Zen may be like having a stroke

[AikiDale]

"...The molecules of her arm blended with the molecules in the wall. It made her feel enormous and expansive and connected to all of the energy around her, which gave her a sense of peace."

Read the full article here:

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/02/scientist-turns.html

Interesting stuff.

[SiG Lady]

That is sooo cool.

On the other hand, the early stages of her stroke made it sound like someone had slipped her some Ken Kesey Kool-Aid. Seriously.

I find that when I'm really worn out or tired, the detachment she mentions sets in and the chatter on, for instance, the TV can be hard to follow--like hearing a foreign language I only know about 25% of... and that the body feels like something I'm just sitting in rather than fully attached to. Some kind of shut-down process, perhaps...?

[p99shooter]

Just read through this - very interesting

One of the most powerful, yet overlooked, capabilities of the human mind is abstraction. Tremendous amouts of sensory input are filtered through and condensed down to simple concepts, like "car," "house," "food," and so on. It's good and bad.

Recent reasearch in Autism shows that one of the factors in the disease is an inability to create and access abstract objects. An interesting test involved showing text to to test subjects that contained duplicate words, which are common and difficult to find errors in text while proofreading because of the human mind's ability to abstract. Test subjects had portions of their brains zapped with strong magnetic fields to temporarily disable the portions associated with abstraction in the left hemisphere. Subjects showed a a much better ability to pick up duplicate words, because their minds were just "seeing" rather than seeing and compartmentalizing data into abstract concepts.

Now, did you see where the repeated words were?

[AikiDale]

Just read through this - very interesting

One of the most powerful, yet overlooked, capabilities of the human mind is abstraction. Tremendous amouts of sensory input are filtered through and condensed down to simple concepts, like "car," "house," "food," and so on. It's good and bad.

Recent reasearch in Autism shows that one of the factors in the disease is an inability to create and access abstract objects. An interesting test involved showing text to to test subjects that contained duplicate words, which are common and difficult to find errors in text while proofreading because of the human mind's ability to abstract. Test subjects had portions of their brains zapped with strong magnetic fields to temporarily disable the portions associated with abstraction in the left hemisphere. Subjects showed a a much better ability to pick up duplicate words, because their minds were just "seeing" rather than seeing and compartmentalizing data into abstract concepts.

Now, did you see where the repeated words were?

to to a a and I thought you just stu stu stuttered when you you typed. Very interesting!

[frenchwrench]

The movie "Phenomena", tumor that allows your brain to totally integrate. Kind of like the "Zone". I've had it for about three rounds of golf. So detached , but so mind bending at the same time. I'm waiting to find it in shooting.

[p99shooter]

Bringing this one back to the top with some recent info.

A few months back, National Geographic had a feature article on how the human brain processes and stores memories. In essence, the brain is a future-prediction device. We use stored memories to help us predict the future. The article profiled a person whose's hippocampus was destroyed by a virus; he cannot form any new memories, hence always lives in the "present". However, he still had access to what you would call "muscle" or habit memory. Highly recommend the article.

This came out within the past month:

Study Says Visual System Equipped With “Future Seeing Powers”

Researchers at RPI (my alma mater) and other schools determined that it takes the human visual processing system 1/10 of a second to actually process what we see. In other words, what you are seeing is actually what happened about 1/10 of a second ago. To compensate for this, the brain actually "predicts" what it would have seen 1/10 into the future. Without it, doing something as simple as catching a baseball would be nearly impossible!

This process was then used to explain why many optical illusions work. Essentially, the reason why many optical illusions work because our brain's future-detection mechanisms result in perceived movement in stationary patterns.

[kevinj308]

Just heard an interview with the gal mentioned at the top of this thread. Very cool, learned alot about the brain. Then again I didn't know anything to begin with

Here's the link, it was on NPR. The program is fresh air with Terry Gross.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=91861432

[Mapzter]

I haven't seen a link here to her talk at TED: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229

Very interesting to watch.

[BigDave]

I haven't seen a link here to her talk at TED: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229

Very interesting to watch.

Wow...I don't have any other response but a jaw-on-the-floor wow.

[AikiDale]

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/20...t_brain_myt.php

[-JQ-]

Zen no quite so much like a stroke...unless in Zen you lose motor control and your hand seizes up...face goes numb...that isn't Zen like...

I had one at 38...sitting watching Monday night Football...not cool

[benos]

“Future Seeing Powers”[/url]

Researchers at RPI (my alma mater) and other schools determined that it takes the human visual processing system 1/10 of a second to actually process what we see. In other words, what you are seeing is actually what happened about 1/10 of a second ago. To compensate for this, the brain actually "predicts" what it would have seen 1/10 into the future. Without it, doing something as simple as catching a baseball would be nearly impossible!

Or the "zone-like" experience of seeing everything - during a perfectly shot course of fire.

Without any "proof" - that makes total sense to me. It's like your brain/visual mechanism ajusts or compensates for what's coming up based on what it saw.

I've also noticed that when that activity is at its best - your brain is totally still. That makes sense too. Desire (trying) or even just simple thoughts obstruct the brain's purest activity (from functioning).

be

[TM262]

This thread rocks! I think it totally describes a 'zone'; awareness without being aware.

[Sam]

I don't know if Zen is like having a two two stroke or a a a a four stroke. But, I've had the molecules of my arm blend with the pavement a few times. And the cares of this world do fade away.

[Jake Di Vita]

I doubt you got a sense of peace out of the deal though.

[AikiDale]

Actually, I've found it quite peaceful on the few occasions when I found myself flying through the air with no doubt whatsoever I was about to die and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

[Sam]

I doubt you got a sense of peace out of the deal though.

Hey Jake! Que Pasa, Man?

The last time I thought i was toast was very much like Dale described. :rolleyes

Peace comes through acceptance. And acceptance comes when illusions are abandoned. The greatest illusion is that we "suppose" we must have been created to be independent from the rest of creation. Somehow, when physical death seems imminent, we might reach clarity on what the party was supposed to be about in the first place. The Zen phrase might be "Die before you die"? At any rate, "surrender of the will" can happen quite easily when we realize that the gift of free-will was only granted in order that we could make the concious choice to freely return it, and by doing so, choose oneness with Being. (or oneness with God or the Creator, if the word Being doesn't cut it for you)

[p99shooter]

Actually, I've found it quite peaceful on the few occasions when I found myself flying through the air with no doubt whatsoever I was about to die and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

I will add to this that, on the several occasions that I thought I was about to wipe out on my motorcyle, the only thing that crossed my mind was

"Boy, it's going to be expensive to get my bike repaired after this."

Talking with other riders, I found I wasn't alone in this.

[Sam]

the only thing that crossed my mind was

"Boy, it's going to be expensive to get my bike repaired after this."

Probably need to ride a little faster.

[m627]

Recent reasearch in Autism shows that one of the factors in the disease is an inability to create and access abstract objects. An interesting test involved showing text to to test subjects that contained duplicate words, which are common and difficult to find errors in text while proofreading because of the human mind's ability to abstract. Test subjects had portions of their brains zapped with strong magnetic fields to temporarily disable the portions associated with abstraction in the left hemisphere. Subjects showed a a much better ability to pick up duplicate words, because their minds were just "seeing" rather than seeing and compartmentalizing data into abstract concepts.

Now, did you see where the repeated words were?

I had a few duplicate words once when my brain was zapped when splitting firewood and a piece flew suddenly and forcefully to my forehead and I heard the sound of one one hand clapping.....

[Gilgamesh]

Recent reasearch in Autism shows that one of the factors in the disease is an inability to create and access abstract objects. An interesting test involved showing text to to test subjects that contained duplicate words, which are common and difficult to find errors in text while proofreading because of the human mind's ability to abstract. Test subjects had portions of their brains zapped with strong magnetic fields to temporarily disable the portions associated with abstraction in the left hemisphere. Subjects showed a a much better ability to pick up duplicate words, because their minds were just "seeing" rather than seeing and compartmentalizing data into abstract concepts.

Now, did you see where the repeated words were?

I believe you are referring to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). I had been talking with a friend about the thought that idiot savants might not have the noise of conscious thought to interfere with the power/genius of their unconscious mind. He referred me to this NYT article from June 03 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...mp;pagewanted=1 which you allude to.

I have thought about this a lot recently. Specifically, the power of the unconscious mind. It started when I was introduced to trap earlier this year. Instruction as to how to lead the bird, follow through, yada-yada only served to fill my conscious mind. It was impossible to consistently hit a moving target in a conscious manner. I had to just shoot it; without ego, expectation, analysis. Just see the target shoot the target, with empty mind. Achieving a state of "emptiness" I believe is what many refer to as the "zone" and it is peaceful-- when achieved.

I bought the book "Shooting from Within" by J. Michael Plaxco, because I wanted to extend this experience to practical pistol shooting. I was surprised to see Plaxco dissecting this very concept of unconscious vs conscious mind in his chapter on "Psychology". That is a good book, by the way.

I am starting to think that many, if not all top performers are able to quiet the conscious mind (left brain or where ever it might be) and tap into the power of the unconscious mind (right brain or where ever it might be). The great athletes are often noted to be able to perform under clutch pressure or recover from an errant shot to perform spectacularly on the next shot (Tiger Woods comes to mind). I think amateurs let their conscious thoughts run amok when under the pressure of competition or after a poor shot; their unconscious mind cannot perform with all that other stuff floating around.

I thought it would be interesting to to perform a FUNCTIONAL MRI on a top performer and compare it to an amateur performing the same task. The problem, of course, is you can't do to many complex tasks in an MRI. But maybe one could do an continuous EEG (electroencephalogram) ... Hmmm. And maybe compare both amateur and master to someone in Zen-like meditation. That would be interesting.