Magnetic Fields and Hauntings

In keeping with Halloween, Public Parapsychology is hosting a series about Magnetic Fields and Haunting Phenomena (part 1, part 2). These articles are rich in depth and detail, and give one much to think about.

The pieces reference a lot of the work done by Michael Persinger.

What I find particularly fascinating about this avenue of inquiry is the larger ramifications of the possible ability for magnetic fluctuations (either electromagnetic or geomagnetic) to affect consciousness. We seem to have some capacity within us (beyond perception of light and sound) to process these stimuli. For me, the question then becomes, if there are high EMF rates at a number of haunt sites (as noted and cited in the articles linked above), are they somehow "causing" people to "believe" that they are experiencing a sense of presence, or are people perceiving the properties of something that is there? If (let's say for a moment) "consciousness" or some form of it is able to survive outside of the body (and there's plenty of reports of out-of-body experiences to draw on), does it have some sort of electromagnetic property?

I know there has been some debate over this over the years, and it's too long and involved to go into right now. I'm not even going to bring up the subtle body ideas yet either. Perhaps I'll post about all of this later down the road.

I don't know that there's a conclusive answer favoring either side of the discussion. Persinger is also not without his critics.

Regardless, the articles on Public Parapsychology are definitely worth checking out, especially if you ever plan to do a haunting investigation.

the only thing we have to fear...

Happy Halloween! It seems like just a couple of days ago, I was lamenting that it was a slow news week in the fields of consciousness and dream research. All of a sudden, I'm inundated with things to write about!

For instance, the Associated Press is running an article about how the brain handles fear.

People recognize fear in other humans faster than other emotions, according to a new study being published next month. Research appearing in the journal Emotion involved volunteers who were bombarded with pictures of faces showing fear, happiness and no expression. They quickly recognized and reacted to the faces of fear — even when it was turned upside down.

...Other studies have shown that just by being very afraid, other bodily functions change. One study found that very frightened people can withstand more pain than those not experiencing fear. Another found that experiencing fear or merely perceiving it in others improved people's attention and brain skills.

Tonight is traditionally the night of all things spooky and creepy. What better time than now to learn a little about fear, and our relationships with it?

IONS Tour - Part II

Several days ago, I posted about taking a tour of IONS (The Institute of Noetic Sciences). Annalisa at Public Parapsychology has posted her account of the tour, including pictures, and a link to a slideshow of her Flickr set of more pictures!

Though it looks like I'm towering over Dean Radin in the shot of us in the slideshow, I promise I'm not really that menacing.

slow news days and more than one mind per body

Things have been a little quiet on the blog lately, mostly due to not a whole lot of interesting stuff crossing my desk. That said, today has brought a few stories of note.

The Daily Mail has an interesting story of a woman with 17 personalities ("multiple personality disorder" or "dissociative personality disorder" - take your pick), including a sketch she has drawn featuring each of them.

Ms Overhill, an American, drew the sketch after seeking help from psychiatrist Dr Richard Baer, following some disturbing episodes where she was unaware of her actions.

After giving birth by caesarian section, Ms Overhill found she did not recognise her family or friends after she awoke following anesthesia.

During a trip to a Las Vegas casino, Ms Overhill's mind "went somewhere else" and was stunned to find the $25 she had arrived with had turned into $2,500.

One night, she awoke to find a knife under her pillow with no recollection over how the instrument had got there.

Ms Overhill said: "It would come like a wave over me.

"When I came back to myself I'd be exhausted. I never knew where I'd been or what I'd done, so I would have to look for clues, like a bag in the car or leftovers from a restaurant. It was amazing, but I accepted it."

Ms Overhill is the subject of a book by Dr Baer, titled Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman With 17 Personalities.

I don't know enough about the "clinical" side to the whole "multiple" discussion, but I do find that sometimes the "fragmentation" angle doesn't fully explain certain extreme cases. For example, D. Scott Rogo, in his book The Infinite Boundary: A Psychic Look at Spirit Possession, Madness, and Multiple Personality looks at cases that defy normal classification of "multiple personality", including an exorcism case that seemed to "cure" someone of their desire to undergo sexual reassignment surgery (I'm not for a minute suggesting that all transgender identified people are "possessed"). I have heard of other cases involving physical manifestations of illnesses such as diabetes and emphysema among some "personalities" inhabiting people, that disappear when other personalities are "in." Rogo's book also features an historical overview of some of the more interesting cases investigated by early psychical researcher James Hyslop.

Another interesting book on the subject is Stephen Braude's book First Person Plural: Multiple Personality and the Philosophy of Mind. Braude addresses a variety of subjects in the book, examining the phenomenon's similarity to hypnotic trance, dreaming, and mediumship. He also addresses false memory syndrome, and the "multiple personality disorder" vs. "dissociative identity disorder" discussion.

MindPapers - The "Chalmers List" 2.0

David Chalmers reports that he has revised his famous list of online papers about consciousness and Philosophy of the Mind.

Per Chalmers:

The bibliography has...roughly doubled in size. There is an all-new section on the philosophy of perception, and the other sections are restructured and expanded throughout. The philosophy of mind parts include new subsections on such topics as what it is like, conceptual analysis and a priori entailment, Searle's biological naturalism, neutral monism, idealism and phenomenalism, phenomenal intentionality, conscious thought, temporal consciousness, consciousness of agency, bodily experience, attention and consciousness, unconscious states, thinking, interpretivism, intentional objects, collective intentionality, around 50 subtopics of the philosophy of perception, formulating physicalism, realization, various subtopics of personal identity, mental acts, various subtopics of self-knowledge, robotics, folk concepts and folk intuitions, language and thought, and various subtopics of the philosophy of neuroscience. In the science of consciousness section, there are new subsections on binocular rivalry, visual pathways, neglect and extinction, schizophrenia, anosognosia, vegetative states and coma, the minimally conscious state, synesthesia, hypnosis, meditation, drugs and consciousness, other altered states, verbal reports and heterophenomenology, Eastern and contemplative approaches, and a few others.

I know what I'll be playing with over the next several weeks.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to update the links on Streams of Consciousness this morning, but will be adding MindPapers when I get home tonight.

Checks and Balances (another slightly modified repost)

I discovered the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft when I was in high school. His novella The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath was one of the bigger influences on me for my interest in dreams. I recently went back and re-read it, and found its prose to be far more purple than I remembered it, but still an enjoyable read. Lovecraft's use of "certain" words (such as "certain", "cyclopean", "batrachean") and fascination with the horrors of "non-Euclidean geometries" and "blasphemous angles" are in full force. Yes, it's over the top, and yes, I love it all. I have Lovecraft's complete works on my shelf.

Lovecraft's protagonists inevitably stumble upon some "forbidden tome" (usually "that cursed Necronomicon", or the "fragmentary Pnakotic Manuscripts, with their dark hints", or some such), stay up all night reading them, and inevitably get their souls chewed on by Cthulhu or Nyarlathotep or something worse.

Phn'glui M'gl wna'f, Cthulhu R'lyeh Wgha Nagl Ftaghn

It would seem that (according to Lovecraft), there are some domains, where humanity is not meant to tread.

A while back, I read Gary Lachman's book, Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius, a rather fascinating survey of occultism and the beginnings of the NewAge (rhymes with...) movement during said decade, and before. Interestingly, every major figure that Lachman profiled in the book "couldn't cope", it seems, with whatever knowledge or insight they thought they'd achieved (Lachman covers figures such as Crowley, LaVey, Manson, Leary, Kenneth Grant, and more - I'm not here to debate whether or not these people could "handle it" or not; go read the book and make your own conclusions).

Many esoteric traditions warn of "dangers" along the path.

Some of this, I suspect, is to keep out the riff-raff.

On the other hand, some of what is dealt with in these traditions can get pretty intense.

Sometimes I joke that with some of my own areas of interest, there are nights when I wonder if Cthulhu's tentacles will be tapping at my windowpanes while I sleep.

I found something on the street a while back. I keep it on my fridge.

I have a great fondness for things like this.

Here's the flipside:

I get roped into a lot of conversations involving subject matter like this. Usually by complete strangers.

I met God in a coffee shop once. He told me that the Native Americans had detonated a nuclear device on the border between Colorado and Wyoming. He had the Rand McNally Road Atlas to prove it, too. He showed me.

I always listen when people have important things like this to tell me.

First of all, there's the obvious reason: what if they're right?

If Space Reptiles are controlling us through the television, and turning women into CIA mind-controlled sex slaves, well, I want to know about these things before it all comes to a head.

But the real reason I listen, and I collect flyers and such like these, is that I realize that it is sometimes a very fine line that I'm treading in my chosen path of inquiry. These things act as reminders for me. They ground me. They remind me to question, and to lighten up once in a while.

One of the greatest pieces of advice in this field I've come across, is from Charles Tart. In his book States of Consciousness, Tart talks about the necessity of "state-specific sciences", where researchers could achieve "discrete states of consciousness" (d-SoCs) or "discrete altered states of consciousness" (d-ASCs), and corroborate their findings involving these states. This is essential, because (as he describes), researchers in d-ASCs might fall prey to what he calls the "obvious truth" fallacy.

"In many d-ASCs, one's experience is that one is obviously and lucidly experiencing truth directly, without question. An immediate result of this may be an extinction of the desire for further questioning. Further, this experience of 'obvious' truth, while not necessarily preventing the investigator from further examining his data, may not arouse his desire for consensual validation. Since one of the greatest strengths of science is its insistence on consensual validation of basic data, this can be a serious drawback. Investigators attempting to develop state-specific sciences must learn to distrust the obvious (Tart, 1975, p. 223)."

This is one of the things I try to keep in mind with my dream research, for instance. I have had some experiences in dreams that I can barely describe. Questioning such experiences is never a bad thing. It doesn't diminish the experience at all, nor does it deny it.

Sources (and further reading):

Lachman, Gary. (2001). Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius. New York: Disinformation.

Tart, Charles T. (1975). States of Consciousness. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.

"defining" consciousness

When I decided to take blogging seriously, and set up Streams of Consciousness, I set up a few terms on Google Alerts for sources of information. Every time the word "consciousness" appears in a news story, I get an e-mail. Most of these alerts have nothing to do with things I would write about here. "So-and-so lost consciousness following the attack" or "Attempts at raising political consciousness have met mixed results" or things like that.

I'm often fascinated by common, mundane, everyday usages of terms like "consciousness" and "dreams" and how they reflect our -forgive me- unconscious definitions of both. "Dream house" or "make your dreams come true!" or "you're dreaming..." all betray certain biases and expectations on the word "dream."

As such, I've decided to repost a small meditation on the uses of the term "consciousness" that I wrote about a year or so ago, on an earlier attempt at a consciousness-related blog (link not necessary, as I'm probably going to delete it soon). It goes a little something like this:

In framing a discussion around Consciousness, it becomes important to make certain we are clear as to what we are talking about. Terms such as "Consciousness", "Spirit", "Soul", and "Psyche" all contain deeply personal meanings for each individual. Oftentimes, people can hold entire conversations about any of these topics, agreeing (or disagreeing) on various minutae, and then find out much later that they were talking about entirely different things without even realizing it!

I would like to follow the lead of philosopher Christian DeQuincey, and differentiate between two different meanings of Consciousness: "The Philosophical Meaning of Consciousness", and "The Psychological Meaning of Consciousness".

The Philosophical Meaning of Consciousness

DeQuincey describes this as

"a state or quality of being with a capacity for sentience and subjectivity. It is contrasted with being 'nonconscious,' a state of affairs wholly without sentience or subjectivity. For example, a person (awake or asleep), a dog, or a worm would exemplify consciousness in this sense; a rock, a cloud, or a computer would not. Philosophical consciousness is about the context of consciousness; it is about the mode of being that makes possible any and all contents of consciousness (DeQuincey, 2002, p. 64)."

The Psychological Meaning of Consciousness

This is different from the Philosophical Meaning, per DeQuincey.

"Psychologically, consciousness is a state of awareness characterized by being awake or alert, and is contrasted with the 'unconscious,' a state of being asleep, or with psychic contents below the threshold of conscious-awake awareness. For example, a person engaged in conceptual cognition would be conscious in this sense; a person in a coma, or a worm, would be examples of being unconscious. Psychological consciousness is about the contents of consciousness and about the mode of access (conscious or unconscious) to these contents (DeQuincey, 2002. p. 64)."

These are important distinctions to make, and show right off the bat the necessity for being clear about what "type" of consciousness one is discussing.

For the most part, I am concerned with the Philosophical brand of consciousness. Some of what I will be writing about is concerned with the Psychological, as well. However, though the two may differ, Psychological Consciousness is dependent on Philosophical Consciousness. In adition,"unconscious" and "nonconscious" should not be construed as the same thing.

As DeQuincey concludes, "[t]o be unconscious is still to be sentient (worms and sleeping people still feel), whereas to be nonconscious is not (rocks and computers do not feel) (DeQuincey, 2002, p. 65)."


Sources:

DeQuincey, Christian. (2002). Radical Nature: Rediscovering the Soul of Matter. Montpelier, Vermont: Invisible Cities Press.

Christian and I have our differences of opinion on a variety of things, but I respect the amount of work he has put into his ideas. These little bits from Radical Nature have certainly helped sharpen and hone my own definitions, and helped me to focus in my own thoughts and discussions on the subject.

Astrophysicist Neta Bahcall discusses the universe in next Patten Lecture

Via Indiana University:

Professor Neta Bahcall, a pioneering astrophysicist in the field of observational cosmology, and Eugene Higgins Professor at Princeton University, will present evidence yielded by her research in two Patten lectures -- "The Dark Side of the Universe," Tuesday (Oct. 23), and "Will the Universe Expand Forever?" Thursday (Oct. 25). Both lectures will be held in Ballantine Hall, Room 109, at 7:30 p.m., and are free and open to the public.

Bahcall's first lecture will question what makes up the universe. Recent observations suggest surprising new results. Not only is most of the matter in the universe dark and unconventional, but more surprisingly, the major component of the universe may be in the form of 'dark energy' -- a form of energy that opposes the pull of gravity and causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate.

Her second lecture will discuss the ultimate fate of the universe -- will it expand forever or will it eventually collapse in a 'Big Crunch'? The answer to this fundamental question depends on two critical observations: How much matter or gravity exists in the universe? And, does the universe contain other forms of energy that affect its expansion? Observations suggest that the expansion rate of the universe is speeding up.

Neta Bahcall's background

Originally from Israel, Bahcall received her bachelor's in physics and mathematics at Hebrew University, a master's in physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science and her Ph.D. in astrophysics from Tel Aviv University.

Bahcall is best known for her work in cosmic cartography, divining the structure and properties of the universe on large scales from massive sets of data accumulated through deep surveys of the sky and with the Hubble Space Telescope. She has been a pioneer in developing innovative techniques to interpret astronomical data, including a statistical approach to understanding how giant clusters of galaxies are distributed in the universe. For more information on Bahcall, visit http://www.astro.princeton.edu/people/bahcall_neta.html.

NDE narrative / "white space"

Newsweek / The Washington Post features an NDE narrative by William Blazek.

Blazek's NDE happened while he was a young man in the military. This is a particularly interesting narrative, as it deals with his efforts to reconcile his experience with both his faith, and science.

At times I have felt as if I encountered God that day in a particular and intimate way. After undergoing training as a physician, I have wondered whether socialization, psychological conditioning, or simple low blood pressure influenced or skewed my memory of the event.

One thing that raises an eyebrow for me is Blazek's description of where he found himself.

I found myself in a place I had never been before. The only way I can describe it is to say that it was white. It was whiter than white and there was someone there that I could not see. I had the impression that this person was very nice and I liked being there with him. The person communicated to me, not in words, but in a way that I can not explain, that it was not my time and I was to "go back." I did not want to “go back,” I wanted to stay in this new white place, but that was not permitted me.

I've run into other descriptions of this "white space," and would like to hear more about it. If, on the off-chance there are any NDE experiencers out there who have been to this space, I would love to hear from you.

Field Trip!

Today was field trip day at the Streams of Consciousness compound. Annalisa from Public Parapsychology, Marcel from AfterlifeFM, and I piled into a bright red rental car, and went north to IONS - The Institute of Noetic Sciences.

I have to say that the scenery at IONS is absolutely incredible. When I eventually move out of the Streams of Consciousness compound, and set up my own Consciousness Lair, I would kill for half of the view.

The three of us were very graciously received by Dean Radin, who gave us a tour of the campus and answered all of our questions. I could have spent hours just browsing all of the bookshelves, but there was a constant flow of other amazing stuff to see. Dean was very generous with his time. After having lived in the Bay Area for 4 years now, this trip was long overdue for me. Special thanks to Susie for lunch and further conversation as well.

IONS was founded by astronaut Edgar Mitchell, after a life-changing experience viewing Earth from space.

From the IONS website:

After his safe return "home," Mitchell sought out others who likewise felt the need for an expanded, more inclusive view of reality. They resolved to explore the inner world of human experience with the same rigor and critical thinking that made it possible for Apollo 14 to journey to the moon and back. In 1973, this small group of explorers founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences—derived from the Greek word nous, meaning something close to "intuitive ways of knowing."

...The mission of these noetic scientists was, and has been, to expand our understanding of human possibility by investigating aspects of reality—mind, consciousness, and spirit—that include but go beyond physical phenomena. They seek to seek to understand the inner world as thoroughly as we have the outer world—based on the premise that what finds expression in the world at large is a reflection of our interior landscape.

This is an ambitious mission, and one that resonates with my own interests in the field. As with some of the conferences I have attended recently, it was nice to get outside of my own bubble and see what else was happening in the larger consciousness research community. Don't get me wrong, I love the people in my bubble. Nothing beats a change of scenery though. Seeing what else is out there can be invigorating.

IONS is a non-profit organization, and relies on a number of sources of income. If you're feeling particularly generous, there are a number of ways to support the work they are doing.

Consciousness and Cognition - current and upcoming articles

The new issue of Consciousness and Cognition (volume 16, #3) features a variety of articles on "Subjectivity and the Body."

Many of the articles at the link above look positively fascinating, including "Self Consciousness in Non-Communicative Patients" (.pdf) by Steven Laureys, Fabien Perrin and Serge Brédart and all kinds of other goodness.

In press right now with this journal, is an interesting sounding article by J. Allan Hobson and David Kahn, titled "Dream content: Individual and generic aspects".

From the abstract:

Dream reports were collected from normal subjects in an effort to determine the degree to which dream reports can be used to identify individual dreamers. Judges were asked to group the reports by their authors. The judges scored the reports correctly at chance levels. This finding indicated that dreams may be at least as much like each other as they are the signature of individual dreamers. Our results suggest that dream reports cannot be used to identify the individuals who produced them when identifiers like names and gender of friends and family members are removed from the dream report. In addition to using dreams to learn about an individual, we must look at dreams as telling us about important common or generic aspects of human consciousness.

Dreaming Abstracts

The new issue (vol. 17 #3) of Dreaming (the journal for the International Association for the Study of Dreams) is out.

This issue includes:

• "The relationships between dream content and physical health, mood, and self-construal" by David B. King and Teresa L. DeCicco
• "Dreaming and insomnia: Polysomnographic correlates of reported dream recall frequency." by J.F. Pagel and Shannon Shocknesse
• "Students’ views on the role of dreams in human life." by Barbara Szmigielska and Malgorzata Holda
• "Exploring dream work at end of life." by Ann Goelitz
• "Dream emotions, waking emotions, personality characteristics and well-being–A positive psychology approach." by Sue Gilchrist, John Davidson, and Jane Shakespeare-Finch

Abstracts for each of these articles can be found at the APA Online's PsycARTICLES Direct with links to full-text available through the APA.

new research on quantum theory and consciousness

NewScientist is reporting on research being done by Efstratios Manousakis involving "image flips" in the brain, and quantum theory.

These hopes stem from a quantum model of consciousness developed by Efstratios Manousakis of Florida State University, Tallahassee. It is inspired by the "image flips" the brain makes when faced with an ambiguous image such as the one...which can look like either a vase or two faces. Psychologists have long been fascinated by the fact that the brain cannot consciously perceive both versions simultaneously.

Understanding how the brain switches between these versions might shed light on how the conscious experience is generated.

Unfortunately, NewScientist seems to have the rest of their write up behind a locked website available only to subscribers of their magazine. Seems a little silly to me - why would I want to read an article online when I have a hard copy in my home? In any event, if someone has a copy of the original research, and wants to send it my way, perhaps I'll write something further on the issue.

Journal of Consciousness Studies Abstracts

Ingenta Connect has posted the abstracts of articles appearing in the latest issue (vol. 14, number 11) of The Journal of Consciousness Studies.

• The First Modern Battle for Consciousness: J.B. Watson's Rejection of Mental Images by David Berman and W. Lyons
• Evolution and Epiphenomenalism by William Robinson
• Empathy and Propositional Knowledge by Elske Straver
• The Nature of Belief by Aaron Zimmerman
• 'And The Danube Runs Through It …' Review of TSC 2007, Budapest, July 23-27 by Bill Faw
• Natural Drift and the Evolution of Culture by William Irwin Thompson

Full text articles are available for sale, as well, from the links above.

thoughts of blood

MIT has been conducting research into how blood affects thought in the brain.

Obviously, it has been well documented that blood carries oxygen to the brain, but is there something else going on, as well?

"We hypothesize that blood actively modulates how neurons process information," Christopher Moore, a principal investigator in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, explained in an invited review in the October issue of the Journal of Neurophysiology. "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."

According to Moore's Hemo-Neural Hypothesis, blood is not just a physiological support system but actually helps control brain activity. Specifically, localized changes in blood flow affect the activity of nearby neurons, changing how they transmit signals to each other and hence regulating information flow throughout the brain. Ongoing studies in Moore's laboratory support this view, showing that blood flow does modulate individual neurons.

Moore also notes that the idea of blood flow being tied to information processing hasn't been considered since Aristotle.

In recent weeks we have also learned that the appendix may work as a safe-house for bacteria.

Despite my focus on consciousness, I have to admit, sometimes the body can be really cool.

PhD-Day

My apologies for a lack of updates over the last few days. I have spent the weekend working on my application for a PhD program. The deadline was today, and I hand-delivered my application materials shortly before noon.

Updates will resume soon.

2 day NDE workshop sponsored by IANDS

From IANDS:

The last chance to register is fast approaching for the two-day NDE workshop, "Living Lessons from the Light," that begins next weekend on October 20th, sponsored by the IANDS local group in Los Angeles. For full details and last minute registration, go to www.vabeachiands.org.

This workshop in Marina del Rey, California will explore the potential – and the challenges – of applying what near-death experiencers have learned from their NDEs to how we actually live our lives: engaging with the people we encounter all day long, both strangers and our closest relationships; managing finances and attitudes towards money; and coping with grief. It is ideal for near-death experiencers and those interested in how NDEs can bring new perspectives to their daily lives.

Speakers include: PMH Atwater, Pam Kircher, M.D., Kimberly Clark Sharp, M.S.W., Yolaine Stout, Bill Taylor, Reuben Beckham, Beverly Brodsky, Mari Kelley, Cheryl Birch, Chris Hobbs, Darlene Jaman, and Michael Braun, Ph. D.

For details and registration, go to www.vabeachiands.org.

NDE Q&A

The Thoughtful Living NDE blog has a great Q&A about Near-Death Experiences today.

Questions include rebuttals to Dying Brain Theory, DMT, Ketamine, Navy Airmen Stress Tests, Susan Blackmore's critique of the Tunnel, seeing only what you believe in, and Keith Augustine's anti-NDE article.

There are also a wealth of interesting links in the post, as well.

Consensus Reality and the Madness of Crowds

Michael Prescott has an interesting meditation on peer pressure, herd mentality, information overload, and consensus in science.

Referring to a New York Times piece about nutrition, Prescott uses its descriptions of overdiagnosis and expert-seeking in times of information overload to parallel the state of affairs surrounding the discussion of psi phenomena.

It seems easy enough to apply this to mainstream science's rote rejection of all evidence for the paranormal. The overwhelming majority of scientists have never studied psi and "look for guidance from an expert - or at least someone who sounds confident." Skeptics like James Randi, Paul Kurtz, and Michael Shermer never lack for confidence, at least in their public pronouncements.

How did skeptics like Randi, Kurtz, and Shermer find themselves in the "expert" chair?

George P. Hansen has a fascinating history of CSICOP on his website, which is actually very enlightening. Reading the article -I hate to say it- I was struck by how familiar a lot of it sounded. In fact, if I may get slightly political for a moment, it seemed that CSICOP and Fox News/the NeoCons were using the same playbook.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for debunking hoaxes, and looking for other explanations of That Weird Thing That Happened That One Time. However, to patently ignore the possibility of something on ideological grounds is anti-science. To engage in character assassination instead of promoting further research is anti-science. It's political. And it's political for reasons I can't figure out, other than to attribute it to fear. And I confess, I do not understand this fear.

For me, the real fun begins when we stop saying "no," and start saying "what if?"

Even if the answer to "what if?" is "no," we at least asked the question in the first place, and went looking for an answer.

That is science.

J. Allan Hobson Interview

Believer has an interview with J. Allan Hobson. Hobson is well known for the Activation Synthesis theory of dreaming.

Hobson and McCarley suggest that during REM sleep the cortex is highly active and activity in the brain triggers certain neurons at random (activation). The brain then tries to make sense of this by synthesizing the random impulses into what we experience as dreams, for example a cell triggering the area of the brain that controls balance may lead to a dream of falling. When we sleep, all sensory and motor input is blocked and neurons in the cerebral cortex are activated by random impulses; the forebrain then interprets this activity and produces the dream.

As with anything, there are people who disagree. Bill Domhoff, for instance, has a lengthy reply.

In recent years, there has also been a continuing debate between Mark Solms and Hobson, over how much Freud belongs in dream research.

At a conference hosted by the Center for Consciousness Studies in Tucson last year, Solms debated Hobson for nearly two hours on Freud’s theory of dreams. At times, the conversation resembled a high-school class election—“I hope that when you vote at the end, you’ll vote for me!” said Solms cheerily—with each scientist becoming increasingly emotional about the other’s foolishness. To illustrate how dreams are like hieroglyphics, Solms gave an example of one in which he is a schoolteacher and Hobson is a young student sitting in his classroom in a uniform. An interpretation, he said, might uncover the wish “I want to teach Allan Hobson a lesson.”

While both men now agree more or less on the neuroscience, they disagree on how to read Freud. Hobson believes the central tenet of The Interpretation of Dreams is the disguise censorship theory—the idea that dreams come to us in secret code. Solms concedes that this particular point might be off, but takes a more holistic view, praising Freud for his poetic generalities: the shift between animal and civilized drives. “A veil is lifted while we sleep,” he says, “and that’s the crux of what Freud claimed.” Hobson might agree with the first half of the statement, but not the second. His objections are less about science than literary interpretation.

Domhoff thinks they're both missing the boat.

The thing is, I don't particularly agree with any of the three about the "exact" nature and function of dreaming, yet I do believe that all three are engaged in important work. This kind of piggybacks on what I was mentioning yesterday in regards to neurotheology research. I find the research data fascinating. I just don't always agree with the interpretations - mainly because I can see a number of alternate yet potentially equally valid interpretations.

Consciousness and dreams are extremely slippery and complex creatures. It is just this complexity that draws me to the field. Eventually we may be able to "reduce" them to one thing or another, but I again respectfully submit that we are a far way from that point. We are still gathering data. We are still figuring out what the correlate phenomena are.

The Hobson/Solms debate is also available on dvd. I have nothing to do with the production of it, and have yet to order a copy (though it's on my list of things to get around to watching when I'm done with my thesis). If anyone has it, or gets it and watches it before I get a chance to, shoot me an e-mail and let me know how it is.

Neurotheology

Scientific American's article "Searching for God in the Brain" has been getting a lot of buzz the last few days. I haven't posted anything about it, because other people seem to be covering it quite well, and these sorts of studies aren't particularly new.

However, I've seen the study mentioned in a few too many blogs and such over the last few days, and thought I would revisit the article.

This study centered on 14 Carmelite nuns, each of whom

answered a call for volunteers “who have had an experience of intense union with God” and agreed to participate in an experiment devised by neuroscientist Mario Beauregard of the University of Montreal. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Beauregard seeks to pinpoint the brain areas that are active while the nuns recall the most powerful religious epiphany of their lives, a time they experienced a profound connection with the divine. The question: Is there a God spot in the brain?

...Ultimately, however, neuroscientists study this question because they want to better understand the neural basis of a phenomenon that plays a central role in the lives of so many. “These experiences have existed since the dawn of humanity. They have been reported across all cultures,” Beauregard says. “It is as important to study the neural basis of [religious] experience as it is to investigate the neural basis of emotion, memory or language.”

The article goes on to cover some of the work of V.S. Ramachandran (who thinks the limbic system might be involved), Michael Persinger (who is fond of citing electro-magnetic fluctuations), Richard J. Davidson's fMRI work with Buddhist meditators, and Newburg and d'Aquili's work with Fransiscan nuns.

Obviously, this sort of research sparks a lot of debate. For instance, I would be inclined to disagree with Beauregard that these things have to have a neural basis. Certainly this work is fascinating in that it shows what is happening in the brain during these experiences, but to say that the brain is generating the experience is another thing entirely. That is akin to saying my eye is generating the bookshelf across the room, and "proving" this scientifically by examining the activity of my ocular cells.

If anything -to me- it shows that the brain is capable of processing certain types of information or facilitating certain types of experience, much in the same way it does sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.

On the flipside, many atheists would see this sort of research as "proof" that "God is all in the head."

Scientific American continues:

The brain mediates every human experience from breathing to contemplating the existence of God. And whereas activity in neural networks is what gives rise to these experiences, neuroimaging cannot yet pinpoint such activity at the level of individual neurons. Instead it provides far cruder anatomical information, highlighting the broad swaths of brain tissue that appear to be unusually dynamic or dormant. But using such vague structural clues to explain human feelings and behaviors may be a fool’s errand. “You list a bunch of places in the brain as if naming something lets you understand it,” opines neuropsychologist Seth Horowitz of Brown University.

This is what I've dubbed the "labeling" fallacy. Perhaps there is an actual term for it, but this will suffice for now. This is akin to writing things off as "Placebo Effect." How much is written off as "Placebo Effect" in medicine? Yet nobody really knows how it works. It is labeled as an "effect" - something to be shrugged at, tossed aside, and forgotten. Consistently anomalous data is annoying. Best we put it aside.

I do encourage this sort of research (not like there are throngs of scientists outside of my apartment waiting and waiting for me to give them the green light), because I do find it fascinating. I do maintain, however, that we need to be careful about assigning causation. If causation does turn out to be in the brain - cool. I just think we're a long way away from jumping to this conclusion.

Horizons Conference

From their website:

Horizons: Contemporary Perspectives on Psychedelics

Saturday October 27 2007 12pm - 8pm
Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012


Horizons is an afternoon of learning about psychedelics. Psychedelics are a unique class of psychoactive drugs that have been used by humans for thousands of years. Millions of people in every corner of the globe have used them to alter their consciousness in search of introspective contemplation, spiritual insights, creative exploration and physical and psychological healing.

In the 1950's and early 1960's, legal research with psychedelics spurred important discoveries in science and psychology. During the 1960s, psychedelics entered worldwide popular culture. Fueled by the wild social dogmas of the era, recreational use become commonplace. Questions about their safety, medical value, history and implications in politics and culture were unfortunately answered with numerous myths spread by both their users and the media.

Times are changing. The freewheeling sixties are now a distant memory and the hype of the millennial rave fever has finally been laid to rest. Incredibly, in the face of government and institutional biases, a small group of dedicated researchers and activists have orchestrated a renaissance in psychedelic research that is re-shaping the public's understanding of these unique substances.

Horizons seeks to open a fresh dialogue about psychedelics and challenges the 21st century to rethink their role in history, culture, medicine, spirituality and art.

Speakers
Kenneth Alper MD, Rick Doblin Ph.D, Neal Goldsmith Ph.D, Alex & Allyson Grey, Julie Holland MD, Michael Mithoefer MD, Ethan Nadelmann Ph.D and Andrew Sewell MD.

Artists
Garrison Buxton, Ray Cross, Scott Draves, Nick Hallett, Todd Polenberg, Robert Horansky, Image Node, Anakin Koenig, Aaron Taylor Kuffner, Deniz Kurtel, Leif Krinkle, Zach Layton, Brock Monroe, Peripheral Media Projects, Leo Villareal and James Vogel. More artists will be added shortly.

Click here for more information

Contact: info@horizonsnyc.org

The Other World

Alterati has a write up and video about the documentary The Other World, a film about Shamanism and the use of psychedelics.

Though The Other World provides some interesting and rather traditional “talking head” interviews with the likes of Alex Grey, Moebius, Jeremy Narby (the author of The Cosmic Serpent), and many others, the most unique aspect of this documentary is that it attempts to provide a first person perspective of a very subjective experience. That is, the use of psychedelics in shamanism, and the function of the shaman as a guide through exploration of our oft-forgotten interior world.

...this remains one of the most genuine portrayals and explorations of the psychedelic experience that I have yet encountered. There is also none of the “psychedelics for everyone!” enthusiasm that poisons a lot of these pieces, a clear knee-jerk response against the categorical denial of psychedelics as the status quo. As the artist Moebius points out, a bunch of kids doing psychedelics at a rave club is a lot like having a group of surgeons perform heart surgery on the weekend just for kicks.

50th Annual Parpasychological Association Conference coverage continues

Annalisa at Public Parapsychology has posted another update in her series on the 50th Annual Parapsychological Association Conference. This update summarizes a series of tribute presentations to the late Ian Stevenson. Dr. Stevenson is best known for his meticulous detailing of possible reincarnation cases around the world.

Annalisa's update includes summaries of presentations by Nancy L. Zingrone, Erlendur Haraldsson, Carlos Alvarado, and John A. Palmer.

Once again, these updates are the next best thing to having been there.

"Consciousness and the Megalithic Temple Builders" Conference in Birgu

Metageum '07, includes a conference, workshops, and tours of Malta's megalithic heritage.

There will be three programming threads, according to The Malta Independent:

The three threads centre on the theme of understanding the consciousness of the people who built the megalithic temples and consist of an international, inter-disciplinary conference on different ways of approaching the thinking and imagination of the Neolithic people who built the megalithic temples in Malta and elsewhere in the world, a series of workshops enabling us to make the imaginative leap into the Neolithic worldview, and a tour of Malta’s megalithic heritage.

Conference thread: Speakers at the conference range from archaeologists, psychologists and artists, to researchers in esoteric subjects. This conference is intended to present new results of research, and to encourage debate and discussion. It does not hold any particular position on the interpretation of the temples. Different people hold radically different perspectives, some of which are diametrically opposed to each other. The aim is to create a space in which the evidence and competing claims can be seen, heard, discussed and assessed. After the morning plenary sessions, attendees can choose to stay for more presentations at the conference venue, go on field trips to the temples or participate in the workshops. The list of renowned guest speakers from the archaeological field, both academic and independent is long and highly interesting, and includes such world-renowned researchers and authors as Graham Hancock.

Tour thread: Each afternoon a bus will take a guided tour to one or more of the megalithic temples and other prehistoric sites. Margaret Frendo, a professional licensed tour guide with several decades of experience introducing people to the Maltese temples, will lead the tour. Margaret’s experience goes back to the heady days of the 1980s when goddess groups performed ceremonies at the temple sites, through to the security-tightened present day.

Experiential thread: This spans a broad range of disciplines: archaeology, psychology, and philosophy on the one hand, and art and music on the other, as well as including esoteric and therapeutic perspectives. In this vein, the event starts off with an optional “trance-dance” run by Body Temple, a New York-based group who have offered this structured form of group shamanic activity for a number of years. The trance-dance evening will provide a sample of shamanism. For conference attendees who wish to go further with shamanic journeying, Body Temple will be providing workshops each afternoon. For those who are not yet ready to step into the Neolithic mind-set, there will be a choice of afternoon talks, or guided visits to the megalithic temples around Malta.

Metageum runs from November 3-November 11.

More info can be found here, and Erica Brincat of the Malta Independent has an interview with Peter Loyd, the lead organizer, here.

Dreamlines

Dreamlines is a pretty cool trip-toy interactive "dream simulation" by Leonardo Solaas.

The user enters one or more words that define the subject of a dream he would like to dream. The system looks in the Web for images related to those words, and takes them as input to generate an ambiguous painting, in perpetual change, where elements fuse into one another, in a process analogous to memory and free association.

The system has been developed in Java and PHP. First, a PHP script makes a Google image search of the words entered by the user. Then, the Java applet retrieves the images one by one, and uses them as input to generate an ever-changing drawing.

The pictures are never actually shown. The drawing itself is produced by 1500 autonomous particles in perpetual movement. The last image loaded serves as a sort of virtual terrain for them. The direction and speed of each particle is given, at each step, by the color values of the pixel they are stepping on. Different sets of formulas translate the hue, saturation and brightness of the pixel in angle and velocity values for the particle. The path of each particle is traced to the screen, and this forms the output seen by the user.

Thus, the work is at the same time a study on population dynamics, or on the emergent behavior of a multitude of very simple autonomous agents.

Who is dreaming? The user, or the Internet itself? In a certain way, both. The program generates a personal moving picture, unique, unpredictable, and forever gone when it is finished, just like dreams. But that dream is made out of pieces taken form the subconscious of the whole net, gathered by some words of the user and the obscure logic of searching algorithms.

Philosophy and Neuroscience

Andrew Brook and Pete Mandik have recently collaborated on a paper about the relationship between philosophy and neuroscience (.pdf).

Abstract:

A movement dedicated to applying neuroscience to traditional philosophical problems and using philosophical methods to illuminate issues in neuroscience began about twenty-five years ago. Results in neuroscience have affected how we see traditional areas of philosophical concern such as perception, belief-formation, and consciousness. There is an interesting interaction between some of the distinctive features of neuroscience and important general issues in the philosophy of science. And recent neuroscience has thrown up a few conceptual issues that philosophers are perhaps best trained to deal with. After sketching the history of the movement, we explore the relationships between neuroscience and philosophy and introduce some of the specific issues that have arisen.

This is an important relationship to nurture. I love philosophical wankery as much as the next person, but philosophy needs to have at least some grounding in this world, and in human experience. Unless, of course, the philosophy in question is generated by non-humans, and/or elsewhere. ;)

The Secret Life of Plants

Science Daily reports on the research of Josef Stuefer, who reveals that many plants create communications networks to exchange information.

Many herbal plants such as strawberry, clover, reed and ground elder naturally form networks. Individual plants remain connected with each other for a certain period of time by means of runners. These connections enable the plants to share information with each other via internal channels. They are therefore very similar to computer networks. But what do plants want to chat to each other about?

Recently Stuefer and his colleagues were the first to demonstrate that clover plants warn each other via the network links if enemies are nearby. If one of the plants is attacked by caterpillars, the other members of the network are warned via an internal signal. Once warned, the intact plants strengthen their chemical and mechanical resistance so that they are less attractive for advancing caterpillars.

In a semi-related vein, Duncan Laurie has been working on the "acquisition and sonification of plant and mineral signals, deemed ‘nature intelligence’, as these signals often spontaneously become interactive with people and music. "

MAPS Bulletin

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies announces that the Autumn 2007 MAPS Bulletin on "Psychedelics and Self-Discovery" is now available online in PDF format.

Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness Conference

via The Dream Studies Portal:

THE SOCIETY FOR THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Spring 2008 Annual Meeting and Conference
March 19-23, 2008 • Yale University
CALL FOR PAPERS
Theme: Consciousness and Spirit

For all its material correlates and consequences, the anthropology of consciousness incorrigibly connotes an aspect or dimension that is immaterial, yet somehow integral to that which is at the most intimate core of the personal—that which bursts forth in life and vanishes in death, leaving behind a useless husk. Cultures in every age and place have called it spirit, placed it at the center of their worldviews and religions, and sought to grasp its ephemeral essence. Even our materially oriented culture reaches out for the spiritual, however defined.

How does something/someone called spirit impinge on consciousness, lifting it from myriad electrochemical processes into the richness and depth we experience in the world, in others, in ourselves? What is it: will o’ the wisp or Pentecostal flame? A metaphor standing in for a bundle of meanings, a component of obsolete dualism, or an emergent property of material processes? A divine presence mixed into physicality—the indestructible élan vital that incarnates (and perhaps reincarnates) to transform dead matter into beings who experience joy, suffering, desire, and mortality? How has it been understood across time and cultures, and how can it be understood in the new century?

The Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness, a section of the American Anthropological Association, welcomes proposals for papers and panels related to this crucial theme for its Annual Meeting, to be held March 19-23, 2008 at the Yale Divinity School in New Haven. The event is open to a broad range of academic disciplines and theoretical orientations, and will serve as a forum for the presentation of ideas that may overstep the strict bounds of one’s own discipline. Possible topics include, among many others:
• Spirit as metaphor: changing uses and significance in the new century
• Defining the Interface Between Spirit and Matter
• Crossroads: the quest to locate the nexus between material and spiritual worlds
• Computer simulation as a way to simulate/induce spiritual experiences
• Neural correlates of spiritual experiences
• Spirit after life: spiritual phenomena in medical crises
• The anthropology of spirit possession: ethnography, etiology, implications
• Spirit manifestation via the I Ching and other oracular systems
• Other topics germane to an understanding of the anthropology of consciousness

Scholars, practitioners, educators, and students are invited to join in this intellectual adventure designed to expand our understanding of human capabilities and experiences. The conference will include academic presentations, experiential sessions, and invited panels. Please email your proposals by January 10, 2008 to:
james.vanpelt@yale.edu

For more information and to download the proposal and registration forms:
www.sacaaa.org

Societas Magica

And by pure coincidence, I promise...

Societas Magica, is seeking submissions to their journal Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft.

A serious, rigorously peer-reviewed scholarly journal, Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft draws from a broad spectrum of perspectives, methods, and disciplines, offering the widest possible geographical scope and chronological range, from prehistory to the modern era and from the Old World to the New. In addition to original research, the journal includes book reviews, editorials, and lists of newly published work.

According to the Societas Magica website,

The Societas Magica is an organization dedicated to furthering communication and exchange among scholars interested in the study of magic, both in the positive contexts of its expression as an area of necessary knowledge or religious practice (as in early modern occultism and contemporary paganism), and in its negative contexts as the substance of an accusation or condemnation (as in sorcery trials, and many philosophical and theological accounts, both early and late). The interests of our membership include, but are not limited to, the history and sociology of magic; theological, and intellectual apprehensions of magic; practices and theories of magic; and objects, artifacts and texts either qualified as magical by their creators, or forming the substance of an accusation of magic by others.

False Memories

Scientific American has a fascinating article called "Brain Stains," focusing on Sheri Storm, a former patient of Kenneth Olson, who was the subject of a malpractice lawsuit.

Storm suddenly realized that her own illness and 200-plus personalities, though painfully real to her, were nothing more than a figment of her imagination—created by her trusted therapist, Kenneth Olson.

Storm initially sought treatment from Olson because of insomnia and anxiety associated with divorce proceedings and a new career in radio advertising. She had hoped for an antidepressant prescription or a few relaxation techniques. But after enduring hypnosis sessions, psychotropic medications and mental-ward hospitalizations, Storm had much more to worry about than stress. She had “remembered” being sexually abused by her father at the age of three and forced to engage in bestiality and satanic ritual abuse that included the slaughtering and consumption of human babies. According to her psychiatrist, these traumatic experiences had generated alternative personalities, or alters, within Storm’s mind.

Storm is now convinced that her multiple personality disorder was iatrogenic, the product of her “therapy.” But years after the psychiatric sessions have ceased, she is still tormented by vivid memories, nightmares and physical reactions to cues from her fictitious past. Although she was told that the false memories would fade over time, she has had a difficult time purging these “brain stains” from the fabric of her mind.

"Satanic Ritual Abuse" was quite a scare for a while, and still remains a controversial subject.

But if memories can somehow be "implanted," can we trust anything?

From SciAm:

The problem with the brain is that it is not a very discriminating processor. It has no spam folder for imaginary or coerced memories. Movie plots, unsubstantiated rumors and images from dreams are stored in our brain alongside memories of our 10th-birthday party, first kiss and high school graduation.

Research by Elizabeth F. Loftus, then at the University of Washington and now at the University of California, Irvine, has shown how difficult it can be to distinguish real memories from fictitious ones. In 1995 she and her research associate Jacqueline E. Pickrell contacted the family members of 24 individuals and, after gathering information about their lives from relatives, constructed memory booklets containing actual childhood events along with a false story of being lost in a mall at five years of age. The researchers found that 29 percent of the subjects “remembered” the false event and were even able to provide details of it.

With the publication of Michelle Remembers, "Satanic Ritual Abuse" became a hot topic on the talk shows of the 1980s. Those accused of abuse ("Satanic" or otherwise) often had their lives destroyed. Those in "recovery" didn't fare much better, according to SciAm:

Research suggests that Storm’s case is not unique. According to a 1996 report of the Crime Victims Compensation Program in Washington State, recovered-memory therapy may have unwanted negative effects on many patients. In this survey of 183 claims of repressed memories of childhood abuse, 30 cases were randomly selected for further profiling. Interestingly, this sample was almost exclusively Caucasian (97 percent) and female (97 percent). The following information was gleaned:

• 100 percent of the patients reported torture or mutilation, although no medical exams corroborated these claims
• 97 percent recovered memories of satanic ritual abuse
• 76 percent remembered infant cannibalism
• 69 percent remembered being tortured with spiders
• 100 percent remained in therapy three years after their first memory surfaced in therapy, and more than half were still in therapy five years later
• 10 percent indicated that they had thoughts of suicide prior to therapy; this level increased to 67 percent following therapy
• Hospitalizations increased from 7 percent prior to memory recovery to 37 percent following therapy
• Self-mutilations increased from 3 to 27 percent
• 83 percent of the patients were employed prior to therapy; only 10 percent were employed three years into therapy
• 77 percent were married prior to therapy; 48 percent of those were separated or divorced after three years of therapy
• 23 percent of patients who had children lost parental custody
• 100 percent were estranged from extended families

The article is an engaging read. Sheri Storm also provides a first person account of what happened to her in therapy.

Two fascinating books have appeared in recent years to try to understand the mindset of the time. Jeffrey S. Victor's book Satanic Panic offers a sociological approach, and Debbie Nathan and Michael R. Snedeker's book Satan's Silence picks apart the court transcripts to reveal leading questions and other shoddy work.

Whether therapists such as Olson naively thought they were doing good for people, or whether they were in it all to make a buck (or a continuous series of bucks as more and more "memories" were uncovered), I don't know. I suspect it varies on a case-by-case basis.

Still, the SRA narra