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Alex
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meditation

Hi dudes,
There's a lot of talk on meditation lately, some coverage in Tutorial 18, but it would be good to get a summary up here of:
1 evidence of what changes are taking place after what kinds of meditation (please cite research papers)
2 discussion of what results may imply in terms of functional networks and anatomical networks, and development in general.

...anybody there?   :  )

AR


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Robert
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Re: meditation

hi Alex,
I'm here, and would be interested in playing around with this.  I've not much experience in meditation, but I'll skip ahead to T18 and read what is already there on the subject, and keep an eye out for papers that talk about physical changes. I've run across some while researching tAcs stuff over the past bit.


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Alex
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Re: meditation

Hi dude,
I got interested in this because the references 171-181 in T18 mention various different types of meditation & similar. I was hoping to collect results on all these different methods and either get a grasp of what is different about each or figure out if they are all actually having the same effect but different aspect of that effect are being described?

Anyone familiar with more than one type of meditation could help by clarifying effects from experience, so folks don't have to know all the research in order to help with this. I have a suspicion that the different 'schools' of meditation are referring to the same neurological effects by different terms, so I want to take the semantic factor out or at least reduce it.
For example:
How does  mindfulness differ from other types of meditation?
Vipassana meditators - what does this mean?
Transcendental Meditation - is this different?
compassion meditation...?
Self-transendence (ST) related meditation...?
What different personal experiences have members had with different types?
...and so on...

Best,
AR


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sirhinojo
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Re: meditation

Hi Dudes,

I have been doing ST meditation for a couple of weeks.  I was for years trying out all sort of Zen, Advaita, etc, traditions... But I decided to switch to ST as per recomemndation to get out of my "stream of internal words". 

The "hardest" part is "hearing" the mantra "in" your head.  It is interesting the way you notice that in order to hear the mantra you have to "say" the mantra....in your head.  And then there is a kind of back-and-forth switching between "constructing" the sound and "analyzing" the sound.  And on top of it, or better said, and on the bottom of it, there are felt sensations in the mouth, tongue, and throat, as they go about shaping the silent sounds.  And there is also simultaneously a kind of visualization of the letters or their shapes that the lips "would make".... 

So yeah, it can feel like a juggling act... to just silently repeat the mantra can be all good and fine, but then you slip into noticing all the micromovemnts of eyes visualizing, toungue articulating....and I ask myself, "Should there be these micromotions?  Or are we trying to get out of having to do them.  In other words, can the pure abstract thinking of the Mantras sound be done with no perceptible physical participation. 

Anyone?

cheers.

rico


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Robert
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Re: meditation

found some stuff that might be of interest, re: physical changes to the brain.



Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … via%3Dihub


MRI scans taken after each three-month course showed that parts of the cortex involved in the specific skill that was trained grew thicker in comparison with scans from a control group.
Mindfulnessmeditation increased thickness in the prefrontal cortex and parietal lobes, both linked to attention control, while compassion-based meditation showed increases in the limbic system, which processes emotions, and the anterior insula, which helps bring emotions into conscious awareness. Perspective-taking training boosted regions involved in theory of mind.

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/10/e1700489

Specific reduction in cortisol stress reactivity after social but not attention-based mental training
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/10/e1700495

Cheers,
Robert


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