest from the southern tip of Manhattan. A mile from shore, three weeks after disappearing, wearing the shorts and sports bra she wore to go out for a jog! 

Some Last Thoughts

It's clear from some of your comments, that this is a subject people are thinking about. How about this: The mind is something that does not age. Those little old ladies you see walking with their walkers - are thinking the same way you are. At least, they are thinking the same way they always thought. The mind does not have a "little old lady" version of itself. It was the same as a child, as it is as a retiree. I don't know about you, but that came as a shock to me. As a young woman, I viewed aging as something that happened to every part of self. It is true of the brain, and all other bodily parts. But the mind stays the same.

Think about it. Do you "think" any different now then you did ten years ago? (I know you are probably wiser, and more mature, but I'm talking about the "voice" in your head - is it ten years older?)

So if the mind is an interaction of the brain and the spirit - is it our soul?  

Our Reptilian Overlord - Part 2 of 2

Many parts of the brain evolved after the "reptilian". And to keep it simple, I will just say that the "mind" is the result of the functioning of the brain. I believe that we are spiritual beings, therefore I am of the "Dualist" school of thought, i.e., the mind is the interaction of brain and spirit. 

I think of the mind as the "drama queen" of friends. You know the one. She often overreacts to information, dramatizes, and disses. She never lets go of a topic, even if it is hurtful. She talks, talks, talks, long after you wish she would just be quiet. (Especially when you are trying to go to sleep.) She can be repetitive and scary. She has some really terrifying stories to tell of what could happen to you. On the other hand, when she is feeling good about herself, she is a best friend. If you can let her know when she is out of line, she calms down, and does what you need her to do. But she's not easy to control.

So how does that relate to the "reptilian overlord"? 

When our senses detect something as dangerous, such as the loss of our retirement, or a desirable woman your husband notices, or that scary man in the alley, it sends signals to your brain that interacts with your friend, getting her all worked up. As she goes into full-on drama mode your body responds with appropriate hormonal activity. Now here is the catch, the brain doesn't know the difference between something made up, (imagined), and something that is actually happening. But that's another story. Suffice to say, when the more basic part of our brain is activated, we can respond in ways that our more reasonable parts are quite shocked at, mainly because our "dramatic" friend is egging us on. The trick is to know when she is right and you better listen, when she needs to calm down and be quiet, and when to run. 

Our Reptilian Overlord - Part 1 of 2

I have been re-immersed into the world of the mind. I studied "The Mind" many years ago, but have found so much new information, now I feel compelled to take another look. It's a fascinating subject.

Did you know most decisions have already been made about most things before the conscious part of your brain gets the message? Our, once-called reptilian brain, or ventral palladium, has already made the decision, before you have time to think about it.

Did you know that unconscious goals are often stronger than our conscious goals because we have no way of moderating stuff we are not conscious of ? Think about that. We have unconscious goals that are stronger than our conscious ones.

Did you know that we can be "primed" to react a certain way by a smell, or object? (And, no, by the way, the old story about the movie theater that flashed a subliminal message to buy popcorn and coke, never happened. The theatre operator admitted he lied to increase sales of coke and popcorn.) Nonetheless, test subjects that had a briefcase in their hands acted differently than those that didn't. They were more competitive and selfish. Could the Wall Street debacle have been different if all the bankers wore shorts and flip flops? 

All of these things have one thing in common - our most primitive part of our brains. It controls our breathing, body temperature, sexual behavior. It is instinctive and automatic. It has remained unchanged by evolution and it sits in the middle of our brains. It tells us when to flee, fight, and eat. It's motto is "might is right."

But how is it connected to our thoughts?