Photo by Chris Darling
Is the brain hardwired for mystical experiences? These and other questions are the focus of a new breed of brain scientists. Before I describe some of their research results, here’s a question for you.

What do you think of the following experience?

I stood in my bathroom ready to go into the shower and realized I could no longer define the boundaries of my body, of where I begin and where I end. Then the chatter in my brain went silent. For a moment I was shocked to be in total silence… I felt enormous and expansive, and my spirit soared. I remember thinking: “There is no way that I can squeeze the enormousness of myself back inside my tiny body.”

Instead of a continuous flow of experience that could be divided into past, present, and future, every moment seemed to exist in perfect isolation…On this special day, I learned the meaning of simply “being”

Wonderful experience, right?
Maybe it’s even the start of an enlightenment experience?

Wrong.

It’s the start of a stroke! Read the rest of this entry »