New Color Movies of Brain Activity During Transcendence 11-02
Dr. Alarik Arenander, Director of the Institute’s Brain Research Institute (BRI),
has spent the last two weeks analyzing brain imaging data to create the
first-ever 3-D, color movies of changing electromagnetic fields in the brains of
subjects experiencing “transcendental consciousness”—an experience leading to
what many ancient traditions call “enlightenment.”
Dr. Arenander worked with scientists at the Henry Ford Hospital Neuromagnetism
Lab in Detroit, using scientific equipment available in only seven other
advanced brain research centers in the United States. Dr. Arenander acquired
this remarkable data during a visit to the Scripps Research Institute in La
Jolla, under the sponsorship of the company that manufactures these neuroimaging
machines.
The 3-D brain movies being created at the BRI from Dr. Arenander’s data will
display the moment-by-moment reconfiguration in the brain of billions of
electromagnetic signals during the shift from normal perceptual activity to the
experience of transcendental consciousness, the unified field of consciousness.
The movies will provide an invaluable research tool to study in detail this
transformation in the brain and its effects on human potential.
Dr. Arenander analyzed data from magnetoencephalography (MEG) brain scans of
subjects who were experiencing periods of spontaneous breath quiescence during
their practice of the Transcendental Meditation® technique. Breath quiescence,
or breath suspension, is an objective physiological measure that has been
scientifically correlated with subjective experiences of “transcendental
consciousness” or “unbounded awareness.”
“Transcendental experience has been considered mystical by modern science,
something beyond rational comprehension,” says Dr. Arenander. “But now we have
the technology to help us begin to systematically access and understand this
level of human experience—an experience that could be vital in creating a
strategy to develop the full potential of the human brain physiology.”
The first landmark research on the nature of transcendental consciousness was
published in Science 30 years ago by Dr. Robert Keith Wallace, who identified
physiological correlates of the experience and called it “a wakeful
hypometabolic state.” Since these first studies, Dr. Fred Travis at Maharishi
University of Management and other researchers have been examining autonomic and
cerebral changes during meditation. The BRI’s new color movies represent yet
another breakthrough in understanding the nature of brain functioning during the
experience of transcendental consciousness.
“This is exciting research,” says Dr. Arenander. “It clearly reveals a unique
style of holistic, global functioning in the brain. These findings will ignite
interest among neuroscientists around the world, boost participation in such
studies, and help facilitate an understanding of the link between science,
consciousness, and spirituality.
“This research is especially important given the current, fragmented context of
brain research associated with the study of consciousness and spirituality,” he
added. “Most research on spirituality has not located any holistic basis for
such experiences; instead, the research has contributed to an increasingly
fragmented viewpoint. A thorough scientific understanding of the nature of
consciousness will transform and enlighten the field of neuroscience itself—and
will provide dramatic evidence about the fundamental nature of human awareness
at the basis of all our thinking, feeling, and behavior.”