Passive meditation and amygdalae

[Robert Austin]

Interesting suggestions, riffs and hypothesizing, Scott. Back to your comments about Amygdala size, Linda... there is a range of variation, from person to person (well, brain to brain) in the 'excitability' of various parts of the brain. If brain structures become too excitable--that is, a stimulus tends to produce a larger wave of activity than the norm, then this wave of activation can form that storm-in-the-brain called Epilepsy.

But it doesn't have to proceed to the point of having convulsions; that's the pathological worst case. Dr. Michael Persinger refers to patterns which propagate longer and farther than normal in the temporal cortex--and that can induce intense, complex experiences, as 'micro seizures'.

My point is that it's likely that the size of one's Amygdala is less important than how excitable the neural networks within it are. The Amygdala is the core of our emotional brain, governing feelings of sadness, fear, anger (there is some research that suggests that the left hemisphere Amygdala is structurally a bit different, and involved with the 'rewards' part of your brain). Example: If the car in the next lane on the freeway suddenly cuts unsafely in front of you, and your reaction is to run him off the road and beat him up, then your Amygdala has become... over-active. Learning to slow that level of activation should become an important goal.

The practice of various Meditation techniques can be very helpful - in a neuro-physiological sense, meditation is (in part) about controlling Amygdala activation. A key property of AVS, which is somewhat independent from the stimulation frequencies used, is its ability to help 'break state': specifically, emotional states. Gazing into the shifting visual imagery that flicker stimulation invokes can take you to another place, a place that no longer includes repetitive thoughts, like "I didn't like..." or "I wish that I had...", etc. AVS use can become a form of meditative 'practice', and I use it that way myself.

-Robert

[water3284]

Dear Robert,

sorry for not responding to your reply. I am very grateful for your input (as for yours Scott!). It is nice that you explain it so clearly, about the excitability of the individual neuronal (?) network in the brain. You mentioned that you can break state with the AVS: however, that is not my experience (yet). At the moment of writing, I am thirty and the person I want to become (a positive person with positive thoughts and feelings who is not so prone to stress) seems very out of reach. I am constantly overwhelmed with negative feelings and memories of traumatic events. I suffer from PTSS as well as ERS and on bad days, memories of negative events in my life take the overhand. The past two weeks have been extremely hard, for I have been waking up with heart palpations and a nasty feeling in my heart and a lump in my throat. When I use the AVS, these feelings of sadness do not magically disappear, unfortunately. Sometimes I even feel trapped in the headphones and the glasses, on a particular bad day.

I want to know how you can use the AVS-device to "heal" negative memories. I know it is not as simple as just putting the thing on, choose a program and then do nothing: I know you have to consciously choose your thoughts (also in daily life w/o the machine) and when you are conscious of that you are thinking negative again, that you delibaretely chage your thoughts into positive ones again. But sometimes, I am too far in "the dark night of the soul"... It seems. I don't know if I should then choose a program with Alpha Waves or Theta... I am afraid of the Beta-programmes, because I read that Beta Waves are responsible for stress and such. Therefore, I am a little bit confused about why there are so many programmes with Beta-waves on the Procyon.

So what I do, is that I listen to a lot of "positive affirmations" and such on youtube, when I do a Procyon-program. Scott, you mentioned that I should maybe listen to music instead. But I am too afraid of that right now, I first want to have the feeling that when I do a program I am not alone. Yes, I know it sounds insane, but I am sometimes afraid of being alone, because then I have the tendency to think negatively again.

Robert, when you have not yet mastered the art of "breaking state", what do you advice to do?

Sorry if I am not understanding things correctly... I have been just learning about the mind machine, and really want to benefit from it. But I don't know how yet.

Thanks for all the input and enlightening thoughts. Scott, I will respond to your exercise soon.

Kindly,

Linda