Spiritual Threshold

Ariel Garten - Redefining Consciousness

2012-01-27T20:10:00.000-08:00

Ariel Garten discusses the meshing of brainwaves, computers, and games, explaining how they might be used to better "know thyself." One interesting idea is the use of gaming to help children with attention deficit disorder - a game that is controlled based on the brainwaves of the player, giving awards for keeping focused. The video shows a game for the iPad that is controlled with a brainwave reader. It's interesting to see other potential games like this, as the only other game I can think of that came close to this was the Journey to Wild Divine.

Lucid dreaming can be used as a tool for learning

2012-01-06T19:22:00.000-08:00

Recent research from Yale University suggests that lucid dreaming can be used as a tool for dreaming.

I've had two or three lucid dreams myself, but it is not something I can easily have happen on demand. When it has happened, learning something is not the first thing on my mind, but enjoying the experience is. It's an amazing feeling to have control over a dream but to also have experience the sense of touch as well.

The brain featured in Men's Health magazine

2011-12-10T08:03:00.001-08:00

The December 2011 issue of Men's Health magazine has a relatively large section dedicated to the brain and emotions. One article in particular goes into a concept that describes being the witness, not resisting what emotions come up, letting it be okay, and letting the emotions run their course. Keep an eye out for it.

Henry Grayson: Change in an Instant

2011-11-30T17:47:00.001-08:00

Tami Simon interviews Dr. Henry Grayson about the role of thoughts in relationships, but also goes into a bit on the different brain waves we experience as we grow up and even goes into a bit on quantum mechanics. Take a listen to Change in an Instant from Sounds True.

Surrender and action

2011-10-30T19:19:00.000-07:00

Recently I was wondering when I needed to surrender and let the universe take me where it will and when I needed to make a move. It seems like a very fine line. One can not move when it is needed and thus miss an opportunity or can move too much and sabotage what one is trying to accomplish.

It's still a riddle for me, but shortly after pondering this, the following idea came to me: It first starts with desiring something. That action places me into a school, where the universe is the professor. The universe gives the lessons and assignments to help accomplish this task - it could only be a few or many before achieving my desire. It is then up to me to do those assignments.

Of course, it still brings up the question as to when being still may be the assignment. It's not like there's always immediate feedback to know if you are heading in the right direction or not.

A Smartphone Brain Scanner

2011-09-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

Milab at the Technical University of Denmark used a Nokia N900 and an Emotiv EEG headset to have data from a brain processed and displayed on the phone. The raw data can be passed along to a storage device or computer for further processing. A brief synopsis can be found at the Milab site and a brief article can be found at Singularity Hub.

It would be interesting to have this record what happens during meditation, especially with something like Holosync that leads you through the different brain wave stages. Of course, the program is not located on the Android Market and probably not on Apple's App Store.

There is No Enemy

2011-08-22T21:18:00.000-07:00

From Buddhist Geeks: Ken McLeod presents "There is No Enemy". He talks about "moving beyond ‘us vs. them,’ embracing the mystery of the human condition, and changing the world. Ken speaks about the futility of fighting our lives, explores what it means to make an something an enemy, and how to realize that there is no enemy."

I especially like his quote: "Obstacles in your path should not be regarded as obstacles. They are simply features of the landscape which have to be negotiated." It makes me think of the concept known as "the Witness" as well as "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle.

Don't Take Consciousness for Granted

2011-07-08T19:22:00.000-07:00

From TED: "After a catastrophic car accident that left him in a coma, Simon Lewis found ways to recover -- physically and mentally -- beyond all expectations. At the INK Conference he tells how this remarkable story led him to concern over all threats to consciousness, and how to overcome them."

A Reflection on Life and Lucid Dreaming

2011-07-04T09:07:00.001-07:00

In many cases, a dream tries to reflect reality. However, for whatever reason, there are usually elements in the dream that are out of place. The conscious mind can notice these out of place elements, but generally only if there is enough awareness to catch the tuggings of the conscious mind. Usually we are so buried in the dream that we don't notice those oddities, accepting them as they are, until after we wake up - if we even remember the dream at all.

If you have enough awareness to hear those tuggings of the conscious mind, your conscious mind can rise up to where you realize that you are in a dream. Thus begins a lucid dream, where you can just watch or start to take control of your dream. Sometimes the conscious mind can rise up too much to where you begin to wake up.

One analogy that has been used about life is that it is a dream. How our perception of life is actually a dream and that if we wake up, we can be enlightened, in the world but not of it, etc. And how does that waking up happen? Awareness. And how can awareness happen? Meditation.

In the waking world, I see that the ego, shadow self, or whatever you want to call it, acts just like that part of the brain that gives us dreams. Then there is the higher consciousness, or super consciousness, that tries to tell us that we are dreaming. How well we hear it depends on our level of awareness.

I recently had an experience that brought me much pain in the past. This time, however, I could see that it was the ego making noise, trying to protect me. Despite noticing this, it still produced stress, as I had no idea what to do about it. I could clear my mind, but not too much later it would come back. It's like not being knocked over by an ocean wave, but not too much later the next wave comes along.

How to describe what happened next is difficult. I guess I could say that I listened closer to what the ego was saying. It was saying something, though, that suggests that I made a conscious decision. It was then when I saw it for what it was, as I had not made that conscious decision at all and was (and still am) trying to figure things out enough to come to a decision.

Now I am at a point of realization that if I make a particular decision, the voice of that ego will come back. I'm not sure what I would do, but am trying to not let that influence my decision. But I do have it in the back of my mind, trying to figure out how to bring peace to that part of me, as no matter what decision I make, it is likely to come back sooner or later.

What Happens in the Brain During an Orgasm

2011-05-16T21:23:00.000-07:00

New Scientist has an article on how an orgasm affects the brain and the experience of the female reporter being hooked up to an fMRI scanner as she brought herself to orgasm as well as when she imagined what would be happening as she brought herself pleasure.

The article also includes the image of what was going on in the reporter's brain as she experienced her orgasm. It also briefly mentions a difference found in another study due to the orgasm being brought on by a partner. I found it particularly interesting that using the imagination activated the same parts of a brain (though to a lesser extent) as the actual act itself.

Meditation Reduces Pain

2011-04-07T19:12:00.000-07:00

A study by Wake Forest University School of Medicine finds that meditation reduces pain by 40 percent and reduced pain more than pain-relieving drugs.

Of course trying to meditate while in pain can be challenging.

Study Supports the Power of Positive Thinking

2011-03-09T19:08:00.000-08:00

While the Law of Attraction is not mentioned, it did pop into my mind. Men's Health gives a report on a study where positive thinking could protect you from a cold.

Meditation in a High-Security Prison

2011-02-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

NPR tells the story of the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility and their Vipassana meditation program. One of the results of this program: "...a 20 percent reduction in disciplinary action."

Spiritual Bypassing

2010-12-30T19:53:00.000-08:00

Reality Sandwich has a snippet on Spiritual Bypassing, from the book Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters. It discusses the tendency of those that follow a spiritual path to ignore or repress those difficult emotions that we view as negative.

I see this essentially as the issue of denying our shadow self. It only makes witnessing and feeling these emotions (or even thoughts) that much more important.

The Effects of Digital Music on the Brain

2010-12-21T20:21:00.000-08:00

Men's Health has a short article on the brain's reaction to digital music, including a link to a video from Florida Atlantic University showing the differences in a brain scan between a piece of music played by a human and the same piece by a computer.

It's interesting that the brain reacts differently between the two; I would not have expected. I also enjoy the poke made at auto-tuning and vocoders, but then I think most good music died out in the 90s.

The Brain, Thermodynamics, and Entropy

2010-12-01T20:15:00.000-08:00

Bill Harris posts about ah-ha moments, how one moment can affect people differently, thermodynamics, and entropy. It's the first part of a series that I am sure that will go more into open systems (which this post touches upon) and how it relates to the brain, meditation, and Holosync.

Wandering Minds Are Unhappy Minds

2010-11-11T21:06:00.000-08:00

According to a study, people are thinking of being somewhere else or doing something else other than what they are doing half of the time and that this mind-wandering makes them unhappy.

Apparently an iPhone application would randomly ask people at different times what they were doing and if they were thinking about their activity or something else that was pleasant, neutral, or negative. The application is available at http://www.trackyourhappiness.org. People were found to be happiest when having sex, exercising, or having a conversation. They were least happy while using a computer, resting, or working.

It's interesting to note that those activities where people were happiest were those that require or bring about presence (or being in the present). Sex and exercise get you out of your mind and into the body. A conversation requires you to listen to someone else. Thankfully, we have a practice that helps us cultivate presence in our life - meditation.

Contemplative Neuroscientists Belive Meditation Can Change Your Brain

2010-10-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

Before reading the CNN Article - Can meditation change your brain? Contemplative neuroscientists believe it can, I had never heard of contemplative neuroscientists, which basically deals with the brain science of meditation. The article touches a bit on this as well as a bit of history in meditation research as well as what is going on today with studies, the funding for that research, as well as some criticisms about that research.

It was a Dark and Stormy Morning...

2010-10-04T22:08:00.000-07:00

This post is about a personal experience from this morning that was so intense and interesting enough that I thought I would share it. I woke up around 3 a.m. this morning, feeling a bit warm. It was then that I noticed the sound of the storm, though from my waking senses it had sounded like a bad remake of the thunder sound. I was close to an hour later when the thunder and lightning intensified, with the thunder so loud that I thought my house would explode at any minute, as it was directly overhead. As for the lightning, it was bright enough to still see it's flashes even though my eyes were closed. Finally, in the 4 o'clock hour, I started to fall asleep. That's when the real weirdness started.

The following is disjointed writing, as I wrote it this morning before taking off to work to make sure I would remember it for this evening. I'm good enough to hold the dream memories in my head for quite a while, sometimes forgetting about the dream until the middle of the day. Anyway, here we go:

Lucid dream - I woke up, but I was not in my room, but in a hotel room instead. I look out the window and see that I am the first floor of a hotel, as I look out directly on to a street and sidewalk. The sky was a brilliant orange and purple. There were a number of billboards, including one with an ad for a radio station, but not one in the waking world. I could see cars driving, even on a distant road that was curving around a hill. It may have been sunset as opposed to sunrise.

Another lucid dream, continuation of the dream above, or maybe this part came first - woke up to a radio. Saw two clocks as opposed to just my one. What looked like a small clock turned into or turned out to be a boombox. Tried to find a local radio station on the radio (after trying to remember the station number) and think I found it, but am not sure, as I did not recognize the song on the radio or the artist (but then, that station has been playing music I do not recognize lately).

After this (I slipped out of the dream) I seemed to focus on going back to look at those billboards from the first dream. Not sure if this focus was from within the other dream or from the waking world. I was able to do it easily. Also saw more of a cityscape, but it did not match the city I live in, even though I saw a billboard with an ad that mentioned the city. I would've likened it to more like Seattle, based on some of the structures I saw, but it probably didn't match that city.

Another dream in a hotel, down in the lobby, an ex-coworker was working the bellhop desk. Then I was in the elevator, trying to remember my floor, then remembering it was the 12th floor, and selecting that.

In one of these dreams, where I realize it was a dream, I am still in the dream, yet hear the AC from the waking world.

Later, I had a more normal dream that looked like a sitcom. Don't remember much except an excited discussion, something about knife throwing and a competition, then a group of big biker looking like guys coming in and starting to sing acapella.

I seem to remember trying to see my hands in front of the clock shades from a window, but am not sure if it was in the dream or waking world. I tend to think the dream world, as there was a bit too much light for that time in the morning.

These dreams went by pretty quickly. Ten minutes or so would pass, I wake up, go back into sleep, and dream again. The combination in the number of dreams, as well as the lucidness of them (which I have had before, but rarely), and the fact that a number of these were about waking up (and I've had those dreams before, including dreaming about waking up from a dream), not knowing what was real and what was a dream, made me feel a bit crazy. My brain definitely felt a bit off when I woke up this morning.

Meditation and Other Related Practices for Mental Illness

2010-09-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

The National Alliance on Mental Illness Hearts & Minds initiative is using meditation, yoga, and other "mindful" practices for mental illnesses such as depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. An article in Medical News Today discusses some information about the program.

Awareness, Consciousness, and Technology

2010-07-25T15:26:00.000-07:00

Technology can make us unaware of what we are doing, yet at the same time can potentially lead us to be more conscious. Sounds True: Insights at the Edge looks at the interaction of things such as cell phones, social media, awareness, consciousness, and presence.

Meditation reduces the emotional impact of pain

2010-06-02T20:53:00.000-07:00

An article from Physorg.com talks about a study that says that meditation reduces the emotional impact of pain. I didn't find this article fully clear, as while it talks about the emotional reaction to pain, there are parts where they seem to be talking more about the physical sensation of pain.

While the article mentions that meditation brings about a "present-focused" brain, how much of this dealing with pain better might be coming about from not resisting and not judging it?

The Body-Mind Connection

2010-05-29T08:32:00.000-07:00

I usually hear talk of a mind-body connection, where stress, negative emotions, etc. affect the health of the body. A recent experience, however, makes me think the reverse can be true as well.

My emotional and energetic state was low since late March. I had some apathy, sadness, and a general lack of enthusiasm. I felt like I had reached a dead end. While there may have been things to look forward to in life, they did not excite me.

For a while, maybe since sometime in April, I had some earwax buildup that was not coming out, no matter how I treated it. This was in my left ear - I never really noticed any problem in my right ear. This week my ear started to ache. It went away after I had taken some aspirin to get rid of a headache, but now the earwax buildup was so bad that my hearing was greatly reduced. I tried a few more applications of earwax removal liquid you can purchase at the store, but it made no difference. So I made an appointment with the doctor.

Thankfully, they were able to remove the earwax without much difficulty. My right ear also had a bad buildup, though nowhere as bad as the left ear. It was amazing how much better my hearing was after that.

Not too long after my ears had been cleared out, I could feel an increase in my energy and mood. It's been a couple of days since then and I am still feeling good. Maybe it was just the removal of the earwax. Maybe it was getting more sound into the ear. Either way, it looks like a healing of my body also healed my mind.

The ABCs of Letting Go of Attachment

2010-05-11T21:31:00.000-07:00

This evening I had a moment that passed by so quickly that I cannot remember all of the details of it. My mind interpreted an emotion as something negative and unwanted. But a moment of awareness bubbled up and I reminded myself: "It is okay to feel this way. Experience it. It will pass." It was only a small step and I realize that I have further to go, but it was very encouraging.

Zen Habits posted an article entitled Letting Go of Attachment, from A to Zen, bring short tips from A to Z on experiencing without attachment, letting go of attachment to people, letting go of attachment to the past, letting go of attachment to outcomes, and letting go of attachment to feelings. I've printed it out so that I might remember to read it when I am forgetting to let go.

The Secret to Making Life Decisions With Too Many Options

2010-04-07T18:16:00.000-07:00

A nice article from Zen Habits looks at the downfalls of relying solely on left-brained thinking for making life decisions.