Scientists Can Read Minds with Brain Scans By scanning your brain, scientists can tell what memory you are recalling. Scientists have made impressive gains recently when it comes to reading minds. For instance, through brain scans, researchers can tell what number a person has just seen, figure out what letters a person wants to type, and determine where people were standing within virtual reality environments. To see if they could discern even more complex information during mind-reading, scientists more recently had 10 volunteers watch three films, each seven-seconds long and featuring a different actress in a fairly similar everyday scenario on a typical urban street. The researchers scanned the participants' brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while the participants were asked to recall the films. In these experiments, the researchers exposed volunteers to movies roughly an hour before scanning took place. The scientists detailed their findings online March 11 in the journal Current Biology.
How Mind-Wandering and “Positive Constructive Daydreaming” Enhance Creativity and Improve Our Social Skills by Maria Popova The science of why fantasy and imaginative escapism are essential elements of a satisfying mental life. Freud asserted that daydreaming is essential to creative writing — something a number of famous creators and theorists intuited in asserting that unconscious processing is essential to how creativity works, from T. In a recent paper titled “Ode to Positive Constructive Daydreaming” (PDF), published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, writer Rebecca McMillan and NYU cognitive psychologist Scott Kaufman, author of Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined, revisit Singer’s work to deliver new insights into how the first style of Singer’s mind-wandering, rather than robbing us of happiness, plays an essential, empowering role in daily life and creativity. My highlights from Anaïs Nin's diary, illustrated by Lisa Congdon. While the costs of mind wandering are apparent and easily quantifiable, the benefits seem less obvious and tangible. Thanks, Scott Myers Donating = Loving
12.08.2009 - Social scientists build case for 'survival of the kindest' By Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations | 08 December 2009 BERKELEY — Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive. (Photo illustration by Jonathan Payne) In contrast to "every man for himself" interpretations of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of "Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life," and his fellow social scientists are building the case that humans are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits. They call it "survival of the kindest." Empathy in our genes "The tendency to be more empathetic may be influenced by a single gene,” Rodrigues said. Cultivating the greater good
Brainwave/Cymatic Frequency Listing This is a listing of frequencies that various parties have claimed can affect the human mind or body in some way. The following sorts of frequencies are included : Brainwave Frequencies - These are frequencies associated with various mental states. The original page that I began building this compiled information from is (*archived copy*) The information in green is from this original page. If you want to redistribute this, please include the Bibliography page as well -- the original sources deserve their reference. Disclaimer : I wouldn't take everything you read on this list for granted. Disclaimer #2 : Anything you do with the frequencies below is your personal risk - if you manage to burn out a couple of brain cells or harm yourself in some other way, I do not take any responsibility nor will I be held liable. Sincerely, Michael Triggs lunarsight@verizon.net 0.1-1 Organ/muscle resonances [SS] 0.9 Euphoria [SS]
Creation myth Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions[3] and are the most common form of myth, found throughout human culture.[6] Definitions[edit] In Daoist creation myth, "The Way gave birth to unity; unity gave birth to duality; duality gave birth to trinity; trinity gave birth to the myriad creatures." (Daodejing, 4th century BCE)[13] Creation myth definitions from modern references: A "symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood in a particular tradition and community. Religion professor Mircea Eliade defined the word myth in terms of creation: Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabled time of the "beginnings." Meaning and function[edit] All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain how the world was formed and where humanity came from.[18] Ethnologists and anthropologists[which?] Each beginning seems to presuppose an earlier beginning. ...
The neuroscientific study of hallucinogens Recently, an important and landmark paper was published in PLoS ONE (hooray open access!) titled, "Investigating the Mechanisms of Hallucinogen-Induced Visions Using 3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA): A Randomized Controlled Trial in Humans". It sounds daunting, but trust me, it's a very cool, approachable study. Now, in the spirit of full-disclosure, the lead author Dr. At the bottom of this post you will also find an hour-long YouTube interview with Matt about his research as part of "Dr. That said, my real-life association with Matt is not biasing my opening statement; his paper is truly landmark for many reasons. [T]here is a staggering diversity of hallucinogens out there: hundreds of compounds, each affecting different combinations of binding sites in the brain. The range of drugs really is quite amazing, and many hallucinogenic compounds were first synthesized by a fellow Berkeleyan, Alexander Shulgin. Now realize, I don't make my statements about drug research lightly.
10 Questions: On Finding Your ‘Soul-Life’ in a 130-Year-Old Book Brooke Williams and Terry Tempest Williams are two of our generation’s greatest gifts. Brooke is the author of four books, and he offers deep meditations on wilderness and wild lands, as well as working actively in defense of the pristine, most recently with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Terry is legendary for her intensely personal explorations of nature and life and the human resonance between the two, and she’s the author of the critically acclaimed Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place and numerous other books. The couple, who divide their time between Castle Valley, Utah, and Jackson, Wyoming, were in a book shop in Maine when Terry stumbled across a volume called The Story of My Heart. Recently, I caught up with the two to learn more about how and why The Story of My Heart got under their skin, and what lessons it has for us today. 1. Brooke Williams: The Story of My Heart, I believe, comes from the collective unconscious, into which Jefferies was able to tap.
The fine dopamine line between creativity and schizophrenia | Sc New research shows a possible explanation for the link between mental health and creativity. By studying receptors in the brain, researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have managed to show that the dopamine system in healthy, highly creative people is similar in some respects to that seen in people with schizophrenia. High creative skills have been shown to be somewhat more common in people who have mental illness in the family. Creativity is also linked to a slightly higher risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. "We have studied the brain and the dopamine D2 receptors, and have shown that the dopamine system of healthy, highly creative people is similar to that found in people with schizophrenia," says associate professor Fredrik Ullén from Karolinska Institutet's Department of Women's and Children's Health. "Thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box," says Dr Ullén about his new findings.
Drugs and the Meaning of Life (Photo by JB Banks) (Note 6/4/2014: I have revised this 2011 essay and added an audio version.—SH) Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. Drugs are another means toward this end. One of the great responsibilities we have as a society is to educate ourselves, along with the next generation, about which substances are worth ingesting and for what purpose and which are not. However, we should not be too quick to feel nostalgia for the counterculture of the 1960s. Drug abuse and addiction are real problems, of course, the remedy for which is education and medical treatment, not incarceration. I discuss issues of drug policy in some detail in my first book, The End of Faith, and my thinking on the subject has not changed. I have two daughters who will one day take drugs. (Pokhara, Nepal) Ott, J.