The Death Delusion « Kensho

Subliminal Motivation People often do things and can’t say exactly why they did them. While it might seem that “acting without explanation” is the result of poor attention or irrational impulse, it turns out that our brains are wired to do this. It is possible, researchers at INSERM in Paris found, to motivate half the brain without the other half being aware of what’s going on. The INSERM researchers discovered this by measuring how hard subjects could squeeze a grip with each hand. Then, they showed the subjects a picture of a high value (one-euro) or low value (one-cent) coin. Here’s where the experimenters got tricky: they showed the coin image only to one eye, and only for 17 milliseconds. Although the subjects could not correctly guess which coin they had seen – confirming that they were not conscious of what they saw – they squeezed harder when presented with the larger coin if the hand grip was on the same side of the body as the eye that had seen it. effort, inserm, motivation, subliminal

You Are Not So Smart The Roots of Consciousness: Theory, The Biological Perspective The Biological Perspective In the Introduction, I discussed the evolution of organized matter from the photon through particles, atoms and molecules to living cells which begin to differentiate in structure and function forming a wide variety of tissues and organs that play a specialized function in the human body. It is reasonable to assume all these levels of organization including the whole human being play a role in shaping consciousness. Particularly important are the nervous system, comprising brain and spinal cord, and the endocrine system, comprising a number of ductless glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream. Many biological scientists today implicitly believe that these structures not only shape consciousness, but are actually the source of conscious awareness. The Nervous System Neuron cells are the principle units of the nervous system. The process by which pulses transmit across the neural membrane is electrochemical. Multi-Polar Neuron Bipolar Neurons Serotonin

21 Habits of Happy People Contributed by Cindy Holbrook “Happiness is a habit – cultivate it.” ~ Elbert Hubbar Happiness is one aspiration all people share. No one wants to be sad and depressed. We’ve all seen people who are always happy – even amidst agonizing life trials. 1. Be thankful that you woke up alive each morning. 2. Surround yourself with happy, positive people who share your values and goals. 3. Accept others for who they are as well as where they are in life. 4. Keep up to date with the latest news regarding your career and hobbies. 5. Don’t wallow in self-pity. 6. Some statistics show that 80% of people dislike their jobs! 7. Take the time to see the beauty around you. 8. Don’t take yourself – or life to seriously. 9. Holding a grudge will hurt no one but you. 10. Develop an attitude of gratitude. 11. Always make sure your loved ones know you love them even in times of conflict. 12. Honesty is the best policy. 13. Meditation gives your very active brain a rest. 14. 15. See the glass as half full.

Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein [Note: This list of Einstein quotes was being forwarded around the Internet in e-mail, so I decided to put it on my web page. I'm afraid I can't vouch for its authenticity, tell you where it came from, who compiled the list, who Kevin Harris is, or anything like that. Still, the quotes are interesting and enlightening.] "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Copyright: Kevin Harris 1995 (may be freely distributed with this acknowledgement)

Weird Wired Science Austrian physician Franz Joseph Gall sought to understand the mind of murderers and other criminals by feeling the outside of their skulls. This practice, which he first used in 1796, later came to be called Now largely discredited, it turned out that neither Gall nor anyone could systematically link the bumps and lumps on the head to any regular patterns of behavior, criminal or otherwise. Psychologists no longer need to use scalp massages as diagnostic tools. Brain scans are clearly an advance over phrenology, but they also have their limitations. You'd never know about these limitations by reading the headlines in many popular science websites. Time for a reality check. fMRI's can tell us that clumps of certain neurons (nerve cells) become active when certain other things happen. The "wow" factor is only part of the story. A metal cart accidentally crashes into an MRI scanner The hype about MRI's extends to the diagnostic business.

10 Brilliant Social Psychology Studies | PsyBlog Ten of the most influential social psychology experiments explain why we sometimes do dumb or irrational things. “I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures.Why do good people sometimes act evil?Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?” –Philip Zimbardo Like famous social psychologist Professor Philip Zimbardo (author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil), I’m also obsessed with why we do dumb or irrational things. The answer quite often is because of other people — something social psychologists have comprehensively shown. Each of the 10 brilliant social psychology experiments below tells a unique, insightful story relevant to all our lives, every day. Click the link in each social psychology experiment to get the full description and explanation of each phenomenon. 1. The halo effect is a finding from a famous social psychology experiment. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Sleep Helps Us Remember What We Need To Sleep Helps Us Remember What We Need To. The jury is back and the verdict is in. The long-term storage of memories occurs during sleep. It's not just a passive process of forgetting--in which useless or trivial short-term memories fade into obscurity. The brain constructs and reorganizes its circuits while we sleep. The pivotal question is, This past week, a significant study caught my eye, one that can help us eventually answer that question. Sleep researcher Jan Born. In this study, a team of researchers led by Jan Born of the University of Lübeck set up two experiments to test memory. In both groups, half the volunteers were told immediately following the learning tasks that they would be tested in 10 hours. Sleep compared with wakefulness produced a strong improvement on test performance if the subjects had been informed about the test. The researchers also recorded electroencephalograms (EEGs) from the individuals who slept. For More Information: I. F. F. Sleep photo credit.

An Essay by Einstein -- The World As I See It "How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving... "I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. "My political ideal is democracy.

Why you should learn to lucid dream | Yes, I Can! by Robin Nixon If you’ve never experienced it then you may find it hard to understand what lucid dreaming is all about. In fact you may be thoroughly sceptical and dismiss the whole thing as silly nonsense. But I can tell you from personal experience that lucid dreams are very real and something that many millions of people regularly enjoy. Note: Due to the huge amount of interest that this post has generated I am now seriously considering writing a book on the subject, and I would welcome input from anyone with an interest. If you have any anecdotes, suggestions, dreams or anything else you’d like to share with me for possible inclusion in the book, please email me. Your contribution can be anonymous and you may change any and all names/characters as you wish. Lucid dreaming is when you experience full consciousness while dreaming. You may also have another question on your mind, along the lines of “What’s the big deal with being conscious while dreaming, anyway?” Experiencing a lucid dream

Review of Galantamine: the Lucid Dreaming Pill | The Dream Studies Portal So you’re considering the red pill… Galantamine has emerged as THE lucid dreaming pill. This natural supplement has been used for centuries in China as a memory enhancer, and was even noted by the ancient Greeks for its powerful mind-inducing effects. Now we know that galantamine indirectly promotes dreaming sleep as well as lucid dreaming, which is the art of becoming self-aware in your dreams. There’s a lot of hype about galantamine, so I want to cover the basics about how it works on the brain, the studies that have proven its effectiveness, and my personal recommendations for experimentation with this safe and natural supplement. I also want to be brutally honest about some of the mild psychological and physical side effects as well. Want to cut to the chase? Galantamine & Memory red spider lily (Lycoris radiata) Galantamine is found in the natural world in many plant sources, including the common daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus). How Galantamine Works On your Brain Laberge’s results?

The Ten Most Revealing Psych Experiments Psychology is the study of the human mind and mental processes in relation to human behaviors - human nature. Due to its subject matter, psychology is not considered a 'hard' science, even though psychologists do experiment and publish their findings in respected journals. Some of the experiments psychologists have conducted over the years reveal things about the way we humans think and behave that we might not want to embrace, but which can at least help keep us humble. That's something. 1. The Robbers Cave Experiment is a classic social psychology experiment conducted with two groups of 11-year old boys at a state park in Oklahoma, and demonstrates just how easily an exclusive group identity is adopted and how quickly the group can degenerate into prejudice and antagonism toward outsiders. Researcher Muzafer Sherif actually conducted a series of 3 experiments. 2. The prisoners rebelled on the second day, and the reaction of the guards was swift and brutal. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain by Antonio Damasio - review Consciousness has become a hot topic for brain scientists. Once, we were content to leave the interminable mind/brain problem to philosophers and theologians. Speculation remained a CLM – a career-limiting move — for ambitious young researchers. No longer. Armed with novel tools, from genetic manipulation to brain imaging, flush with funding, and convinced that neuroscience has the key to the human condition, the hunt is on. Experiments, conferences and books proliferate, and philosophers of mind can no longer be taken seriously until they have done an internship in a neurophysiology lab. Neuroscientists, especially those of us trained in the Anglo-American tradition, tend to be as mechanically materialist as was "Darwin's bulldog", Thomas Huxley, in the 19th century, when he remarked that mind is to brain as the whistle is to the steam train – a mere epiphenomenon. Consciousness is a term with multiple meanings. This, briefly summarised, is the latest version of Damasio's theory.

How To Create Your Own Self-Hypnosis Audio | The Emotion Machine This post shows you how to make your own self-hypnosis audio that you can later listen to to help improve motivation, habit change, and other aspects of self improvement. Materials needed Some kind of microphone, MP3 recorder, or way of recording your voice. Basic audio editing software (Audacity is a popular free one. What is hypnosis? Think of hypnosis as nothing more than suggestion. Bad hypnosis is when the suggestion doesn’t hook. Good hypnosis is when a suggestion captivates you and creates a change. How do affirmations relate to hypnosis? A popular form of hypnosis within the personal development niche is affirmations. If you don’t yet know what an affirmation is it is basically this: you create suggestions for yourself towards certain changes in feelings, thoughts, or behaviors. I will be more friendly to people I don’t know. These are all affirmations but you can structure them in all kinds of different ways. Writing your own script “Picture this….” The voice and delivery My example