UNLEARNING TRAUMA
The territory is always new each moment, and yet we tend to use our old maps to discern this ever-new reality. This is called conditioning. It is not a bad thing because it helps to reduce data processing and provide a filtering system to the infinite complexity of information we are exposed to. But until we break through the vice of consensus reality with kundalini, entheogens, yoga/mediation or shamanic adventures of various kinds, our conditioning tends to be extremely limiting...creating a rigid vice on the depths, heights and breadth of our potential perception. As such when ensconced in the veil of consensus conditioning we do not yet "Know Thyself." Sovereignty demands that we release ourselves from our armor. This vice of cognitive limitation is even more damaging when we are exposed to traumatic or life-negating experience, the memory of which remains in the bodymind and constitutes our armor.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Simply awakening in our rough and tumble human world is traumatic. The lack of fear extinction or inhibitory learning - that is the failure to “unlearn,†is a hallmark of post-traumatic stress disorders. Inhibitory learning is thought to be a parallel learning mechanism that requires the acquisition of new information as well as the suppression of previously acquired experiences to be able to adapt to novel situations or environments. Researchers at Salk Institute have found a receptor for glutamate the most prominent neurotransmitter in the brain, to play a key role in the process of "unlearning," or inhibitory learning. The memory extinction receptor is called “metabotropic glutamate receptor 5†(mGluR50).
Stress generated by memories of traumatic events usually diminish over time. The ability to suppress those negative responses is called "extinction memory," and its deficiency may lead to anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area on the lower surface of the brain that includes the medial orbitofrontal cortex, is believed to inhibit the activity of the amygdala.
Rawl Joseph suggests the numbing during the fear response is caused by a massive secretion of opiates within the amygdala and basal ganglia, while the rigidity and loss of Will is a consequence hyper-amygdala influences on the medial frontal lobe and corpus and limbic striatum. The amygdala is able to induce these catatonic states, via interconnections with the basal ganglia, brainstem, as well as the medial frontal lobes. Under extremely stressful conditions the striatal, frontal lobe and amygdala, are simultaneously undergoing dopamine depletion, which in turn results in hyperactivation of these areas. The medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) appears thicker in those who can better control their emotional response to unpleasant memories. The relationship between the size of this brain structure and the ability to recover from traumatic experiences also may influence overall personality type, for it was found that those who exhibited better fear inhibition also score higher in measures of extraversion an energetic, outgoing personality.
There is an improper regulation of cortisol in the brains of those who suffered abuse. Cortisol production – the hormone that prepares us for 'fight or flight' –as a possible mediator in the abuse-cancer relationship. It is not surprising that a new study found that children who are very distressed when their parents fight have higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol. And childhood trauma is a potent risk factor for development of chronic fatigue syndrome.
Vilayanur Ramachandran of UC San Diego (see youtube) proposes a "God spot," a neural mechanism for religious experience in that the amygdala is situated alongside the limits of the temporal lobe, which processes semantic meaning and its significance. Thus excitations linking the two could result in a simultaneous experience of extreme fulfillment and intense significance - equating to a profound religious, or mystical experience. Alterations in brain neurophysiology can provide experience of the "transcendent." Using brain scanning technology it is evident that these “unifying†states are mediated by a neural network that is well distributed throughout the brain.†Meditation or communion with God invigorates quite different regions including: the caudate nucleus, insula, inferior parietal lobe (IPL) and medial orbitofrontal cortex (MOFC) which may weigh the pleasantness of an experience. As well as other brain regions such as the medial prefrontal cortex, which may help govern conscious awareness of an emotional state, and the middle of the temporal lobe.
If meditation makes you too spacious and ungrounded, then meditation while sitting on the ground in nature, preferably near running water.
Meditation changes the concentration and release of glutamate in the brain from places that promote instability to areas that promote calm. Meditation also reduces stress, and stress increases glutamate release in the hippocampus. Meditation may even delay certain signs of aging in the brain. The prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula were between four and eight thousandths of an inch thicker in the meditators; the oldest of these subjects boasted the greatest increase in thickness, the reverse of the usual process of aging. Gamma brainwaves are associated with activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex.
If you build up the neural muscles so to speak in the medial orbitofrontal cortex through meditation this increases the regulatory effects on the amygdala and the caudate nucleus that are associated with the fear response and PTSD. Essentially what his does is to defragment, unseize and youthify the brain, allowing for greater efficiency, spontaneity, new learning and increased energy flow...which translates as increased well-being, happiness and success. If your life exhibits signs of being hopelessly tied in knotted double binds, paradoxes, dead ends, unsatisfying relationships, meaninglessness and futility...it could be that your brain needs a cleaning, overhaul and reconditioning.
Richard Davidson found long-term Buddhist meditators self-induced sustained EEG high-amplitude gamma-band oscillations and phase-synchrony during objectless compassion meditation. the practitioner lets his feeling of loving-kindness and compassion permeate his mind without directing his attention toward a particular object. The gradual increase of gamma activity during meditation is in agreement with the view that neural synchronization, as a network phenomenon, requires time to develop and efficiency improves with prolonged practice such that long term meditators use less energy (brain activity) to maintain neural synchronization.
http://the-messiahs-blog.blogspot.com/2 ... brain.html
Gamma Meditation 2.0 and indeed all of Jeffrey Thompson's CDs are extremely effective at generating meditative states. Thompson is a pioneer in brainwave entrainment research, and is the one who discovered Epsilon waves (slower than Delta, less than 1/2 Hz per second), among other things.
Theta Meditation System: Let Go of Stress, Renew Your Spirit, Gain Insight, and Intuition by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson
Theta Meditation System 2.0 by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson
Gamma Meditation System by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson
Gamma Meditation System 2.0 by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson
Rain Forest (Alpha Relaxation Solution) by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson
Songbird Sunrise by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson
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