Proyecciones Económicas Sociales y Culturales

WELL, CLEARLY THERE ARE SOME INTERESTING IMPLICATIONS

here. We have already seen that learning, increased intelli-gence, and actual structural changes accompany brain stimula-tion as a result of increased fluctuastimula-tions. What's more, we now know that such large fluctuations in the brain do not occur in ordinary, normal, typical, "everyday" states of con-sciousness, when the brain is producing beta waves. Instead, large brain fluctuations take place when we are in the states of consciousness characteristic of the relaxation response, states experienced in meditation, trance, intense inward contempla-tion - states like that floaty, free-associacontempla-tional mental open-ness that old Archimedes must have been feeling as he sloshed and daydreamed and noodled around in his bathtub. That is, we are more likely to learn, to alter old brain patterns, to trigger our brains to new growth, when we are in "nonordin-ary" states of consciousness, states which increase the brain's fluctuations.

This conclusion might sound odd to some, since it contra-dicts the accepted notion that learning is something that comes through practice and repetition: that learning has to do with conditioning. But in fact, it's a conclusion supported by re-search in virtually every discipline of human studies. Educa-tors, psychologists, and other scientists of the brain are now exploring a variety of techniques for enhancing the ability of both children and adults to learn, among them the use of drawing, guided imagery, meditation, autogenics, rhythmic breathing, singing, storytelling, dancing, music, and relax-ation. Studies show that all these techniques can lead to dra-matic increases in the ability to acquire and remember and make creative use of information and ideas; which is to say such techniques lead to dramatic alterations in brain chemistry and structure and human behavior. The common denominator is that each technique augments brain fluctuations by increas-ing brain-wave amplitude and/or decreasincreas-ing brain-wave

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RELAXATION AND THE BRAIN

quency. Among the most interesting studies documenting the beneficial effects of boosting brain fluctuations:

FOCUSING. University of Chicago psychologist Eugene Gendlin has devised a mental technique called focusing that enables practitioners to manipulate their brains in such a way that they reach new insights that lead to dramatic and benefi-cial behavioral changes. It is, in other words, a technique for learning. In focusing, one tries to get a "felt sense" of the problem, and through a series of focusing steps that turn at-tention away from the external environment and increase awareness of subtle emotional states and physical sensations, one reaches a point at which one experiences a "felt shift," an experience marked by a sudden release of tension, a feeling of deep physical relief, a sense that the problem or unclear feel-ing has been understood.

We've all experienced both focusing and felt shifts. One elementary example: you leave your house and soon have an uneasy feeling you have forgotten something. You "focus,"

trying to identify the problem: have you left the gas on? the water running? In each case you know that's not the correct answer because you feel no inward release. Finally you get the correct answer: with a "felt shift" a feeling of understanding, release from tension, and satisfaction sweeps over your body.

It is, in other words, the Aha! moment we've discussed ear-lier.

Curious about what was happening in the brains of people who were experiencing a felt shift, Norman Don of the bio-physics division of the American Dental Association wired them up to a machine that recorded their brain waves and made a computer analysis of over 8,432 EEG readings (the EEG, or electroencephalograph, records the dominant brain-wave frequencies). He discovered that just before the subjects experienced a felt shift, their alpha and theta waves shifted. In each case, the insights were preceded by peak periods of the dominant alpha waves (10 cycles per second) and its subhar-monics (5 and 2.5 cycles). Opposite periods - when the per-son engaged in focusing felt "stuck" or "blocked" - the alpha rhythm and its subharmonics collapsed. According to Don,

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MEGABRAIN

ARCHIMEDES' BATHTUB AS A LEARNING DEVICE

WELL, CLEARLY THERE ARE SOME INTERESTING IMPLICATIONS

here. We have already seen that learning, increased intelli-gence, and actual structural changes accompany brain stimula-tion as a result of increased fluctuastimula-tions. What's more, we now know that such large fluctuations in the brain do not occur in ordinary, normal, typical, "everyday" states of con-sciousness, when the brain is producing beta waves. Instead, large brain fluctuations take place when we are in the states of consciousness characteristic of the relaxation response, states experienced in meditation, trance, intense inward contempla-tion - states like that floaty, free-associacontempla-tional mental open-ness that old Archimedes must have been feeling as he sloshed and daydreamed and noodled around in his bathtub. That is, we are more likely to learn, to alter old brain patterns, to trigger our brains to new growth, when we are in "nonordin-ary" states of consciousness, states which increase the brain's fluctuations.

This conclusion might sound odd to some, since it contra-dicts the accepted notion that learning is something that comes through practice and repetition: that learning has to do with conditioning. But in fact, it's a conclusion supported by re-search in virtually every discipline of human studies. Educa-tors, psychologists, and other scientists of the brain are now exploring a variety of techniques for enhancing the ability of both children and adults to learn, among them the use of drawing, guided imagery, meditation, autogenics, rhythmic breathing, singing, storytelling, dancing, music, and relax-ation. Studies show that all these techniques can lead to dra-matic increases in the ability to acquire and remember and make creative use of information and ideas; which is to say such techniques lead to dramatic alterations in brain chemistry and structure and human behavior. The common denominator is that each technique augments brain fluctuations by increas-ing brain-wave amplitude and/or decreasincreas-ing brain-wave

fre-88

RELAXATION AND THE BRAIN

quency. Among the most interesting studies documenting the beneficial effects of boosting brain fluctuations:

FOCUSING. University of Chicago psychologist Eugene Gendlin has devised a mental technique called focusing that enables practitioners to manipulate their brains in such a way that they reach new insights that lead to dramatic and benefi-cial behavioral changes. It is, in other words, a technique for learning. In focusing, one tries to get a "felt sense" of the problem, and through a series of focusing steps that turn at-tention away from the external environment and increase awareness of subtle emotional states and physical sensations, one reaches a point at which one experiences a "felt shift," an experience marked by a sudden release of tension, a feeling of deep physical relief, a sense that the problem or unclear feel-ing has been understood.

We've all experienced both focusing and felt shifts. One elementary example: you leave your house and soon have an uneasy feeling you have forgotten something. You "focus,"

trying to identify the problem: have you left the gas on? the water running? In each case you know that's not the correct answer because you feel no inward release. Finally you get the correct answer: with a "felt shift" a feeling of understanding, release from tension, and satisfaction sweeps over your body.

It is, in other words, the Aha! moment we've discussed ear-lier.

Curious about what was happening in the brains of people who were experiencing a felt shift, Norman Don of the bio-physics division of the American Dental Association wired them up to a machine that recorded their brain waves and made a computer analysis of over 8,432 EEG readings (the EEG, or electroencephalograph, records the dominant brain-wave frequencies). He discovered that just before the subjects experienced a felt shift, their alpha and theta waves shifted. In each case, the insights were preceded by peak periods of the dominant alpha waves (10 cycles per second) and its subhar-monics (5 and 2.5 cycles). Opposite periods - when the per-son engaged in focusing felt "stuck" or "blocked" - the alpha rhythm and its subharmonics collapsed. According to Don,

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MEGABRAIN

these felt shifts indicate "reorganization at a higher level of integration." Evidently a felt shift represents that breakthrough from conflict to clarity when the dissipative structure of the brain, having been shifted by the fluctuations of the alpha and theta peaks that immediately preceded it, falls into a more comprehensive framework, escaping to a higher level.^{109 .147}

CREATIVE THINKING. In a study of learning at Texas A&M, chemistry professor Thomas Taylor monitored the EEG of students in the process of what he called "synthesis thinking," that is, taking information they had just acquired and synthesizing it in an original and creative way to solve a difficult problem. According to Taylor, "An EEG recording during the chance moment in which a difficult technical con-cept suddenly 'made sense'" to the subject "showed an abrupt change in brain-wave patterns" that took place "in the theta range." The EEG recording Taylor appends to his study indi-cates a series of powerful fluctuations taking place throughout the subject's entire brain.³⁵⁶

BRAIN SYNCHRONIZATION. Scientists studying medi-tators have found that when the medimedi-tators reach a state of deep awareness and intense mental clarity, the two hemi-spheres of their brain - which ordinarily generate brain waves of different frequencies and amplitudes - become synchron-ized, both hemispheres generating the same brain waves. It's important to consider the relationship between the wave pat-terns of the two hemispheres. It is possible to have two identi-cal wave patterns that are not synchronized; that is, the peak of one wave happens just when the valley of the other wave happens. In such a case, the two frequencies cancel each other out, and the amplitude is greatly decreased. However, when the peak of one brain-wave pattern exactly matches the peak of the other wave pattern, it is as if the amplitudes of the two waves are combined - the two waves are added together to produce a waveform twice the height of the original wave-form; that is, the amplitude is doubled. So when the brain

hemispheres operate in synchrony, the amplitude of the wave pattern throughout the entire cortex is powerfully increased.

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RELAXATION A N D THE BRAIN

This represents forceful whole-brain fluctuations, with the re-sulting potential for brain reorganization at a higher order.

Probably the world's leading authority on brain synchroni-zation is Dr. Lester Fehmi, director of the Princeton Biofeed-back Research Institute. His careful observations of the relationship between brain-wave activity and behavior have convinced him that hemispheric synchronization "is correlated experientially with a union with experience, an 'into-it-ness.' Instead of feeling separate and narrow-focused," he told me,

"you tend to feel more into it - that is, unified with the expe-rience, you are the experience - and the scope of your aware-ness is widened a great deal, so that you're including many more experiences at the same time. There's a whole-brain sen-sory integration going on, and it's as if you become less self-conscious and you function more intuitively."

It makes sense then that one of the sessions that aroused the greatest interest at a recent convention of the American Educa-tional Research Association was a demonstration by a research group of how students can learn to focus their attention by synchronizing EEG activity in both hemispheres, using bio-feedback equipment. Biobio-feedback researcher Jean Millay pointed out that after the intense quiet focus that accompanies brain synchronization, subjects in her studies frequently re-ported flashes of intuition or creative insight. Said Millay to AERA researchers, "Instead of measuring how bright or dumb students are, perhaps we should be teaching them how to focus their attention," by teaching them how to synchronize their brains.³⁸ Clearly students who can learn to synchronize their brain waves at will can enormously increase the potential of their brain for learning and growth.

This assumption is borne out by recent studies conducted by teachers in the Tacoma public school system. These teachers, under the direction of psychologist Devon Edring-ton, made use of "Hemi-Sync" tapes that used phased sound waves of specific frequencies designed to create brain-wave synchronization; they found that students who were taught, studied, and took tests while the Hemi-Sync tapes were

play-91

MEGABRAIN

these felt shifts indicate "reorganization at a higher level of integration." Evidently a felt shift represents that breakthrough from conflict to clarity when the dissipative structure of the brain, having been shifted by the fluctuations of the alpha and theta peaks that immediately preceded it, falls into a more comprehensive framework, escaping to a higher level.^{109 .147}

CREATIVE THINKING. In a study of learning at Texas A&M, chemistry professor Thomas Taylor monitored the EEG of students in the process of what he called "synthesis thinking," that is, taking information they had just acquired and synthesizing it in an original and creative way to solve a difficult problem. According to Taylor, "An EEG recording during the chance moment in which a difficult technical con-cept suddenly 'made sense'" to the subject "showed an abrupt change in brain-wave patterns" that took place "in the theta range." The EEG recording Taylor appends to his study indi-cates a series of powerful fluctuations taking place throughout the subject's entire brain.³⁵⁶

BRAIN SYNCHRONIZATION. Scientists studying medi-tators have found that when the medimedi-tators reach a state of deep awareness and intense mental clarity, the two hemi-spheres of their brain - which ordinarily generate brain waves of different frequencies and amplitudes - become synchron-ized, both hemispheres generating the same brain waves. It's important to consider the relationship between the wave pat-terns of the two hemispheres. It is possible to have two identi-cal wave patterns that are not synchronized; that is, the peak of one wave happens just when the valley of the other wave happens. In such a case, the two frequencies cancel each other out, and the amplitude is greatly decreased. However, when the peak of one brain-wave pattern exactly matches the peak of the other wave pattern, it is as if the amplitudes of the two waves are combined - the two waves are added together to produce a waveform twice the height of the original wave-form; that is, the amplitude is doubled. So when the brain

hemispheres operate in synchrony, the amplitude of the wave pattern throughout the entire cortex is powerfully increased.

90

RELAXATION A N D THE BRAIN

This represents forceful whole-brain fluctuations, with the re-sulting potential for brain reorganization at a higher order.

Probably the world's leading authority on brain synchroni-zation is Dr. Lester Fehmi, director of the Princeton Biofeed-back Research Institute. His careful observations of the relationship between brain-wave activity and behavior have convinced him that hemispheric synchronization "is correlated experientially with a union with experience, an 'into-it-ness.' Instead of feeling separate and narrow-focused," he told me,

"you tend to feel more into it - that is, unified with the expe-rience, you are the experience - and the scope of your aware-ness is widened a great deal, so that you're including many more experiences at the same time. There's a whole-brain sen-sory integration going on, and it's as if you become less self-conscious and you function more intuitively."

It makes sense then that one of the sessions that aroused the greatest interest at a recent convention of the American Educa-tional Research Association was a demonstration by a research group of how students can learn to focus their attention by synchronizing EEG activity in both hemispheres, using bio-feedback equipment. Biobio-feedback researcher Jean Millay pointed out that after the intense quiet focus that accompanies brain synchronization, subjects in her studies frequently re-ported flashes of intuition or creative insight. Said Millay to AERA researchers, "Instead of measuring how bright or dumb students are, perhaps we should be teaching them how to focus their attention," by teaching them how to synchronize their brains.³⁸ Clearly students who can learn to synchronize their brain waves at will can enormously increase the potential of their brain for learning and growth.

This assumption is borne out by recent studies conducted by teachers in the Tacoma public school system. These teachers, under the direction of psychologist Devon Edring-ton, made use of "Hemi-Sync" tapes that used phased sound waves of specific frequencies designed to create brain-wave synchronization; they found that students who were taught, studied, and took tests while the Hemi-Sync tapes were

play-91

MEGABRAIN

ing did significantly better than students who were taught the same material by the same teachers without the benefits of the Hemi-Sync tapes.⁹⁴

SUPERLEARNING. A number of techniques combining deep relaxation with information input to achieve rapid learn-ing have aroused considerable interest in recent years, among them Bulgarian psychiatrist Georgi Lozanov's "Suggestope-dia." Hundreds of schools and universities around the world had adopted the Lozanov method of rapid learning, and a vast amount of research has confirmed that this technique can re-sult in astounding increases in the ability of students to ab-sorb, process, store, manipulate, and recall information.

Lozanov and other researchers have found, for example, that using his technique language students can easily learn five hundred new words per day (selected groups have learned up to three thousand new words per day), with only a few hours of learning. In most language courses, one hundred new words a day would be considered excellent, and students in these courses have a rapid loss of recall of the new words.

Lozanov's students, on the other hand, had (in one reported study) a retention rate of 88 percent after six months. Reports of such superlearning feats arrive from Lozanov institutes around the world, and while educators argue about the magni-tude of the learning increase brought about by the technique, there can be no doubt that the method dramatically enhances the brain's functioning.

The essential elements of the Lozanov technique are deep relaxation combined with synchronized rhythms in brain and body. After preliminary instructions in whole-body relaxation techniques, students relax in comfortable chairs while listen-ing to strongly rhythmical but soothlisten-ing music (the largo move-ments of concerti by such Baroque composers as Vivaldi, Telemann, Handel, and Bach are favored, as they move at a stately tempo of about 60 beats per minute that seems to syn-chronize with and stabilize the pulse and breathing rates).

Physiologists found that simply listening to this music not only causes the heart rate and breathing to slow down, but

Physiologists found that simply listening to this music not only causes the heart rate and breathing to slow down, but