News of the Imbalance

Best of the Blog - Mind, Brain & Evolving Consciousness

A Stroke Turned Me Gay - I Woke Up Gay - BBC Three
YouTube, 30th March 2012

Comment: I was amazed at just how young this guy is to have had a stroke... I think this story is already in the archives, but I think it should be viewed in the same light as those who wake up with a foreign accent or thinking and speaking in another language... Also: Chris Birch, the former rugby player who woke up gay - YouTube/RTE (20th Nov 2011)

This is a image from the Daily Mail with a highly relevant quote that Joe Korner from the Stroke Association who only mentions two other brain abberrations associated with strokes; new accent and language... I am now quite shocked.... The explanation of different neural connections does not make sense as people can start speaking fluently in another language that they have never studied.... Memories are not stored in the brain, that is a scientific fact and if people have never learnt a language where is that data coming from? There are even reports of people speaking in EXTINCT languages... BUT this can happen when people get drunk too!

Burly rugby player has a stroke after freak gym accident… wakes up gay and becomes a hairdresser
Daily Mail, 9th November 2011

New speech-jamming gun hints at dystopian Big Brother future
Extreme Tech, 1st March 2012

Darpa’s Magic Plan: ‘Battlefield Illusions’ to Mess With Enemy Minds
Wired News, 14th February 2012

Arthur C. Clarke once famously quipped that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” So perhaps it was inevitable that the Pentagon’s extreme technology arm would eventually start acting like magicians — and try to create illusions on the front lines.

In its new budget, unveiled on Monday, Darpa introduced a new $4 million investigation into technologies that will “manage the adversary’s sensory perception” in order to “confuse, delay, inhibit, or misdirect [his] actions.” Darpa calls the project “Battlefield Illusion.” Of course.

“The current operational art of human-sensory battlefield deception is largely an ad-hoc practice,” the agency sighs as it lays out the project’s goals. But if researchers can better understand “how humans use their brains to process sensory inputs,” the military should be able to develop “auditory and visual” hallucinations that will “provide tactical advantage for our forces.”

Comment: There has been a tremendous amount of research into how the brain and mind works and the military have been thrilled to find psychics who are so good at Remote Viewing that they have become useful enough to be used in "operations". Thus I was surprised to recently hear by Dr Michael Persinger that Sean Harribance was used to find Saddam Hussein. Clinton was supposed to have closed down the Remote Viewing program in 1994, after it had lasted for 22 years (but of course, those in the know refuse to believe that anything that was so successful would be completely disposed of just to satisfy the whims of an ignorant public). Obviously, I don't know the facts, but I am sure someone of Persinger's calibre who has also spent time testing Harribance would know more than most.... By the way Persinger points out that top notch sensitives like Ingo Swann and Sean Harribance don't do so well when the Earth's geomagnetic field is disturbed or there are geomagnetic storms in progress. Here, I would like to point out that we now live in an increasingly chaotic geomagnetic environment. The only way to stay balanced is by maintaining a naturally strong personal electromagnetic field that is in constant touch with the Schumman Resonance or else we will find ourselves in a “Battlefield Illusion.” In the archives, there are some very strange reports now of how people are sometimes just waking up 'different' to how they were before and I believe that as geomagnetic conditions worsen on this planet, this is likely to become a real issue. See Best of the Blog - Brain, Mind & Evolving Consciousness.

Michael Persinger on No More Secrets - YouTube, 2011
YouTube, Mar 30, 2011
"Big Ideas presents Michael Persinger, winner of the 2007 Best Lecturer Competition, on Just Suppose You Could Know What Others Are Thinking: No More Secrets."
The info on Sean Harribance starts at about 28:00 but the whole presentation is excellent.

The man who hears colour
BBC News, 15th February 2012

Artist Neil Harbisson is completely colour-blind. Here, he explains how a camera attached to his head allows him to hear colour. Until I was 11, I didn't know I could only see in shades of grey. I thought I could see colours but that I was confusing them.

When I was diagnosed with achromatopsia [a rare vision disorder], it was a bit of a shock but at least we knew what was wrong. Doctors said it was impossible to cure.

When I was 16, I decided to study art. I told my tutor I could only see in black and white, and his first reaction was, "What the hell are you doing here then?" I told him I really wanted to understand what colour was.

Comment: This is an amazing story.... I don't have time to write but there are efforts to help the blind see by enhancing their inner vision, the synaesthesia that we all have can be artificially enhanced just as we read here....

Flu la la! Brummie mum gets French accent after illness
The Mirror, 10th February 2012

Birmingham-born Debie Royston has never been to France but now speaks with a bizarre Gallic twang after suffering a series of seizures

A mum of two told yesterday how she emerged from a gruelling bout of the flu – with a French accent. Birmingham-born Debie Royston has never been to France but now speaks with a bizarre Gallic twang after suffering a series of seizures. Debie, 40, was unable to speak at all for a month but when her voice returned it had changed.

She said: “I had a bad seizure and when it stopped my mouth wouldn’t work. Over the next month, I had to learn to speak again. But when I did, I heard a different sound, not my Brummie accent. I sounded French but I’ve never even been there. People say to me, ‘Where are you from?’ and when I say ‘Birmingham’ they say, ‘No, you’re French’.”

Debie is one of 60 people worldwide who suffer from foreign accent syndrome. [????]

Comment: This is yet another example.... I am now more confident that this is a neurological disorder caused by the holographic brain being scrambled due to a chaotic electromagnetic environment. This has happened before on this planet and recorded in ancient texts in stories concerning the confusion of languages.... See archives for other examples that include a Serbian boy who woke up thinking and speaking fluent English overnight. The trickle of cases will become a flood.... You simply cannot have the Earth's magnetosphere and cosmic shielding breaking down and there be no consequences, it is impossible... Velikovsky, documented ancient stories of the "Sun Of Wind" and particularly ancient Mexican traditions where it is told that those who survived the catastrophe of the “sun of wind” lost “their reason and speech." Btw I don't believe the statistics provided here, simply from the rate of new stories and checking older sources, just check the archives for the UK alone in the last three years! See Best of the Blog - Brain, Mind & Evolving Consciousness.

Breaking the Code: Why Yuor Barin Can Raed Tihs
Live Science, 9th February 2012

You might not realize it, but your brain is a code-cracking machine.

For emaxlpe, it deson't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aepapr, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. [...] According to Marta Kutas, a cognitive neuroscientist and the director of the Center for Research in Language at the University of California, San Diego, the short answer is that no one knows why we're so good at reading garbled nonsense. But they've got strong suspicions.

Comment: Highly amusing... My brain is continuously cracking my writing, so I think what I have written is OK. You may notice occasionally that the code cracking does vary from week to week, especially when the dyslexia is really bad...

Mystery illness gaining national attention
YNN News, 27th January 2012

The number is now more than two dozen girls, all with Tourettes like symptoms, including twitching, jerking and vocal tics. As our health reporter Marcie Fraser reports, the case spans New York State and is gaining national attention.

CORINTH, N.Y. -- "My daughter is Alycia Nicholson. We are from Corinth, N.Y." Randy Nicholson is reading the letter he wrote to a parent who lives across state in LeRoy, N.Y. A man he's never met, but shares in common, a frightening mystery. "Alycia's passing out with seizures and tics, movements, along with a list of other symptoms since May 2011."

An honor student and athlete, Alycia deals with the same symptoms more than a dozen other high school girls in Western New York are experiencing. "Seizures, visible tics, body movements and very bad outbursts," Nicholson said.

Her first symptoms appeared in May, before any cases in LeRoy. The possible connection? In July, Alycia, along with a traveling softball team, stopped and had dinner in LeRoy. Teammate Lori Brownell, also from Corinth, began to have symptoms shortly thereafter. Lori has just recently been diagnosed with Tourettes syndrome. Alycia has tics. Some days are better than others.

Comment: The numbers are going up and there is now a boy with this diagnosis in LeRoy too. Erin Brokovich thinks this is environmental and suspects groundwater contamination from a chemical spill from more than 40 years ago may be behind the Tourette-like symptoms. There is much talk of mass hysteria, so I am very interested in the online chatter about historical mass hysteria events like the dancing disease that occured in Europe (see below for info), as the publicity grows, it could actually trigger some real mass hysteria.

Mystery teen illness: Brokovich team meets resistance
MSNBC, 26th January 2012
"Mechtler has diagnosed the girls as having a rare condition called mass psychogenic illness, more familiarly known as mass hysteria. [...] Mass psychogenic illness is a kind of conversion disorder, Robach reported. Conversion disorders occur when psychological stresses start to be expressed as physical symptoms."

Neurological Disorder Inspired European Dancing Tradition
Science Daily, 13th December 1999

Mystery illness: more cases emerge (Video)
MSNBC News, January 2012
"A 36-year-old is now experiencing the same odd verbal and motor tics first reported in teenage girls who live in LeRoy, N.Y. NBC’s Amy Robach reports."

Update on Tourette's-Like Illness in Leroy
WGRZ.com News, 11th January 2012

LEROY, NY -- Administrators in the Leroy Central School District updated parents and students about a mysterious disorder that's affected twelve female high school students, causing them to exhibit symptoms similar to Tourette's Syndrome.

Tourette's Syndrome is a neurological disorder defined by involuntary motor and vocal tics.

Wednesday night, administrators said all 12 students have been diagnosed and are being treated. They are not releasing causes due to HIPPA laws. They said they found similarities among some cases but wouldn't elaborate.

Comment: Obviously, this situation can be added to the other recent examples of mass hysteria in schools and factories taking place in other parts of the world and mostly affecting females. I have already suggested that this is something happening at morphogenetic level and affecting those with a strong 'hive' mentality.

Life's Extremes: Pathological Liar vs. Straight Shooter
Live Science, 11th December 2011

Lying — like it or not — is a part of everyday life. Most of us will bend the truth every now and then, with even the most honest person telling the occasional "white lie" to avoid hurting someone else's feelings.

Yet some people, called pathological liars, utter untruths constantly and for no clear reason. Their behavior confounds scientists and oftentimes themselves. [...]

On the opposite end of the spectrum are those rare individuals who might be described as "pathological truth-tellers." These people forego socially convenient and appropriate fibs to speak the unvarnished, upsetting truth. [...]

Interestingly, brain scans have revealed that the prefrontal cortexes in frequent liars are built differently from those in a typical brain. A 2005 study showed that liars had 22 percent more "white matter" than average, as well as about 14 percent less "gray matter." The former acts like wiring in the brain, while gray matter cells in this region play a role in impulse control.

"If you have more white matter, you are more able to manipulate information and words," said Dike. "You can weave thoughts in ways others probably can't."

Comment: Very interesting read. I see this is where I have gone wrong, "allegiance to the truth, rather than people's feelings."... Too much interest in the truth and the refusal to entertain liars, frauds and scumbags... Oh, well....

Power of suggestion lets some see imaginary colors, brain scans confirm
People Can Hallucinate Color at Will
National Geographic, 7th December 2011

People can hallucinate colors just with the power of suggestion, a new study says. In a recent experiment, scientists asked a group of prescreened people to look at a set of gray patterns and try to visualize color. Eleven members of the group had been identified as highly susceptible to hypnosis while seven of the subjects were not susceptible.

Hypnosis is a trance-like state characterized by heightened focus, concentration, and inner absorption, according to the Mayo Clinic. About 10 percent of people worldwide are highly susceptible to hypnosis while 10 percent are not influenced at all. The remaining 80 percent—the majority of the population—are moderately susceptible, said study co-author William McGeown, a neuroscientist at the U.K.'s Hull University. [...]

The new study found that all the subjects who were easily hypnotized reported seeing a range of colors even while not under hypnosis, McGeown said. The scientists didn't just taking their word for it—MRI scans showed that the parts of the subjects' brains linked to color perception lit up when they saw the imaginary hues.

"We can see changes in these color-sensitive regions of their brains, which they have no way of faking," said McGeown, who published the study with colleagues in the December issue of the journal Consciousness and Cognition.

Comment: I think my problem with this article is the inference that seeing something strange is all about imagination and the power of suggestion. Recently, I have had some surprises seeing some very specific points of light in a geometrical configuration in what I call 'real-time'. I was seeing something that is not 'normally' seen, but as neurologists will tell you, some people can detect and process far more of the electromagnetic information available to all of us than others.

Easily hypnotized people can hallucinate colors whenever they want to
i09, 1st December 2011
"Contrary to its depictions in pop culture, hypnosis is a totally voluntary phenomenon, and those who allow themselves to be hypnotized can become extremely suggestible and relaxed, as well as experience heightened imagination. Previous research had shown hypnosis was able to make people see colors that weren't there, but this new research indicates that the hypnosis simply unlocks an ability in certain people that was actually there all along."

Lawsuit Against US Psychologist for Careless Hypnosis
Medindia News, 4th December 2011

US psychologist, Mark Schwartz, has been accused of carelessly hypnotizing a patient, Lisa Nasseff, 41, in order to keep her there long-term and run up a bill that eventually reached $650,000, while she was seeking treatment for anorexia at the Castlewood Treatment Centre in St Louis, Missouri.

Under hypnosis, Ms. Nasseff was led to believe she had multiple personality disorder (20 different personalities),she had been sexually abused and raped multiple times and had participated in various criminal and horrific acts of abuse. She was led into believing she had once eaten babies as part of a satanic cult.

Comment: Quite frankly, people need to watch out.... I have spent a huge amount of time in the last three years working out how to recognise when the predator "guru" types are using a variety of different controlling techniques, because this sort will do ANYTHING to gain control over people. The main aim is to get people spending HUGE sums of money or giving their time away in service to the 'grateful' guru for free... I suppose this hypnotherapist was installing all sorts of false memories as a type of job creation, i.e. screw someone up and then pretend to fix them... $650,000... yep, I don't think anyone will argue about that. Basically, that is what most of these LGAT guru types are doing. Btw, any spiritual "leader" can do the same thing because the same techniques can be used in different settings. As I say, people need to watch out... For anyone who is concerned and has a few hundred hours to read, read, and read, I recommend the Rick Ross Cult Education Forum and particularly the threads on James Ray and Bryon Katie who seems to be ranked as one of the top offenders, link1 & link2. Now that JR is locked up and we find out that he is barely literate, this man's background, methodology and rise to fame is an essential case study for anyone who wants to know learn how to recognise the 'fakes' out there who appear to be numerous, but 'spider woman' deserves some serious attention too.

Lisa Nasseff claims therapist Mark Schwartz brainwashed her (VIDEO)
KSDK News, 1st December 2011

Synaesthesia: when two senses become one
Notable writers, musicians and artists such as Nabokov, Messiaen and Kandinksy had synaesthesia. So is there a link with creativity?
The Guardian, 5th December 2011
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Charlene Soraia was 11 when she realised she didn't experience the world in quite the same way as most people. She was about to start secondary school and, turning to one of her friends, said that she pictured their first year as a series of "yellow lines, with green bits". "My friend said: 'What are you talking about?' And I thought: 'OK, I won't ever say anything else like that then.'"

A year or so later, Soraia, who is now 22, told her father she saw colours when she heard music. He explained that he experienced music the same way and that it was a medical condition called synaesthesia, in which the brain conflates two or more senses, causing both to be experienced at the same time.

A recent study by the University of Edinburgh concluded that around 4% of the British population has synaesthesia; other estimates put the figure at between 2% and 5%. The condition takes many forms: some experience tastes when they read or hear words; some perceive numbers as shapes; others, such as Soraia, see colours when they hear music, or when they think of particular periods in their lives.

Comment: The last time I checked on a UK Synaesthesia website, there was 63 types.

Study shows people can guess personality via body odor
Medical Xpress, 5th December 2011

(Medical Xpress) -- An interesting study conducted by Polish researchers Agnieszka Sorokowska, Piotr Sorokowski and Andrzej Szmajke, of the University of Wroclaw, has found that people are able to guess a person’s type of personality to a reasonable extent, simply by smelling them, or their clothes. The team did some testing with volunteers, as they describe in their study published in the European Journal of Personality, and found that people could guess another’s personality through odors at least as well as they could when shown videos of people in action. [...]

While clearly not at a hundred percent, the researchers indicate the study shows that there is something going on regarding how much a person sweats and under what conditions as well as a correlation between the components in sweat and personality traits and that other people are able to pick up on those differences when in their vicinity. Thus, the results are actually two-fold. The first is that people apparently give off personality clues when sweating, and second, that people are able to not only smell the differences in people, but make judgments about them based on what they smell.

Comment: Vile experiments... the same white t-shirt for 3 nights? This reminds me of a UK survey where researchers found that many can't even be bothered to change the bed sheets on a regular basis combined with some who regularly eat in bed.... vile..... I am interested in this article about smell because of my own synaesthesia and I found the conclusions quite interesting.

Why Does Evolution Allow Some People to Taste Words?
Neural tangling called synesthesia may have creative benefits, experts say.
National Geographic, 23rd November 2011

Over the past 30 years, though, a growing body of evidence has shown that synesthesia has a physical basis—for example, the brains of synesthetes are wired differently, and the condition is highly heritable, which indicates there is a genetic component.

In fact, the study authors think it's possible such a strange phenomenon has survived in an evolutionary sense because it offers people certain benefits to creative thinking. "Ninety-five to ninety-nine percent of synesthetes love their synesthesia and say it enhances their lives," Brang said. [...]

Today scientists have tools that allow them to probe the brain in ways that were impossible 200—or even 10—years ago. (See "'Brainbows' Illuminate the Mind's Wiring.") One such tool is a type of brain scan called DTI, short for diffusion tensor imaging, which lets scientists see the connections between different brain regions. "We can see that there's increased connections in synesthetes between the associated [senses]," Brang said.

Visualizing these connections between sensory brain regions could help explain why certain forms of synesthesia exist and why the condition tends to be unidirectional—for example, numbers can evoke colors but colors don't typically evoke numbers. Such studies could also help test an idea proposed by some scientists that all humans have the neural mechanism for synesthesia but it's suppressed for some reason. [...]

Studies today indicate that synesthesia is about seven times more common in artists, poets, and novelists than in the rest of the population, and some scientists have hypothesized that synesthetes are better at linking unrelated ideas. "We worked with a novelist years ago who swore that her synesthesia helped her pick metaphors," Brang said. "She said she would know what color a word should be even before she knew what the word was."

Comment: Wow... this article is actually calling synesthesia an evolutionary change which means the mainstream media are getting the message... I think this is a BIG DEAL.... After all the talk of DNA upgrades in the metaphysical community (which is what a few in the metaphysical community have related to the arrival of 'light codes' but I have realised is the arrival of viruses that update DNA), real measurable evolution has been taking hold in vast swathes of the population over the last 30 or so years and the metaphysical commmunity seem to have missed it... I first started to suspect that certain metaphysical leaders did not have much real interest in evolution when I kept reading stuff about Indigo children, like this was the only evolution we could expect and I knew somehow this was wrong... again, it seems my intuition was right... As a researcher, I realised that my synesthesia played a major part in why I could clearly see things that others could not and it was a major source of frustration. People just don't see what I think is completely obvious and this irritates me, even more so when people are highly qualified. I have realised this is not just about intelligence, people's minds are simply not wired and they can't link things up in their mind, even if they know the individual pieces of information. The fact that even the mainstream media are acknowledging that widespread evolution is taking place, has to be then considered alongside all the tremendous efforts out there to STOP people evolving... This is awesome news...

Why near-death events are tricks of mind
Medical Express, 24th October 2011

Psychologists who reviewed a range of phenomena such as out-of-body experiences, visions of tunnels of light or encounters with dead relatives, say they are tricks of the mind rather than a glimpse of the afterlife.

Researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge say that most of the experiences can be explained by a reaction in the brain prompted by a traumatic and sometimes harmless event.

The researchers say that many common near-death experiences could be caused by the brain’s attempt to make sense of unusual sensations and perceptions occurring during a traumatic event.

Comment: The problem with this analysis is scientists cannot prove that the mind is a function of the brain or what the relationship is between the mind and the brain. They do know that the body actually has a mind and that is why there is a new study of the mindbody, normally referred to as psychoneuroimmunology. So trying to blame mind experiences as a brain malfunction is not really science it's guesswork. Yes, the brain can be re-wired due to the massive electrical discharge in the brain at the time of near death (and that is why so many of these shaman types try to nearly kill their followers by trying to literally electrically "shock" the brain to reconfigure, other religious traditions do exactly the same thing by various methods in the hope of advancement, but it is extremely dangerous), but how that affects the mind-brain relationship is not understood.

Alien abductions may be vivid dreams: study
Research center says pre-sleep activities influenced 'E.T.'-like encounters
MSNBC News, 26th October 2011

Researchers say they have conducted "the first experiment to ever prove that close encounters with UFOs and extraterrestrials are a product of the human mind." In a sleep study by the Out-Of-Body Experience Research Center in Los Angeles, 20 volunteers were instructed to perform a series of mental steps upon waking up or becoming lucid during the night that might lead them to have out-of-body experiences culminating in encounters with aliens.

According to lead researcher Michael Raduga, more than half the volunteers experienced at least one full or partial out-of-body experience, and seven of them were able to make contact with UFOs or extraterrestrials during these dream-like experiences. Raduga designed the experiment to test his theory that many reports of alien encounters are actually instances of people experiencing a vibrant, lifelike state of dreaming.

Comment: I don't know enough about this subject to have an opinion one way or the other, but I find it interesting to discover research where people are separating from their bodies and searching for aliens is considered acceptable mainstream news. How times have changed....

Evidence For The Existence Of A Hypnotic State Found
Nano Patents & Innovations, 25th October 2011

A multidisciplinary group of researchers from Finland (University of Turku and Aalto University) and Sweden (University of Skövde) has found that strange stare may be a key that can eventually lead to a solution to this long debate about the existence of a hypnotic state.

One of the most widely known features of a hypnotized person in the popular culture is a glazed, wide-open look in the eyes. Paradoxically, this sign has not been considered to have any major importance among researchers and has never been studied in any detail, probably due to the fact that it can be seen in only some hypnotized people.

This study was done with a very highly hypnotizable participant who can be hypnotized and dehypnotized by just using a one-word cue. The change between hypnotic state and normal state can thus be varied in seconds.

Comment: Don't you find it amazing that there are people who make a good living hypnotising people without their consent and then brainwashing them with a whole range of commands (you know who I am talking about), yet, social scientists have been arguing for 100 years about whether this state actually exists... For those people who want to be savvy, learn how to recognise those who are using hypnosis, persuasion techniques and suggestion, so that yout can defend yourself against these people. Get feisty, that is the best practical advice I can give...

Eyes reveal true hypnotic state for the first time (Video)
New Scientist News, 27th October 2011

Mystery Illness Plagues Asian Factories
Live Science, 23rd September 2011

Researchers from the United Nations recently met in Cambodia to solve the mystery of why large numbers of female workers in that nation have succumbed to an unknown (and temporary) illness. But rather than a physical illness as the source, the scientists may want to look at the mind as the root cause.

(It's not that women are the only workers who are being affected, it's that the majority of workers in these factories are women.) [...]

Over a thousand workers have experienced similar episodes since June. The most likely explanation is mass hysteria, also called mass sociogenic illness. [Top 10 Mysterious Diseases]

Many people misunderstand the nature of mass hysteria and assume that victims are making up their symptoms. The complaints are real and verifiable; the victims are not imagining their problems. It is not a joke, nor a hoax. Nor is a diagnosis of mass hysteria merely a default explanation when investigators can't find a cause. In fact there are several fairly specific diagnostic criterion.

Mass hysteria often begins when individuals under stress convert that stress into physical ills. Co-workers, family and friends may also begin exhibiting the symptoms through contagion. Outbreaks are most common in closed social units (such as schools, hospitals and workplaces) and where afflicted individuals are under pressure and routine stress. Mass hysterias tend to afflict girls and women more often than boys and men, probably because the illness spreads through social ties, and females tend to have stronger social bonds than males.

Comment: I am having some very strange thoughts comparing factories to bee hives and the problems with bees dying in mysterious circumstances. The problems with factory workers can be compared to schools in parts of Africa where there have been on going reports of mass hysteria too, see the report below but apparently, Swedish school girls get first prize for some seriously bizarre behaviour. Now that this seems to be spreading, I am starting to think this might be the start of another phenomena where people in completely unnatural environments (people too close like in a hive) demonstrate that during major geomagnetic disturbances, they are struggling to balance. What is interesting, is that my opinion does not count, this is going to be determined by what actually happens and I think some proper research needs to be done (and of cause it might take scientists YEARS to think of this, get the research funded, conducted and published), but anyway, I think this is going to get much more serious.

What's Causing 'Mass Faintings' at Cambodian Factories?
Time, 20th September 2011
"Why are hundreds of female workers collapsing at Cambodian factories? And could it have something to do with Pokémon cartoons, "World Trade Center syndrome" and the Tanganyika laughter epidemic of 1962? Last week a team of experts from the U.N.'s International Labour Organization (ILO) gathered in Phnom Penh to seek an answer to the first question. In the past three months, at least 1,200 workers at seven garment and shoe factories have reported feeling dizzy, nauseated, exhausted or short of breath, and hundreds have been briefly hospitalized. No definitive explanation has yet been given for these so-called mass faintings. One baffled reporter described them as "unique to Cambodia."

So this event was serious enough to drag UN officials out to monitor the situation...

Exam Hysteria Causes Mass Fainting in Finals Exams
Now Republic, 11th September 2011
The exams that took place in Tanzania must have been a complete nightmare as candidate after candidate fainted and much crying, screaming and running around occurred for the 20 girls sitting the exam. Not quite as spectacular as the incident in Sweden a few years ago, when some 16 year-old school girls threw off all their clothes and went on a rampage in a local park!
Wow... I did not know about the Swedish school girls.... but I bet it made the national media!

Rugby player 'woke up gay' after stroke
Irish Times, 9th November 2011

A Welsh rugby player who suffered a stroke ditched his fiancee after claiming he woke up gay. Chris Birch (26), has since slimmed down from 19 stone to a lithe 11 stone, retrained as a hairdresser and moved in with a teenage boyfriend.

He now works at J’s Hair Salon in Ystrad Mynach, south Wales, after giving up his job in a bank. He was injured during a rugby training session when he attempted a back flip, broke his neck and suffered a stroke.

His parents and girlfriend endured an anxious bedside vigil waiting to discover whether he would recover. The man who eventually emerged was different in almost every way and found he hated sport and was no longer interested in women. Plans to get married and settle down were dropped as he embarked on a new life as a gay man.

Comment: I am very curious about these stories because it seems to be these 'transformational' experiences are happening more often. In the archives, there stories of people waking up and thinking and speaking in another language overnight; people who pick up a foreign accent overnight; and a woman who woke up thinking she was only 15, see Best of the Blog - Brain & Mind Science. However, in this case, it's almost like there is a completely different person inhabiliting the body rather like the stories of people who have received an organ transplant and there has been a transfer of consciousness... I am sure there must be some room for speculation that this person has reverted to 'another' life, whether you believe in previous lives or not. Whatever, this example is really quite interesting. Well, I am a believer in the concept of the holographic brain, but the mind and brain does not exist in isolation and there seems to be an intimate relationship with our emotions that is extremely difficult to quantify, but I made an attempt in my book. So, I am watching out for these stories because I think the environment will be doing a lot of 'resets' in the future, but at this stage, I am monitoring and I cannot state whether this is "good" or "bad".

Serious Health Scare in Houston
High School Rivals, 5th November 2011

Authorities in Houston are still searching for answers after an area high school football game was called off early after nearly two dozen fans were hospitalized after suddenly becoming sick in the stands of Barnett Stadium on Friday night.

During the second half of the game between Austin (Texas) High and Houston (Texas) Yates, many members of the band and dance team from Austin started suffering from nausea, vomiting and dizziness and began collapsing in the stands, according to numerous media reports.

Officials feared they had been exposed to some type of biohazard and called hazmet teams to the scene but no traces of gases or chemical agents were found. Nevertheless, the stadium was cleared and the game was called with Yates leading, 47-14.

The students, many complaining of nausea, were sent for more medical evaluation. "We ended up with 22 students being transported to five different hospitals," Houston Fire Department assistant chief David Almaguer told the local FOX affiliate, KTRK-TV.

Comment: Are we starting to see an increase in reports of mass hysteria? Maybe, it could have been just one person that was genuinely sick, but for some strange reason, the symptoms were quickly passed on to the group... There has been a lot of psychological studies about crowd or 'mob' dynamics and team games are a very easy way for humans to 'meld' into a group identity where the mob then acts as a single identity... The issue is whether there is something in the air (literally) that is acting as a unifier...

Bright sparks: Electrodes on your skull let you learn the piano faster - and could even turn you into a star sportsman
Daily Mail, 16th September 2011

Attaching a nine-volt battery to electrodes on your scalp can speed up the process of learning how to do sequences of button-presses such as learning to play a piece of music on the piano, a study has found.

'In future, we hope to use this, for example, to train sports people faster at tennis or rowing, simply by stimulating their brain,' Professor Johansen-Berg at the University of Oxford told Mail Online today.

'We targeted a specific area of the brain that affects motor function, but is possible that similar technology could be used to make children do better at school - although that obviously raises ethical or moral questions.' [...]

However, the technique is not fool proof. If the men and women were zapped before they played the game, or if the current travelled in the other direction, they did worse.

This has echoes of separate Oxford University research released last year, in which passing a mild electric current through the brain improved the mathematical ability of students. But shocking the wrong part of the mind reduced the guinea pigs' numerical skills to the level of a six-year-old.

Comment: All the research into brains being zapped with electric and magnetic fields via electrodes is starting to worry me... Due to my research, I knew that people were influenced by a vacillating EM environmental fields if they were unbalanced emotionally, but I am really starting to wonder after seeing so many strange reports that I am now thinking that people can be zapped by stray fields and that is why there are so many studies taking place... What's more, the powers that be know that the electromagnetic environmental of Earth is now full on chaos, but most people don't...

The BBC, the Science of Psychopathy and the New World Order.
Sovereign Independent, 12th September 2011

I have been following the scientific research on psychopathy by Canada’s Professor Robert Hare for some years given his seminal work on demonstrating that the common notions of psychopathy are grossly over-simplistic and one-dimensional. In their purest form Psychopaths literally are, as the title of one of Professor Hare’s books suggests, “without conscience” but are not all like some Hannibal Lecter stereotype or likely to end up in prison or secure mental institution.

Psychopaths are an aberrant minority or human sub-group that can be highly intelligent and able to assess and mimic normal human emotions and empathy so as to disguise their true nature from society, colleagues and even spouses. Intelligent psychopaths can in fact teach themselves to intellectually understand normal cooperative emotional human beings in considerable detail without sharing or feeling normal human emotions and sympathy – which are viewed by psychopaths as weaknesses and not the long-term communal human survival traits/strategies that they actually are. [...]

An absolute must-see documentary film on the science of psychopathy was screened by the BBC Horizon science series on 7 September 2011 (details below) entitled: “Are You Good or Evil?”

Comment: Well, even the BBC are pointing out that there are aliens amongst us... In terms of spiritual evolution, it is very important to realise that there are people who are literally sub-human, who will oppose you. I really don't believe it is possible to progress without some understanding of how to avoid being involved with psychopaths because they are extremely dangerous if left undetected. (Unfortunately, I had to find this out the hard way.) My own experiences of coming across people whose energy is very cold, not human, left me startled, to the point where I immediately wondered what those people represented. In fact, those first few experiences occurred many years before I knew anything about psychopaths. I continue to read about this subject, but in my opinion, something is distinctly strange about some people who only look human and the fact that this subject is going mainstream is highly significant, as the mass of humanity takes a massive evolutionary leap.

Horizon - Are You Good Or Bad Part 1
YouTube, 10th September 2011
This is a video link for those outside of the UK.
Brilliant! This documentary is highly recommended.
Comment: In Part 2, the comments about US Marines having real problems when their moral codes have been destroyed is very interesting. So now US marines are trained as "ethical warriors with a mission to protect and defend life". Really, it makes you realise just what a psychopath James Ray is. He has shown no remorse for killing four people and that includes Colleen Conway, who was probably psychologically disturbed by the typical LGAT mental and emotional 'processing'. In Part 4, the discussion of psychopaths with charisma is enough to make any normal person shudder... If you have been a victim of someone with psychopathy and you have believed the New Age crap taught about The Law of Attraction, then the best thing you can do is de-program yourself by studying the whole James Ray background history because the information that has been collected, makes this a simple study. The goal will be to realise that besides the fact the The Law of Attraction is a badly flawed concept, it is completely and utterly irrelevant when it comes to a predator looking for prey.

Zapping the brain with magnets makes it IMPOSSIBLE to lie, claim scientists
Daily Mail, 7th September 2011

If truth be told, magnetic interference with the brain makes it impossible to lie. At least, that’s what a group of Estonian researchers are claiming.

They found that when magnets were applied to either the right or left side of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, found directly behind your forehead, it made you lie or tell the truth, depending on which side was stimulated.

When magnetic interference was directed at another part of the brain, the parietal lobe, the subjects’ decision-making remain unchanged. [...]

Remarkably, those stimulated on the left side fibbed a great deal more, those on the right showed much more honesty. Scientists last year found that magnets can also be used to disrupt the brain’s ‘moral compass’.

Comment: I am now wondering about pathological liars, but it's a fact that psychopaths have less parts of the brain active compared to most 'normal' people, see archives for more details...

Mass collapse at garment factory [Cambodia]
Phnom Penh Post, 24th August 2011

Another mass fainting incident struck a garment factory yesterday, this time in the provincial capital of Kampong Chhnang where more than 100 workers at M&V factory collapsed, company and union representatives said yesterday.

Staff began falling to the factory floor at about 9:00am, said Noun Chhenghour, president of Cambodia Union Workers, adding that more than 80 of them were taken to hospital.

Comment: These mass fainting episodes have been happening quite a lot recently, mostly factory workers and school children in some countries in Africa. I am actually wondering if this is something related to those with too much of a 'hive' mindset and whether something strange is happening at a morphogenetic level.

H&M in second mass faint
Phnom Penh Post, 26th August 2011

Judge's mixed metaphors tickle the press
Reuters, August 3, 2011

NEW YORK, August 3 (Reuters) - A Kentucky judge who added a touch of humor to a recent trial order is receiving an unexpected bit of media attention.

In late July, Kenton Circuit Court judge Martin Sheehan received news of a settlement in a bitter legal malpractice suit he had been overseeing. Sheehan summed up his feelings about the development in an order canceling the trial.

"Such news of an amicable settlement (has) made this Court happier than a tick on a fat dog because it is otherwise busier than a one legged cat in a sand box and, quite frankly would have rather jumped naked off a twelve foot step ladder into a five gallon bucket of porcupines than have presided over a two week trial of the herein dispute, a trial which, no doubt would have made the jury more confused than a hungry baby in a topless bar and made the parties and their attorneys madder than mosquitoes in a mannequin factory," Sheehan wrote.

Comment: I am fascinated by this old article because I believe the judge is displaying the signs of someone with a more evolved brain and I would be willing to bet that he has some form of synaesthesia. He has the ability to make connections between different concepts by seeing the similarities and that is why he is constantly making use of metaphors, so I am sure he would probably make an excellent researcher. It's something that I like to do but I often refrain for the sake of others who don't always appreciate it, but I actually get really tickled by mixed metaphors, that's how it is... This person would be fun to be with...

The 'Forever 27 Club' - Music's Growing List Of Stars Who Died At 27 Years Old
Starpulse.com, 24th July 2011

The 'Forever 27 Club' has become more than a legend since the dawn of music recording. As it turns out, some of music's most influential artists who were taken from us much too soon all parted with the living at age 27. Is it a coincidence or a curse?

The latest 27-year-old to "join" this exclusive club is Amy Winehouse, who died Saturday at her London home. No one knows why or how yet, but initial speculation - most likely based on her past - is that drugs and/or alcohol were somehow involved.

Well, they played a big part in the deaths of these other stars who preceded her "in the club."

The first member of the club, legendary bluesman Robert Johnson, came decades before the others. Johnson influenced a myriad of musicians - including the likes of Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix - despite only recording 29 songs.

Comment: Very sad. I was forced to give away 2 Amy Winehouse CDs or I might have destroyed them I can't quite remember. There is no argument about the woman being talented, but through the music, I was constantly tapping into the energy around this woman that was simply just horrible. OK, the article provides a long list of deaths at age 27, but neglects to explain why age 27 is such a critical age. According to sources that I have found on the internet, the brain reaches peak activity at age 27, so people doing heavy drink ands drugs pushes the brain into overload and the result is they die.

Magnetism Prevents Memory Loss?
Epoch Times, 12th July 2011

Learning new skills or facts in quick succession could become less challenging with the help of magnetism, according to new research by American neurologists.

Dr. Edwin Robertson and Dr. Daniel Cohen from the Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston investigated whether it is possible to prevent interference between memory tasks. [...]

"Because brain cells communicate through a process of chemical and electrical signals, applying a mild electrical current to the brain can influence the signals," Robertson said.

"Our observations suggest that distinct mechanisms support the communication between different types of memory processing," he added. "This provides a more dynamic and flexible account of memory organization than was previously believed."

“We've demonstrated that the interference between memories is actively mediated by brain areas and so may serve an important function that has previously been overlooked."

Comment: I think this research provides some scientific validation for why having a strong personal electromagnetic field is extremely beneficial. From my research and my own personal experience, I would say holding more energy or electromagnetic charge would be like having more hardware that can be used to store information. The reason I say this is because of my own experiences when I was first heavily researching Space Weather and the geomagnetic effect on humans. I could detect my energy field and I actually felt energetically bloated. Information is not just stored in the brain, the whole energy field is carrying information and if you are sensitive enough, you can detect when you are transmitting and receiving information. This is not just theoretical for me, my own evolution is such that I can talk from my own personal experiences.

Humans May Have 'Magnetic' Sixth Sense
Live Science, 21st June 2011

Humans may have a sixth sense after all, suggests a new study finding that a protein in the human retina, when placed into fruit flies, has the ability to detect magnetic fields.

The researchers caution that the results suggest this human protein has the capability to work as a magnetosensor; however, whether or not humans use it in that way is not known.

"It poses the question, 'maybe we should rethink about this sixth sense,'" Steven Reppert, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, told LiveScience. "It is thought to be very important for how animals migrate. Perhaps this protein is also fulfilling an important function for sensing magnetic fields in humans."

Comment: Hundreds of scientific studies over the last 50 years indicate that humans have many different senses and the notion of only 5 senses is completely false. These books can be recommended: Deciphering the Senses: The Expanding World of Human Perception & Sensation and Perception: An Integrated Approach. Studies have now got to the stage where scientists admit that so many people are developing new senses that they should not be defined as extra-sensory. Neuroscientists have defined 63 different types of synaesthsia that are based on a fusion of senses creating a new way of perceiving the world. Electrohypersensitives complain that they can see electric and magnetic fields and they think this is a medical disorder, but at the end of the day they are only perceiving more of our reality that most humans have not been able to perceive well. Since I have seen into other dimensions on many occasions, from my perspective, I believe that I have just glimpsed into more of what is actually around me, but as evolutionary changes accelerate, many humans will realise there is more to our reality than has previously met the eye.

'I woke up in the wrong life'
Naomi Jacobs went to bed a 34-year-old mother – but the next morning was convinced she was 15 again. She describes how she fought a rare form of amnesia to find her way back to the present
The Independent, 14th June 2011

I opened my eyes with a start, breathing heavily, my pyjamas drenched in sweat. I must have had a nightmare, I told myself. But as my eyes came into focus, cold fear gripped my belly – I realised I had no idea where I was; my nightmare was real. Where was my lower bunk bed and my pink bedspread? Why wasn't my sister sleeping soundly above me? Why couldn't I hear my parents making breakfast downstairs? I scrambled from the king-size bed I'd woken up in, frantically looking around the room for something I recognised, some clues as to how I got there. Had I been kidnapped?

Comment: This is quite a story... I hope this is exceedingly rare, but I would not bet on it becoming more frequent, due to the electromagnetic chaos of our current environment...

Dr. Lakhmir Chawla Frustrates Near-Death Experience Researchers
Skeptico, 7th June 2011

George Washington University Medical Center Professor, Dr. Lakhmir Chawla, answers critics of his near-death experience research.

Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Dr. Lakhmir Chawla. During the interview Dr. Chawla discussed whether his discovery of a surge in the brain’s electrical activity seconds before death might, or might not, be related to near-death experience:

Dr. Lakhmir Chawla: We have a hypothesis for why this may be happening, that causes this large intensity of electrical energy. What we basically hypothesize further and speculate is that if somebody within the field, someone who’s having a heart attack, for example, and their heart stops and the oxygen to their brain went down and they have this sort of terminal surge of energy and then they were resuscitated and brought back, it’s very likely that they would recall that electrical surge.

If they did recall that electrical surge, we hypothesize and speculate that that could be what people describe in their near-death experiences. The one thing that we’ve seen rather consistently when you read the literature of near-death experiences is that not everyone has the same imagery. Not everyone has the same experience.

But the one thing that they all have in common is that the experience is very intense and very vivid. People can usually recall many, many years later on with great detail what they experienced. So it would take something that would be a very durable electrical event of energy for someone to have that. So we put those notions together and arrived at that speculation.

Comment: I am pleased that this doctor is brave enough to point out his observations because it helps us to understand why people who have a Near Death Experience become more enlightened as their brains are literally electrically re-wired. It also helps us to understand why in our current chaotic electromagnetic environment, with some extreme electric fields occuring at ground level, why people may have a quick brain upgrade, seemingly for no particular reason.

A Curious Case Of Foreign Accent Syndrome
NPR, 1st June 2011

When Karen Butler went in for dental surgery, she left with more than numb gums: She also picked up a pronounced foreign accent. It wasn't a fluke, or a joke — she'd developed a rare condition called foreign accent syndrome that's usually caused by an injury to the part of the brain that controls speech.[...]

"But she doesn't sound like one anymore. Her accent is now a hodgepodge of English, Irish and perhaps a bit of other European accents. The problem started about a year and a half ago, when she was put under anesthesia while the dentist removed several teeth.

"I just went to sleep and I woke up and my mouth was all sore and swollen, and I talked funny. And the dentist said, 'You'll talk normal when the swelling goes down,' " Butler says.

Comment: I listed a story about this woman a month ago, but this article explains that this condition was brought on after a visit to the dentist. Well, I am quite concerned as it is obvious the electromagnetic chaos is deepening and we all go to the dentist...

Woman can literally feel the noise
Medical Xpress, 30th May 2011

(Medical Xpress) -- A case of a 36-year-old woman who began to literally 'feel' noise about a year and a half after suffering a stroke sparked a new research project by neuroscientist Tony Ro from the City College of New York and the Graduate Center of the City University. Research and imagery of the brain revealed that a link had grown between the woman’s auditory region and the somatosensory region, essentially connecting her hearing to her touch sensation.

Ro and his team presented the findings at the Acoustical Society of America’s meeting on May 25. They pointed out that both hearing and touch rely on vibrations and that this connection may be found in the rest of us as well. Another researcher and neuroscientist Elizabeth Courtenay Wilson from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston agrees that there is a strong connection between the two.

Comment: Presumably this is another type of synaesthesia and another evolutionary change that might start to appear in large sections of humanity. I am puzzled because a stroke is not associated with anomalous electrical activity in the brain that might have reconfigured the electrical connections in the brain. We do know that certain treatments that electrically simulate the brain do make a difference like the use of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), but maybe this stimulation is now occuring naturally at times when strong electric fields are present.

Discarded data may be gateway to new brain insights
xenophilius blog, 18th May 2010
"Scientists regularly discard up to 90 percent of the signals from monitoring of brain waves, one of the oldest techniques for observing changes in brain activity. They discard this data as noise because it produces a seemingly irregular pattern like those seen in river fluctuations, seismic waves, heart rates, stock market prices and a wide variety of other phenomena."
Surprised again by the attitude of scientists ignoring data that they don't understand, like the 90% of DNA that they called junk for decades....

Religion may affect brain changes
Sydney Morning Herald, 23rd May 2011

FAITH can open your mind but it can also cause your brain to shrink at a different rate, research suggests. Researchers at Duke University Medical Centre in the US claim to have discovered a correlation between religious practices and changes in the brains of older adults.

The study, published in the open-access science journal, Public Library of Science ONE, asked 268 people aged 58 to 84 about their religious group, spiritual practices and life-changing religious experiences. Changes in the volume of their hippocampus, the region of the brain associated with learning and memory, were tracked using MRI scans, over two to eight years.

Comment: Yes, I regularly come across people who have allowed their brains to atrophy...

Post-surgery woman has British accent
The Spokesman Review, 1st May 2011

PORTLAND – When Karen Butler came out of sedation after oral surgery a year and a half ago, her mouth throbbed and her face was puffy. But that’s not all that had changed. When she spoke, the words tumbled out in a thick and foreign accent.

“I sounded like I was from Transylvania,” she said. Over the next few days, the swelling subsided and the pain vanished, but Butler’s newly acquired accent did not. Though it has softened over time, she’s never again spoken like a native Oregonian from Madras. To most people, she sounds British.

It took months to find an explanation: foreign accent syndrome, a disorder so rare that only about 60 cases have been documented worldwide since the early 1900s. [...] “When it first happened and we didn’t know what it was, all kinds of ideas were handed up as possibilities,” said Butler, a 56-year-old mother of five. Her family joked that she had spun into a past life regression. She sought help from her dentist and family physician. Both figured the dentures put in during surgery had caused the change.

Comment: It's happened again! From my previous research this condition is supposed to be rare but check out how many instances there have been in the last few years and how many in the United Kingdom alone which makes me think the statistics that are quoted cannot possibly be right, see Best of the Blog Mind & Brain. Obviously, the language control centres in the brain seems to be much more vulnerable in these electromagnetic conditions. This strange condition seems to make more sense if we understand the principles of the holographic brain. Could we see this get really serious? I don't know but the trend is definitely up... Watch out folks! People have woken up from normal sleep with a foreign accent or even thinking and speaking in another language! The joking that "she had spun into a past life regression" is also a possibility, but I can't make a scientific case for this scenario.

Boy Without a Cerebellum Baffles Doctors (video)
AOL News, 12th February 2011

[...] Chase was also born prematurely, and he was legally blind. When he was 1 year old, doctors did an MRI, expecting to find he had a mild case of cerebral palsy. Instead, they discovered he was completely missing his cerebellum -- the part of the brain that controls motor skills, balance and emotions.

"That's when the doctor called and didn't know what to say to us," Britton said in a telephone interview. "No one had ever seen it before. And then we'd go to the neurologists and they'd say, 'That's impossible.' 'He has the MRI of a vegetable,' one of the doctors said to us." Chase is not a vegetable, leaving doctors bewildered and experts rethinking what they thought they knew about the human brain.

"There are some very bright, specialized people across the country and in Europe that have put their minds to this dilemma and are continuing to do so, and we haven't come up with an answer," Dr. Adre du Plessis, chief of Fetal and Transitional Medicine at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., told Fox News affiliate WGRZ. "So it is a mystery."

Comment: The video at atound 2:00 gives the science related to what the medical specialists believe about the role of certain parts of the brain but as experts state here, what they think they know might of course be completely wrong. I even wonder whether Chase's cerebellum has gone interdimensional, it was once physical but quickly dissappeared but connections still exist at a higher dimensional level with the other parts of the brain. Whatever, this little boy is proof like so many others, that humans can be much more flexible in how we can develop and evolve. By the way, the cerrebellum and brain stem are also know as the reptilian part of the brain and so should cause some serious pause for thought, but the ideas of brain evolution that this has been associated with, have largely been discredited.

Are Humans Evolving to Be Dumber?
Atlantic Wire, 28th December 2010

According to a new report in Discover Magazine, the human brain, which has expanded for most of our biological history, has begun to shrink. Kathleen McAuliffe writes that, according to new research, "Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion." And that shrinking appears to still be happening on an evolutionary scale.

So why haven't you heard about this yet? Discover Magazine's McAuliffe thinks it may have something to do with the fact that scientists--at least the few who have stumbled onto this trend--don't really have an explanation yet. "As I soon discover, only a tight-knit circle of paleontologists seem to be in on the secret, and even they seem a bit muddled about the matter. Their theories as to why the human brain is shrinking are all over the map," she writes.

Comment: Hmmm... brain volume does not equate to evolutionary status, but I have discovered that there is evidence that the brain has evolved and devolved in humans. Scientists will not talk about devolution because it is completely at odds with Darwin's theory of evolution, which everyone is supposed to believe religiously. Here, we have someone reducing brain evolution down to one factor -- brain size -- and there is obviously more to the story than that. I have found a copy of The Incredible Shrinking Brain by Kathleen McAuliffe, author of the Discovery article, which I presume is similar. In this version, we learn about the Idiocracy theory, which I found quite amusing, but actually this goes against other studies that clearly reveal that humans are becoming more intelligent overall, which might surprise a few.

Study: Conservatives have larger ‘fear center’ in brain
Raw Story, 28th December 2010

Political opinions are considered choices, and in Western democracies the right to choose one's opinions -- freedom of conscience -- is considered sacrosanct. But recent studies suggest that our brains and genes may be a major determining factor in the views we hold.

A study at University College London in the UK has found that conservatives' brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other "primitive" emotions. At the same time, conservatives' brains were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate -- the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.

If the study is confirmed, it could give us the first medical explanation for why conservatives tend to be more receptive to threats of terrorism, for example, than liberals. And it may help to explain why conservatives like to plan based on the worst-case scenario, while liberals tend towards rosier outlooks.

"It is very significant because it does suggest there is something about political attitudes that are either encoded in our brain structure through our experience or that our brain structure in some way determines or results in our political attitudes," Geraint Rees, the neurologist who carried out the study, told the media. [...]

But evidence is beginning to accumulate that figuring out a person's political proclivities may soon be as simple as a brain scan -- or a DNA test.

Comment: This is just more proof for theories associated with human development, especially the work of Professor Clare Graves and his theory of Levels of Human Existence, that is now more often referred to as Spiral Dynamics. (Please note: there are now many offshoots that don't necessarily reflect the intent of the original quality research.) Spiritual evolution requires the brain to be physically upgraded and re-wired. This is known to spiritual aspirants who sought a Kundalini awakening or used other methods to literally electrify and re-wire the brain. However, this concept has been misused and the extremely barbaric practice of electro-shock treatment of misfits can be cited.

Woman who cannot feel fear may help in treating PTSD
BBC News, 17th December 2010

A woman who cannot feel afraid because of a missing structure in her brain could help scientists discover treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Research published in Current Biology showed the woman felt no fear in a variety of scary situations. These included exposure to snakes and spiders, horror films and a "haunted house".

The woman feels other emotions but said as an adult, she had never felt afraid. She is the first known case of someone who is unable to process fear. [...]

However, it has never been observed in a human before.

Comment: Is this a sign of a new human? Is this a new evolutionary trait? Heh, that is going to be a massive problem for world controllers who only know how to control by fear. Wow! Sorry, this is really worth speculating about! If this really is a new human trait, then the future for the whole of humanity is going to be very different, but we have to wait for many more mutants to appear!

The Puzzling Role Of Biophotons In The Brain
Various work suggests that neurons emit and even conduct photons. Could it be that biophotons help to synchronise the brain?
Technology Review, 17th December 2010

In recent years, a growing body of evidence shows that photons play an important role in the basic functioning of cells. Most of this evidence comes from turning the lights off and counting the number of photons that cells produce. It turns out, much to many people's surprise, that many cells, perhaps even most, emit light as they work.

In fact, it looks very much as if many cells use light to communicate. There's certainly evidence that bacteria, plants and even kidney cells communicate in this way. Various groups have even shown that rats brains are literally alight thanks to the photons produced by neurons as they work.

And that raises an interesting question: what role does light play in the work of neurons? The fact that neurons emit light does not mean that they can receive it or process it.

But interesting evidence is beginning to emerge that light may well play an important role in neuronal function. For example, earlier this year, one group showed that spinal neurons in rats can actually conduct light. [...] The presence of light sensitive molecules makes it hard to imagine how they might not be not influenced by biophotons.

Comment: As usual, scientists are still trying to understand the very basics of how our brains work and are discarding previously basic ideas for something far more sophisticated like microtubules acting like optical fibres. I like the reference to Roger Penrose who suggested that "consciousness is essentially a phenomenon of quantum mechanics and that microtubules were the medium in which quantum mechanics takes place." I am now wondering do we have another scientist who is light years ahead of his peers and others are just in the process of catching up with real observational proof?

Acupuncture changes brain's perception and processing of pain
Eureka Alert, 30th November 2010

CHICAGO – Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers have captured pictures of the brain while patients experienced a pain stimulus with and without acupuncture to determine acupuncture's effect on how the brain processes pain. Results of the study, which the researchers say suggest the effectiveness of acupuncture, were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

"Until now, the role of acupuncture in the perception and processing of pain has been controversial," said lead researcher Nina Theysohn, M.D., from the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology at University Hospital in Essen, Germany. "Functional MRI gives us the opportunity to directly observe areas of the brain that are activated during pain perception and see the variances that occur with acupuncture."

fMRI measures the tiny metabolic changes that take place in an active part of the brain, while a patient performs a task or is exposed to a specific external stimulus.

Comment: When scientists say "controversial" what they really mean is that they don't want to believe what has been discovered. According to Dr. Robert Becker, who is famed for his research into bioelectromagnetism, he was approached by a US military colonel in the 1960s, who told him straight that they knew that acupuncture worked, but they wanted to know how! As I wrote in my book, it's quite common for a few scientists to be 20, 30, 40, 50 years ahead of their peers, the problem we have is knowing enough of the scientific observations and argument to know who we can trust, regardless of their status in the scientific community.

How does business deal with psychos at the top?
London Evening Standard, 26th November 2010

One of the more challenging thoughts to be aired recently is the theory that there are more psychopaths in UK company boardrooms than there are in Britain's mental hospitals.

That might be a tough one to prove, but I have it on the best authority that you are at least three times more likely to meet a psychopath in the higher echelons of business than you are in the population at large.

In any company of 1000 employees there should be about 10 — and the most fruitful place to go looking for them is in the executive suite.

These insights come courtesy of Holly Andrews of the Worcester Business School and a lecture that she delivered earlier this month at a conference which was organised by The Institute of Risk Management.

The wider point Ms Andrews was making was that a company can have all the risk management systems in the world, but it also has to know how to deal with people — and particularly people whose interests may not always align with the organisation. [...]

Ms Andrews points out that the external watchdogs on a company such as the auditors, investment bankers and analysts are equally susceptible to psychopath penetration — more so possibly because in those organisations anyone with a bit of charm tends to stand out, and charm and manipulation are the tools psychopaths use to get noticed, taken under the wing of a sponsor and promoted.

When they eventually get to the boardroom apparently the tell-tale signs are their poor people management, weak planning, unethical behaviour, lack of loyalty and a refusal to learn from mistakes.

Oh dear!

Comment: It's quite interesting just how many articles are pointing out that our overlords are often psychopaths. Here is a link to a documentary clip revealing that psychopaths do not process information emotionally like normal people.

Psychopaths Documentary - MRI Brain differences explained by Dr. Bob Hare
Youtube, August 2007
Well, what more proof do people want that psychopaths heavily rely on the most primitive reptilian part of the brain?

"Mirrors in Your Brain": Does an Epic Discovery Do for Psychology What DNA Did for Biology?
Daily Galaxy, 15th November 2010

A recent paradigm-shattering discovery in neuroscience shows how our minds share actions, emotions, and experience -what we commonly call "the monkey see, monkey do" experience. When we see someone laugh, cry, show disgust, or experience pain, in some sense, we share that emotion.

When we see someone in distress, we share that distress. When we see a great actor, musician or sportsperson perform at the peak of their abilities, it can feel like we are experiencing just something of what they are experiencing.

Only recently, however, with the discover of mirror neurons, has it become clear just how this powerful sharing of experience is realized within the human brain.

Comment: As a reminder, psychopaths do not "mirror"... and that is the reason they are not able to consider the feelings of their victims...

GPS addict? It may be eroding your brain
MSNBC News, 15th November 2010

When it comes to spatial memory, it could be a case of 'use it or lose it,' say researchers

Jean Snyder says she isn't afraid of spiders, snakes or even dentists. But she is scared of one little thing: a GPS breakdown.

Snyder's 2005 Honda Odyssey is equipped with GPS, and for the last five years, Snyder hasn't looked at a map, noticed landmarks or even tried new routes to get from point A to point B. Instead, she relies on the disembodied voice of "Jackie," her GPS, to guide her.

"When it comes to finding my way, I've become a GPS zombie," says Snyder, a 47-year-old office manager in Highland Heights, Ohio. "I'm sure I'm not doing my brain any favors."

Snyder might be on to something. Three studies by McGill University researchers presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience on Sunday show that the way we navigate the world today may indeed affect just how well our brains function as we age — particularly the hippocampus, which is linked to memory.

Comment: It's quite amazing that some will confess they are happy to switch off and allow their brain to atrophy. The real problem I suppose is those who don't even realise that they are actually becoming partly brain dead, something that it is easy to spot in some...

Breakthrough: Scientists harness the power of electricity in the brain
Maxhines Like Us, 2nd November 2010

Researchers at the school and colleagues from the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego have developed technology that for the first time allows doctors and scientists to noninvasively isolate and measure electrical brain activity in moving people.

This technology is a key component of the kind of brain-computer interfaces that would allow a robotic exoskeleton controlled by a patient's thoughts to move that patient's limb, said Daniel Ferris, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and author of a trio of papers detailing the research.

"Of course that is not going to happen soon but a step toward being able to do that is the ability to record brain waves while somebody is moving around," said Joe Gwin, first author on the papers and a graduate research fellow in the School of Kinesiology and the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Comment: I need to do some more reading but, I' m not confident. It's really apparent to me that there will be many problems due to Space Weather, Earth's flaky magnetic field that at times provides NO shielding from the cosmos and geomagnetic storms generating fluctuating electric currents in the atmosphere and in the ground which means that humanity has many different major issues of environmental Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) to deal with. The following is a well reported accident:

Austrian with high-tech robot arm dies after crash
PhysOrg.com, 22nd October 2010
"Christian Kandlbauer lost both arms in an electrical accident in 2005 but was able to live a largely normal life thanks to a mind-controlled robotic prosthetic left arm and a normal prosthesis in place of his right arm. The 22-year-old died Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010 said Andreas Waltensdorfer, a senior physician at a hospital in the southern city of Graz, where Kandlbauer had been in intensive care since Tuesday, the day of the crash. [...] Kandlbauer was the first person outside the United States to wear the innovative, robotic limb that recognized signals from his brain and moved accordingly, said Otto Bock of HealthCare Products GmbH that produced the prothesis."

Falling in love 'takes a fifth of a second and is like taking cocaine'
The Telegraph, 26th October 2010

Love at first sight really is possible because it takes just milliseconds for euphoria-inducing chemicals to flood the brain after setting eyes on the right person, researchers believe.

The first flush of love stimulates 12 different parts of the brain to start releasing “feel-good” chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline and vasopression, a study at Syracuse University in New York found.

Comment: I simply can't comment from lack of experience, but it does sound dangerous to me! LOL!!...

English patient: Serbian boy learns fluent English overnight
Austrian Times, 13th October 2010

Copy: Schoolboy Dimitrije Mitrovic baffled his family and teachers in Serbia when he woke up speaking only English - despite never being taught a word of the language. Mum Dragana says her son simply got out of bed one morning at the family home in Nis and began talking to her in perfect English.

Dimitrij - now 11 - is so word perfect that his family, friends and even his teachers can no longer understand him. "One day, when he was only three years old, he just got out of bed and started to talk to me in English. I know some English so I could understand a bit but he was soon so good I had to get a translator to speak to him for me," explained his mum. By the time he was five, Dimitrije was reciting entire Harry Potter novels to his pals in English and now he rarely speaks his mother tongue unless he has to. "I dream in English, speak it, and if stub my toe I'll curse in English too," he said.

Baffled medics believe Dimitrije may have acquired some sort of autistic talent for the language. "He is absolutely normal in every other way and a very nice young boy. He just seems to think he's English," said mum Dragana. English language expert Professor Tatjana Paunovic from Nis University explained: "It's fascinating. We have talked to him for an hour in English and he speaks the language better than we do - like he was born speaking it."

Comment: Hmmm... see the archives for some other recent stories about people waking up and speaking another language or acquiring a foreign accent. It's even interesting that they now claim that he may have aquired savant abilities, but the theory of the holographic universe and the holographic brain is a much more reasonable theory to consider in these circumstances.

How to spot a liar: Their story is far too detailed to be true
Daily Mail, 29th September 2010

If someone starts explaining why they were late by giving you an intricate, blow-by-blow rundown of what exactly held them up, be warned: that person is probably lying. A researcher into insurance fraud said today that liars give themselves away by thinking too hard about their story. Sharon Leal, a research fellow at the University of Portsmouth, examine how people behave when they make fraudulent insurance claims.[...]

She explained that because liars need to think about their plan when being questioned, this puts a large load on their brain which in turn affects their behaviour.

She said it is these changes which are most likely to form the basis of new investigative methods designed to spot the cheats. Dr Leal said: ‘There is a real need to use evidence-based methods that are scientifically proven to work to stop wasting insurance companies' time and money and to stop innocent people being treated as suspects while the guilty get away.’

Comment: Useful information. Also:

Liars' brains 'are not the same'
BBC News, 29 September 2005
"A University of Southern California team studied 49 people and found those known to be pathological liars had up to 26% more white matter than others. White matter transmits information and grey matter processes it. Having more white matter in the prefrontal cortex may aid lying, the researchers said..."

Select few 'can identify liars'
BBC News, 15 October, 2004
"A University of San Francisco study found only 31 people out of 13,000 could identify in nearly all cases when someone was lying."

James Brienzo, Moron of the Day: Walmart Thief Hides in Dumpster, Get Compacted in Garbage Truck
True Crime Report, 24th September 2010

Early Wednesday morning, James Brienzo decided to do a little thieving at Walmart. Police were called to the store in Alliance, Ohio at 6 a.m. for a theft in progress. When they pulled up to a rear fire exit, they found a car running but no one inside...

Then Brienzo emerged from the store with a shopping cart full of stuff. Upon seeing police he took off running. His wheels proved superior to the cops chasing him. He was able to lose his pursuers. Figuring it unwise to walk home while police were still looking for him, our hero decided to hide in a dumpster. This proved very unfortunate, since that particular dumpster was scheduled for pickup that morning, and Brienzo ended up in the back of a garbage truck.
Comment: Well, it has become very apparent to me in the last few years, that many people lack the ability to think long enough to come up with a variety of consequences associated with their actions. This is because we live in societies that encourages knee jerk reactions and discourages thinking about anything that is not related to our basic survival. It is most apparent that original thinking and deep introspection is discouraged as the media and society are constantly programming people to respond in a certain way, to the extent that I suppose, some of the neural circuits in people's brains become atrophied so that original thinking becomes impossible. See, Why exercise your brain? Simply, mental flexibility is something to be prized and not considered oddball or else one might end up in the 'evolutionary' dumpster like this character.

Kath Lockett seeks cure for Foreign Accent Syndrome
BBC News, 17th September 2010

Kath Lockett from Stafford is looking for a cure for her very rare condition. She is one of only around 60 people in the whole world to suffer from Foreign Accent Syndrome. The mother of two has been fighting for the last four years to find her own voice after a brain disease transformed her Staffordshire accent into something distinctly eastern European.

Comment: If you follow the links here, there is article that reveals at least two more recent cases in the UK. What is foreign accent syndrome? Linda Walker in 2006, who started speaking with a Jamaican accent in 2006 and Chris Gregory who in 2009, woke up from brain surgery with an Irish accent. So, that makes at least five in the UK all happening in the last four years? If 60 is the correct number world-wide, then these recent cases are statistically significant at (12%) of the world total, which does not seem correct. However, back in 2006, we find it was reported "Linda [Walker] is one of only 50 recorded cases in the past 65 years." See, Geordie to an East European

English woman develops French-sounding accent
The Star, 15th September 2010

A woman from a village in southwestern England says that a severe migraine attack left her speaking with what sounds like a French accent — a striking example of a rare syndrome that neuroscientists say can leave lifelong locals sounding like they come from thousands of kilometres away.

Kay Russell appeared on the BBC earlier this week, speaking in a hesitant, husky voice, drawing out her vowels with an accent which sounded roughly French, or occasionally Eastern European. The broadcaster also showed a video of Russell before the change, in which she speaks to the camera in chirpy southern English accent.

Russell shook her head and smiled sadly as the video played.

“When I see that, I see the person I used to be,” the 49-year-old said. “It’s not my voice I miss. I would love to have my own voice back, but it goes way, way, way beyond my voice.”

Comment: Back in April 2010, I blogged about Sarah Colwill who is another British woman suffering from the same plight, but her new accent is Chinese, see Migraine Gives Woman Foreign Accent, this was about a week after the story, Croatian teenager wakes up from a coma speaking fluent GERMAN.

Quite frankly, after watching the video version of this report, it's really hard to not have some real compassion for these women. What's more, since there seems to be huge shifts going on in the development of human consciousness, as the study of synaesthesia suggests, maybe this type of syndrome will become more common as an example of where an evolutionary upgrade has gone wrong.

Are you ready for life in world 3?
New Scientist, 2nd August 2010

In the 1970s, Karl Popper came up with a philosophical theory of reality that involved three interacting worlds: the physical world, the mental world, and "world 3", which comprises all products of the human mind - from ideas, pictures and music to every word ever written.

Something very similar to world 3 is now real and increasingly influencing how we live, says George Djorgovski, co-director of the Center for Advanced Computing Research at Caltech. It's called the internet.

It's the first morning of Science Foo camp, and I've chosen a session called "virtualisation of science and virtualisation of the world". In fact - fittingly for a meeting being held at Google headquarters - how we deal with life increasingly lived online turns out to be one of the main themes of the day. Djorgovski reckons that before long, being online will soon mean (among other things) not staring at a computer screen but being immersed in 3D virtual reality.

He thinks this will be key to how we'll make scientific discoveries in the future. Forget graphs - two dimensions are totally inadequate for dealing with the vast amounts of data pouring out of everything from high-throughput genome sequencing to atom smashers like the Large Hadron Collider. We'll need machine intelligence capable of analysing these huge data sets, he says, as well as ways to visualise and interact with the results in three dimensions.

Comment: I wonder if Karl Popper hijacked the ideas of Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin, with their concept of the Noosphere that has now been appropriated to explain the existence of the internet. Since Chardin wrote 'The Phenomenon of Man' (Le Phénomène Humain) in 1955 that became an instant hit in intellectual circles, I would be amazed if Popper had not been influenced. Well, when I was at University, the internet was still something foreign! The difference I see for education is the ability to find information tailored to how people want to learn and geared at many different levels. All the talk of brains atrophying is ridiculous when we consider current education systems that forces people to learn parrot fashion information decided by the elite that basically consists of brain washing the masses (e.g. history with serious blind spots) and hence not even neccessarily relevant or helpful in producing sane and mature individuals.

American Soldiers Brainwashed with “Positive Thinking”
Veterans Today, 28th July 2010

- The U.S. military has become increasingly excited about positive psychology techniques. Maybe a better route would be to offer soldiers respect for their critical thinking -

While U.S. military psychiatrists are prescribing increasing amounts of chill pills, America’s psychologists are teaching soldiers how to think more positively about their tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, and wherever else they are next ordered to kill the bad guys and win the hearts and minds of everyone else.

The U.S. Army is planning to require that all 1.1 million of its soldiers take intensive training in positive psychology and emotional resiliency. Army Research Psychologist Capt. Paul Lester, who leads the assessment of the program, told the National Psychologist (“Army to Train its Own in Positive Psychology,” July/August 2010), “As far as I can tell this is the largest, deliberate, psychological intervention in human history. . . .

We don’t know when the global war on terrorism is going to end so we’re preparing to have to be engaged for a long period of time.” Lester said the program would develop “communication skills, cognitive reforming skills and help soldiers not to catastrophize — don’t think of the worse case scenario about every potential problem.” The program also teaches soldiers to focus on “expressing appreciation” and “correcting negative views of ambiguous events.” It’s easy to see positive thinking as a uniquely American form of naïveté, but it is neither uniquely American nor endearingly naïve. In vastly different settings, positive thinking has been a tool of political repression worldwide. . . .

n the Soviet Union, as in the Eastern European states and North Korea, the censors required upbeat art, books, and films, meaning upbeat heroes, plots about fulfilling production quotas, and endings promising a glorious revolutionary future. . . .The penalties for negative thinking were real. Not to be positive and optimistic was to be ‘defeatist’. . . . Accusing someone of spreading defeatism condemned him to several years in Stalinist camps.

Comment: I suppose the fact that there is now an epidemic of US soldiers on active duty committing suicide has nothing to do with the decision to encourage soldiers to ignore the facts that they are occupying a foreign country and are killing hundreds of innocents... Yes, the human potential movement has gone overboard on positive thinking and has discouraged critical thinking, the use of a selection of "positive psychology techniques" seems like a way to create dumbed down but "happy" people. Hence, I wonder if the New Age "Law of Attraction" will be on the curriculum...

"You can have my ignorance when you pry it from my cold dead mind"
Kenny's Sideshow, 9th July 2010

The above words are from Les Visible. It's a great line. Wherever the American dream is buried, I bet it is the epitaph on the tombstone ... or should be.

Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more, where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.
-- Thomas Gray

Have you ever been involved in a conversion where you try to interject a bit of information, maybe even what could be considered truth that's relevant to our lives and get the response; "I don't want to know?"

It's frustrating. Being passionate about the truth, about exposing the crimes and lies of our time often means one expects everyone else to feel that same passion. It just doesn't work that way. You preach to the choir, they shout and sing, but getting new converts to your position is a slow and difficult process. Folks hold their beliefs close to the heart and think they must in order to survive.

Comment: A great quote and a great headline.

Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again
Time, 2nd July 2010

Studies have found that upon entering an office, people behave more competitively when they see a sharp leather briefcase on the desk, they talk more softly when there is a picture of a library on the wall, and they keep their desk tidier when there is a vague scent of cleaning agent in the air. But none of them are consciously aware of the influence of their environment.

There may be few things more fundamental to human identity than the belief that people are rational individuals whose behavior is determined by conscious choices. But recently psychologists have compiled an impressive body of research that shows how deeply our decisions and behavior are influenced by unconscious thought, and how greatly those thoughts are swayed by stimuli beyond our immediate comprehension.

Comment: The programming is deep and extensive for most people, what's more even if you deal with some of the most negative aspects of your own programming it's seems like quite a challenge navigating throught life, when so many people are on remote control.

Creative minds 'mimic schizophrenia'
BBC News, 29th May 2010

Brain scans reveal striking similarities in the thought pathways of highly creative people and those with schizophrenia. Both groups lack important receptors used to filter and direct thought. It could be this uninhibited processing that allows creative people to "think outside the box", say experts from Sweden's Karolinska Institute. In some people, it leads to mental illness. But rather than a clear division, experts suspect a continuum, with some people having psychotic traits but few negative symptoms.

Comment: Maybe this is the reason why people people who have spiritually evolved which means neurological development has taken place, seem odd to others. I understand that in the evolutionary process NEW areas of the brain are ignited that are associated with original thinking. So, maybe people who have been considered creative in the past, who have been prone to mental illness, have just not had enough necessary re-wiring done.

The Smell of Fear: Anomalous in the Olfactory?
Mysterious Universe, 20th May 2010

If you could anticipate subtle changes in the environment with your five senses in ways that others can’t, how would you imagine this occurring? What if, when someone was being dishonest, you could collect an odd greenish hue emanating from them in your periphery? Or what about a noticeable electric sensation tingling the tips of your fingers when you shook hands with someone who found you attractive? [...]

Lydia also says she has, in the past, been able to “smell” subtle differences in DNA and other minute traces of the human condition around graveyards and spooky locations.

Comment: The article does not mention synesthesia (the mixing of two senses) and relates this ability to pick up information by smell as being related to extra-sensory perception (ESP). It's refering mainly to a woman called Lydia who I would love to talk to because I have had this ability for a long time, but recently it's just got stronger. Sometimes, it's an issue. For me, one of the worse places to detect bad energies is the stench of some clairvoyants at alternative fairs. Goodness only knows what the hell some of these people are chanelling, but it's NOT divine!

Anil Seth: identifying the root of consciousness
The co-director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science hopes to unravel the mystery of where 'we' exist through studying the brain
The Guardian, 9th May 2010

Consciousness is the last outpost of pure mystery in our scientific understanding of the brain. We are learning ever more about the brain's physiology and how it controls our bodies, but the idea of where "we" exist, how we develop that sense of self and how it can be explained in terms of the activity of brain cells, all of that is still largely the domain of philosophers rather than scientists.

Comment: I think the major issue we have now is how we define the evolution of consciousness. Psychologists have generated a plethora of models to define human development and increased complexity in thinking that requires neurological changes is part of process. Hence, there are various conditions that scientists can cite that suggest sudden evolutionary development. This can be compared with increased brain functionality, as neurologists can now detect when new areas of the brain are activated. So despite the mystery of consciousness, we do have some criteria that can be used. Personally, these days, I have been forced to stand back and monitor how people think. I have done enough homework now to do my best to avoid those who are so unevolved as to border on dangerous.

The Art of Mindreading: Empathy or Rational Inference?
Science Daily, 4th May 2010

The ability to infer what another person is thinking is an essential tool for social interaction and is known by neuroscientists as "Theory of Mind" (ToM), but how does the brain actually allow us to do this? We are able to rationally infer what someone knows, thinks, or intends, but we are also able to "slip into their shoes" and infer how they feel, and it seems that the brain processes these different types of information in different ways, as confirmed by a new report in the June 2010 issue of Elsevier's Cortex.

Comment: Some con artists are very good at reading people, this the rational part of the brain but the ability to feel empathy must be low to zero.

Migraine Gives Woman Foreign Accent
Yahoo News, 20th April 2010

A woman from Devon has begun speaking with a Chinese accent after suffering severe migraines. Thirty-five-year-old Sarah Colwill puts the startling change down to an extremely rare medical condition known as Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS).

"I knew I sounded different but I didn't know how much and people said I sounded a bit Chinese. "Then I had another attack and when the ambulance crew arrived they said I definitely sounded Chinese."

The rare disorder is thought to be caused by strokes and brain injuries and causes sufferers to lose the ability to talk in their native accent. [...] Experts believe FAS is triggered following a stroke or head injury, when tiny areas of the left side of the brain linked with language, pitch and speech patterns are damaged. The result is often a drawing out or clipping of the vowels that mimic the accent of a particular country, even though the sufferer may have had limited exposure to that accent.

Comment: I discussed the holographic brain recently and this looks like another example of a part of the brain being partially reset. Does this mean that in the information retrieval process, when the relevant part of the brain is damaged, the holographic capability just goes off into the universal field to find something that "will do" instead? Fascinating!

Researchers make first direct recording of mirror neurons in human brain
PhysOrg.com, 12th April 2010

Neuroscientists believe this "mirroring" is the mechanism by which we can "read" the minds of others and empathize with them. It's how we "feel" someone's pain, how we discern a grimace from a grin, a smirk from a smile.

Problem was, there was no proof that mirror neurons existed — only suspicion and indirect evidence. Now, reporting in the April edition of the journal Current Biology, Dr. Itzhak Fried, a UCLA professor of neurosurgery and of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, Roy Mukamel, a postdoctoral fellow in Fried's lab, and their colleagues have for the first time made a direct recording of mirror neurons in the human brain. [...]

Because mirror neurons fire both when an individual performs an action and when one watches another individual perform that same action, it's thought this "mirroring" is the neural mechanism by which the actions, intentions and emotions of other people can be automatically understood.

"The study suggests that the distribution of these unique cells linking the activity of the self with that of others is wider than previously believed," said Fried, the study's senior author and director of the UCLA Epilepsy Surgery Program.

Comment: According to some, psychopaths do not "mirror" your pain as their mirror neurons don't fire when you suffer, they may see that people are responding to them, but they don't experience empathy. This explains why great effort is made to help people (victims) deal with trauma of the interaction with these individuals. Psychologists don't believe they can be helped and we have to wonder whether they are at the same level of evolution as most other people. Personally, as I have seen someone in action who I now know is a psychopath. I will NEVER forget their ACTING about emotional events in their life, because at the time I thought it was odd, but I did not realise what it meant. As they say, you live and learn....

Croatian teenager wakes up from a coma speaking fluent GERMAN
Daily Mail, 12th April 2010

Croatian doctors are baffled after a teenage girl who fell into a mysterious coma woke up speaking fluent German. The parents of the 13-year-old from the southern town of Knin said their daughter had only just started studying German at school and had been trying to read German books and watch German television - but had never been that good in German. But since waking up the teenager has been unable to speak Croatian and even refused it, but communicates only in perfect German far superior to her mastery of the language she had when she was taken ill. [...]

There are references to cases where people who have been seriously ill and perhaps in a coma have woken up being able to speak other languages - sometimes even the Biblical languages such as that spoken in old Babylon or Egypt - at the moment though any speculation would remain just that - speculation - so it's better to continue tests until we actually know something.'

Comment: Of course the doctors are baffled! The short answer is an example like this implies that the brain can be altered to register new information and if the holographic theory of how the brain works is true, then somehow the part of the brain that holds the language setting can be altered without effecting other parts. This means that when the brain has processed all the necessary information and speech is required, the reset means that another language is being accessed from the holographic universe and that explains how people can even start speaking old languages. It may be that in this person's energy field is an old setting for German that has been triggered. Fascinating stuff!

'I want to be a ballerina': Girl, 9, stuns doctors with miraculous recovery after half her brain is removed during surgery
Refreshing News, 26th March 2010

Nine-year-old Cameron Mott had half her brain taken out during major surgery, but it has not stopped the youngster pursuing her dreams. Cameron has stunned doctors and her family with a miraculous recovery from the radical surgery and now wants to become a ballerina. The nine-year-old developed the brain disorder Rasmussen's syndrome at the age of three, which saw the disease eat away at the right side of her brain. The young girl now wants to be a ballerina

Comment: Well, this little girl is providing more fuel to the already massive bonfire that reveals that the brain appears to be used as a receiver of information held in space and that removal of parts of the brain only serves to encourage the remaining brain to reconfigure. Decades of research means that scientists are now grudgingly accepting theories that point to higher dimensional realities. From the New Scientist 14 January 2009, Review: Where in the world is the mind? here is some extracts for non-subscribers:

THE mind-body problem is about where the mind is located. Is it bound by the confines of our skull or does it lurk nearby, non-physically? The latter idea, that the mind is not literally in space but is located "near to", or even "right next to" the body - a halo-like master of ceremonies circumnavigating the head - is metaphysically weird but popular.
[...]

How a mind lacking mass, longitude and latitude could be "in" or "near" the particular body whose experiences it is supposed to have, and whose actions it is supposed to initiate, remains mysterious.
[...]

Now a few edgy cognitive scientists and philosophers, including Clark and Alva Noë, claim that both Nearby and Brainbound get the location wrong. There is a third place where the mind might roam. The theory Clark calls Extended says that the mind is in space, as all sensible naturalists claim, but is smeared over more than brain space. "Certain forms of human cognizing include inextricable tangles of feedback, feed-forward and feed-around loops: loops that promiscuously criss-cross the boundaries of brain, body and world," he writes.
[...]

The thesis of the extended mind, according to philosopher Dave Chalmers who offers a terrific introduction to Clark's book, is that "when parts of the environment are coupled with the brain in the right way, they become parts of the mind". Source:

For discussion of the holographic brain, see The Holographic Universe.

Neuroscientists don't believe in souls--But that doesn't mean they can't sell theirs
Scientific American, 24th March 2010

Of all scientific fields, neuroscience has the greatest potential for revolutionary advances, philosophical and practical. Someday, brain researchers may figure out how precisely the brain encodes thoughts like the ones I’m thinking now. Cracking the neural code could help solve the mind-body problem, ending millennia of pointless metaphysical chitchat. We may finally understand how brains work and why sometimes they don’t. We might even discover truly effective treatments for depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and dementia and chuck our current quasi-therapies. [...]

It is because I have such high hopes for neuroscience that I’m so upset by two trends in financing of the field. One involves neuroscience’s growing dependence on the Pentagon, which is seeking new ways to help our soldiers and harm our enemies. For a still-timely overview of neuroweapons research, check out the 2006 book Mind Wars by bioethicist Jonathan Moreno of the University of Pennsylvania.

Comment: Here we have the latest on neuroscience being used to control rather than empower. Business as usual.

Psychopaths' Brains Wired to Seek Rewards, No Matter the Consequences
Science Daily, 15th March 2010

The brains of psychopaths appear to be wired to keep seeking a reward at any cost, new research from Vanderbilt University finds. The research uncovers the role of the brain's reward system in psychopathy and opens a new area of study for understanding what drives these individuals. [...]

Study volunteers were given a personality test to determine their level of psychopathic traits. These traits exist on a spectrum, with violent criminals falling at the extreme end of the spectrum. However, a normally functioning person can also have the traits, which include manipulativeness, egocentricity, aggression and risk taking.

Comment: As part of my own healing plan, I have had to study psychology to understand the seemingly strange and bizarre behaviour of people that have sought to hurt me in the past. First I studied Spiral Dynamics and worked out where I was on the Spiral of evolution (actually, I was rated independently for a course and then I studied later and agreed) and then I realised the discrepancy with people I had got involved with, that was enlightening. However, the real deal came when I started to study the traits of sociopaths, psychopaths, malignant narcissists and predators, especially in relation to cults and cult personalities. The death of three followers of James Ray and his use of persuasion techniques combined with hypnosis was a complete eye-opener. I had come across people who continuously lied but these people are 2nd or even 3rd rate when it comes to carrying out their sociopathic tendencies. I am still learning, so I was shocked last week to find out about another New Age compulsive liar that can be compared to a Walter Mitty character. What gets me is: are there schools for wannabe gurus to teach them how to create bait to lure their victims? About a month ago, I felt that something had changed in my psyche, some kind of spiritual growing up, but I think it's ongoing. I think it's realising that it's very easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater with these frauds because they often start off with something good and then corrupt it. Keeping yourself continuously aware of the distinction between the truth and lies is an arduous task and I think it involves a new way of thinking.

Hacked Mattel Brain Toy Delivers Painful Electric Shocks for Thinking
Switched.com, 6th March 2010

A toy that reads your brain waves to manipulate a foam ball sounds fun -- until said toy begins manipulating other things, too. Like your body's pain receptors. Doesn't sound too thrilling to us, but a few geeks apparently thought it'd be a great idea.

According to GeekoSystem, some folks at Harcos Laboratories took Mattel's Mindflex and hacked it to deliver a painful electric shock to the user. Strap the device on your head, and challenge yourself not to think -- not even a little bit. If your brain is a little active, you'll get a little shock. The more activity inside your head, the more intense of a shock you'll feel. If you're into this kind of thing,

Comment: Well, it looks like James Ray missed out on this one! Since he is about finished, as nobody will be interested in his Harmonic Wealth Seminars, when they find out that they will be tortured and if they are lucky, survive with out being killed or permanently injured or scarred for life in the name of their spiritual advancement. However, there are a lots of other New Age gurus who I am sure would be interested in using the 'hacked' version of this 'toy' as part of the teaching or 'training seminars'. New Agers are being continuously encouraged to not think and the belief of 'no mind' or cognitive suicide is now very popular. As brain dead as possible, is being advocated by people with high cognitive abilities running multi-million dollar empires. Now, if you have refused to switch off your reasoning capacities, you would realise that there is something very fishy about these people and their teaching. Obviously, the not thinking, should not prohibit anyone from buying their crap that tells them what to believe and how to behave. Btw, this article sounds like trying to get a new craze off the ground.

Singing 'rewires' damaged brain
Inland News, 26th February 2010

Teaching stroke patients to sing "rewires" their brains, helping them recover their speech, say scientists. By singing, patients use a different area of the brain from the area involved in speech. If a person's "speech centre" is damaged by a stroke, they can learn to use their "singing centre" instead. Researchers presented these findings at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego. An ongoing clinical trial, they said, has shown how the brain responds to this "melodic intonation therapy".

Gottfried Schlaug, a neurology professor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, US, led the trial. The therapy is already established as a medical technique. Researchers first used it when it was discovered that stroke patients with brain damage that left them unable to speak were still able to sing. [...] "Music engages huge swathes of the brain, it's not just lighting up a spot in the auditory cortex."

Comment: Most people associate singing with being happy but it seems that singing gives the brain a work out too. It makes you wonder about the effects of singing in church and choirs and whether there are enhanced effects.

Synesthetic Experiences, Such as Seeing a Certain Color Associated With a Number, Are Real and Automatic
Science Daily, 23th December 2009

For as many as 1 in 20 people, everyday experiences can elicit extra-ordinary associated sensations. The condition is known as synaesthesia and the most common form involves "seeing" colours when reading words and numbers. Many previous studies have shown that the brains of people who experience this phenomenon are different from those who do not and, in a new study reported in the February 2010 issue of Cortex, researchers from the University of Padova, Italy, have discovered that learning may also play an important role in synaesthesia and can lead to synaesthetic behaviour even when the person is not consciously aware of the experience.

Comment: It is interesting that the condition of synaesthesia seems to be gaining a lot more attention, and I suspect it is associated with widespread human evolutionary changes, see previous entries. Since, I have stated that I can detect energy fields by smell, a new friend suggested that I have synaesthesia. Yet, since scientists have established that there are at least 17 senses that allow us to process sensory information in different ways, I only consider this as part of my evolutionary development. Interestingly, the scientific literature does link olfactory cells being able to pick up odorant molecules by frequency, so maybe it should be no surprise that discordant, inharmonious energy fields can be detected as they are made up of interdimensional "spirit" particles.

Baby Born Without Brain Turns One
Gather, 18th December 2009

In case you don't know about this child: Pueblo, Colorado--A baby boy in Pueblo is a living miracle. Nicholas Coke was born without a brain. This week he's marked a milestone nobody dreamed could happen.

Coke was born with a genetic disease called Anencephaly. He had no brain, just a brain stem. His mom Sheena says, "He can't see, he can't hear, he can't suck. He doesn't crawl, doesn't sit up." Rest here: http://www.newsfirst5.com/news/baby-born-without-a-brain-lives-for-first-birthday/

Now I am not sure what I really feel about this. I understand it is a miracle that the child is still alive, but what does one call alive?

Comment: Despite the fact the baby has no brain, the scientific community have traditionally tried to downplay instances where people have had only half a brain or even less than that in some cases, but have functioned nearly normally. There has always been some embarrassement because it means that scientists really don't understand the true function of the brain. These days, scientists tell us that there is a "mind-brain" throughout the body so this complicates things even more and the heart has it's own "brain" too. An example of a baby alive with no brain despite the handicap is really worth finding out how scientists can explain it, but it's also interesting to see if something starts to happen with this child's development, because people who have had nearly all fluid have managed to survive and it hints that something extraordinary happens on an interdimensional level.

Children Can Greatly Reduce Abdominal Pain By Using Their Imagination
Science Daily, 13th October 2009

"Children with functional abdominal pain who used audio recordings of guided imagery at home in addition to standard medical treatment were almost three times as likely to improve their pain problem, compared to children who received standard treatment alone.

And those benefits were maintained six months after treatment ended, a new study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University Medical Center researchers has found.

The study is published in the November 2009 issue of the journal Pediatrics. The lead author is Miranda van Tilburg, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in the UNC School of Medicine and a member of the UNC Center for Functional GI & Motility Disorders.

"What is especially exciting about our study is that children can clearly reduce their abdominal pain a lot on their own with guidance from audio recordings, and they get much better results that way than from medical care alone," said van Tilburg. "Such self-administered treatment is, of course, very inexpensive and can be used in addition to other treatments, which potentially opens the door for easily enhancing treatment outcomes for a lot of children suffering from frequent stomach aches."

Comment: Is it me, or are the mainstream becoming very alternative? This article on the Science Daily website suggests that the upward progression of evolutionary consciousness is becoming widespread and that the science of consciousness is being used in a positive way. Here, people are being encouraged to teach their children how to use the power of intent. This is good news!

Brain Waves Surge Moments Before Death
Discovery News, 6th October 2009

"A study of seven terminally ill patients found identical surges in brain activity moments before death, providing what may be physiological evidence of "out of body" experiences reported by people who survive near-death ordeals.

Doctors at George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates recorded brain activity of people dying from critical illnesses, such as cancer or heart attacks. Moments before death, the patients experienced a burst in brain wave activity, with the spikes occurring at the same time before death and at comparable intensity and duration."

Comment: This discovery of a brain surge just prior to death, that is measured as a burst of high voltage energy, may explain why those that have a near death experience [NDE], have brains that have been rewired and the experience propels them into the higher levels of consciousness, on a permanent basis. This later article tries to debunk peoples experience. See also, Doctor says near-death experiences are in the mind

Communicating person to person through the power of thought alone
Eureka alert, 6th October 2009

New research from the University of Southampton has demonstrated that it is possible for communication from person to person through the power of thought alone. [...]

His experiment had one person using BCI to transmit thoughts, translated as a series of binary digits, over the internet to another person whose computer receives the digits and transmits them to the second user's brain through flashing an LED lamp. While attached to an EEG amplifier, the first person would generate and transmit a series of binary digits, imagining moving their left arm for zero and their right arm for one. The second person was also attached to an EEG amplifier and their PC would pick up the stream of binary digits and flash an LED lamp at two different frequencies, one for zero and the other one for one. The pattern of the flashing LEDS is too subtle to be picked by the second person, but it is picked up by electrodes measuring the visual cortex of the recipient.

The encoded information is then extracted from the brain activity of the second user and the PC can decipher whether a zero or a one was transmitted. This shows true brain-to-brain activity. You can watch Dr James' BCI experiment at YouTube

Comment: This short article and accompanying video, explains how unspoken communication can be detected and deciphered by the brain. I suppose the scientists are happy with this simple little experiment but quite frankly its nothing compared to human capabilities. A few years ago, I had an experience of picking up someone's nasty thoughts about me and my mouth flying open and giving them a telling off, despite the fact I didn't know what was said, but a part of my consciousness would not allow them to get away with their negativity. I have also experienced parts of my energy field "talking", so quite frankly, this kind of scientific research is just nothing compared to what an evolving human can detect.

The man who can 'taste' words: 'Gordon Brown tastes revolting, while Tony Blair tastes of desiccated coconut'
Daily Mail, 3rd October 2009

"James Wannerton, 50, is one of an estimated two-and-a-half million people who suffer from gustatory auditory synaesthesia, a cross-sensory neurological condition, which means he can literally taste words.

A systems analyst, he lives in Blackpool, Lancashire, with his partner, Jeanette. Here, he talks about how it has affected his life. One of my earliest memories was when I was about four or five and chanting The Lord's Prayer in school assembly. But it's not the words, the school hall or the teachers I remember most. It's the flavours, because The Lord's Prayer tasted unmistakably of bacon. It was the first time I'd experienced tasting words, and most of my early memories are dominated by taste more than any other sense."

Comment: My initial reaction is that this condition is related to the evolution of humanity and it seems others have this opinion too as it is known that the numbers of people who have this condition has increased exponentially in the last half of the 20th century. Whether 'wires' are incorrectly crossed in the brain or not, psychologists who have studied human development and spiritual traditions both agree that the brain has to be rewired, and maybe this strange condition occurs when there has not been enough energy to make a completely successful update. For those who are interested, Nancy Tappe is famous for first seeing the colour dark blue, indigo aura around children, who she believes possess different attributes and characteristics to those who came before. Apparently, she also has synaesthesia and states that when she partakes of certain foods like peas, she tastes triangles. It must be quite an odd reality, but I know that for those who regularly have profound mystical experiences, I am sure most would think they were odd too.

Can you see time?
BBC News, 11th September 2009

"Imagine if you could see time laid out in front of you, or surrounding your body. And you could physically point to specific dates in space.

Important dates might stand out - birthdays, anniversaries. And you could scan a visible timeline - to check if you were available - whenever you made plans. No actual diary necessary.

According to Julia Simner, a psychologist from the University of Edinburgh, there is a reasonable chance you can. And that you may use the experience, unconsciously, every day. Dr Simner studies synaesthesia - a condition caused by an unusually high number of connections between two areas of the brain's sensory cortex, making two senses inseparable.

Synaesthetes, as they are known, have experiences that might seem extremely strange to any non-synaesthete. "

Comment: At this moment in time, it could be suggested that this 'condition' may actually be symptomatic of an evolving human. We can compare this to the experience of Kundalini, where dormant energy in the body is driven up the spine into the brain to facilate higher brain processing and higher evolution. Psychologists who have specialised in human development, tell us that as human consciousness progresses, humans adjust their neurological system in the brain or mental capabilities to facilatate increasing thinking complexity. The spiritual community tends to focus on spiritual 'gifts', but maybe that is not all that is going on and these 'Synaesthetes', may also be part of the evolutionary process.

Freaky Sleep Paralysis: Being Awake in Your Nightmares
Wired Science, 7th August 2009

"You wake up, but you can’t move a muscle. Lying in bed, you’re totally conscious, and you realize that strange things are happening.

There’s a crushing weight on your chest that’s humanoid. And it’s evil. You’ve awakened into the dream world. This is not the conceit for a new horror movie starring a ragged middle-aged Freddie Prinze Jr., it’s a standard description of the experience of a real medical condition: sleep paralysis. It’s a strange phenomenon that seems to happen to about half the population at least once.

People who experience it find themselves awake in the dream world for anywhere from a few seconds to 10 minutes, often experiencing hallucinations with dark undertones. Cultures from everywhere from Newfoundland to the Caribbean to Japan have come up with spiritual explanations for the phenomenon. Now, a new article in The Psychologist suggests sleep researchers are finally figuring out the neurological basis of the condition."

Comment: I have not come across any well known books that provide a metaphysical perspective of sleep paralysis, but from a metaphysical point of view, any analysis would have to incorporate the understanding that we exist within a multi-dimensional reality. In my own experience, amongst my many different spiritual experiences, I have 'woken-up' in what I believe is another dimension and experienced phenomena that could not be explained within our 'normal' three dimensional parameters of understanding. However, what was most interesting, is that some of these experiences would seem to some as bizarre and frightening, but there was aspect of me, that some would call my 'higher' consciousness self, that was totally fearless and in control, perfectly able to cope with the situation and I actually coined the phrase of my 'business end' to describe this aspect of my consciousness that was so totally cool and collected.

Truthfulness Requires No Act Of Will For Honest People, Neuroimaging Suggests
Medical News Today, 14th July 2009

"A new study of the cognitive processes involved with honesty suggests that truthfulness depends more on absence of temptation than active resistance to temptation.

Using neuroimaging, psychologists looked at the brain activity of people given the chance to gain money dishonestly by lying and found that honest people showed no additional neural activity when telling the truth, implying that extra cognitive processes were not necessary to choose honesty.

However, those individuals who behaved dishonestly, even when telling the truth, showed additional activity in brain regions that involve control and attention."

Comment: This study reminds me about the various bogus people that have approached me since my book was published. One of the things about these people is they think everybody functions on their level and they don't seem to comprehend that some people can use their intuitive abilities to discern their motives quite easily, ie. they know nothing about spiritual evolution. For the spiritual 'babes', this is not helped by the 'joke' lists that are being passed around the internet with 'complaints' that are supposedly associated with spiritual evolution. There are scientifically and metaphysically identified 'latent' senses, that are part of human capabilities and their development is part of our spiritual evolution. From my own experience, I can assure you that when these senses start to appear, there is no confusion about what is taking place.

Scientists create 'artificial brain cell'
Refreshing News, 8th July 2009

Scientists have created an artificial brain cell they believe could one day be used to treat devastating neurological diseases. The team has managed to pass messages within the mind in the same way as nerve cells, using a tiny piece of plastic which can transmit electricity.

These messages are used by the brain to control many actions in the body. [...]

Earlier this year researchers at Aston University in Birmingham created an artificial "brain" by taking cells from a cancerous tumour and reprogramming them to create those identical to the human nervous system.

Comment: For years scientists have focused on biochemicals but as various studies now prove, it's the electromagnetic force that is generated by the 'dance' of biochemicals that generates the messaging system and signals that are transmitted and received throughout the brain and body. The re-programming of cells can only be done electromagnetically too and was done as early as the 1960s by Becker, decades before it was taken seriously and became Stem Cell research. Today, most people are still unaware that they are a mass of moving charge and some scientists have gone further and stated: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MASS ONLY CHARGE & ENERGY! Obviously, as the Earth is getting continously blasted with charged particles, only a few have understood the consequences for humans and the profound effect on the processing of their DNA.

Thinking cap that can help the brain learn moves a step closer
A thinking cap that can enhance the mind's ability to learn has moved a step closer, scientists claim, after tests showed magnets can boost brain power.
The Telegraph, 7th July 2009

"Researchers discovered that the ability of the brain to learn a task and remember it was greatly enhanced when a magnetic pulse was applied to the premotor cortex – the area of the brain just behind the forehead. The team at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, led by Dr Lara Boyd, believe that the technique could be used to enhance intellectual capacity and help those with learning difficulties.

Comment: Understanding magnetism in combination with geometry is one of the keys to the universe. Some of the most outspoken scientists are those who believe the electromagnetic force rules the universe and some have even dared to come up with a completely new understanding of the ultimate nature of the universe as a magnetic field that varies with a time variation, but not as we understand time. Anyway, the magnetic force can be 'tapped' from higher dimensions by using geometry and that is why in the old days people used to place coned hats on the heads of 'dunces'. This is the same reason why Russian scientists have been very wise by building modern pyramids around Moscow in the last two decades, so that magnetic interdimensional forces can be harnessed to help stablise the local environment.

Dear, I love you with all my brain
Dopamine brings people together and oxytocin keeps them attached, studies show. Is love just chemistry?
LA Times, 22nd June 2009

"For centuries, love has been probed -- and of course celebrated -- mostly by poets, artists and balladeers. But now its mysteries are yielding to the tools of science, including modern brain-scanning machines.

At State University of New York at Stony Brook, a handful of young people who had just fallen madly in love volunteered to have their brains scanned to see what areas were active when they looked at pictures of their sweethearts.

The brain areas that lighted up were precisely those known to be rich in a powerful "feel-good" chemical, dopamine, which brain cells release in response to cocaine and nicotine. Dopamine is the key chemical in the brain's reward system, a network of cells that is associated with pleasure -- and addiction.

Comment: I can't say I enjoyed reading this article, it was just too clinical for my taste. It left me with a sense that scientists were trying to offer a false hope of using biochemistry to produce counterfeit emotions and hence there were references to addiction and cocaine. Quite frankly, the kind of genuine love that was being researched and discussed is something that most people would rather experience than talk about. Yet, it reminds me of one of the things that I have noted about people who desperately want you to think that they are highly spiritual people, but who are betrayed by their energy fields that are as dry as a bone! Clamped shut heart chakras cannot generate large fields that induce feelings of love and higher consciousness in others. After years of my suspicions of Eastern gurus, I am now coming round to thinking that if people benefit from the energy fields that they emit even for a short while, then that has to help some on their own path of enlightenment. By the way, I am thinking about this for myself too, please excuse the mixed metaphors, but it's not that wise to cast stones, especially if you live in a glass house!

Surprise! Daydreaming Really Works the Brain
Live Science, 13th May 2009

"Got a tough problem to solve? Try daydreaming. Contrary to the notion that daydreaming is a sign of laziness, letting the mind wander can actually let the parts of the brain associated with problem-solving become active, a new study finds. Kalina Christoff of the University of British Columbia in Canada and her colleagues placed study participants inside an fMRI scanner, where they performed the simple routine task of pushing a button when numbers appear on a screen. The researchers tracked subjects' attentiveness moment-to-moment through brain scans, subjective reports from subjects and by tracking their performance on the task. [...]

"This study shows our brains are very active when we daydream – much more active than when we focus on routine tasks," Christoff said."

Comment: The British healer/medium Betty Shine wrote that 'day-dreaming' and reading books were a 'safer' form of meditation than "formal" meditation, because if practices become too strict, it can actually result in the aura closing down.

The science of romance: Brains have a love circuit
AP News, 10th February 2009

"Washington - Like any young woman in love, Bianca Acevedo has exchanged valentine hearts with her fiance. But the New York neuroscientist knows better. The source of love is in the head, not the heart. She's one of the researchers in a relatively new field focused on explaining the biology of romantic love. And the unpoetic explanation is that love mostly can be understood through brain images, hormones and genetics. That seems to be the case for the newly in love, the long in love and the brokenhearted."

Comment: Scientific mush for Valentines Day....

Epilepsy, Autism, Schizophrenia: Master Switch That 'Balances The Brain' Found
Science Daily, 25th September 2008

"Neuroscientists at Children's Hospital Boston have identified the first known "master switch" in brain cells to orchestrate the formation and maintenance of inhibitory synapses, essential for proper brain function. The factor, called Npas4, regulates more than 200 genes that act in various ways to calm down over-excited cells, restoring a balance that is thought to go askew in some neurologic disorders."

Comment: Nice to see research that directly supports metaphysical beliefs that the brain has to be 'balanced' for physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health.

Mobile phone use 'raises children's risk of brain cancer fivefold'
Alarming new research from Sweden on the effects of radiation raises fears that today's youngsters face an epidemic of the disease in later life
The Independent, 21st September 2008

"Children and teenagers are five times more likely to get brain cancer if they use mobile phones, startling new research indicates. The study, experts say, raises fears that today's young people may suffer an "epidemic" of the disease in later life. At least nine out of 10 British 16-year-olds have their own handset, as do more than 40 per cent of primary schoolchildren."

Comment: It has been a known FACT that brain tumour is now the number one life-threatening disease for children -- above leukaemia and that the 40 per cent across-the-board increase in the number of brain tumours in the past 20 years coincides with the use of mobile phones and other radio frequencies.

Does Memory Reside Outside the Brain?
Epoch Times, 30th August 2008

"After decades of investigation, scientists are still unable to explain why no part of the brain seems responsible for storing memories. Most people assume that our memories must exist somewhere inside our heads. But try as they might, medical investigators have been unable to determine which cerebral region actually stores what we remember. Could it be that our memories actually dwell in a space outside our physical structure?"

Comment: This article is based on the research of Rupert Sheldrake and specifically his paper, "Mind, Memory, and Archetype Morphic Resonance and the Collective Unconscious" published in the journal Psychological Perspectives.

Brain study could lead to new understanding of depression
Physorg.com, 24th August 2008

"The most distinctive feature of depressive disorders is an exaggerated negative attitude to oneself, which is typically accompanied by feelings of guilt," he said.

"Now that we understand how the brains of healthy individuals respond to feelings of guilt, we hope to be able to better understand why and where there are differences in brain activity in people suffering from, or prone to, depression.

"The brain region we have identified to be associated with proneness to guilt has been shown to be abnormally active in patients with severe depression in several previous studies, but until now its involvement in guilt had been unknown."

Comment: Dr David Hawking's research indicated that the energy fields associated with guilt are very low down on the Map of Consciousness and result in weakening the human energy field, which then contributes weakening the immune system etc. However, various studies show that there is always an electrical inbalance between the left and right hemispheres of the brain assoicated with depression. In fact, recent pioneering studies reveal that even the worst manic-depressives can be cured by the appplication of electromagnetic fields re-balancing the two hemispheres of the brain.

Military wants to study mind-reading
CNN, 15th August 2008

"The U.S. military is paying scientists to study ways to read people's thoughts. Scientists use electroencephalography, or brain wave-reading technology, to measure brain activity. The hope is that the research could someday lead to a gadget capable of translating the thoughts of soldiers who suffered brain injuries in combat or even stroke patients in hospitals. But the research also raises concerns that such mind-reading technology could be used to interrogate the enemy. Armed with a $4 million grant from the Army, scientists are studying brain signals to try to decipher what a person is thinking and to whom the person wants to direct the message."

Comment: Historical sources tell us that this type of research has been ongoing for at least 50 years.

Advertisers, neuroscientists trace source of emotions in brain
Eurekalert.org, 19th February 2008

"The researchers compared the activity in the subjects’ brains as recorded by the fMRI machines to their reported responses on the AdSAM system. With several of the ads, they found the fMRI data and response converged on two of three measures — pleasure-displeasure and excitement-calm. Under the AdSAM system, these "bipolar dimensions" — as well as a third, dominance-submissiveness — form the foundation for more specific emotions.

Where the researchers compared the AdSAM data on pleasure-displeasure and excitement-calm to the fMRI data, they found simultaneous spikes in four different and highly localized areas of the brain. According to the article, the findings suggest "that human emotions are multidimensional, and that self-report techniques … correspond to a specific task but different functional regions of the brain. ...."Back in the 1950s, three psychologists found that all emotions could be measured in three dimensions," Morris said. "Now we have learned that this may be more than a method for reporting emotion. It may actually reflect the way creatures on this planet function – possibly exposing a direct link to predicting behavior."

Creative and noncreative problem solvers exhibit different patterns of brain activity, study reveals
Eurekalert.org, 30th January 2008

"The study published in the journal Neuropsychologia, reveals a distinct pattern of brain activity, even at rest, in people who tend to solve problems with a sudden creative insight -- an "Aha! Moment" - compared to people who tend to solve problems more methodically."

"The new study shows that basic differences in brain activity between creative and methodical problem solvers exist and are evident even when these individuals are not working on a problem. According to Kounios, "Problem solving, whether creative or methodical, doesn't begin from scratch when a person starts to work on a problem. His or her pre-existing brain-state biases a person to use a creative or a methodical strategy."

Comment: I would argue that "education" discourages creative thinkers and encourages "methodical strategy" and hence the reason why original thinkers often have real problems getting their ideas seriously considered by those who don't have the same ability "to think outside the box".

Belief, disbelief and uncertainty activate distinct brain regions
Physorg.com, December 10, 2007

"The capacity of the human mind to believe or disbelieve a statement is a powerful force for controlling both behavior and emotion, but the basis of these states in the brain is not yet understood.

Comment: A new study found that belief, disbelief and uncertainty activate distinct regions of the brain, with belief/disbelief affecting areas associated with the pleasantness/unpleasantness of tastes and odors. The study will publish online in the Annals of Neurology, the official journal of the American Neurological Association."

Comment:Despite the bias journalistic effort here, the authors of this report state: "Our results appear to make sense of the emotional tone of disbelief, placing it on a continuum with other modes of stimulus appraisal and rejection." This is in accordance with other studies that clearly associate that our emotions influence our responses.

Blood Controls Our Thinking – Blood flow controls brain's activity
Softpedia.com, 18th October 2007

'Thinking with the heart' and 'hot blooded' can get a new real meaning now. Besides, ancient Greeks, like Aristotle, were convinced that the circulatory system dictates thoughts and emotions.

Comment: The new Hemo-Neural Hypothesis, states that blood is not just a food and oxygen supplier for neurons, but actually shapes the brain activity.

"We hypothesize that blood actively modulates how neurons process information. Many lines of evidence suggest that blood does something more interesting than just delivering supplies. If it does modulate how neurons relay signals, that changes how we think the brain works." said Moore.

Right-wingers' brains don't work as well. Less flexibility.
Signs-of-the-times.org, 10th September 2007

The differences between liberals and conservatives may run deeper than how they feel about welfare reform or the progress of the Iraq war: Researchers reported Sunday that their brains may actually work differently.

In a study likely to raise the hackles of some conservatives, psychologist David Amodio and others found that a specific region of the brain's cortex is more sensitive in people who consider themselves liberals than in self-declared conservatives.

The brain region in question helps people shift gears when their usual response would be inappropriate, supporting the notion that liberals are more flexible in their thinking.

Comment: The title of this article is a little misleading as it seems that it is about people with extreme ideology being tied to neurophysiology. So we read: "The work grew out of decades of previous research suggesting that political orientation is linked to certain personality traits or styles of thinking. A review of that research published in 2003 found that conservatives tend to be more rigid and closed-minded, less tolerant of ambiguity and less open to new experiences.Some of the traits associated with right-wingers in that review were decidedly unflattering, including fear, aggression, tolerance of inequality and lack of complexity in their thinking. That -- along with the fact that it lumped Ronald Reagan and other political conservatives in with Adolf Hitler -- evoked outrage from conservative pundits." The brain region called the anterior cingulate cortex (orange spot in image) helps people shift gears when their usual response would be inappropriate, supporting the notion that liberals are more flexible in their thinking.

Electrical hope for brain injuries
Lifestyle AOL, 2nd August 2007

Summary: Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), has been used to treat a patient in a minimally conscious state (MCS). In the MCS patient, tiny electrodes were sunk deep into the thalamus, a brain region believed to play a key role in consciousness and arousal.

Comment:Well, this is why the innermost part of the brain is called the sacred chamber and for raising our consciousness, the most highly refined energies are directed into this part of the brain.

Tiny brain no obstacle to French civil servant
Reuters, 20 July 2007

"A man with an unusually tiny brain managed to live an entirely normal life despite his condition, caused by a fluid buildup in his skull, French researchers reported on Thursday.""Scans of the 44-year-old man's brain showed that a huge fluid-filled chamber called a ventricle took up most of the room in his skull, leaving little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue."

Comment: Despite attempts to discredit accounts of this condition of hydrocephalus - water on the brain, this is yet another blow for those neurologists who struggle to explain human consciuousness, without a holographic and multi-dimensional model of the brain.

Is your brain really necessary?
Alternative Science, 8th June 2007

"No-one knows how people with 'no detectable brain' are able to function at all, let alone to graduate in mathematics, but there are a couple theories."

Comment: Mainstream scientists admit they do not understand consciousness but are starting to believe that consciousness has an electromagnetic basis. [McFadden, 2003] & [Pockett, 2000] This has to be considered because of the wealth of evidence that suggests our consciousness is held in higher dimensional space.

Brain cancer successfully treated with electrical field
Press Esc, 29th May 2007

Quote 1: "A device that specifically targets rapidly growing cancer cells with intermediate frequency electrical fields -- called Tumor-Treating Fields (TTFields) -- doubled the survival rates of patients with brain cancer."

Quote 2: "It uses electrical fields to disrupt tumor growth by interfering with cell division of cancerous cells, causing them to stop proliferating and die off instead of dividing and growing. Healthy brain cells rarely divide and have different electrical properties than cancerous brain cells. This allows the device to target cancer cells without affecting the healthy cells."

Quote 3: "The novel mechanism of action of the Novo-TTF relies on the physical properties of the cancer cells, their shape and size, rather than the chemical make-up. We believe that this distinction enables the device to stop local proliferation and metastasis of cancer, which would explain the efficacy observed in these early findings."

Comment:So a cure for brain cancer uses an electrical field and does it in a way that ignores the chemical make-up. This is a serious challenge to the current paradigm.

Magnetic field found to stimulate brain cells
Guardian Unlimited, 24th May 2007

Quote 1:"New Scientist magazine reports today that they found large increases in the proliferation of stem cells in part of the hippocampus - a brain region known to act in memory formation and mood regulation."

Quote 2: "In all areas of the brain tested, TMS modified chemical receptors on the surface of nerve cells so they remained active for longer."

Comment: There are many interesting implications associated with this research but the main point is magnetic fields have the ability to rejuvenate. So, as electromagnetic beings, research has shown that balancing both halves of the brain magnetically and increasing the level of magnetism in the body promote health. The reasons why are explained in my book, Tuning the Diamonds".

New Toys Read Brain Waves
Red Orbit, 29th April 2007

Comment: The last time I read about this kind of mind technology, it was being used in airports to detect terrorists! "Besides monitoring basic changes in mood and focus, Emotiv's bulkier headset detects brain waves indicating smiles, blinks, laughter, even conscious thoughts and unconscious emotions." It's amazing that we can't use this technology for something more useful like 'The Happy Home Monitor', 'The Cheerful Workplace Indicator' or even 'The Unbalanced Personnel Alarm'!!

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Susan Joy Rennison, B.Sc.Hons. (Physics with Geophysics)

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