Posted on 09/26/2012 2:28:47 PM PDT by djf
Many believe that conscious awareness originates in the brain alone. Recent scientific research suggests that consciousness actually emerges from the brain and body acting together. A growing body of evidence suggests that the heart plays a particularly significant role in this process.
Far more than a simple pump, as was once believed, the heart is now recognized by scientists as a highly complex system with its own functional “brain.”
Research in the new discipline of neurocardiology shows that the heart is a sensory organ and a sophisticated center for receiving and processing information. The nervous system within the heart (or “heart brain”) enables it to learn, remember, and make functional decisions independent of the brain’s cerebral cortex. Moreover, numerous experiments have demonstrated that the signals the heart continuously sends to the brain influence the function of higher brain centers involved in perception, cognition, and emotional processing.
In addition to the extensive neural communication network linking the heart with the brain and body, the heart also communicates information to the brain and throughout the body via electromagnetic field interactions. The heart generates the body’s most powerful and most extensive rhythmic electromagnetic field. Compared to the electromagnetic field produced by the brain, the electrical component of the heart’s field is about 60 times greater in amplitude, and permeates every cell in the body. The magnetic component is approximately 5000 times stronger than the brain’s magnetic field and can be detected several feet away from the body with sensitive magnetometers.
The heart generates a continuous series of electromagnetic pulses in which the time interval between each beat varies in a dynamic and complex manner. The heart’s ever-present rhythmic field has a powerful influence on processes throughout the body. We have demonstrated, for example, that brain rhythms naturally synchronize to the heart’s rhythmic activity, and also that during sustained feelings of love or appreciation, the blood pressure and respiratory rhythms, among other oscillatory systems, entrain to the heart’s rhythm.
We propose that the heart’s field acts as a carrier wave for information that provides a global synchronizing signal for the entire body. Specifically, we suggest that as pulsing waves of energy radiate out from the heart, they interact with organs and other structures. The waves encode or record the features and dynamic activity of these structures in patterns of energy waveforms that are distributed throughout the body. In this way, the encoded information acts to in-form (literally, give shape to) the activity of all bodily functions—to coordinate and synchronize processes in the body as a whole. This perspective requires an energetic concept of information, in which patterns of organization are enfolded into waves of energy of system activity distributed throughout the system as a whole.
Basic research at the Institute of HeartMath shows that information pertaining to a person’s emotional state is also communicated throughout the body via the heart’s electromagnetic field. The rhythmic beating patterns of the heart change significantly as we experience different emotions. Negative emotions, such as anger or frustration, are associated with an erratic, disordered, incoherent pattern in the heart’s rhythms. In contrast, positive emotions, such as love or appreciation, are associated with a smooth, ordered, coherent pattern in the heart’s rhythmic activity. In turn, these changes in the heart’s beating patterns create corresponding changes in the structure of the electromagnetic field radiated by the heart, measurable by a technique called spectral analysis.
More specifically, we have demonstrated that sustained positive emotions appear to give rise to a distinct mode of functioning, which we call psychophysiological coherence. During this mode, heart rhythms exhibit a sine wave-like pattern and the heart’s electromagnetic field becomes correspondingly more organized.
At the physiological level, this mode is characterized by increased efficiency and harmony in the activity and interactions of the body’s systems. [1]
Psychologically, this mode is linked with a notable reduction in internal mental dialogue, reduced perceptions of stress, increased emotional balance, and enhanced mental clarity, intuitive discernment, and cognitive performance.
In sum, our research suggests that psychophysiological coherence is important in enhancing consciousness—both for the body’s sensory awareness of the information required to execute and coordinate physiological function, and also to optimize emotional stability, mental function, and intentional action. Furthermore, as we see next, there is experimental evidence that psychophysiological coherence may increase our awareness of and sensitivity to others around us. The Institute of HeartMath has created practical technologies and tools that all people can use to increase coherence. Heart Field Interactions Between Individuals
Most people think of social communication solely in terms of overt signals expressed through language, voice qualities, gestures, facial expressions, and body movements. However, there is now evidence that a subtle yet influential electromagnetic or “energetic” communication system operates just below our conscious awareness. Energetic interactions likely contribute to the “magnetic” attractions or repulsions that occur between individuals, and also affect social exchanges and relationships. Moreover, it appears that the heart’s field plays an important role in communicating physiological, psychological, and social information between individuals.
Experiments conducted at the Institute of HeartMath have found remarkable evidence that the heart’s electromagnetic field can transmit information between people. We have been able to measure an exchange of heart energy between individuals up to 5 feet apart. We have also found that one person’s brain waves can actually synchronize to another person’s heart. Furthermore, when an individual is generating a coherent heart rhythm, synchronization between that person’s brain waves and another person’s heartbeat is more likely to occur. These findings have intriguing implications, suggesting that individuals in a psychophysiologically coherent state become more aware of the information encoded in the heart fields of those around them.
(more at link)
bump for later read...
My body is, at least partially, controlled by a wireless EM network? Seems like it would get messed up near powerful radio transmitters or high voltage AC lines.
Call me skeptical so far.
LOL If you want to achieve total consciousness try an anvil.
I’ll show you proof.
Goto your toolbox and get out an ordinary wire tester... you touch it to an insulated wire, it tells you if current is flowing through that wire by measuring the electromagnetic field, right?
Take the terminals in your hands, and you can use your mind to make that needle go up, or down.
All common results of doing meditation, mantra and puja practice.
We have also found that one person’s brain waves can actually synchronize to another person’s heart. Furthermore, when an individual is generating a coherent heart rhythm, synchronization between that person’s brain waves and another person’s heartbeat is more likely to occur. These findings have intriguing implications, suggesting that individuals in a psychophysiologically coherent state become more aware of the information encoded in the heart fields of those around them.
Mind to mind transmission. aka guru yoga. Literally 'teacher union' which is a goal of practice to reach a point where the student 'sees' the teacher's mind. More commonly expressed as the student's mind becomes one with the teacher's mind. However mind to mind transmission from teacher to student takes place all the time even though the student isn't aware of it.
The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
Blaise Pascal
I was in fifth grade when my uncle showed me the wire tester thing. He didn’t have any personal explanation, you just said think at it you can make it go up, make your mind a blank and it’ll go down.
The rest is searchable with scientific sources, not new agey places.
Everybody has a wire tester...borrow one.
Going to dinner before the flame throwers arrive...
Bm
on this subject
I have read the following two peices of information, from forgotten sources over many years ago, and many years apart:
the heart muscle contains a number of cell types, one of which is found in only one other place in the body - the brain;
and
some people who have received full heart transplants have afterward noticed taste, color, and other sensory-type sensation preferences they did not previously have; preferences that on further investigation were found to be preferences of the heart donor; reflecting some sort of “memory” in the heart and transmission of it to the brain
bttt
WHAT HAPPENS TO PEOPLE WITH HEART TRANSPLANTS THEN??
There are a large number of phenomena that are still unexplained.
One, for example, is the “I’m being watched” reaction. It’s been shown in a number of studies that people seem to have an unknown type of knowledge if someone is staring at them.
Another example is the deal when dogs know their owners are on the way home. The dog’s behavior is pretty standard, then, a little while before the owner gets back home, the dog starts going to the door, or pacing the driveway, something like that. I’ve seen this myself in multiple dogs.
So I am open to believing there are things we don’t understand yet.
And I find it quite fascinating!
You get an uncontrollable urge for kimchee...
;-)
Not a unbelievable theory. I’d had a broken neck long ago with still some nerve impairment (though thankfully not severely debilitating). I can tell from what I’ve been through that each part of your body has it’s own logic (if not brain). You are sort of a distributed brain system.
Even without a full brain connection, your parts try to function on their own.
“Not a unbelievable theory. I’d had a broken neck long ago with still some nerve impairment (though thankfully not severely debilitating). I can tell from what I’ve been through that each part of your body has it’s own logic (if not brain). You are sort of a distributed brain system.
Even without a full brain connection, your parts try to function on their own.”
One unmentionable part of my body does seem to think for it’s self. It happened just today when I was helping this blond babe load some purchases in her car...
Amazing and so stunning in its implications for our mental and emotional well being as well as the health of our bodies in general. It should also serve as a warning to liberals, who are notoriously negative people, to do some serious self-help work.
That thing about being able to sense when someone is staring at you is real. I’ve read the studies and I’ve done experiments myself. It is real. It’s not 100% accurate and some people can’t do it at all. but most people can do it with an accuracy somewhere between 55% and 75%, IIRC. I was very good at it...with accuracy at the extreme high end. The dog thing I dunno. I think the dog just has a very good internal clock and knows what time it is even better than humans do when they have a clock to look at. They also have hearing so good we are not able to comprehend it. They can listen to cars driving down a road 4 blocks away and distinguish between each and every one. They know when their master’s car is coming when it is that far away.
I do not know what it is about humans that makes their senses so pathetically dulled. I know they have the capacity to enhance their senses. Take blind people for instance. They develop their hearing, touch, and smell far beyond what a sighted person has. So much so in fact that they recognize sighted people as having DISABILITIES in the other senses.
I can tell you I understand these things because I had phenomenal perception when I was young...every sense I had was better than anyone I knew. I could hear dog whistles. I could hear the sound coming off of light bulbs when they were on. I could hear the sound coming off of the picture tube of a TV when it was running. I could smell things other people could not. I could hear when people were getting out of their car and coming to the front door before they rang the doorbell. I could hear when the gas valve on the furnace opened up and I could hear when the electronic ignition sparked to ignite the flame...and I could hear it from upstairs when I was sound asleep. It woke me up every night. several times each night. I could hear when someone left the TV on while plugged into the VCR and turned the VCR off. The Tube would go dark when there was no input. I could hear the sound of the picture tube in the energized state even though there was no picture sent to it. I could hear when the dog suddenly woke up with a start and stood up because he heard something. I heard this from sound asleep also and it woke me up.
My sinuses used to burn and my throat would burn if I got within 5 feet of a person wearing cologne or perfume. I hated perfume until I was in my thirties. The odor from perfume was overwhelming. Like a firetruck siren in your front yard making your head hurt.
I could read 3 rows below the 20/20 vision line on an eye chart.
Then I got old and my senses all dulled. Now I’m far sighted, can’t see in the dark, can’t smell a damn thing and am half deaf.
You know how a dog can sense when a storm is coming? I know how they do it. They hear it coming 40 miles away...or more. I know how they do it because I could hear the storm coming 10 minutes before any human in my house could hear it. The dog would hear it 30-40 minutes before them and 20-30 minutes before me.
and not all dogs could do these things. there were some dogs that were pathetic. I remember when I was very young being disgusted by the pathetic sensory abilities of some very small lap dogs. Good god some of them were so stupid and pathetic I could hear and smell better than they could. To this day I cannot stand to be around most dogs littler than 25 lbs.
Don't know how true it was, but I trust Sr. Ann Marie.
I think the dog thing is true. I had a dog and a roommate and worked irregular hours. My roommate told me Spike always knew 5 minutes before I arrived - always.
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