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chapter 2

Inner Life, Invisible Life

For all of the amazing wonders of the universe and the human body, as presented in Chapter One, an enormous amount of the grand vision of life is invisible!

For example, the stars, planets, and galaxies that can be detected make up only four percent of the universe! Four percent! The other ninety-six percent is made up of substances that cannot be seen or easily explained. These invisible substances are called “dark energy” and “dark matter.” Astronomers base their existence on the gravitational influence that they exert on normal matter (the parts of the universe that can be seen).

Let’s just consider this a bit more; our universe may contain as many as 100 billion galaxies, each with billions of stars, massive clouds of gas and dust, countless planets and moons, and enormous amounts of cosmic debris—yet everything that we see is only four percent of the total mass and energy in the universe!

Genes Do Not Direct as Much as They Respond

What about the human body? In Chapter 1, we discussed how physical life required a cell with genetic material (DNA), and we assumed from this that our life is determined by our genes. It only makes sense, right? Well, it turns out that this is not necessarily so, for research has determined that it is not the insides of a cell that determine outcomes but the receptors around the membrane of the cell that respond to the stimuli of our perceptions, vibrations, and environment! Identical twins have the same genes yet one may develop cancer while the other does not. Why? How? Siblings who come from the same gene pool, but live in different settings and environments, may develop different ailments. Why? How?

Dr. Bruce Lipton, a biologist, explains it this way when speaking on the topic of his book The Biology of Belief: Cells, like computers, are programmable and the program lies outside the cell/computer. The genes do not program the cell! The nucleus is simply a memory disk, a hard drive that contains the DNA programs that encode the production of proteins. We can edit the data that goes into our bio-computer just as we choose the words we type into a computer! Our cells are like programmable personal computers!⁵

Lipton adds, “The energy in your body is reflecting the energy around you because the atoms in your body are not only giving off energy, they are absorbing energy. Every living organism communicates with these vibrations. Animals communicate with plants; they communicate with other animals. Shamans talk to plants with vibrations … Quantum physicists reveal that underneath apparent physical structure there is nothing more than energy, that we are energy beings … Quantum physics says the invisible energy is one hundred times more efficient in conveying information than are material signals (e.g., drugs). What we are beginning to recognize is that there is an invisible world that we have not dealt with in regard to understanding the nature of our health … In other words, rather than focusing on matter, in a quantum world we focus on energy … When you interact in your environment you are both absorbing and sending energy at the same time. You are probably more familiar with terms such as ‘good vibes’ and ‘bad vibes.’ Those are the waves at which we are all vibrating … When we understand that genes are just respondents to the environment from the perceptions handled by the cell membrane, then we can realize that if life isn’t going well, what we have to do is not change our genes but change our perceptions. That is much easier to do than physically altering the body.”⁶

Our Brain Is More Active When We Sleep!

The human brain, perhaps the most fascinating part of the human body, is more active during sleep than while awake! With all of the brainpower used during a day, one would logically think that this should be the other way around. As it turns out, when we turn off activity, our brain turns on! Something is occurring during sleep. Of course, we know that during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) the human brain is dreaming. Perhaps Elihu revealed what’s going on during human sleep when he told Job that, “God speaks once, yes twice, though man pays no attention—in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, in slumbering on the bed; then He opens the ears of men and seals their instruction.” (Job 33:14-16, World English Bible [WEB])

The original meaning of the word “conscious” was very different than most of us understand it today. Originally the word came from the Latin conscius, which is itself from con- (a form of com-, meaning “together”) and scire (meaning “to know”). Thus it meant, “Knowing together,” having knowledge with another. Does consciousness exist without stimuli? A sentient being is considered to be one who responds to stimuli—perceives it, processes it, and reacts to it. Also, we generally believe that consciousness is personal, subjectively unique to a being’s perception and perspective. In Latin, we also find the term conscius sibi, meaning “knowing with oneself,” indicating that we share knowledge of something with oneself and by implication, one knows that one knows something. (For more on this, see C.S. Lewis’ Studies in Words, Chapter 8: “Conscience and Conscious,” Cambridge Press, 1960.)

Consider the following from Bernard J. Baars and Katharine McGovern:

“No alien space visitor could fail to observe that vertebrates, including humans, engage in purposeful motion only two-thirds of the earthly day. In the remaining third, we hibernate. When consciousness returns in the morning, a massive change in electrical activity takes place all over the cortex, as the fast, small, and irregular waves of waking EEG replace the large, slow, regular hills and valleys of deep sleep … When we try to understand conscious experience we aim to explain the differences between these two conditions: between the events in your nervous system that you can report, act upon, distinguish, and acknowledge as your own, and a great multitude of sophisticated and intelligent processes which are unconscious, and do not allow these operations.”⁷

Our Unconscious Life

The fact that there is so much going on while we are supposedly unconscious—sleeping—says something about the dynamics of human consciousness.

So much of bodily life occurs subliminally, below the threshold of sensation or conscious awareness. Skin conductance, also known as Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), is a method of measuring the electrical conductance of the skin, which can vary depending on the skin’s moisture level. This is of interest because the sweat glands are controlled by the sympathetic nervous system not the central nervous system, so skin conductance is used as an indication of subliminal psychological or physiological stimuli. There has been a long history of electro dermal activity research, most of it dealing with spontaneous fluctuations or reactions to stimuli. The scientific study of GSR began in the early 1900s. One of the first references to the use of GSR instruments in psychoanalysis is the book by Dr. Carl (C.G.) Jung entitled Studies in Word Analysis, published in 1906. GSR was used for a variety of types of research in the 1960s through the late 1970s, with a decline in use as more sophisticated techniques (such as EEG and MRI) replaced it in many areas of psychological research. As of 2010, skin conductance monitoring equipment is still in use, probably because it is inexpensive (e.g., a galvanometer cost between $10 and $20).

There is a relationship between subliminal activity and semi-conscious or unconscious emotional reaction, and this can be detected. Skin conductance monitoring is highly sensitive to emotions in some people. Fear, anger, startle response, orienting response, and sexual feelings are all among the reactions that may produce similar skin conductance responses (SCR). These reactions are utilized as part of the polygraph or lie detector but are also a means for getting helpful biofeedback—a read on your subliminal activity. In 2008, the three primary organizations involved in biofeedback created this definition: “Biofeedback is a process that enables an individual to learn how to change physiological activity for the purposes of improving health and performance. Precise instruments measure physiological activity such as brainwaves, heart function, breathing, muscle activity, and skin temperature. These instruments rapidly and accurately ‘feed back information to the user. The presentation of this information—often in conjunction with changes in thinking, emotions, and behavior—supports desired physiological changes. Over time, these changes can endure without continued use of an instrument.”⁸

In addition to this, numerous research projects have captured the curious changes in human brainwave patterns during various methods of meditation. Considering that in most forms of meditation we strive to shut down the outer self and outer activity in an effort to arouse inner states of consciousness, vibration, and poignant stillness, these studies have added to the known fact that much goes on inside of us when we are inactive.

Monitoring the frequency and location of electrical brain waves is done using an Electroencephalography (EEG). EEG electrodes are placed in locations on the scalp that can pick up electrical activity in the brain. The recorded brainwave patterns are now categorized in six main patterns: mu (8-13 Hz, Sensorimotor cortex), gamma (30-100+ Somatosensory cortex), beta (15-30 Hz, frontal regions of the brain, both hemispheres), alpha (7-14, Hz posterior regions of brain, both hemispheres), theta (4-7 Hz, strangely located in areas not related to the task at hand), delta (1-4 Hz, frontal regions in adults, posterior regions in children—hmm, this is curious).

Beta occurs during normal waking consciousness; alpha occurs during deep relaxation, usually with the eyes closed—in light meditation, reflection, or memory recall; theta occurs during REM sleep and deeper meditation; and delta occurs in deep, dreamless sleep and transcending meditative states. Gamma occurs during problem-solving and short-term memory matching, such as faces with names. Mu is the rest state of motor neurons, awake but not active.

Studies have shown that theta waves indicate deep relaxation and occur more frequently in highly experienced meditators. These patterns are found in the frontal parts of the brain, which are associated with the higher mental processes.

In addition to brainwaves, the two hemispheres of the brain that normally operate randomly during waking life, dramatically unite into a synchronized rhythm of brainwaves. This is nicknamed “hemi-syncing.”

In the online edition of the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (February 29, 2012), Eileen Luders, an assistant professor at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, and colleagues, have found that long-term meditators have larger amounts of gyrification (“folding” of the cortex, which may allow the brain to process information faster) than people who do not meditate. Furthermore, a direct correlation was found between the amount of gyrification and the number of years the subject had been meditating, providing further proof of the brain’s neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to adapt to environmental changes). Perhaps most interesting, though, was the positive correlation between the number of meditation years and the amount of insular gyrification. “The insula [located deep within the cerebral cortex] has been suggested to function as a hub for autonomic, affective and cognitive integration,” said Luders. “Meditators are known to be masters in introspection and awareness as well as emotional control and self-regulation, so the findings make sense that the longer someone has meditated, the higher the degree of folding in the insula.”⁹

More cortex surface area results in greater intelligence. And since the birth canal restricts the size of the head, the evolutionary adaptation was to fold the cortex. The idea that meditating increases cortical folds could be countered with the idea that people with more folds might tend to meditate more. Whatever the case, there appears to be a correlation between meditation and gyrification (folding of the cortex), which correlates to intelligence and faster processing of information and cognitive integration.

In addition to changes in brainwave electrical and growth patterns, practitioners of meditation demonstrate remarkable changes in their dispositions and character traits.

On the mental level, the state of consciousness is determined by the affect upon one’s mental state or the change in one’s awareness. Higher states are most commonly described as a sense of oneness, a peace that passes all understanding, a sense of communion or union with some transcendent essence or dimension of awareness, or the very presence of the Divine, and lastly, a comprehension or wisdom that comes as if from out of nowhere, leaving the person’s mind “touched” or “enriched” in an almost indescribable way.

Next, let’s look as Edgar Cayce’s visions into the Life Force and how it affects us and our lives.