Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Here’s some food for the mind:

An EEG (Electroencephalogram) waves represent the synchronous firing of neurons, primarily in the cerebral cortex and are detected through electrodes placed on the scalp.

There are five main types of EEG waves: delta occur during deep sleep; theta during drowsiness; alpha when we relax or are awake with eyes closed; beta when we are alert, actively thinking or concentrating. Finally, gamma, the fastest brain waves occur during the moments when differing brain regions fire in harmony, such as moments of insight. 

Gamma waves occur when the elements of mental puzzle click together. To get some sense of how it feels, try this: What one word can change each of these into compound words: sauce, pine, crab?
OR imagine biting into a ripe juicy sweet peach. Suddenly your senses of sight, smell, taste, feel and sound mesh into a single experience. (From the book Altered Traits)

Our gamma waves are not as strong as those of the Tibetan yogis who were tested at Richard Davidson’s Lab at the University of Wisconsin. The amplitude of their gamma rays was twenty-five times greater than the controlled group. They yogis described the experience of gamma rays as feelings of spaciousness and vastness and connection with everyone and everything. This was something unprecedented, a wow! 

Relative to the yogis we are mere beginners. When we sit to meditate, it takes us a while to settle our minds, let go of distracting thoughts, and get some momentum in our meditation. And from time to time we may have a “good” meditative experience.

The twenty-two monks who were tested were able to enter the specified meditative states at will at once. They entered and left difficult-to-achieve levels of awareness within split seconds. Such collective mental gymnastics had never been seen by scientists before.