Moon River: Health and wellness

Ten Things to Do When You're Blue

Thu, 25 May 2006 11:10:26 GMT

There's plenty of reasons these days to be depressed or discouraged, and it's always tempting when you feel down to seek solace in things that are addictive or self-destructive (you know what I'm talking about). Here are ten better things to do, that can also make you feel better:

Brain-wave typing

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 09:22:14 GMT

Brain-wave typing could become reality in just a few years. Researchers in the brain-computer interface, or BCI, Group at New York State Public Health Department's Wadsworth Center are enrolling patients in trials of a system that could enable them to send e-mail and communicate using their brain waves. Read all (via artsjournal)

So, Now it is being made for the use of disabled people. and I say(and hope, and dream..), that in Future it could be an Extremely powerful and interesting tool for ALL of us.

mirror neurons

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 21:01:42 GMT

One of the more intriguing recent discoveries in brain science is the existence of "mirror neurons," a set of neurons in the premotor area of the brain that are activated not only when performing an action oneself, but also while observing someone else perform that action.

It is believed mirror neurons increase an individual's ability to understand the behaviors of others, an important skill in social species such as humans. more...

mental time travel

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 10:33:33 GMT

Neuroscientists at Princeton University have developed a new way of
tracking people's mental state as they think back to previous events --
a process that has been described as "mental time travel."

The researchers showed nine participants a series of pictures and then asked them to
recall what they had seen. By applying a computerized pattern-recognition
program to brain scanning data, the researchers were able to show that the
participants' brain state gradually aligned with their brain state from when they
first studied the pictures. This supports the theory that memory retrieval is a
form of mental time travel.

D R E A M M A C H I N E

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 22:26:06 GMT

WHAT IS A DREAMACHINE?

DREAMACHINE visions usually begin by the meteorically rapid transit of infinite series of abstract elements. These may be followed in time by clear perception of faces, figures and the apparent entractment of highly colored serial pseudo-events. In other words, dreams in color. These dreams can be immediately interrupted and brought to an end simply by opening your eyes. However you look into a DREAMACHINE, in a short time you will have acquired greater self-knowledge, extended the limits of your vision, brightened your perception of a treasure you may not have known you own. -- Brion Gysin

A Dreamachine is little more than a perforated tube of paper placed on a spinning platter with a light bulb positioned in the tube. Holes are cut from the tube according to a specific pattern. You sit in front of the dreamachine at eye-level with the bulb, with your eyes closed. If constructed correctly the dreamachine should emit a pulse of light between 8-13 Hz, which is the precise rhythm of alpha-waves in the brain. Alpha-waves are dominant during the "alpha state," which occurs during deep meditation or the early stages of sleep. Alpha-waves are associated with a healthy mind and a stress-free life.

The Dream Machine consists of a cardboard cylinder with holes in it attached to a record-player turntable, in the middle of which sits a 100-watt light bulb. When the machine is turned on, the cylinder spins at 78 rpm. Subjects sit in front of the cylinder and close their eyes, and the light reflects through the holes in the spinning cylinder on the eyelids. The resulting flashes of light may, if the subjects are susceptible, create a mild sensation akin to the effect of the simplest light show. It's an adaptation of flicker technology, first seen with strobe lights and now packaged as brain machines.

Burroughs once said about the Dream Machine, "Subjects report dazzling lights and unearthly brilliance and color...Elaborate geometric constructions of incredible intricacy build up from multidimensional mosaic into living fireballs like the mandalas of Eastern Mysticism or resolve momentarily into apparently individual images and powerfully dramatic scenes like.

How to build one..

WHO WANTS TO SLEEP (WHEN THERE'S A PARTY GOING ON?

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 09:44:03 GMT

I tried to summarize this very interesting article:

We've all had the experience of shifting into a heightened or metanormal state - call it lucidity, insight, mastery, wisdom, enlightenment, grace, bliss, satori, creativity, learning, waking up -a state in which we know beyond doubt that our ordinary state is a deep sleep compared to this rich awakening.
And we know too, this is how we should be all the time. Most of us would like to be in this high gear, high-efficiency state as often as possible. In fact, it has become clear that humans are genetically programmed to seek out these altered, awakened states. recent evidence supports, that a key to human evolution, to our species' rapid growth in brain size, and to our unique creative capacities, has been our instinctive drive to experience these metanormal or exceptional realms of consciousness and performance. From kids who spin themselves into dizzy altered states and euphorically roll down hills, to performers, surgeons, rock climbers, chess players or creative artists who find that the most vital and rewarding parts of their lives occur when they're in a state of "flow," humans naturally crave the experience of being awake.

IN SEARCH OF TOOLS FOR WAKING UP

A central thread running through human history has been the quest for effective and reliable techniques for entering these awakened states -"spiritual technologies. One of the most ancient spiritual technologies is shamanism. Out of shamanism and paralleling it have emerged a vast number of other spiritual technologies, including the mind-body exercises of yoga, and a rich variety of esoteric schools, mystery cults and technological rituals, including gnosticism, Sufism, Kaballism, trantricism, taoism, alchemy and meditation. In exploring these spiritual technologies. humans have pounded on drums, danced, chanted, fasted, tried different ways of breathing, stood on their heads, spent years in dark caves, prayed, muttered magic phrases, eaten wild herbs and plants, gazed into fires, devised odd sexual practices, contemplated symbols, created stirring rituals. And the ingenuity and effort paid off.

But, the most frustrating and discouraging aspect for many about the various spiritual technologies is that they often require enormous amounts of practice - hard, rigorous discipline -be fore they really work powerfully and reliably.

TECHNO-SHAMANISM AND TOOLS FOR TRANSCENDENCE
All that has changed forever as a result of recent breakthroughs in neuroscience and technology. It's now clear that it doesn't require years of training or mysterious meditative powers to produce these unique patterns of brain activity associated with peak brain states. the scientists have found that these changes can be actively and quickly induced using external mechanical stimulations or devices such as flickering lights, minute electrical current, flotation tanks, precise combinations of pulsating sound waves, or rhythmic physical movement. In other words, science has now revealed that mind machines can be seen as our own technological culture's spiritual tools: techno-shamanism.

HIGH PRIESTS OF SCIENCE

However, despite this new anderstandings, modem academic and materialist science, with its emphasis on a limited definition of reality, has generally denied and repressed the transcendental impulse. "Within the present century, academic psychology and psychiatry dismissed spirituality as a product of superstition, primitive magical thinking, and outright pathology. But the spiritual drive is so powerful that orthodox science has been unable to suppress it. It now seems clear that this transcendental impulse is rooted in our genes, an instinctive and essential component of our human nature.

Abraham Maslow pointed out that virtually all humans report having a profound sense of "unitive consciousness" at some point in their lives. Even in this most secular and materialistic era, a recent survey of Americans found that nearly 90 percent of them described themselves as strongly "religious" or "spiritual." More astonishing is the substantial number of Americans who report having what can only be called mystical experiences.

NEUROSCIENCE AS A SPIRITUAL QUEST

Says Arnold Scheibel, professor of medicine at UCLA, speaking of himself and his wife, Marian Diamond, neuroanatomist at UC Berkeley, "We like to think that somehow the brain in a sense will become the religion of the future.. ." In many ways it makes most sense to see the Brain Revolution as a spiritual quest: a sudden blossoming of scientists driven by a compulsion to understand the mystery of the universe by understanding the workings of the "last frontier," the most complex system in the universe. We know now, that these experiences of awakening are linked to certain clear physiological changes in the brain, including alterations in the chemistry of the brain, and changes in the electrical activity of the brain. It has been established beyond doubt that mind machines, can produce the very same dramatic alterations in brain chemistry and in patterns of brainwave activity that are found in individuals spontaneously undergoing transcendent, metanormal or transpersonal experiences.

Go To article via bruceeisner

Pregnant mothers have extraordinary needs—love, support, removal of strangely repugnant odors—but it’s the fathers who are needy.

Sun, 14 Aug 2005 10:31:21 GMT

There are hundreds of wonderful books on motherhood for women;
there are zero decent books on fatherhood for men.

Contributing Illlustrator Danny Gregory writes, about fatherhood.

Another chapter in the illustrated chronicle of worry.

Welcome to the Peanut.

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/peanut/option_c_march.php