Science of the SpiritS


Wolf

Dogs and humans process speech the same way

Anna LeMind
The Mind Uleashed
Thu, 19 Jun 2014 18:16 UTC
Image
© Will HuntHe is listening and paying attention.
It seems that dogs understand much more than we think. According to a new study, dogs don't simply respond to what we say, but they also pay attention to the way we say something. The most curious thing about this finding is that humans process speech in an extremely similar way.

In the process of listening, the human brain responds to a number of elements apart from the spoken words. These elements include different auditory and visual stimuli, such as emotional tone and certain information about the speaker - gender, age, identity, etc. The human brain is capable of perceiving these stimuli thanks to distinguishing and processing separately various components of human speech.

Now, researchers of the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex have found that dog brains have a similar ability, which allows them to process different speech components in different areas and thus to respond both to verbal and non-verbal information.

Comment: Besides listening and paying attention, dogs seem to be able to provide unconditional love in that they also feel emotion.
Here is an excellent article of the effects of staring into your beloved dog's eyes:

Tail-waggers and their people share hormonal bond through mutual gazing

Read More...
Heart - Black

New proof that our emotions cause physical pain

Christina Sarich
Collective Evolution
Tue, 30 Jun 2015 00:19 UTC
Image
© upnaway.com
In the ancient arts of Chinese Medicine, Yoga, and Ayurveda, there was no doubt among practitioners that anger could cause a heart attack, or chronic sadness could cause dementia. It was not unusual for a master to exterminate chronic pain in different joints and muscles, or even to cure liver, kidney, or stomach diseases by addressing deeply held emotions like fear, frustration, jealousy, and anxiety. These feats have been dismissed by modern medicine as placebo, or simply glazed over with the latest pharmaceutical prescription at most doctors' offices, but new evidence has emerged that proves our emotions directly affect our physical health.

Comment: The idea that,the body's response to years of taking on more than you should - literally bearing others' burden, can greatly affect overall human health has been studied in detail by Dr. Gabor Mate. Watch the following video and learn more about the excellent book: When the Body Says No: Caring for ourselves while caring for others - Dr. Gabor Maté

Also read this excellent interview: When the Body Says No: How Emotions Can Cause or Prevent Deadly Disease
DR. GABOR MATÉ: You know, the traditional medicines of China for 3,000 years, the ayurvedic medicine of India, and the tribal shamanic medicines of all cultures around the world have always taken for granted that mind and body can't be separated. Now, Western medicine has cleaved the two apart for, really, 2,000 years. Socrates already criticized the doctors of his day for separating the mind from the body. And the irony - in fact, the tragedy - is that now we have the Western science that shows, incontrovertibly and in great detail, that mind and body can't be separated, and so that any attempt to do so leaves the medical practitioner short of many tools to help clients. And, of course, it leaves patients short of what they need for their own healing.

The point now is that the emotional centers of the brain, which regulate our behaviors and our responses and our reactions, are physiologically connected with - and we know exactly how they're connected - with the immune system, the nervous system and the hormonal apparatus. In fact, it's no longer possible, scientifically, to speak of these as separate systems, as if immunity was separate from emotions, as if the nervous system was separate from the hormonal apparatus. There's one system, and they're wired together by the nervous system itself and joined together by chemical messengers that they all secrete, and so that whatever happens emotionally has an impact immunologically, and vice versa. So, for example, we know now that the white cells in the circulation of our - of the blood can manufacture every hormone that the brain can manufacture, and vice versa, so that the brain and the immune system are always talking to one another.


Read More...
Nebula

Exploring higher dimensions: The power of active consciousness

Amy L. Lansky, PhD
Waking Times
Sun, 28 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
parallel universe
© in5d.comOur conscious choices dictate our universe.
At each moment of time—the Now—you stand at the gateway to an infinite number of possible futures in higher dimensional space. This gateway is the Choice Point.

Some of these futures are more likely to occur than others. If you do nothing, one of these probable futures will play itself out in a fairly predictable, even mechanistic way.

But as a conscious being, you also have the ability to affect how the future unfolds. Your experience of this ability is the sensation of free will.

One of the ways you can exert a force upon this unfolding is to use explicit action. Another way is through the subtle force of Active Consciousness, which allows you to enable unlikely unfoldings to occur.

According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, a field is a "region throughout which a force may be exerted." Back in the 1800s, chemist and physicist Michael Faraday developed this concept in order to explain the mysterious properties of magnets. People at the time were perplexed by the way magnets could exert instantaneous forces upon metal objects when nothing seemed to be transmitted between them. Faraday hypothesized that magnets are always emanating an influence or force; we just can't see it. And because a magnet's sphere of influence—its magnetic field—is ever-present, it seems to exert a force instantaneously, without any form of physical contact or obvious mode of transmission.

Comment: Without a doubt our choices frame our lives, and as we more consciously live on a daily basis, our reality changes to accommodate those choices. We, as a species and as cosmic members of the great beyond, have a lot to learn! May the "C"-force be with you!

Read More...
Bullseye

Countering the excuses that prevent us from making life changes

Leo Babauta
HighExistence
Sat, 27 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
proactive
The mind is a wonderful thing.

It's also a complete liar that constantly tries to convince us not to take actions we know are good for us, and stops many great changes in our lives.

Scumbag mind.

I've had to learn to watch these rationalizations and excuses very carefully, in order to make the changes I've made in my life: a healthier diet, regular exercise, meditation, minimalism, writing daily, getting out of debt, quitting smoking, and so on.

If I hadn't learned these excuses, and how to counter them, I would never have stuck to these changes. In fact, I failed many times before 2005 (when I started changing my life), because these excuses had complete power over me.

Let's expose the cowardly mind's excuses and rationalizations once and for all.

First, the main principle: the mind wants comfort, and is afraid of discomfort and change. The mind is used to its comfort cocoon, and anytime we try to push beyond that comfort zone very far or for very long, the mind tries desperately to get back into the cocoon. At any cost, including our long-term health and happiness.
Read More...
Heart

The common regrets of the terminally ill

Bronnie Ware
Prevent Disease
Fri, 26 Jun 2015 21:20 UTC
Priorities become crystal clear when people know their days are numbered, Bronnie Ware realised while working with terminally ill patients. She shares the five most common regrets the dying have.
dying regrets
For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them
Read More...
Fish

Defining intelligence: What Killer Whales can teach us

David Neiwert
Alternet
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
The following is an adapted excerpt from Dave Neiwert's new book, Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whales Can Teach Us (Overlook Press, 2015).

Orca
© Unkown
Orcas live a dream of man. They soar effortlessly, free of gravity, like birds or fairies through the air, gliding above the landscape and observing it from far above. Men have had this dream for as long as they have dreamed. It is why one of their greatest inventions is a machine that lets them fly. It is why, when we create a mythological ideal of a human and call him Superman, one of his chief attributes is that he can fly with grace and ease, as though gravity does not exist for him.

That describes the ethereal daily life of killer whales: gliding sylphlike through their element, their large pectoral fins spread like wings, soaring above the canyons and cliffs of the ocean floor, swooping and diving weightlessly at their leisure, with intelligent minds that rule over all they survey.
Read More...
Magnify

Consciousness is far less powerful than previously thought: New study reveals

Beth Tagawa
ScienceDaily
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 19:45 UTC
consciousness art
© Waking Times
Associate Professor of Psychology Ezequiel Morsella's "Passive Frame Theory" suggests that the conscious mind is like an interpreter helping speakers of different languages communicate.

"The interpreter presents the information but is not the one making any arguments or acting upon the knowledge that is shared," Morsella said. "Similarly, the information we perceive in our consciousness is not created by conscious processes, nor is it reacted to by conscious processes. Consciousness is the middle-man, and it doesn't do as much work as you think."

Morsella and his coauthors' groundbreaking theory, published online on June 22 by the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, contradicts intuitive beliefs about human consciousness and the notion of self.

Consciousness, per Morsella's theory, is more reflexive and less purposeful than conventional wisdom would dictate. Because the human mind experiences its own consciousness as sifting through urges, thoughts, feelings and physical actions, people understand their consciousness to be in control of these myriad impulses. But in reality, Morsella argues, consciousness does the same simple task over and over, giving the impression that it is doing more than it actually is.

Comment: Suggested readings:

Read More...
Info

Near-death experiences change the brain

Amanda Onion
Discovery News
Thu, 25 Jun 2015 11:45 UTC
Air Transat Crew
© Patrick Bernath/CNW/Air TransatMeleni Tesic, flight director, First officer Dirk De Jager and Capt,. Robert Piche hold a news conference in Montreal four days after their plane crash-landed in the Azores in August, 2001.
On Aug. 24, 2001, Air Transat Flight 236, bound for Lisbon from Toronto, rain out of fuel over the ocean. For 30 minutes, the 306 passengers and crew on board lived with the realization that their plane could crash — and they could all die.

The plane eventually crash-landed in the Azores and all survived (80 were hospitalized), but the experience became seared in the survivors' brains.

Now brain imaging shows the trauma literally changed the survivors' brains.

Brain imaging of eight of those passengers, conducted nine years later, revealed the memories of that terrifying experience remained crystal clear and lit up distinct areas of the brain related to memory, emotion and visual processing.

The event also appears to have heightened their reactions to other negative life events.

This traumatic incident still haunts passengers regardless of whether they have PTSD or not," lead researcher Daniela Palombo, a post-doctoral researcher at the Boston University School of Medicine, told the Toronto Star.

"They remember the event as though it happened yesterday, when in fact it happened almost a decade ago (at the time of the scans)."

The neuroimaging study — believed to be the first examination of a group of people who all experienced the same trauma — was published online in the journal Clinical Psychological Science (CPS)

"Research on highly traumatic memory relies on animal studies, where brain responses to fear can be experimentally manipulated and observed," Brian Levine, senior scientist at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, and senior author on the paper, said in a press release. "Thanks to the passengers who volunteered, we were able to examine the human brain's response to traumatic memory at a degree of vividness that is generally impossible to attain."
Read More...
People

Reliance on culture and social learning main determinant of human behavior and can persist in lineages for millennia

Julie Russ
Phys.org
Wed, 17 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
social learning
© Wikimedia Commons Why do people in different parts of the world eat different foods? Two ASU researchers have found social learning is responsible.
For more than a century, scientists have debated why people in different parts of the world eat different foods, follow different social norms and believe in different origin stories.

Is the variation in behavior a result of the environments that we have inhabited or the effect of cultural history and traditions that may have persisted over millennia?

At stake is understanding whether human uniqueness is driven by our large brains and intelligence, allowing us to adapt to different environments, or by our unprecedented reliance on social learning or culture.

In research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, ASU researchers Sarah Mathew and Charles Perreault find that the main determinant of human behavior is social learning, which is contrary to established assumptions of current thinking in cognitive sciences, psychology and human behavioral ecology.

"Because humans are an unusually smart species, it is tempting to think that individuals figure out on their own the stuff they need to live in different environments," Mathew said. "But we show that humans do much of what they do because it's how their parent generation did it."
Read More...
Nebula

May the force be with you: Researchers find evidence of human bioenergy field

Tara MacIsaac
Epoch Times
Mon, 15 Jun 2015 13:54 UTC
aura
© Mike McHolm/Flickr
The universe is full of mysteries that challenge our current knowledge. In "Beyond Science" Epoch Times collects stories about these strange phenomena to stimulate the imagination and open up previously undreamed of possibilities. Are they true? You decide.

Biochemist John Norman Hansen, Ph.D., at the University of Maryland has found evidence of what he believes is a bioenergy field around humans. Such a field has been speculated about and alluded to in spiritual traditions for thousands of years, but now scientific investigation has indicated such a field does exist.

Dr. Hansen conducted hundreds of experiments with dozens of subjects, and his results are consistently replicable. Other scientists have also replicated his results, including Willem H. van den Berg of the department of biochemistry and biophysics at the Johnson Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and physicist William van der Sluys at Gettysburg College, who published their study in the Journal of Scientific Exploration on March 15.
Read More...