Archive for the 'Mind Enhancement' Category
If you're looking for a quick way to relax, either for meditation purposes or simply to release stress and tension, this 10-minute brainwave audio track will do the trick. This is a track I designed for my company a few months ago as a free gift for our customers, and now I'm making it available to visitors of this site as well.
Instructions for using this track:
1. Do not listen to this audio track while driving.
2. Listening without headphones will provide light relaxation. Listening with headphones will give you access to …Continue reading
Over the past few decades personal development has become a huge industry, and in recent years the internet has fueled the surge of new products and programs devoted to self-improvement. Unfortunately, the tremendous growth in the industry has opened the door for scam artists hoping to make a bundle of cash before anyone realizes their products are useless.
These companies attempt to lull prospective customers into a false sense of security by littering their marketing copy with catchy phrases that sound high-tech or scientific, despite their so-called science being nothing more than made-up nonsense. You've all heard the buzzwords before. (Can anyone say "quantum"?) They fill their advertisements and web sites with pseudoscience and hope consumers will be hypnotized by the apparent magic of it all.
Yesterday someone sent me a link to a personal development web site so I could check out a video featured on the site's home page. In the video, the host explains how her company's system can release your subconscious fears and transform your life by "tapping into the quantum field", and their method is supposedly an effective cure for all your problems because "every single perception you've ever experienced is stored as images in the water molecules in the microtubules of your brain" and "those images are projecting onto the quantum field and reflecting back at you."
I'm sure neuroscientists around the world would cringe upon reading such claims. Quantum physicists probably would cringe right along with them.
Did you notice how in just a few brief sentences she managed to incorporate enough buzzwords to …Continue reading
Those of you who have been following the Gamma mind enhancement experiment probably noticed the long delay between the end of the experiment and this post about the results from the final week of the experiment. The reason for the delay is because I wanted to observe whether or not the results lasted after I stopped using the CD, and, if so, how long after the end of the experiment they lasted.
Regarding whether or not the effects lasted beyond the end of the experiment, the answer to that question is yes and no. Some of the results lasted and others didn't. As I described in the report from Days 8 through 11 of the experiment, it's common for some effects to occur right away while others take time, and also common for some effects to occur only while using the technology and for other effects to last long after the final listening session is over.
Some of the effects occurred only while I was listening to the CD and faded within a few hours or less after the end of the listening session. For example, the tingling in the forehead, which I first described in the report from Day 1 of the experiment, occurred only during the 30-minute listening sessions and gradually faded away within a few hours after each session ended.
The pulsing sensation I described early in the experiment, which I observed during …Continue reading
There has been a recent resurgence in the use of psychoactive substances ((For the purpose of this article, I've used the term psychoactive substances to refer to the full range of natural or manmade substances known to induce altered states. This range includes, but is certainly not limited to, substances such as LSD, ayahuasca, salvia divinorum, MDMA, mescaline, ketamine, and opium.)) to aid in achieving trance states or spiritual experiences, so I thought I'd write an article about why I made a personal decision not to use them in my own exploration of consciousness.
Though many of these substances have been used for centuries in various cultures around the world, I don't believe their use is needed in the study of expanded states of consciousness, particularly in modern times and with so many other options available. I'll even go as far as to say for many modern seekers the use of psychoactive substances is more of a hindrance than a help because they learn to rely on a drug to trigger altered states instead of learning how to achieve those states on their own.
With drug-free methods of practice — such as meditation, drumming, chanting, hypnosis, yoga, dance, and others — the practitioner can achieve an altered state, and may choose to fully embrace that state for the course of the event, but even in doing so and allowing herself to be carried away by that current, she always retains the option of being in 100% conscious control of her mental and emotional state. At any time, at any moment, she can consciously choose to end the experience.
Psychoactive substances restrict the user's freedom by limiting — and in some cases eliminating — his conscious control. Once the substance is ingested, injected or inhaled, it begins to act on the user's brain and body and there is no turning back. Until the effects …Continue reading
Meditation, once considered a spiritual practice reserved for monks and yogis, is gradually achieving mainstream popularity as more people discover its many benefits.
Meditation doesn't have to be complicated, doesn't require you to subscribe to any particular spiritual belief, and doesn't necessitate sitting cross-legged on the floor and chanting mantras. It can be as simple as sitting in a quiet room and focusing on your breath, or counting your steps while walking around your neighborhood. You can also turn everyday activities like washing the dishes or vacuuming the carpet into a meditation.
There are many different forms of meditation, making it easy for everyone to find a style that best suits their lifestyle. At the end of this article, I'll describe a few simple meditation techniques, including one method that will allow you to meditate deeply without even trying.
But first, let's talk about the top five reasons you should try meditation.
1. Your health will improve
No matter what your age, meditation is one of the easiest ways to improve your health. Research at the Medical College of Georgia found that meditation lowered blood pressure and reduced the risk of …Continue reading
I've been reading a new book called Left in the Dark by Tony Wright and Graham Gynn, and I'm only about 100 pages into the book but so far it has been a fascinating read. I'll be writing a review for my company's web site soon, but I wanted to post something here too because the book is so relevant to the theme of this site.
Tony Wright, one of the book's co-authors, broke the world record for sleep deprivation in May of this year as part of a personal experiment in left-brain/right-brain consciousness. For more than eleven days, he remained not only awake but fully coherent and active. He participated in interviews with reporters from local television news programs and radio stations, including ongoing video interviews with the BBC, right up until the end of the experiment. He also kept a daily diary, which was published on the BBC web site, and interacted with guests at the Studio Bar in Cornwall where the experiment took place. That kind of dedication to personal research always gets my attention, and it lends more credence to the theories explored in the book.
The first section of Left in the Dark discusses neurochemistry and the evolution of the brain — in simple explanations that are easily accessible to a layman — and posits a theory about the impact of a plant-based diet on the early development of the human brain. The authors also describe how our modern diet has negatively impacted our cognitive development, and examine the anthropological and spiritual repercussions in addition to the biological effects. The implications are so intriguing I was prompted to seriously consider returning to vegetarianism, which I'll post more about later this week in an article about nutrition and its effects on consciousness.
Left in the Dark also discusses the differences between the left and right hemispheres of the brain and their influence on states of consciousness, drawing examples from cases of savant syndrome, multiple personality disorder, and even hemispherectomy (the removal of one hemisphere of the brain). The book explores the right hemisphere's involvement in artistic functions, healing abilities, intuition, and transcendent experiences. The authors also imply that society's ongoing favor of the left hemisphere may prevent us from accessing our full potential, and in later chapters they include suggestions for restoring your own individual consciousness.
I'm eager to finish reading the book to learn more about the authors' theories about consciousness and personal evolution. I'll post a link here when the formal review is published on my company's web site, but in the meantime I recommend visiting Tony Wright's web site and ordering a copy of Left in the Dark for yourself.
