Australia: EEG demonstrations show audiences profound effect of transcending
by Global Good News staff writer

Global Good News    Translate This Article
16 August 2013

In the majority of his recent lectures in Australia, Dr Fred Travis used EEG demonstrations to show the audience the measurable effects on the brain of the mind settling down to a state of deep inner silence and peace (transcending)* during Transcendental Meditation. These demonstrations have a powerful effect on audiences, he said, because they show the clear distinction between brain activity during daily life and the silence and coherence that immediately begin with transcending.

Dr Travis is a neuroscientist and Director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at Maharishi University of Management in the USA. As such, he has worked extensively with electroencephalography, or EEG.

He explained that using EEG demonstrations during his talks about Transcendental Meditation and the brain is effective.

'It is a ''wow'' factor and it somehow touches a person's heart,' Dr Travis said.

For each lecture, a local practitioner of Transcendental Meditation volunteers to be hooked up to an EEG machine. The procedure is fairly simple, Dr Travis said. A half hour before the lecture begins, Dr Travis attaches the EEG sensors to a few specific points on the volunteer's head and makes sure that he or she feels comfortable with them on. The demonstration itself is straightforward. The volunteer's brain activity is read and displayed during both activity and meditation so the audience can see the difference.

The EEG machine that Dr Travis uses displays just two channels in the front of the brain, focusing mainly on alpha wave coherence in the moment. 'It's very simple,' he said of the EEG display. 'I think this is good so that people are not confused by a lot of visual information.'

Instead, the audience sees that the volunteer's EEG in activity is fast and variable. Then they begin meditation 'and suddenly the brain is very simple, and you see the simple alpha activity in the front.'

Dr Travis feels that this type of demonstration allows the audience to experience a bit of the profound effect of transcendence.

See related articles:
∙ Meditation helping war veterans: Sydney Morning Herald reports US expert's Australia tour
∙ Dr Fred Travis tours Australia to talk about meditation, consciousness, and the brain
∙ Australia: In Perth, Dr Fred Travis presents on brain activity during Transcendental Meditation
∙ Australia: American brain research expert speaks on improving mental health with Transcendental Meditation

* During Transcendental Meditation the mind settles down to experience quieter levels of the thinking process, eventually going beyond (transcending) thought to experience pure awareness, the silent, unbounded field of transcendental consciousness, the basis of the mind's activity.

Copyright © 2013 Global Good News Service



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