Friday, 30 November 2012
Wednesday, 28 November 2012
What Is Deja Vu?
All of us have experienced being in a new place and feeling certain that we have been there before. This mysterious feeling, commonly known as déjà vu, occurs when we feel that a new situation is familiar, even if there is evidence that the situation could not have occurred previously. For a long time, this eerie sensation has been attributed to everything from paranormal disturbances to neurological disorders.
However, in recent years, as more scientists began studying this phenomenon, a number of theories about déjà vu have emerged, suggesting that it is not merely a glitch in our brain’s memory system. A new report by Colorado State University psychologist Anne M. Cleary, published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, describes recent findings about déjà vu, including the many similarities that exist between déjà vu and our understanding of human recognition memory.
Recognition memory is the type of memory that allows us to realize that what we are currently experiencing has already been experienced before, such as when we recognize a friend on the street or hear a familiar song on the radio. The brain fluctuates between two different types of recognition memory: recollection and familiarity. Recollection-based recognition occurs when we can pinpoint an instance when a current situation has previously occurred.
For example, seeing a familiar man at a store and realizing that we’ve seen him before on the bus. On the other hand, familiarity-based recognition occurs when our current situation feels familiar, but we don’t remember when it has happened before. For example, we see that familiar man in the store, but we just can’t remember where we know him from. Déjà vu is believed to be an example of familiarity-based recognition—during déjà vu, we are convinced that we recognize the situation, but we are not sure why.
Cleary conducted experiments testing familiarity-based recognition in which participants were given a list of celebrity names. Later on, they were shown a collection of celebrity photographs; some photographs corresponded to the names on the list, other photographs did not. The volunteers were told to identify the celebrities in the photographs and indicate how likely it was the celebrity’s names were on the list they had seen previously. The findings were surprising. Even when the volunteers were unable to identify a celebrity by photo, they had a sense of which names they had studied earlier and which they had not. That is, they couldn’t identify the source of their familiarity with the celebrity, but they knew the celebrity was familiar to them. Cleary repeated the experiment substituting famous places (such as Stonehenge and the Taj Majal) for celebrities and got similar results. These findings indicate that the participants stored a little bit of the memory, but it was hazy, so they were not able to connect it to the new experience.
Cleary also ran experiments to figure out what features or elements of situations could trigger feelings of familiarity. She had participants study a random list of words. During a word recognition test, some of the words on the test resembled the earlier words, although only in sound (e.g. lady sounds similar to eighty), but the volunteers reported a sense of familiarity for the new words, even when they could not recall the earlier-presented, similar-sounding words that were the source of this familiarity. Previous research has also shown that people feel familiarity when shown a visual fragment containing isolated geometric shapes from an earlier experience. This suggests that familiar geometric shapes may create the sense that an entire new scene has been viewed before.
These results support the idea that events and episodes which we experience are stored in our memory as individual elements or fragments of that event. Déjà vu may occur when specific aspects of a current situation resemble certain aspects of previously occurring situations; if there is a lot of overlap between the elements of the new and old situations, we get a strong feeling of familiarity. “Many parallels between explanations of déjà vu and theories of human recognition memory exist”, Cleary concludes, “Theories of familiarity-based recognition and the laboratory methods used to study it may be especially useful for elucidating the processes underlying déjà vu experiences.”
However, in recent years, as more scientists began studying this phenomenon, a number of theories about déjà vu have emerged, suggesting that it is not merely a glitch in our brain’s memory system. A new report by Colorado State University psychologist Anne M. Cleary, published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, describes recent findings about déjà vu, including the many similarities that exist between déjà vu and our understanding of human recognition memory.
Recognition memory is the type of memory that allows us to realize that what we are currently experiencing has already been experienced before, such as when we recognize a friend on the street or hear a familiar song on the radio. The brain fluctuates between two different types of recognition memory: recollection and familiarity. Recollection-based recognition occurs when we can pinpoint an instance when a current situation has previously occurred.
For example, seeing a familiar man at a store and realizing that we’ve seen him before on the bus. On the other hand, familiarity-based recognition occurs when our current situation feels familiar, but we don’t remember when it has happened before. For example, we see that familiar man in the store, but we just can’t remember where we know him from. Déjà vu is believed to be an example of familiarity-based recognition—during déjà vu, we are convinced that we recognize the situation, but we are not sure why.
Cleary conducted experiments testing familiarity-based recognition in which participants were given a list of celebrity names. Later on, they were shown a collection of celebrity photographs; some photographs corresponded to the names on the list, other photographs did not. The volunteers were told to identify the celebrities in the photographs and indicate how likely it was the celebrity’s names were on the list they had seen previously. The findings were surprising. Even when the volunteers were unable to identify a celebrity by photo, they had a sense of which names they had studied earlier and which they had not. That is, they couldn’t identify the source of their familiarity with the celebrity, but they knew the celebrity was familiar to them. Cleary repeated the experiment substituting famous places (such as Stonehenge and the Taj Majal) for celebrities and got similar results. These findings indicate that the participants stored a little bit of the memory, but it was hazy, so they were not able to connect it to the new experience.
Cleary also ran experiments to figure out what features or elements of situations could trigger feelings of familiarity. She had participants study a random list of words. During a word recognition test, some of the words on the test resembled the earlier words, although only in sound (e.g. lady sounds similar to eighty), but the volunteers reported a sense of familiarity for the new words, even when they could not recall the earlier-presented, similar-sounding words that were the source of this familiarity. Previous research has also shown that people feel familiarity when shown a visual fragment containing isolated geometric shapes from an earlier experience. This suggests that familiar geometric shapes may create the sense that an entire new scene has been viewed before.
These results support the idea that events and episodes which we experience are stored in our memory as individual elements or fragments of that event. Déjà vu may occur when specific aspects of a current situation resemble certain aspects of previously occurring situations; if there is a lot of overlap between the elements of the new and old situations, we get a strong feeling of familiarity. “Many parallels between explanations of déjà vu and theories of human recognition memory exist”, Cleary concludes, “Theories of familiarity-based recognition and the laboratory methods used to study it may be especially useful for elucidating the processes underlying déjà vu experiences.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/
Do you agree? I have always had the strong suspicion Deja Vu comes from my own dreams... but how to prove such a thing??
Monday, 26 November 2012
The Musician' Brain
It’s now official: Music is a mind-altering substance. Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis has seen the evidence first hand, in the form of brain scans. So has Charles Limb, who could easily have given his set of cerebral scans tongue-in-cheek titles. This is your brain. This is your brain on bebop.
Limb and Margulis — a saxophonist and a pianist, respectively, who both segued into science — have just published separate studies of music and the brain. Margulis’ paper suggests that the intense training musicians receive literally changes the way their brains function. Limb’s work examines how jazz players get into a trance-like state of pure inventiveness as they improvise.
Together, their work could help lead to a demystification of the creative process, which many people consider the exclusive domain of the gifted few. “We are still married to antiquated, 19th-century notions of genius and creativity,” said Margulis, an assistant professor of music at the University of Arkansas. “The de-freakification of musical talent could be very powerful.”
Margulis’ study, which was conducted at Northwestern University, attempted to answer what has been, up to now, a chicken-and-egg question. “There are lots of studies showing that musicians’ brains have different networks than those of people who haven’t had formal musical training,” she noted. “But is this due to a genetic predisposition or to the effect of practising an instrument for so long?”
To explore that issue, she and her colleagues rounded up nine violinists and seven flutists, all of whom had started playing their instrument by age 12. While sitting in MRI scanners, the musicians listened to very similar compositions by J.S. Bach — a set of pieces for violin, followed by one for flute.
The results: “Violinists’ brains, when they listen to violin music, look like flutists’ brains when they listen to flute music. That extensive experience with their own instrument resulted in the recruitment of this special network.”
In other words, Margulis’ work confirms the wisdom of the old joke “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.” The fact that one starts working with an instrument at a young age and continues doing so for many years results in the precise configuration of brain activity needed to produce music, including heightened activity in motor regions and auditory association areas.
“This adds further support to the notion that it is training rather than genetic predisposition (that makes a musician),” she said. “People can get the impression that musicians are alien beings whose brains are wired differently. It plays into cultural notions of music being the domain of experts. (Our study suggests) it’s a matter of the experience you have had in your life. It’s not magic!”
Of course, nothing in music seems more magical than the act of improvisation. Jazz players often describe the experience as otherworldly, insisting that the notes emerge from their instrument faster than their conscious minds can process them.
But this, too, is due to a specific pattern of brain activity, which is captured for the first time in Limb’s study. It took place at the National Institutes of Health in Washington D.C., where Limb — a John Hopkins University faculty member who works both in the medical school and in the world-renowned Peabody Institute — served as a research fellow.
One day, Limb recalled, he was discussing his intense interest in music with Allen Braun, chief of the NIH’s language section. “Simultaneously, we talked about how much we wanted to do an MRI study of improvising,” he said.
Fashioning such a study required a significant amount of creativity itself. It took two years to find a way to allow jazz musicians to perform while their brain activity was being photographed.
“There were a lot of constraints,” Limb said. “Some were ergonomic. The musicians would lie on their back in a tube, which came up to their shoulders. There was a coil around their head. They were looking up at a mirror, which looks at another mirror, which pointed at their thighs, where their keyboard sat. So they were able to see their hands on the plastic keyboard.”
Even for musicians used to playing for drunken nightclub patrons, those are difficult conditions — especially since each stayed in that position for about 75 minutes. But Limb had no problem recruiting six professional players to take part.
First, the musicians performed a very simple set of improvisations, based on a C-major scale. Then they moved on to a more complex task, improvising on a blues melody Limb composed.
The results, as seen on the MRI scans, “were virtually identical,” Limb said. Regardless of the level of musical complexity, the same regions of the brain were being activated, “which made us conclude it was the act of improvisation” that created this particular pattern of brain activity.
And what an interesting pattern. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — the region responsible for self-evaluation — shut down completely, while activity increased in the nearby medial prefrontal cortex.
“That’s a very unique combination,” Limb said. “You don’t typically see, in this part of the brain, one part going up and one part going down.
“The medial portion is activated when you do something that’s internally motivated and self-generated — something goal-directed, based on a cognitive understanding of what you need to achieve. When you’re telling a story about yourself, that area is active. That’s very interesting, because in a jazz improvisation, you’re telling your own musical story.
“The medial portion is activated when you do something that’s internally motivated and self-generated — something goal-directed, based on a cognitive understanding of what you need to achieve. When you’re telling a story about yourself, that area is active. That’s very interesting, because in a jazz improvisation, you’re telling your own musical story.
“What makes it really intriguing is that activity is surrounded by a broad expanse of deactivation. (That area is the source of) your inhibitors, your censors — all those inhibitory behaviors. They’re turned off, I think, to encourage the flow of new ideas. You’re not analyzing or judging what’s coming out. You’re just letting it flow.”
Limb and Braun were both cautious about over interpreting their findings. “It’s pretty clear we aren’t looking at creativity per se,” Braun said. “Another part of the creative process is revision and polishing; that’s a part we haven’t looked at. We’re looking at one aspect of creative, spontaneous behavior.”
Nevertheless, as Limb noted, creativity — which is, after all, “fundamental to human advancement” — has traditionally been considered off-limits to scientific study. This study suggests one fundamental part of the creative process can be traced to specific brain activity. Indirectly, it also confirms Margulis’ belief that the development of talent — practice, practice, practice — is crucial to creativity.
“I have no idea how to promote getting into (the jazz musicians’ creatively fertile) state,” Limb said. “But our study suggests that the notion of ‘letting go’ is meaningful. That’s why amateur musicians can’t get there. They can’t let go — they’re far too concerned with the execution of the notes, the mechanics of playing their instruments. That’s too much at the forefront of their consciousness.
“When you’re masterful at what you’re doing, it becomes second nature (and the self-censoring part of the brain can switch off). Then you can focus on ideas.”
http://www.psmag.com/
Saturday, 24 November 2012
Famous Hypnosis Stories
EINSTEIN used Hypnosis daily to relax and think… his power. He even created the Theory of Relativity while under Hypnosis!
Sir Winston Churchill used hypnosis to handle stress, stay awake as Prime Minister during WWII.
John McAfee used hypnosis to help his employees excel.
Thomas Edison used self—hypnosis on a regular basis… he invented the Light bulb and more!
Andre Agassi tennis star worked with Anthony Robbins, Utilizing NLP and Hypnosis.
Phil Jackson, coach of the Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers believed in using hypnosis with his basketball teams, including Michael Jordon, Kobe Bryant, and Shaq O”Neal.
Kevin Costner, actor, got a Hypnotherapist to help him get past seasickness when filming “Waterworld.”
Jackie Kennedy Onassis used hypnotherapy to deal with grief and pain, due to the many tragedies in her life.
Henry Ford (1863-1947) car manufacturer.
Goethe (1749-1832) writer and scientist
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) inventor.
Mozart (1756-91) composed the opera Cosi fan tutte while in hypnosis.
Celebrities like Ben Affleck, Britney Spears use hypnosis, and Matt Damon, Drew Barrymore, Ellen DeGeneres, Ashton Kutcher and Charlize Theron quit smoking through hypnosis.
Top players on Wall street, Silicon Valley, top millionaires and players have all used Hypnosis to succeed.
Finally I thought this story was super compelling:
Rachmaninoff (1873-1943). Used hypnosis to overcome a deep crash after his first Symphony completely failed. Criticised heavily, he struggled to compose, and finally stopped trying altogether. He sank into a deep depression which lasted for three years.
“Something within me snapped,” he said. “All my self-confidence broke down…. A paralyzing apathy possessed me. I did nothing at all and found no pleasure in anything. Half my days were spent on a couch sighing over my ruined life. My only occupation consisted in giving a few piano lessons in order to keep myself alive.”
Finally, Rachmaninoff went to see Dr. Nicolai Dahl, who happened to be a pioneer in the field of hypnosis.
“My relatives had informed Dr. Dahl that he must by all means cure me of my apathetic condition and bring about such results that I would again be able to compose.
“Dr. Dahl had inquired what kind of composition was required of me, and he was informed, ‘a concerto for pianoforte,’ for I had promised this to people in London and had given up in despair the idea of writing it.
“In consequence, I heard repeated day after day the same hypnotic formula, as I lay half asleep in an armchair in Dr. Dahl’s study: ‘You will start to compose a concerto – You will work with the greatest of ease – The composition will be of excellent quality.’ It was always the same, without interruption.
“Although it may sound impossible to believe, this treatment really helped me. I began to compose at the beginning of the summer. The material grew in volume, and new musical ideas began to well up within me, many more than I needed for my concerto….
“I felt that Dr. Dahl’s treatment had strengthened my nervous system to a degree almost miraculous. Out of gratitude I dedicated my Second Concerto to him.”
Over 100 years ago Rachmaninoff composed his Second Piano Concerto, one of the most beautiful, moving pieces of music ever written. THANKS TO HYPNOSIS!
Sir Winston Churchill used hypnosis to handle stress, stay awake as Prime Minister during WWII.
John McAfee used hypnosis to help his employees excel.
Thomas Edison used self—hypnosis on a regular basis… he invented the Light bulb and more!
Andre Agassi tennis star worked with Anthony Robbins, Utilizing NLP and Hypnosis.
Phil Jackson, coach of the Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers believed in using hypnosis with his basketball teams, including Michael Jordon, Kobe Bryant, and Shaq O”Neal.
Kevin Costner, actor, got a Hypnotherapist to help him get past seasickness when filming “Waterworld.”
Jackie Kennedy Onassis used hypnotherapy to deal with grief and pain, due to the many tragedies in her life.
Henry Ford (1863-1947) car manufacturer.
Goethe (1749-1832) writer and scientist
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) inventor.
Mozart (1756-91) composed the opera Cosi fan tutte while in hypnosis.
Celebrities like Ben Affleck, Britney Spears use hypnosis, and Matt Damon, Drew Barrymore, Ellen DeGeneres, Ashton Kutcher and Charlize Theron quit smoking through hypnosis.
Top players on Wall street, Silicon Valley, top millionaires and players have all used Hypnosis to succeed.
Finally I thought this story was super compelling:
Rachmaninoff (1873-1943). Used hypnosis to overcome a deep crash after his first Symphony completely failed. Criticised heavily, he struggled to compose, and finally stopped trying altogether. He sank into a deep depression which lasted for three years.
“Something within me snapped,” he said. “All my self-confidence broke down…. A paralyzing apathy possessed me. I did nothing at all and found no pleasure in anything. Half my days were spent on a couch sighing over my ruined life. My only occupation consisted in giving a few piano lessons in order to keep myself alive.”
Finally, Rachmaninoff went to see Dr. Nicolai Dahl, who happened to be a pioneer in the field of hypnosis.
“My relatives had informed Dr. Dahl that he must by all means cure me of my apathetic condition and bring about such results that I would again be able to compose.
“Dr. Dahl had inquired what kind of composition was required of me, and he was informed, ‘a concerto for pianoforte,’ for I had promised this to people in London and had given up in despair the idea of writing it.
“In consequence, I heard repeated day after day the same hypnotic formula, as I lay half asleep in an armchair in Dr. Dahl’s study: ‘You will start to compose a concerto – You will work with the greatest of ease – The composition will be of excellent quality.’ It was always the same, without interruption.
“Although it may sound impossible to believe, this treatment really helped me. I began to compose at the beginning of the summer. The material grew in volume, and new musical ideas began to well up within me, many more than I needed for my concerto….
“I felt that Dr. Dahl’s treatment had strengthened my nervous system to a degree almost miraculous. Out of gratitude I dedicated my Second Concerto to him.”
Over 100 years ago Rachmaninoff composed his Second Piano Concerto, one of the most beautiful, moving pieces of music ever written. THANKS TO HYPNOSIS!
Thursday, 22 November 2012
Road Rage And How to Deal With It
“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.” ~Buddha
It happens all the time…
You’re driving, listening to music–just enjoying life and the feel of the road. Then a car roars past you and the driver promptly swerves and cuts you off, seemingly oblivious to anything but his own destination.
Or, you come to a full stop at a stop sign and the driver behind you lays on the horn, impatient for you to get moving. Glancing in your rear view mirror, you see him flailing his arms and punching a raised fist at you behind his windshield.
Nearly every time you hit the road you will see another driver do something either discourteous or even downright dangerous.
Many times, you are the recipient of that behavior.
If you are anything like I used to be, your first impulse will be to lay on the horn, shout a curse, or put pedal to the metal and try to pass the guy and then cut him off.
Those of you who are less aggressive may at least find yourself wishing you’d come around the next bend and see the guy’s car off the road with a flat tire–or, better yet, see the bright flashing lights of a police cruiser whose uniformed driver has pulled your new worst enemy over.
It’s so easy to get angry. Not so easy to let it go.
As noted at the beginning of this post, the Buddha warned us that the punishment for anger is anger itself. He also said, “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
How right he was.
As you shout curses at the driver, nearly rupturing a vein in your forehead, he has already left you in a cloud of dust. He has no idea you’re yelling. Or if he does, he probably doesn’t even care.
While you sit stewing and dreaming of his immanent intimacy with an overheated radiator (or, admit it, much worse!), he is long gone. But you are trapped in anger that will linger for a few minutes or may even ruin the rest of your day, clouding everything with the bitterness of the mood you fell into after the driving mishap.
Here’s the thing…
That anger is doing you no good.
It isn’t changing the situation.
Instead of shrugging it off and getting on with your life, you’re allowing that one discourteous act to take you from being happy and content to bitter and angry.
But what is a person to do? After all, the slight is perceived and the anger arises, unbidden.
I used to have that same struggle, but I found a cure and I can guarantee if you master this one simple technique, you’ll banish road rage to a cobwebbed corner of your mind where it will die a lonely death.
So what’s the trick, you ask?
As I indicated, it’s very simple (though not necessarily easy to master).
The next time another driver does something that provokes anger in you, do these 7 things.
- Take a DEEP breath.
- Release it.
- Repeat.
- Now, imagine a person you dearly love.
- Imagine this person has just phoned and told you s/he is in desperate need of immediate assistance for an emergency situation and you are the only one who can offer aid.
- Imagine how you would be driving in that case.
- Now, imagine the person who just provoked you with his/her bad driving is in exactly that predicament.
- That’s it!
Initially, your mind may rebel.
You may reason it’s more likely the person is just being a jerk. That may be the case, but can you actually know that?
(And isn’t your angry response very “jerk-like” itself?)
Any number of situations could be at play in that person’s life.
Perhaps it’s a man whose wife is about to give birth and he wants to be by her side. Perhaps it’s a daughter whose father just had a heart attack and she needs to get to the hospital to see him. Or maybe it’s someone who just lost her job and feels distraught. Maybe, just maybe, it really is just someone being rude.
The fact remains that a response of anger on your part only further upsets you and can even lead to acts of violence in extreme cases of road rage.
Is it worth it?
How much better is it to do what I just suggested and then, in a peaceful frame of mind, wish that person well and safely home.
Wouldn’t this world be a better place if we could all do this one, simple thing?
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