With My Heart in My Throat and Other Weird Places "I" Get to: A Discourse on Meditation, O.B.E.s and Other Phenomena

About a year ago, I found myself laid flat on my back on the dusty wooden floors of a Pem East dorm room while by best friend and current roommate quietly directed me to envision a vast lake pooled in the center of my stomach. She asked me to “feel” myself there, to “go” there, to “be” there, there in the center of my stomach staring into my own reflection, originating form there. At this point I remember bursting into hysterical peals of laugher at the tingling, ticklish sensation I got from trying to “be” there in my stomach, an idea which my head just couldn’t seem to wrap itself around. In retrospect, the observation that I just couldn’t get my head to wrap around the idea of “being” somewhere that was not in my head is a spectacularly peculiar notion; Why could I not “be” in my stomach, and why did I even think that I could “be” in my stomach, and how do other people find themselves “being” in their stomachs, their hearts, their throats, and in a plethora of other places decidedly not their heads, including, but not limited to, “being” outside of their bodies entirely? After all, the idea that the seat of consciousness, the metaphorical and literal cluster of neurons and their associated connections that form the so called “box”, which contains the “I-function”, residing, or being made to reside in another part of the body that is not the region of interconnected boxes known as the brain, is by no means a new or obscure idea [1]. In ancient Egyptian culture for instance, the seat of consciousness, the region of boxes that housed the “I-Function”, was perceived to be the heart and not the brain (the brain being thought of as some ugly, superfluous gland that’s main prerogative was the secretion of mucus). It was the heart which directed outputs and processed inputs, which felt and was followed, and in which the ancient Egyptian supposedly experienced himself or herself and the reality around them.

Although, there are no ancient Egyptians left nowadays to question about their observations and from which to derive new observations, there are a multitude of very active and very popular meditation retinues and cultures that claim to similarly experience “themselves” in other parts of their bodies; hence the circumstances leading up to the anecdote with which this paper began. Processes for proper meditation range from far and wide, claiming everything from meditating under waterfalls, to atop trees, to standing on one’s head as the surest means to achieve enlightenment, transformation, movement “beyond the limitations the Duality Reality”[2], etc. However, meditation regimes, which focus on manipulating the natural processes of the body, not just radically shocking it or depriving it, claim the most success of dissociating the seat of consciousness from its traditional place of habitation [3]. One biologically sensitive meditation regime encourages sitting quietly, and comfortably, in a natural sitting position in a well lit environment while keeping the eyes at least partially open, cautioning against closing the eyes entirely, especially in a darkened room, since input deprivation of the senses can lead to detrimental physiological complications [3]. Once relaxed, the regime, although discouraging the use of mantras and other such focusing devices, encourages concentrating the processes of the “I-Function “on experiencing deep-belly breathing [3]. The theory as I understand it is that by experiencing deep-belly breathing, by aligning the “I-Function” with inputs and outputs associated with a particular part of the body, one can “move” the center of consciousness, the actual “I-box” or at least the “I-Function’s” perception of what the “I-Box” is, to a particular point in the stomach above the navel called the “Hara” [3]. Apparent observations also suggest that by moving the seat of consciousness, the “I-function”, to a different place in the body, one can change the nature of the “I-Function” to the point of dissociating it from it from its function, in which, for example, the “think” in the Cartesian axiom, “I think therefore I am”, is suspended, and one is left with only “‘I’ therefore I am” [3].

However, the extent to which the “I-Function” has actually been transplanted is difficult to say, since little or no research exists on the matter. Observation tells us that the “I-Function” is, or resides in a “box” [1]. This “box”, as has been previously stated, is composed of a series of smaller boxes or “neurons” which are all interconnected to each other, as well as, to other boxes throughout the gigantic box of the nervous system. The connections between these boxes and between these boxes and the outside environment are composed of cables, or axons, which communicate inputs and outputs to one anther via chemo-electric signals, or Action Potentials [4]. However, all Action Potentials are actually the same signal propagated from one axon to another, all are the same system of interchanging regions of negative and positive charge within and between axons [4]. If all communication between boxes is composed of the exact same signal then it is possible to see how the “I-Function” could be translated into other parts of the body, since the same signals that run through it run through all “boxes” of the nervous system.. However, not all recipients of these signals have the mechanisms to respond in the way needed to be an I-Function, for the differences between one box and another is not the signals they receive but the boxes themselves, how they receive inputs, and what they are equipped to do once input is received [4]. Thus, this change in the location and experience of the “I-Function” is likely related to a change in how the “I-Box” receives and interprets input signals and, thus in how it transmits output signals.

For example, in the breathing model of the meditation exercise, perhaps the “function” aspect of the “I-Function” dissipates, not so much because the “I” changes boxes, but because the “I-Function” is communicating more aggressively with the autonomic nervous system, which generally regulates involuntary, and semi-voluntary actions such as blinking and breathing. This kind of input typically is filtered out of the experience of the “I-function”, shuffled away to the periphery of the experiences it processes. However, observation suggests that the filter level can be changed and the degree to which the “I-Function” experiences dialogue with the autonomic nervous system can amplified, especially when other primary sensory input is deprived. Thus, a change in the seat of the “I-Function” could actually allude to a change in the “I-Function’s” perception of itself via the extent of its awareness of the signals it receives i.e. how and how much of the signals from the autonomic nervous system it receives in relation to more traditional signals that it does not receive.

A change in signal reception is also particularly pertinent when discussing the detrimental physiological effects of meditating with one’s eyes completely closed in a darkened environment. Although there are potentially detrimental effects on a biological level with issues of sensory deprivation, this technique is also more specifically detrimental to the goal of the meditation program, which seeks to change the “I-Function’s” awareness of the signals it receives, etc. but not to the extent that the “I-Function” is shutdown. The biggest risk, the author of this particular meditation regime cites, is the link between the closing of the eyes and the deprivation of the input signals associated with the organs that triggers a series of signaling events that leads to the state of sleep and unconsciousness [3]. Observations suggest that once the eyes close, input is received by certain boxes in the nervous system that then induce the secretion of sleep-inducing hormones, such as melatonin [3] , which in turn change the signaling activity between boxes, presumably including the “I-Function”, shutting down or dampening their activity [5]. Sleep, hypnosis, and unconsciousness are all conditions which proper meditation discourages, since the goal of meditation is to shut-down certain activities in the body while retaining the full-integrity of the “I-Function”, which is free to experience these changes in activities in ways that it would otherwise be unable to.

Unconsciousness itself is linked with changes in the reception of inputs, and, consequently, the production of outputs, such as the recall of experience. In some theories, unconsciousness is described as a loss of ability to “resolve time” [5], in which inattention, a state in which boxes are not receiving or processing input, leads to continuously deeper states of neurological inactivity i.e. if boxes are not used, if they do not receive input for a certain period of time, they shutdown and stop generating outputs such as the power of recall [5]. Also, besides inattention, the presence of certain extracellular substances can affect the way neuronal boxes, such as the “I-Function”, receive and interpret signals. Hypnosis, sleep, and anesthetics also produce similar effects. For example, the anesthetic thiopental, is observed to have certain effects on the electrical (and thus potentially on the signaling capabilities) activity of the cortical and hippocampus regions of the brain [6].

However, observations suggest that certain changes in signaling capabilities can also induce the effects desired in the meditation state, namely, an “I-Function” that is either relatively more aware, in the sense of actively receiving inputs and producing outputs in the form of experience, than other portions of the nervous system and/or is receiving and experiencing more aggressively inputs that it normally would not. O.B.E.’s or out-of-body-experiences, qualify as such states, since they deal with the dissociation of the “I-Function” from the rest of the body, in which the “I-Function” is experienced as residing outside of the physical body, potentially in a duplicate form. In one study, the experience of O.B.E.’s is associated with disturbances in the arousal-system, the system by which the sleeping brain wakes up through the systematic reactivation of inattentive neurons, which are once again introduced to inputs and able to generate outputs [7]. It appears that when certain disturbances occur in the normal pattern of the arousal-system, such as when a person is abruptly awakened from REM sleep, out-of-body-experiences, in which sleep paralysis is a factor, can occur [7]. Such a situation where the dissociation between the “I-function” and the physical body occurs, in which the “I-Function” is fully operational while the physical body is not, seems to indicate confusion in the normal signal patterns in which input is received and output generated out-of-time by the “I-Function” before the rest of nervous system has been awakened from its inert state.

Another explanation for the phenomena of O.B.E.’s stems from the idea that “I-Function” dissociation, or re-association outside of the body, can stem not only from becoming more aware of peripheral inputs as more primary sensory inputs are shut-off through sensory deprivation, etc. but that imaginary inputs can be experienced by the “I-Function” which erroneously mimic actual experience [8]. These hallucinations of experience can occur when a certain anticipated input fails to actively occur to the body, yet, the “I-Function”, having been primed through unconscious recall to experience the input, nevertheless, generates the experience of weight, acceleration changes, etc. to the body [8]. Thus, there is an effective disparity between what the “I-Function” is experiencing and what the rest of the nervous system and the psychical body receives for inputs and delivers for outputs, therefore, creating the sensation of an out-of-body-experience, in which there is a fabricated sensory experience of residing outside of the body.

However, as much as can be explained by reducing the “I” in my head and in my stomach, and in whichever place “I” currently wish to be a the moment, to a series of neuronal boxes and a beautiful mechanical, but still mechanical, model of inputs and outputs there are still many phenomena of the mind-body junction dichotomy that cannot be adequately explained by myself or by the current scientific and meta-religious models that exist. Even if we can observe a connection between applying electrodes to the right angular gyrus and the experience of an O.B.E. [8] we still know very little about why such a connection exists, why the option for the phenomenon even exists. Is there a particular evolutionary or metaphysical purpose for this phenomenon or is it all just a result of the random flow of ionic particles across the wrong membrane at the wrong moment? What of phenomena such as astral projection and autoscopy where the experience of dissociation occurs not only outside of the body but in an entirely different environment, place and time than where the physical body presumably is? Why do “I” seem to “be” in Kensington while everything else seems to be right here on this dusty dorm room floor.

 

References

[1] Neurobiology and Behavior-Lecture (2/7/08), by Professor Peter Grobstein.

 

[2]. <http://www.quantumpathic.com/Glossary.html>, by Quantum Pathic Center of Consciousness.

 

[3]. <http://www.web-us.com/meditation_handbook.htm>, from the “Meditation Handbook-Meditation Methods Content, by Intelegen Inc.

 

 

[4]. Neurobiology and Behavior-Lecutre (2/14-19/08), by Professor Peter Grobstein

 

[5].< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness>.“Consciousness-Cognitive Neuroscience Approach”, by various contributors on Wikipedia.

 

[6]. < http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&term=8669683> “Thiopental uncouples hippocampal and cortical synchronized electroencephalographic activity”, by MacIver MB, Mandema JW, Stanski DR, Bland BH, and the Department of Anesthesia, Stanford University School of Medicine, California. Anesthesiology. 1996 Jun;84(6):1411-24.

[7].< http://www.physorg.com/news92335348.html>. “Out-of-body experiences may be caused by arousal system disturbances in brain”, from the University of Kentucky, published by Phsyorg.com

[8]. < http://www.meta-religion.com/Neurology/OBEs/obe_and_the_soul.htm>, “Out-of-body experiences and the soul: What first-person reports about “soul experiences” refer to” extracted from “The pre-scientific concept of a “soul”: A neurophenonmenological hypothesis”, by Thomas Metzinger, < http://www.philosophie.uni-mainz.de/metzinger/publikationen/The%20Soul-Hypothesis.htm>.