--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <LEnglish5@...> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long <sharelong60@> wrote: > > > > Thanks L, this is quite clear and I enjoy your sense of humor. Anyway, > > what about the old restful alertness. You've said what indicates > > relaxation. Is there an EEG indication for the alert part? > > > > Well, standard EEG texts talk about alpha EEG as being associated with > "wakeful relaxation" so its not just the TM organization's terminology. If > you are sitting with your eyes closed, you tend to generate at least some > alpha automatically. > > "When you close your eyes, naturally you feel some quietness, some silence. > Yes?" > > All eyes closed meditation techniques appear to activate the Default Mode > Network, which is what scientists are now calling the parts of the brain that > become more active when you are turning your attention inward. How this > activation works appears to vary from technique to technique. As far as I > know, TM is one of the few where alpha EEG isn't eventually replaced with > some other frequency. Instead, pure awareness is associated with MORE alpha > EEG power and coherence, not less. >
That is a large assumption to say, "pure awareness" equals alpha coherence. When people pull on the skull cap and get measured they are not necessarily in pure awareness at all. Many could say they don't 'transcend' while they meditate as an experience. I watched a long time meditator old movement friend and others get hooked up who said that they don't transcend about their meditating experience. Evidently alpha does not necessarily equal transcendental "pure awareness" as a strict reductionism. Something else is going on. Like earnestly marketing some signature. "oh look there it is! The person is transcended into "pure awareness"." Not. > > I also appreciate this that you said in another post: > > "Stress" means a lot more in this context than was believed 40 years ago. > > Yeah, and there's more to be discovered I think. "Yoga is the subsidence of > mind fluctuations" after all, and mind fluctuations are due to the leftover > effects of past experience. > > Mindfulness has its own stress-reducing qualities and scientists are starting > to come up with new theories to explain this beyond MMY's old "meditation = > rest" theory. I'm thinking that perhaps activation of the DMN automatically > induces stress reduction so all the various meditation techniques are going > to have some effect in that direction. TM, being the most relaxing (gamma is > associated with concentration and compassion meditation for example, and > gamma is NOT a sign of a relaxed brain usually), should prove to have the > most stress-reducing effect. > > Or so my reasoning goes... > > > L >
