The Electroencephalographic Brainwave Spectrum, Mindful Meditation, and Awareness: Hypothesis.

It is hypothesized that being mindfully aware is a spontaneous state of being. It is imbued with joy, peace and happiness. Such a state is periodically revealed during restful attentiveness or presence. It is also associated with spontaneous brain alpha activity of 8-13 Hz. In deep nonrapid eye movement sleep, there is synchronous delta activity at a coherent frequency of 0.1 Hz. Both of these brainwave ground states are spontaneous, calm and effortless. When any physical or mental effort is made, the alpha rhythm is desynchronized, and it is superposed by faster brain waves of beta (13-30 Hz) and gamma frequencies (30-150 Hz). This is associated with a stream of dualistic conscious experiences with contents. During deep sleep, delta activity is superposed by beta and gamma activity with microarousals resulting in dream experiences. During effortless, meditative awareness, the whole family of alpha rhythm is synchronized including (a) Occipital-parietal alpha with visual clarity, formless color, and the absence of visual imagery (b) Frontal eye-field alpha with relatively motionless eyes, and the absence of voluntary actions or plans to move the eyes in some direction, along with nonactive working memory, (c) Somatosensory alpha or Mu rhythm from the somatic motor-sensory cortex with the resultant stillness of the body including head, face, larynx, spine, hands and legs, (d) Mid-temporal auditory alpha with vocal quietness and internal verbal silence (Maunam) with a feeling of spontaneous silence and serenity, (e) Cingulate and precuneus alpha resulting in freedom from autobiographical memories and the sense of agency or ego. The insular cortex serves as a gatekeeper, a hierarchical controller to switch between conscious engagement or disengagement from the internal or the external world. It switches between the default mode network and the executive frontoparietal networks, between the sequential and the parallel modes of functioning. Mindful consciousness is local and dualistic, whereas mindful awareness is nonlocal and nondual.

Consciousness, Awareness, and Presence: A Neurobiological Perspective.

It is proposed that consciousness is different from awareness. Consciousness can be thought of as a dualistic, embodied, and embedded cognitive process, whereas awareness is a nondual and nonlocal process. Nonlocal awareness is the ever-present, ever-fresh, and an affective self-awareness that can be aware of itself as well as of the ongoing subject-object duality, and cognitive conscious contents. This nonlocal awareness is our default mode state. Although very few of us are aware of it due to our habitual mental preoccupation and mind-wandering. We need to relax, learn to meditate, let go of all preoccupations, and return to our default mode state of being, which is peaceful, silent, fulfilling, energetic, and ever-fresh. Then, one feels effortlessly alive and free and at home in the world. This is the essence of meditation for living a happy, peaceful, and meaningful life. The rest of the article provides details of meditative presence, yoga meditation, and mindfulness meditation with their current practice and applications. The main focus of the article is on the neurobiology of meditation, which is discussed in detail. It covers the experientially perceived mind-space including personal, peripersonal, and extrapersonal space, the concepts of mind in the Western and Eastern literature, and the neurobiological foundation in the brain stem, reticular-limbic system, forebrain including the five thalamo-cortical-basal ganglia circuits, multiple sensory modalities, integrated perception, speech production, language communication, voluntary movements, and intentional actions. The wholeness of conscious mind is expressed as bio-psycho-social-abstract/spiritual.

The multistream self: biophysical, mental, social, and existential.

Self is difficult to define because of its multiple, constitutive streams of functional existence. A more comprehensive and expanded definition of self is proposed. The standard bio-psycho-social model of psyche is expanded to biophysical-mental-social and existential self. The total human experience is better understood and explained by adding the existential component. Existential refers to lived human experience, which is firmly rooted in reality. Existential living is the capacity to live fully in the present, and respond freely and flexibly to new experience without fear. Four common fears of isolation, insecurity, insignificance, and death can be overcome by developing a lifestyle of whole-hearted engagement in the present reality, creative problem solving, self-actualization, and altruism. Such integrative living creates a sense of presence with self-awareness, understanding, and existential well-being. Well-being is defined as a life of happiness, contentment, low distress, and good health with positive outlook. Self is a complex, integrative process of living organisms. It organizes, coordinates, and integrates energy-information within and around itself, spontaneously, unconsciously, and consciously. Self-process is understood in terms of synergetics, coordination dynamics, and energy-information-directed self-organization. It is dynamic, composite, ever renewing, and enduring. It can be convergent or divergent, and can function as the source or target of its own behavior-mentation. The experience of self is continuously generated by spontaneous activation of neural networks in the cerebral neocortex by the brainstem-diencephalic arousal system. The multiple constitutive behavioral-mental streams develop concurrently into a unique experience of self, specific for a person at his/her developmental stage. The chronological neuro-behavioral-mental development of self is described in detail from embryonic stage to old age. Self can be behaviorally-mentally oriented and realized in three complimentary modes of being: egocentric, allocentric, and ecosystemic or existential. The existential mode is both immanent and transcendent, and can be self-actualized, resulting in a healthy, creative, conflict-free, and meaningful life.

Retino-hypothalamic-pineal hypothesis in the pathophysiology of primary headaches.

Primary headaches include migraine, tension, cluster headaches, paroxysmal hemicrania and miscellaneous headaches unassociated with structural lesions. A putative role of the retino-hypothalamic-pineal (RHP) axis in the pathophysiology of primary headaches is reviewed in terms of (1) retinal dysfunction, (2) hypothalamic dysfunction and human circadian desynchrony, (3) pineal melatonin dysfunction and (4) rostral limbic dysfunction mediating the human stress response. Unified RHP hypothesis is proposed, suggesting that an acute, periodic or chronic, circadian desynchrony and dysfunction of the whole or part of the RHP axis is implicated in the pathophysiology of primary headaches. Supportive evidence for the RHP hypothesis, including recent PET studies showing changes in dorsal pons, hypothalamus and rostral limbic structures, is presented.

Neuroscience of meditation.

Dhyana-Yoga is a Sanskrit word for the ancient discipline of meditation, as a means to Samadhi or enlightenment. Samadhi is a self-absorptive, adaptive state with realization of one's being in harmony with reality. It is unitive, undifferentiated, reality-consciousness, an essential being, which can only be experienced by spontaneous intuition and self-understanding. Modern neuroscience can help us to better understand Dhyana-Yoga. This article discusses topics including brain-mind-reality, consciousness, attention, emotional intelligence, sense of self, meditative mind, and meditative brain. A new hypothesis is proposed for a better understanding of the meditative mind. Meditation is an art of being serene and alert in the present moment, instead of constantly struggling to change or to become. It is an art of efficient management of attentional energy with total engagement (poornata, presence, mindfulness) or disengagement (shunyata, silence, emptiness). In both states, there is an experience of spontaneous unity with no sense of situational interactive self or personal time. It is a simultaneous, participatory consciousness rather than a dualistic, sequential attentiveness. There is a natural sense of well being with self-understanding, spontaneous joy, serenity, freedom, and self-fulfillment. It is where the ultimate pursuit of happiness and the search for meaning of life resolve. One realizes the truth of one's harmonious being in nature and nature in oneself. It is being alive at its fullest, when each conscious moment becomes a dynamic process of discovery and continuous learning of the ever-new unfolding reality.