Astounding Experiences Of Deep Meditators: A Science-based Explanation, Part 2
Brahman in the Brain?
”Epilepsy… has been regarded as providing a key opportunity to illustrate the neural mechanics of altered conscious states.” (1)
Some readers may question my intentions in utilizing neurological aspects of epilepsy to gain insight into the experiences of deep meditators and yogis. Is it my aim to categorize these experiences as pathological?
No. But there will definitely be a predisposition in the medical literature toward speaking in terms of pathology, naturally enough, as people don’t become patients of neurologists without there being some sort of disease or perceived malfunction. People who are flourishing, trouble-free, aren’t likely to be mentioned in medical literature because they won’t have sought out a physician for that. This is something to be kept in mind as you read quotations from these sources.
As for myself, I’m just trying to get to the truth, for my own benefit, about the practices that I myself have been doing, and that I’ve been getting some strange experiences from doing. What is actually going on here? I really want to know.
Am I, you might want to know, trying to proselytize you into a belief system, or a disbelief system, into a religious or an irreligious organization? No, but I think you are wise to be suspicious. There’s a lot of that going around.
In my writing, I aspire to be a reliable source of information and analysis for readers. If you find an error in anything I’ve written, please let me know. And please make it easy for me to verify, if you can. I don’t have time to waste on what might turn out to be a wild-goose chase prank instigated by some troll…
But enough of that. Let’s get to the good stuff!
“Seizure activity can be looked upon as a disruption of neuronal function, but it can also be viewed as the production, or perhaps the overproduction of neuronal function.” (2)
In the past, ecstatic epilepsy was thought to be a neurological event mainly located in the temporal lobe of the brain. More recently, ecstatic epilepsy has been explained in terms of a brain structure adjacent to, and underneath, the temporal lobe: the insula, or insular cortex, also known as the fifth lobe of the brain.
It is the anterior insular cortex (AIC), in particular, that will be the chief brain region for our study of ecstatic epilepsy.
It has been proposed by A. D. Craig that the AIC “needs to be considered as a potential neural correlate of consciousness.” (3) So, let me ask you, could an “overproduction of function” in the AIC equate to gaining what could be called “higher consciousness”? What does the phrase “higher consciousness” mean to you, if anything? Please let me know.
Let’s see what some patients have said about their experiences with consciousness and AIC-focused ecstatic seizures (putting some words in bold print is my doing):
Case #1
“During the seizure it is as if I were very, very conscious, more aware, and the sensations, everything, seems bigger, overwhelming me.” (3)
Case #2
‘‘I feel rooted to the spot with a more developed consciousness. I feel a stronger consciousness of the body and the mind, but I do not forget what is around me”. (3)
So. Now we have spoken of consciousness and happiness/bliss as potential experiences related to epileptic hyper-activation of the AIC.
Hmmm…
Consciousness, bliss.
Consciousness, bliss.
Does bringing those two words together seem at all familiar to you?
Does it remind you, perhaps, of Sat-Cit-Ananda (a reference to Brahman) which is generally translated from Sanskrit into English as “Being-Consciousness-Bliss”?
Could the word “Being” ever aptly describe a subjective experience that is generated in the brain? Can we think of it as a brain function that could be turned off by neural damage, or that could be made to over-function due to seizure excitation?
Neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote an excellent book, one I highly recommend: The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, And Other Clinical Tales (4). There is a chapter in it, with the title “The Disembodied Lady”, about a patient that Sacks describes as having lost the experience of “being.” This loss was due to an infection having destroyed her nerves of proprioception. These are nerves that travel to the insula (5) where a subjective experience would be created as part of the insula’s role in interoceptive awareness (watching what is going on within). (6)
Listen to this patient’s description of his/her ecstatic aura (once again putting some words in bold print is my doing):
”It is a feeling of total presence, an absolute integration of myself, a feeling of unbelievable harmony of my whole body and myself with life, with the world, with the ‘All’. I feel very, very, very present at that time; the consciousness of myself is very increased, rather on a psychic point of view. I am one hundred percent concentrated on myself. Entirely wrapped up in the bliss, I am in a radiant sphere without any notion of time or space. My relatives tell me that it lasts two to three minutes, but for me these moments are without beginning and without end.”(3)
Are the statements, “I feel very very very present at that time,” and “It is a feeling of total presence…” reasonably taken to indicate that the patient’s experience of “being” has become far more prominent than usual?
What do you think of the idea that one’s experience of being, consciousness, and bliss can become more prominent when seizure activity stimulates the AIC into “overproduction of function”? Is any similarity to Sat-Cit-Ananda merely coincidental? Or might meditators in ancient India have sought out, and highly valued, a stimulation of the AIC as an experience of Brahman?
***
1. Andrea Eugenio Cavanna and Fizzah Ali. Behavioural Neurology 24 (2011) 3–10 “Epilepsy: The Quintessential Pathology of Consciousness”
2. Itzhak Fried. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences Volume 9, Number 3 (2014) 420-428 “Auras and Experiential Responses Arising in the Temporal Lobe”
3. A. D. (Bud) Craig. Nature Reviews Neuroscience (Volume 10, January 2009) p. 59- 70 “How Do You Feel-- Now? The Anterior Insula and Human Awareness”
4. Oliver Sacks. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, And Other Clinical Tales. Touchstone 1985. Part #1: Losses; Chapter: “The Disembodied Lady”.
5. Matthew J. Chilvers, Rachel L. Hawe, Stephen H. Scott, Sean P. Dukelow. Journal of the Neurological Sciences 430 (2021) “Investigating the Neuroanatomy Underlying Proprioception Using a Stroke Model”
6. Fabienne Picard and Florian Kurth. Epilepsy & Behavior 30 (2014) 58-61. “Ictal Alterations Of Consciousness During Ecstatic Seizures.”