Various studies on meditation

Vox has an article titled "Are we morally obligated to meditate?", a general article about the author's meditation journey and the various studies on meditation they came across.

Meditation and mindfulness training may lower blood pressure

There is anecdotal evidence that meditation and mindfulness training may reduce blood pressure, according to Medical News Today.  The study can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223095.

An excerpt from Beyond the Self

Beyond the Self is a book by Matthieu Ricard (a molecular biologist that became a Buddhist monk in Nepal) and Wolf Singer (a neuroscientist) that is a conversation between the two about meditation and the brain.  The Atlantic has an excerpt - it's a bit of heavy reading, but interesting nonetheless.

Transcendental Meditation for treating Post-traumatic stress disorder

A study funded by the Department of Defense, US Army Medical Research and done at the Department of Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System found that Transcendental Meditation works as an alternative for those who do not want to receive or do not respond to exposure-based treatments for Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

What to use instead of willpower to be more productive, according to neuroscience

A long article from medium.com goes over how the primitive part of our brain sabotages delayed gratification and how to program our brain using IF-THEN statements to stop that sabotage.

Near Death Experience discussion on television

Expedition Unknown on the Discovery Channel is currently having a series called "Search for the Afterlife", with the "Heaven and Hell" and "After the Search: Talking with the Dead" episodes having some discussion about Near Death Experiences.  Definitely recommended watching!

Heat and the brain

Do you feel like your brain is not with it in the summer heat?  The Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at Harvard University has found that our brains are susceptible to temperature abnormalities.  All the more reason to stay cool.

Buddhist meditation used in Thai cave soccer team ordeal

According to Vox, the soccer team's coach taught them to meditate to help them keep calm and preserve their energy during their two-week ordeal.

You really are on the same wavelength with your friends

Researchers from UCLA and Dartmouth College are able to have a computer program determine with 48% accuracy friendships between two people based on neural similarities.  Accuracies of identifying a friend of a friend were at 39%, friend of a friend of a friend at 31%, and friendships further removed than that at 47%.  When the program was wrong, it was usually only off by one category.

Why Meditate? Change your Brain's Default Mode

I came across this on YouTube the other evening and thought that this might be of interest for others.

The parts of the brain involved in dreaming

Scientists have identified the parts of the brain that are involved in dreaming.  Dreams don't just happen in REM sleep and changes in brain activity offer clues to what the dream is about.

Brain activity recorded after death

In Canada, doctors observed delta waves in one patient more than 10 minutes after doctors confirmed the patient's death.

The mind isn't limited to the body

Scientists say your “mind” isn’t confined to your brain, or even your body from Quartz feels more like a hidden advertisement for a professor's new book than anything with solid research, but it presents the idea that the mind goes beyond the brain.

Meditation can change the brains of ordinary people and improve their health

A study published in Biological Psychiatry shows that meditation can change the brains of ordinary people and improve their health.  There's an indication in the article that other studies have not had "scientific thoroughness", but I don't know if that claim is true or not.

Information carried around the brain by a weak electrical field

Slow-moving brainwaves (around theta) may be carrying information around the brain, according to The Journal of Neuroscience.  It may provide more insight into memory formation and epilepsy.

Meditation Affects Cancer Survivors

Researchers find that meditation maintains the length of telomeres in cancer survivors whereas they shorten in non-meditators.

Lucid Dreams Produce Gamma Brainwaves

The Neurological Laboratory in Frankfurt discovered that lucid dreamers produce gamma brainwaves that operate at at 40Hz.

I've had a few lucid dreams which occurred before ever doing gamma brainwave entrainment. I don't think I have noticed any more of them since I've started doing gamma brainwave entrainment. What has everyone else's experience been?

A Data Analysis of Dreams

FiveThirtyEight discusses results of a dream analysis study from 1950 and a new study from 2013. Apparently, the majority of dreams were "bad dreams" in both the 1950 and 2013 studies.

I do not find that to be my experience with dreams. I would say the majority of them are weird - not particularly good or bad. It's rare for me to have a good or bad dream and even more rare to have a great dream or a nightmare. It would be interesting to see the dream distribution of people that have more good dreams than bad or neutral dreams to see if there is anything in common amongst those people.

The Brain During an Out-Of-Body Experience

Scientists from the University of Ottawa did an fMRI brain scan on a woman during her out-of-body experience. What it doesn't state is if they were able to confirm what she was doing, especially if it was something taking place in another room.

Mind Pool

Mind Pool - Physical feedback of a user's brainwave activity presented in real time.

This certainly brings to mind the thought of a still pond and that thoughts create the ripples.