Thus, we might be able to consider religious and spiritual experiences from this neurophysiological perspective to see how the diverse variety of cultures and practices approach these states and ultimately incorporate them into the fundamentals of the particular tradition and into the person's life.



 i. A number of brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging have demonstrated how this area is activated during tasks that require the manipulation of three dimensional space as well as how this area functions along with the attention association area for spatial memory (Cohen et al. 1996; d'Esposito et al 1998).  For a further detailed discussion of the Orientation Association Area, please see Joseph (1996). ii.  Rhawn Joseph (1996) was one of the first neuroscientists to make reach this conclusion. It should be mentioned, however, that to fully identify the self probably requires other structures, particularly those in the subcortical areas that are involved in the basic maintenance of the self. It is likely that as the human brain evolved, this function became incorporated and enhanced by the function of the OAA so that we can experience a rich sense of the self. iii. The prefrontal cortex actually has many different complex functions. However, for the purposes of this book, we will focus primarily on its ability to help us to focus attention. iv. In terms of the attention association areas function, an early study (Ingvar, 1977) examined blood flow in the brain's of subjects moving their hand in a willful, rhythmic hand clenching movement and also when they were only imagining doing the same movement.  The findings showed increased activity in the motor area in the first condition and increased activity in the attention association area in the second condition. When imaging the movement, there was no increase in activity in the motor area.  A PET study by Frith (1991) showed that not only did willful acts cause an increase in the attention association area activity, but it also resulted in decreased activity in certain brain regions including the posterior temporal-parietal area during the sensorimotor task. This was also found to be the case with other areas involved in modality specific functions. It should be mentioned here that imaging studies measure certain biological functions, but may not necessarily reflect accurately what is going on.  For example, increased metabolic activity in inhibitory neurons will look the same on a PET scan as increased activity in excitatory neurons, but the cognitive results could be very different.  The attention association area is also divided into various parts.  And while we will not discuss the specific function of these various parts, it is important to keep in mind that the attention association area has many functions some of which are very subtle.  Many other imaging studies have also demonstrated similar findings including those of Michael Posner (1990, 1994) and others (Pardo et al. 1991; and Frith et al. 1991). v. The frontal lobes have also been found to be highly involved in emotions and this structure has intimate connections with the limbic system.  The frontal lobes are believed to be extremely important in initiating, controlling and monitoring emotions.  Thus, it heavily interacts with the limbic system.  People who have damage to the frontal lobes like the classic case of Phineus Gage generally begin to lose their personality and eventually have problems controlling their emotions or have blunted emotions (Damasio 1994).  If there is extensive damage to the frontal lobes, then usually the result is apathy, loss of emotional response, and loss of social interests (Damasio 1994; Kandell, Schwartz, and Jessell 2000).  However, if only small areas are damaged, specifically those that control emotions, then the person can be disinhibited, hyperactive, euphoric,  and emotionally labile.  It is interesting to note that a PET study of murderers demonstrated decreased frontal lobe glucose metabolism (Raine, 1994).

Reality from the Inside

"Every time that the powers of the soul come into contact with created things, they receive the created images and likenesses from the created thing and absorb them. In this way arises the soul's knowledge of created things. Created things cannot come closer to the soul than this, and the soul can only approach created things by the voluntary reception of images. And it is through the presence of the image that the soul approaches the created world, for the image is a thing that the soul creates with her own powers. Does the soul want to know the nature of a stone--a horse--a man? She forms an image."
 

In point of fact, we believe that all three of these criteria determining what is real can be reduced to # 1 above -- the vivid sense of reality.  For example, the sense of duration through time depends on the mind's ability to perceive time and causality.  An alteration of function of the part of the brain responsible for our perception of time, for any reason, results in a significant distortion of the perception of time in a number of ways.  As we have seen during AUB, there is no sense of time or duration while the person is in that state.  Essentially, time vanishes for the subject in AUB.  It becomes obvious that time and duration are not absolutes, and derive their perceived qualities from the mind's function.  Hence it begs the question to derive the realness of baseline reality from one of time which is itself structured by the sense of time generated by the brain.

    The third criterion of the realness, the cross subject (or other person) validation, again arises from begging the question.  It has been said that, "reality is a collective hunch".  Is reality a collective hunch or is it an individual hunch?  The "people" who agree or disagree about things being real are themselves only images or representations within the perceptual field created by the mind.

    These analyses could continue ad infinitum.  Suffice it to say that we are satisfied that each and every criterion of the reality of entities collapses into the first, i.e. the vivid sense of reality.  This is a very important point for much follows from it.  The vivid sense of reality has been called many things by philosphers over the years.  The stoics called it the phantasia catalyptica.  Certain contemporary German philosophers call it Anweisenheit..  Whatever one wishes to call it, it is the compelling presence or sense of realness that makes us think that something is real.

    If we are forced to conclude that reality is ultimately reducible to the vivid sense of reality, then what are we to make of states that appear to the individual as more real that baseline reality, even when they are recalled from within baseline reality.  If we take baseline reality as our point of reference, it appears that there are some states the reality of which appears to be inferior to baseline reality and some states the reality of which appears to be superior to that of baseline reality when these states are recalled in baseline reality.  And this is the crucial point.  We are not talking about various alternate phases of consciousness appearing real while one is experiencing them.  We are talking about certain alternate phases of consciousness appearing more real than baseline reality when recalled from baseline reality.  Thus, we almost always refer to dreams as "not as real" as baseline reality when we awake.  Our everyday reality is much clearer and more real than dreams.  The same is true of psychotic hallucinations after they are cured by medications.  A person having emerged from such a psychotic state will recall it as psychotic often commenting "I was crazy then," or "Of course the voices or visions were not real."

    The same cannot be said, however, of other alternate phases of consciousness which appear to be "more real" than baseline reality and are vividly described as such by experiencers after they return to baseline reality.  This is true of a number of the states that we have described earlier in this book.  It is certainly true of the experience of AUB.  It is also true of Cosmic Consciousness, certain trance states, and the core near death experience.  So real do these experiences appear when recalled in baseline reality that they have the ability to alter the way the experiencers live their lives.  Studies have actually been performed on this topic with near death experiencers.  Those who have had the core experience clearly behave more altruistically, more kindly, and with greater compassion towards other human beings than they showed before the experience. Furthermore, there is a marked tendency for near death experiencers not to fear death.  And these changes do not persist for just a short period of time after the NDE, but seem to persist for years.  Perhaps they will show themselves to persist throughout the experiencers' lives.  Enough time has not passed for us to make that statement, but it appears that that is the direction in which the evidence is pointing.

    Again, if it is true that all of the proposed criteria by which reality is judged to be real can be reduced, in the last analysis, to the vivid sense of reality, then we have no choice but to conclude that in some sense, these states are, in fact, more real than the baseline reality of our everyday lives.  And the word "real" here is not used in a poetic or metaphorical sense.  It is used in the same sense as in the utterance "this rock or this table is real."

    The question of what is really real becomes much more complicated than it already seems when we use our understanding of the human mind and brain to help explain how we experience reality.  If we agree that the brain is what we use to perceive reality, then we are left with the difficult task of somehow getting outside of our mind in order to prove what we perceive to be reality.  After all, our brain is also part of the perceived reality and thus we need to somehow go beyond our brain so that we can approach the question of what is really real from an objective vantage point. Unfortunately, this is not so easy.

    Many of the meditative philosophies use this concept to explain why their approach is important for reaching a greater reality.  They argue that baseline reality is an illusion and that the true reality requires an excursion of the mind into a state beyond normal experience. We have already described in this chapter that each of these states are Primary Knowing States, but all of them are still states of the mind and brain.

    Although it seems that the Primary Knowing States, indeed, all of the states along the Unitary Continuum, may have their basis in neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and the flux of neurotransmitters, it is equally true that baseline reality, which both the average person and the average scientist construe to be really real, is based on exactly the same parameters.  Thus, one can never get at what is "really out there" without its being processed, one way or another, through the brain.

    Many find it deeply disturbing that the experience of God, the sense of the absolute, the sense of mystery and beauty in the universe, the most profoundly moving experiences of which humans are capable, might be reducible to issues of neural tuning or even to specific patterns of neural blips on an oscilloscope.  However, such an interpretation misses a few rather important points.  First of all, our experience of baseline reality (e.g. of chairs, tables, love, hate), indeed of our whole physical and psychological environment can also be reduced to neural blips and fluxes of brain chemistry.  So what criteria can we use to evaluate whether God, other hyperlucid unitary experiences, or our everyday world is more "real"?  Can we use our subjective sense of the absolute certainty of the objective reality of our everyday world to establish that that world is "really real"?

    We would maintain that there is no way to determine whether the various profound unitary states or baseline reality is more "real", i.e. which represents the ultimate objective reality without first making gratuitous and unsubstantiated assumptions.  Clearly, baseline reality has some significant claim to being ultimate reality.  However, AUB can be so compelling that it is difficult to overlook its sense of realness.  This being the case, it is a foolish reductionism indeed that states that because profound unitary states can be understood in terms of neuropsychological processes, they are derivative from baseline reality.  Indeed, the reverse argument could be made just as well.  Neuropsychology can give no answer as to which state is more real, baseline reality or profound unitary states. We are reduced to saying that each is real in its own way and for its own adaptive ends.  We will explore this issue more in the next chapter.  For now, we must conceive of the brain as a machine which operates upon whatever it is that fundamental reality may be and produces at the very least two basic versions.  One version is what we have called baseline reality and the other version is that of Absolute Unitary Being.  Both perceptions are accompanied by a profound subjective certainty of their objective reality. Whatever is prior to the experience of absolute unity and the baseline reality of everyday life is in principle unknowable, since that which is in any way known must be translated, and in this sense transformed, by the brain.

Pathological and Normal Spiritual Experiences

      We aren't disappointed [with the results from our brain imaging study]. The finished scan images show unusual activity in a small lump of gray matter nestled in the top rear section of the brain. The proper name of this highly-specialized bundle of neurons is The Posterior Superior Parietal Lobe, but for the purposes of this book, Gene and I have dubbed it the Orientation Association Area, or OAA.[i]

    The primary job of the OAA is to orient the individual in physical space--it keeps track of which end is up, helps us judge angles and distances, and allows us to negotiate safely the dangerous physical landscape around us.[ii] To perform this crucial function, it must first generate a clear, consistent cognition of the physical limits of the self. In simple terms, it must draw a sharp distinction between the individual and everything else; to sort out the you from the infinite not-you that makes up the rest of the universe.

    So, not surprisingly, the baseline SPECT scans of Robert's brain [Robert, you will recall, was our meditator in Monday's Metanexus: Views 2001.12.10] that were taken before his meditation, while he was in a normal state of mind, show the Orientation Area to be a center of furious brain activity.  This activity appears on the scans in vibrant bursts of brilliant reds and yellows.

    The scans taken at the peak of Robert's meditative state, however, show the Orientation Area to be bathed in dark blotches of cool greens and blues--colors that indicate a sharp reduction in activity levels.

    This finding intrigued us. We know that the Orientation Area never rests, so what could account for this unusual drop in activity levels in this small section of the brain?

    As we pondered the question, a fascinating possibility emerged: What if the Orientation Area were working as hard as ever, but the incoming flow of sensory information had somehow been blocked?[iii] That would explain the drop in brain activity in the region. More compellingly, it would also mean that the OAA had been temporarily blinded, and deprived of the information it needed to do its job properly.

How can we study spiritual experiences from a scientific perspective?  While these issues are touched upon in Why God Won't Go Away, I am elaborating on them here because of the complexity of developing such a field of study that remains true to both science and the spiritual.  However, the research on brain function (particularly associated with spiritual experiences) described in Why God Won't Go Away and performed both in our lab and laboratories across the country provides a major step towards developing a coherent and comprehensive model of religious experience.

    An examination of the current literature data bases suggests that there are sufficient reports concerning various neurophysiological and physiological aspects of spiritual phenomena to, at least, consider the plausibility of an experimental neuroscience of spiritual experience. Indeed, the literature contains a number of studies in several specific areas regarding the relationship of the central nervous system to spiritual phenomena.

    Certain psychopathological disorders, such as mania and schizophrenia, tend to be associated with a high prevalence of intense spiritual phenomena (Saver & Rabin, 1997). Some of the reasons for the association of spiritual experiences with neuropsychiatric disorders involve what appear to be hallucinations, visions, voices, and often unusual thought processes that can be misidentified as pathological. On the other hand, there appears to be a clear distinction between spiritual pathology and non-pathological spiritual experience.  Specifically, although many people with psychopathological disorders may experience spiritual phenomena, not all spiritual phenomena occur in a pathological state in a previously normal subject.  There is abundant evidence in the charismatic traditions and biographical observations of spiritual individuals to rule out psychopathology as a sufficient explanation for all such experiences (Eliade, 1964; Mandell, 1980; Wright, 1989).

    There are also a number of neuropathological disorders which are associated with altered senses of spirituality and unusual spiritual experience.  For example, profound religious experiences including religious conversion are often associated with temporal lobe epilepsy (Bear, 1979; Bear & Fedio, 1977; Saver & Rabin, 1997).  However, other investigators have suggested that there is no correlation between temporal lobe epilepsy and unusual religious experiences (Tucker, Novelly, & Walker, 1987).  Therefore, not all subjects with temporal lobe epilepsy have spiritual experiences, and certainly not all spiritual experiences are related to epileptic activity in the temporal lobe.  Subjects suffering from head trauma, other types of brain damage, or dementia may also have alterations in their usual set of spiritual experiences.  Specifically, as cognitive and emotional functions decline, there may be concomitant changes in spiritual experience.  Thus, the neuroscientific study of spiritual experience must, in part, involve further distinguishing between spiritual experiences that occur in individuals without neuropsychiatric disorders and spiritual experiences associated with pathology.

    There also needs to be a clear distinction made between "normal" and "pathological" spiritual experiences.  In order to do this, one of the first obstacles that must be overcome is the lack of clearly defined interventions which maintain enough constancy to be scientifically investigated in normal individuals. Neuroscience may itself help to distinguish spiritual experiences that are "normal" from those that are "pathological" as well as the association of these experiences with neuro- and psychopathology.

    Another rich source of spiritual phenomena is the pharmacological activation of profound spiritual experiences by a number of drugs, including LSD-like indoles and substituted amphetamines (Mandell, 1980; Wright, 1989). Indeed, some drugs are so adept at reproducibly inducing spiritual experiences that they have provided a foundation for some indigenous religious rituals, for example, peyote use by some Native-American groups. However, not all subjects will attain spiritual experiences with a given drug.  Cultural, personal, and phamacokinetic and dynamic actions on neurophysiology interact with neuronal actions of such agents. Nevertheless, the fact that substances that are known to alter specific neurochemical pathways can produce spiritual experiences suggests that certain neurophysiologic states can subserve some types of spiritual experiences (Mandell, 1980; Wright, 1989).

    Another source of literature for developing a neuroscience of spiritual experience are experiments that have measured various physiological responses to spiritual interventions such as intense meditation.  For example, subjects who perform meditation have been found to have lowered blood pressure, decreased respiratory and heart rates, and changes in galvanic skin responses (Corby, Roth, Zarcone, & Kopell, 1978; Kesterson, 1989; Jevning, Wallace, & Beidebach, 1992; Sudsuang, Chentanez, & Veluvan, 1991).  However, it is difficult to determine a consistent set of physiological changes related to "spiritual interventions" since the literature considers a wide variety of interventions that may result in different physiological responses.  Nevertheless, there is little doubt that physiological changes do occur during spiritual interventions such as meditation. Indeed, the central nervous system is capable of altering body physiology through various hormones, neurotransmitters, and autonomic activity, and there is a strong literature to support the notion that any intervention that affects the central nervous system may ultimately affect body physiology.  The same should be true of spiritual interventions which involve consistent changes in brain activity.  Therefore, interventions such as meditation should be capable of altering body physiology via changes in brain activity.  Studies of spiritual interventions should thus be limited to those experiences that can be regularly and reproducibly initiated under circumstances that allow for neurophysiologic and physiologic measurement.

    Of particular interest are the studies directly showing neurophysiological changes during spiritual interventions such as meditation or prayer. For example, electroencephalographic, or EEG, studies of subjects undergoing meditation have suggested alterations in brain wave frequency and amplitude (Hirai, 1974; Schacter, 1977).  These same studies have shown that depending on the depth and type of the meditation, different, but consistent, changes in EEG recordings are obtained.  Furthermore, functional brain imaging studies such as ours and others have shown changes in cerebral blood flow and metabolism during meditation.

     Based on the above review of the existing literature, a number of neuroscientific paradigms appear to be able to contribute to the initial scientific operationalization of spiritual experience. These paradigms include:

 

    The first paradigm involves an experimental spiritual intervention such as prayer or meditation with concomitant measures of a psychological- and spiritual- dependent evaluation.  This will help to define and delineate the nature of the spiritual intervention itself.  These psychological and spiritual measures can then be compared to simultaneously derived neurobiological parameters, such as electroencephalographic activity, cerebral blood flow, cerebral metabolism, and neurotransmitter activity. Such measures can be performed with state of the art imaging techniques. Body physiological scalar parameters such as blood pressure, body temperature, heart rate, and galvanic skin responses can also be measured. Other body physiological parameters such as biofluid and immunological assessments, hormonal concentrations, and autonomic activity must eventually be included to complete a thorough analysis of the effects of spiritual interventions. Additional research is necessary in order to refine the measurement techniques and to better compare spiritual and physiological measures.

    The second existing paradigm that might be employed to investigate spiritual experience from a neuroscientific approach uses pharmacological agents in an attempt to alter spiritual interventions.  Thus, using this paradigm, a previously measured spiritual intervention will be compared to the same intervention with the addition of some pharmacological agent.  For example, studies might attempt to show the effects of an opiate antagonist on the strength of the subjective experience of meditation or prayer. Preliminary studies of this type have shown no effect on EEG patterns during meditation when subjects were given either an opiate or benzodiazepine antagonist (Sim & Tsoi, 1992).  However, it is clear that more extensive studies measuring a number of neurophysiological parameters are required. Other agonists and antagonists may be utilized to determine their ability to augment or diminish spiritual experiences.

    A third paradigm that can be employed utilizes those people whose use of hallucinogenic agents has resulted in spiritual experiences.  Since it has long been observed that drugs such as opiates, LSD, and stimulants can sometimes induce spiritual experiences, careful studies of the types and characteristics of drug-induced spiritual experiences, perhaps utilizing modern imaging techniques, may help elucidate which neurobiological mechanism are involved in more "naturally derived" spiritual experiences. Comparing this paradigm to naturally occurring spiritual phenomena may allow for a better distinction of pathologic and non-pathologic spiritual experiences as well as help to gain entree into the complex functioning of the mind.  Furthermore, by carefully delineating the effects of these agents, associations can begin to be made between various neurotransmitter systems affected by these agents and the associated experiences.  Such an analysis can provide information regarding spiritual experiences on the level of the neurotransmitter systems, in addition to the brain structures involved.  Another related approach that might also be useful would be to study the effects of drug withdrawal on spiritual experience.  However, there are no reports in the literature of such findings.

    A fourth paradigm would utilize patients with various known neuropathologic and psychopathologic conditions.  Neurological conditions including seizure disorders, particularly of temporal lobe origin, brain tumors, and stroke, have been associated with spiritual experiences and/or alterations in religious beliefs.  For example, temporal lobe epilepsy has been associated with hyperreligiosity and religious conversions. Psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and mania have been associated with spiritual experiences and religious conversions. Delineating the type of pathology and the location of that pathology will aid in determining the neurobiological substrate of spiritual experience.  Thus, neuropsychiatric disorders can be an effective tool for the neuroscience of spiritual experience.

    Research on pathological conditions has classically been used to elucidate the normal functions of biological systems.  Pathological spiritual experiences in psychiatric and neurological disorders may be central to the identification of largely nascent neurobiological systems that subserve "normal" spiritual experience.  This presents a crucial counterdistinction to the historic psychiatric implication that spiritual experience is an expression of psycho- or neuro- pathology.  This provides a framework in which normal spiritual experiences can occur in pathological and normal conditions and pathologic spiritual episodes might occur in individuals with or without psychopathological disorders.  A parallel construct of equal importance is to counter the scientific tendency to equate mechanisms and data with the phenomenon, for example, "spiritual experience is nothing but activation of specific neuronal pathways". Therefore, care must be taken to avoid the referring to spiritual experience only in pathological terms or associated with pathological conditions as well as not reducing spiritual experiences only to neurophysiological mechanisms.

    The information described above is partially summarized from a consensus conference of research scientists from across the country that was sponsored by the National Institute of Healthcare Research several years ago.  This approach to studying religious and spiritual experience is a crucial factor in the development of the emerging field of neurotheology.  Neurotheology refers to the field of study that combines neurophysiology and neuropsychology, with religious experience and theology.  We will consider neurotheology in more detail in the next and last installment, but suffice it to state here that empirical research is very necessary for exploring the link between mental processes and religious experience.  However, its role in the epistemological questions considered in the prior installment still remains to be completely determined.

Towards a Neurotheology

 Notes

i. We should note here that many of the terms utilized throughout this book are not specifically scientific, but rather are designed to make the complex workings of the brain easier to understand.  However, we will try to indicate what the scientific terms are as a reference for those interested.

ii. Throughout this book, we will also refer to various functions of different parts of the brain. While it is possible to localize function to a reasonable degree, it is important to realize that the brain needs to work as a functional unit with each part needing the other parts to work normally.

iii. This type of blocking of input has been shown to occur in both normal and pathological states.  Blocking of input can also occur to a variety of brain structures via various inhibitory influences throughout the brain. We will consider this in more detail later.