|
1. The Background, The Foundation, The Structure
Discerning between Thoughts and States is very important if we are to exercise our free will and
not invite destructive patterns which will degrade our health. It is easy to confuse these concepts and confuse what our reality and choices are. There are many possibilities and it is important to note that it is relevant to have a sense of the whole rather than a consideration of the specifics. Going into Overwhelm is not helpful. In short, knowing that there are many options can allow us to stay calm and do the self-reflections to determine where we are at rather than reacting in expectation, fear, and panic .. none of which is helpful.
Thought is a process usually understood to be a consciously self-initiated, moderated, and controlled activity which allows for focusing one's awareness on what is being perceived, assigning degrees of importance to the parts, and reaching a determination of significance. In other words, one sees, hears, feels, or says something, or, a lack of something expected or desired. That sensed reality is then given a degree of importance ranging from ignore ... to urgent. That context of importance is further extended into a resolution stage determining what is to be done with the information: archive, problem solve, interact with others, enjoy, discard, minimize, associate, magnify. This last part of "reasoning" determines which further patterns to be activated, if any.
Thought can be considered as a way of integrating past experiences and learning into current experiences such that a qualified CHOICE becomes a Response. Without such considered integration, one could only react with preformed responses, which would be automatic Reactions. If the outcome of thinking is positive, it is called intelligence, possibly even wisdom. If the outcome of thinking is negative, we refer to it as a mistake, error, innocence, ignorance, or, stupidity. In extreme negative thinking or reasoning, we may even call the outcome on of insanity, or, humor. More often than is admitted, negative outcomes are simply minimized, denied, and forgotten.
States of Mind are like a foundation for thought.
Like the foundation of a house, an unsteady or liquid foundation will sabotage and jeopardize whatever is built upon it. The state of our mind may be influenced by many factors. That means that the foundation we are building our thoughts on will change a number of times during the day. Some of those states may be totally beyond our control, even if we were aware of them. Others, we can encourage, or, discourage. How stable our foundation remains will depend upon our awareness, understanding, resources, and, health. Loss of health often results in a loss of control over our states of mind.
2. States of Mind: Your internal environment.
The brain emits electrical potentials or patterns throughout its entire structure. These electrical patterns or brain waves have been clinically shown to correlate with various mental and emotional states. There are some disagreements in the field as to where different brain states overlap.
States of Mind may refer to:
- A temporary psychological state
- an indication of a person's mental health
- representational states (frequency waveforms)
- propositional attitude (implied intention to affect or be affected by)
- qualitative states (awake, asleep, dreaming, hallucinations)
- qualia (felt-perceived-passions-body sensations)
- altered state of consciousness, (ASC) - chemically induced
- waking beta wave state (normal waking consciousness)
- artistic creativity (inspiration, curiosity, joining in)
- fever (high temperature immune response)
- meningitis (acute infection reaction)
- meditation (conscious eyes closed relaxation)
- prayer (conscious eyes-closed relaxation)
- lucid dreaming (unconscious detoxification response)
- mind-control techniques (unconscious association/trigger)
- hypnosis (unconscious association/trigger-anchor)
- fasting (conscious eyes-open restraint on the unconscious)
- sleep deprivation (unconscious acute demand response)
- traumatic accident (unconscious acute demand reaction)
- oxygen deprivation (unconscious acute demand reaction)
- nitrogen narcosis -- deep diving (unconscious acute demand reaction)
- sensory deprivation (REM and theta state deficiency)
- psychoacoustics
- binaural beats
- light and sound stimulation
- cranial electrotherapy stimulation
- grief emotion
- guilt emotion
- fear emotion
- elation emotion
- Circadian rhythm sleep
- Somnolence
- Nightmare
- Sleep paralysis (REM Rapid Eye Movement dreaming)
1. Delta: 0.01 – 4 Hz
Delta is associated with deep sleep with no awareness of the self.
Some people, with self-discipline and self-awareness (yoga, meditation, prayer), have reported a deep stillness and a relaxed awareness of the self while in delta.
A delta wave is a high amplitude, slow-wave, slow-frequency brain wave with a frequency of 1–4 Hertz which can be recorded with an electroencephalogram (EEG).
Delta wave activity occurs most frequently during stage 4 slow-wave sleep (SWS), accounting for 50% or more of the EEG record during this stage. These waves are believed to originate in the thalamus in coordination with the reticular formation.
* Deep, dreamless sleep.
* Delta is the slowest band of brainwaves.
* When your brainwaves are in Delta, your body is healing itself and "resetting" its internal clocks.
* You do not dream in this state and are completely unconscious.
* This state is great for Growth Hormone release.
You require very good physical and emotional health to experience an optimum of Delta State presence. This is a state during which your Reptilian Structure is Calmly, Methodically, and with total Balance responding to the NEEDS of your body and preparing it for an optimum readiness when you again return to consciousness. It is quietly assimilating your earlier consumed nutrients and relaying them to their storage areas and deploying them to deficient areas. It can do this because it has reduced the energy drain to a minimum that is required for conscious Choice, circulatory performance, breathing, and physical activity. It is rebuilding and strengthening your immune system from its weakest daily level to an optimum level. When you awake, this is the state which will have prepared you for your best physical involvement in the day ahead.
You do not have more than poor physical health and a conflicted emotional health, if you have CFS-ME or other chronic combination of serious illness conditions. With the Package of Illnesses which you have acquired, tailored just for YOU, your benefits from a Theta State will be in turmoil. Your Reptilian Structure has a LOT to correct and YOU are not helping. Why is that?
- Do you really understand what CFS-ME is?
- Do you recognize the significance of the language you use?
- Do you know which common additives will make you more ill?
- Do you understand why most doctors cannot help you?
- Do you have a familiarity with major helpful options?
- Do you surround yourself with people who help?
- Do you still want to Recover your health?
If you were not able to answer all of the above with a Yes, then you are not DOING your part. Your Reptilian Structure NEEDS you working with it. If you had any "NO" answers to the above then you are heaping More work on it when it is struggling to keep you above the water. It can't do what it best does, keep you alive, as long as one or other aspects of your Identity is lighting more fires for it to put out, and, distracting it away from patching and repairing the many leaks in your rusty hull. It is YOUR job to keep YOU on a steady course. Then, it can use its energy to Repair, not Patch. It will then be able to reach a point when it can put YOU on autopilot for periods of time and get the internal plumbing and mechanics maintained up to a better level of health. Until then, you will have ...
Disasters without enough Delta time.
- interrupted and light sleep
- constant lack of energy
- aching joints and muscles
- inability to effectively detox
- constipation and depression
- disorientation & confusion
Delta Benefits you have likely had disrupted if you have CFS-ME.
- restocked nutrient supplies
- rested circulatory system
- rebuilt immune system
- hormones rebalanced
- waste readied for excretion
- mind and body cleared for action
2. Theta: 4 – 8 Hz
Associated with tranquil states of awareness; vivid internal imagery.
It is related to deep relaxation and profound imaging experiences such as dreams, visions, self-healing.
In the Theta state, there is a strong tendency for rhythmic hippocampal activity to occur together with a desynchronized EEG pattern in the neocortex. In other words, our Ego can fully ENJOY the environment without the restrictive and limiting concerns of our SuperEgo.
Theta waves modulate a type of synaptic nerve (brain and spinal column) plasticity that is widely believed to form the physical basis for memory. The presence of theta waves correlates with enhanced performance of complex tasks. Without this state, it becomes difficult for us to adopt and consistently perform attitudes and behaviors that we understand will be more constructive than those we have acquired before and during a period of illness. Health Recovery is faster, if and when we can be less self-critical and be more focused on the solution to the problem than on the losses from the problem.
Theta is an "altered state" between consciousness and sleep which is sensed as being both part of each, and, of neither. We experience more of our creative and inspirational mental associations in the Theta state. Here, our learning abilities are at their highest and our powers of visualisation and auto-suggestion are greatly enhanced.
In a Theta state, the body enters a deep level of physical relaxation.
Beneficial endorphins replace the stress related hormones, including ACTH, adrenaline, cortisol, and lactate which are removed from the bloodstream and excreted. This auto-detoxing process is extremely important for one to maintain long-term levels of health. In persons with CFS-ME, the Reptilian Structure is often constantly triggered by an acquired oversensitivity to be constantly alert and maintaining high stress-related hormone blood and tissue levels.
High levels of cortisol and ACTH are known to weaken the body's immune system and create feelings of depression, while lower threshold levels are frequently displayed as feelings of aggressiveness (action) and confidence. In a reverse fashion, the person with CFS-ME may have attitude and belief patterns which impose a norm of passive and fear on one's choices and involvements. It is also often the reality, for persons with CFS-ME, that physical adversities, such as parasites and untreated nutritional deficiencies, can encourage continued high levels of cortisol and inflammation.
In the Theta state, a sudden de-stimulation of large areas of the nervous system triggers a spontaneous chain reaction throughout the body known as the parasympathetic response. Muscle tension, blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen consumption all drop dramatically. Blood vessels including capillaries dilate, improving cardio-vascular efficiency and increasing the supply of oxygen and nutrients to every single cell in your body. This allows the challenged fight-and-flight system to recover, quickly.
If you want to experience more Theta activity, look to the possibilities for its enhancement and its minimization. The Theta state may be minimized through co-dependency, destructive and intense imprinting, energy blocks, fear, guilt (toxic shame), paranoia. The reverse of these is NOT their opposite. To maximize your ability with Theta, concentrate on developing inter-dependency, milder and more constructive imprinted patterns, the release of energy blocks and/or avoidance of their triggers, a development of confidence in what you CAN do rather than in what you can't do, gain an acceptance of yourself as imperfect and human yet capable of continual improvement towards a state of greater optimization, and, see yourself as one of many who share your turmoils and dreams. YOU can contribute to the betterment of those around you, but not unless you ENABLE others to assist you.
Theta Benefits you are likely missing if you have CFS-ME:
- increased energy
- normal blood pressure
- improved immunity
- balanced hormones
- long-term memory
- complex skill building
- deep relaxation
3. Alpha: 8 – 12 Hz
This is the state you are in when you first wake up in the morning, and, also when you close your eyes in preparing to go to sleep, say a prayer, and do some forms of meditation.
Mild relaxed nervous system, ideal for stress management, accelerated learning and mental imagery. It is often purposely triggered in such accelerated learning methods as Superlearning, and, in certain types of self-help methods such as cybernetics, meditation, biofeedback, self-hypnosis, and mental re-programming -- such as when saying affirmations and some forms of prayers.
Alpha waves arise from synchronous and coherent (in phase / constructive / non-distracted) electrical activity of thalamic pacemaker cells in the human brain. They are also called Berger's wave in memory of the founder of EEG (Brazier 1970).
Alpha waves are one type of brain waves, commonly detected by electroencephalography (EEG) or magnetoencephalography (MEG). They frequently begin at the occipital lobe during periods of waking relaxation (i.e. meditation) with the eyes closed. Note that alpha waves are reduced in presence and strength when the eyes are open as well as by drowsiness and fatigue. Alpha waves have been theorized to represent the activity of the visual cortex in an idle state. Occipital alpha waves during periods of eyes closed are the strongest brain signals of the EEG. They usually can be detected with the naked eye.
An alpha-like normal variant called mu is sometimes seen over the motor cortex (central scalp) and attenuates with movement, or even with the intention to move.
If you lack enough Alpha activity, or, it is disturbed through environmental shock or imposed interaction (not being allowed to wake up slowly, using an alarm, ..) you are prevented from experiencing the positive influences of this transition state. If you are emotionally or consciously aware of this loss, you will find it easier to feel an immediate sense of disorientation, confusion, alertness, defensiveness, and, a general lack of spiritual calm. This state of "shock" may last only seconds, or can, continue on for many minutes.
This state may be minimized through sleeping in an environment in which one becomes too cold or too hot, is exposed to a chill, is awakened while still very energy or sleep deprived, or, experiences sudden intense pain from muscle aches or spinal subluxations, or, high levels of toxicity being reached within the body. If the interruptions are within your choice, you may wish to find gentler versions of them, or, enable yourself to wake up several minutes or seconds before an alarm sounds. Your Reptilian Structure is very good at this skill, when not encumbered with too many other demands. For the person with CFS-ME, it is easy to lose out on this state due to the many potential disruptions (including all of the above) which are experienced continually.
Alpha Benefits you are in danger of losing if you don't wise up and take some relevant action are these:
- a relaxed sense of awareness
- enhanced association & learning
- heightened stress management
- ease of meditation & biofeedback
- mystical states of experience
- clarity in receiving Spiritual Guidance
4. Beta: 12 – 30 Hz
Associated with waking/alert states of awareness, k-complex (30 - 35HZ).
Clarity and sudden states of integration, the “ah-ha experience”
These are frequently deficient in persons with CFS-ME.
They are sleeping longer than normal, and,
they have brain fog, increasingly.
Beta wave, or beta rhythm states are associated with normal waking consciousness. Low amplitude beta waves with multiple and varying frequencies are often associated with active, busy, or anxious thinking and active concentration. Rhythmic beta with a dominant set of frequencies is associated with various pathologies and drug effects. For instance, beta activity can be accentuated by sedative-hypnotic drugs such as benzodiazepines or barbiturates.
Beta waves are also split into three sections:
High Beta Waves (19Hz+);
Beta Waves (15-18Hz); and
Low Beta Waves (12-15Hz).
Dr. Lozanov in Bulgaria discovered that music at 60 beats per minute, as used in the Largo movements of Baroque music, decreased beta activity (normal waking state) by 6%. Subjects reported a “relaxed awareness”. We normally consider Beta as the normal waking or conscious state.
If you lack enough Beta activity, the deficiency will encourage mental or emotional dysfunctions like depression, ADD and insomnia. Your Reptilian Structure is busy, in the background, trying to look after its unconscious responsibilities of immune patrol and battle, digestion and assimilation, toxin removal, and patterns of reaction ... and YOU are not helping it. Why is that? Usually, it is because you are in denial about your health and your self and uninformed and unaware of the possibility for you to have acquired singular or multiple health destructive parasites. You may also be poisoning your system with heavy metals and complex physically depressive chemicals, or, have already reached a high capacity of these for your body.
Beta Benefits you are in danger of losing if you don't wise up and take some relevant action are these:
- attentiveness
- concentration
- emotional stability
- healthy energy level
- increased IQ
- increased mental abilities
5. Gamma: 30 - 100+ Hz, or Super-High Beta (?)
Psychodynamic states of awareness.
Gamma waves have been studied in how visual cues elicit a neural synchronic reaction with both conscious and subliminal stimuli. It is during the presence of a Gamma state that we are processing information from all neural sources. When present, Gamma waves usually originate as short bursts in the Neocortex.
Gamma waves have the smallest amplitude on an E.E.G. in comparison to the other basic types of brainwave frequencies. This is an indication that during this state there can be no distraction by dominant conscious Identity Factors, nor, emergency alerts to our Reptilian Structure.
This state is often one which is Chosen through one's placement of limits on exposure to and participation in or with the physical environment, social interactions, intimate sharing, commercial endeavors, spiritual experiences, and, self awareness. These Choices are often an extension of one's Beliefs and one's experiences, together with the imprinting one has acquired from their surroundings.
Memory processing in the brain is enhanced by our experience of the Gamma frequency of 40 Hz.
Disasters without enough Gamma time.
- taste reduction
- visual disturbances
- hearing impairment
- difficulty with learning/change,
- mental retardation,
- brain fog,
- acting out,
- paranoia,
Gamma Benefits you have likely had disrupted if you have CFS-ME.
- Compassion,
- Deeper Focus,
- Faster learning,
- Empathy & Forgiveness,
- Motivation & Persistence,
- Patience & Self-Control,
- Rising intelligence (IQ),
- Increased memory ability,
-
- Contentment & Spiritual Calm,
Increasing one's Gamma state experiences.
- Compassionate Prayer,
- Deep meditation,
- Chanting with Reverence,
- Self-Hypnosis & Affirmations,
- Self-Direction, Strengthen yours,
- Parasites, Heavy Metals, Chemicals: Detox them all,
- Life you Love, Find it,
- Energy blocks, Release yours,
- Spiritual Guidance, Receiving accurate
By targeting certain brain states, it is possible to greatly assist internal activities such as learning and self-healing, while diminishing other internal reactions and such as anxiety, fear, panic, and other health destructive memories. Dr. Manfred Clynes demonstrated through his research and Sentics mind training that emotions are present as opposites (Joy-Sadness, Hate-Love, ..).
We can sense and express each duo component with greater strength through practiced experience. That is, if we deny the ability to feel Sadness, we also deny the ability to feel Joy. Even though we can improve our ability to express and appreciate a duo like Joy-Sadness, we have the conscious choice as to which we want to impress upon our unconscious.
We can increase our emotional expressiveness ability, and, our discernment, AND, increase our intention to experience one of the duo with greater ease than the other. The more we CHOOSE to express our preference, Joy, as an example, the easier it is to be associated and retrieved into the Present.
If you change your body, you can change your mind.
Your body can change in such a way to change your mind.
We can change our mind and influence our body.
Attitudes can moderate and stabilize or dramatize and overwhelm.
3. Thoughts: What is on YOUR mind?
Thinking for Growth.
- Awareness: alertness through interest/attention.
- Curiosity: How, What, Where, Why, When, Who.
- Innovation: experimentation with fitting together.
- Abstraction: synonyms, metaphors,
- Goals: a target for harmonizing and focusing.
- Relevancy: determinacy of importance.
- Sharing: personal input from others
- Urgency: assignment of importance.
- Discernment: sensitivity to differences/sameness
- Grammer: norms for linking symbols together.
- Concentration: through control of environment.
- Research: input from others of similar interest.
- Symbols: letters, words, images, language, diagrams.
- Reduction: removal of items of unimportance.
- Contradiction: examination of the unlikely
Thinking in a Pit.
- Infantilism: not my concern.
- Denial: not important.
- Ignorance: not aware
- Energy blocks: addictive patterns
- Simplication: cause/effect
- Defending: just because
- Projection: if/then
- Procrastination: I'll do it later.
- Imprinting: pattern repetition
- Apathy: no value in participation
- Confusion: no common ground
- Globalization: everything is connected.
- Distraction: disturbing noises, pain
- Reaction: automatic, ritualistic
- Paranoia: expectation of disaster
- Irrelevancy: unconnected
- Mind fog: reduced awareness
4. Avoiding Brain Blanks.
Brain Blanks happen when we lose conscious awareness.
One minute we are thinking and processing information and experiences; the next, we can't remember what we were doing and time seems to have stood still for some duration. That could be seconds, or, minutes. We may be able to remember by association what we were doing and what we were about to do. We may not remember and may have to wait until the occasion arises yet again to bring to our consciousness the possibility of doing what we were about to do previously, when the lights went out.
Blanks seldom happen in a predictable manner.
They often do not happen when we are about to do, choose, or reflect on a particular topic or subject. Trying to associate the occurrence of the Blank with other specifics is certain to lead to more anxiety and destructive self-talk. The point noted here, is that the outcome is the result of multiple factors and not just one cause. You can project many different excuses. Each will depend upon one's awareness built largely upon education, research, feedback from others. It is difficult to project something we have no awareness of. It is also difficult to innovate a multiple of answers if one is limiting the outcome to just ONE.
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) describes what our brains do when overloaded with stimuli. This overload can arise from the intense pain of an injury, a severe parasitic (viral-bacterial-fungal-mycoplasmic) infection, intense energy block and/or imprinting patterns, or, a combination of these. These combinations are often present for people with CFS-ME, or, can become present through the growth complications of the Package of illnesses.
Specifically, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a chronic pain condition.
|
The key symptom of CRPS is continuous, intense pain out of proportion to the severity of the injury, which gets worse rather than better over time. CRPS most often affects one of the arms, legs, hands, or feet. Often the pain spreads to include the entire arm or leg. Typical features include dramatic changes in the color and temperature of the skin over the affected limb or body part, accompanied by intense burning pain, skin sensitivity, sweating, and swelling. .... In some cases the sympathetic nervous system plays an important role in sustaining the pain. Another theory is that CRPS is caused by a triggering of the immune response, which leads to the characteristic inflammatory symptoms of redness, warmth, and swelling in the affected area.
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/
reflex_sympathetic_dystrophy/reflex_sympathetic_dystrophy.htm
|
Expressed in terms of CFS-ME, the pains involved are more of an extension of inflammatory cortisol responses that have been mounted to fight off severe multiple infections during a period of adrenal weakness. This immune intense response continues over a 3 month or longer period of time during which secondary health diminishing factors begin to appear and add to the immune response energy drain. Joint and muscle aches together with possible headaches are extended by intensifying destructive attitude, behavior, beliefs, and linguistic reactions. Altogether, these activities distort hormone balance, add secondary and potentially acute illnesses, and expose one to greater potential for accidents and self-toxification through organ depression.
Pain, for many people with CFS-ME arises from a number of predictable factors, which together increase the perceived intensity beyond that of what would be realistic for a much shorter duration of inactivity. Extended bed rest is one of the major triggering factors recognized for standard medically diagnosed CRPS. Fundamentally, these are physical realities which depress organ function, and, thinking patterns which increase and build chronic patterns of anxiety, fear, and confusion.
To reduce our episodes of brain blanking we must reduce some of the major energy wasters that are robbing us of Life!
5. Investing in YOUR Brain bank.
Increasing the support for your brain activity diminishes the sabotaging influences on it by factors which encourage it to become overwhelmed, and blank. You can do many things to assist your brain to do what it can best do, maintain, and, grow. That is the essence of Life and Health. Taking our mind for granted is to expose it, without Choice, to the influences of our Past and Present behaviors and attitudes, as well to those of the rest of life in the Universe. That would be to suggest that we live in a perfect environment surrounded by perfect humans.
|
In spiritual terms, the only true knowledge is that there is God.
Everything else is considered ignorance and mental indulgence.
http://www.thewakingdream.net/index.php/new-moon-chanting
There is much dishonesty and distortion or bias in the
dimensions thought. It is difficult at the best of times to think clearly.
Now it is easier to convince oneself that what one is thinking is right,
even when it is not. Good intentions are the road to hell, and deceptive
thinking runs along that road too. What is true? Who knows?
Thoughts are a disturbance of the peace, and they should be
arrested. This is easier said than done. It takes time and discipline to
accomplish this. Can you stop the mind from thinking, even for 60
seconds?
Thanks for this section to Robin Armstrong,
2009-04-29 Newsletter excerpt, info@thewakingdream.net
|
|
