How does meditation "work", which sometimes causes such dramatic changes in a person, both in his body and personality? What is their reason? At present, in all sciences studying complex systems, from quantum physics to neurophysiology, attempts to explain this or that phenomenon by a single cause are rejected as an anachronism. In various countries of the world, primarily in the USA, Japan, Germany, Czechoslovakia, scientific studies of meditation have been carried out. At the same time, the most advanced equipment was used to identify the electrophysical, metabolic and biochemical changes taking place in the body. Based on the experimental results obtained, studying the reports of meditators, interviewing their relatives and friends, as well as psychological testing, many researchers come to the conclusion that classes in meditation groups led to changes,not noted in the control groups. These changes indicated an improvement in mental health, favorable shifts in personal characteristics, and an increase in the ability for self-realization.
Meditation can be considered to induce changes at all levels of human functioning, from psychological to molecular, and reactions occurring at one level can act as triggers for other levels.
One of the most interesting mechanisms identified by many researchers is the change in the dominance of the hemispheres during meditation. It deserves to be given more attention.
The polarity of our psyche
Ancient oriental teachings, and later perceptive writers, philosophers and psychologists, noted the polar nature of a number of qualities of the human psyche. They saw the difference between intuition and reasoning, imagination and analysis, artistry and criticism, subconsciousness and consciousness, inspiration and labor.
Academician IP Pavlov came to the division of people into artistic and mental types: “Life clearly indicates two categories of people: artists and thinkers. There is a river difference between them. Some - artists of all kinds: writers, musicians, painters, etc. - capture reality as a whole, completely, completely, living reality without any fragmentation, without any separation. Others - thinkers - precisely crush it and thereby, as it were, mortify it, making some kind of temporary skeleton out of it and then only gradually, as it were, reassemble its parts and try to revive them in this way, which they still do not succeed in. *.
Studies of the brain, carried out over the past two decades, bring us closer to a scientific understanding of the phenomena to which the ancient teachers of the East and the great physiologist drew attention. It turned out that the cerebral hemispheres are specialized: each of them has specific functions. The left hemisphere is in charge of such activities as speaking, reading, writing, counting, solving problems that require the use of logic. The left hemisphere is in charge of rational, analytical thinking. The right hemisphere is directly related to the figurative, synthetic, “holistic” perception of reality, without its fragmentation.
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The cerebral hemispheres are connected by the corpus callosum - a layer of nerve fibers. It makes possible communication between hemispheres at a speed measured in thousands of pulses per minute.
With the dominance of the left hemisphere, a person has a desire for a reliable, well-known, proven, a desire to avoid the new, some isolation, constraint in behavioral reactions, some rigidity and stubbornness, a flexible "I".
With the dominance of the right hemisphere, a person is more inherent in the desire for a new, unknown, openness and ease in behavior, flexibility and compliance in contacts, a changing, flexible "I".
I remember the distant school years, the lesson in which the teacher called Timosha - a dreamy, always absorbed in himself boy nicknamed Illusion, and asked for a definition of infinity. Timosha hesitated for a long time, shifting from foot to foot, and finally said: "Well, it's like a box of marmalade." The class shuddered with a burst of laughter. Timosha tried to explain something, but a wild roar drowned out his words. The teacher also laughed. When we calmed down a bit, she asked the same question to the excellent student Kokush. He without hesitation repeated what was written in the textbook: "Infinity is unlimited space, time or quality." The teacher nodded approvingly. At recess we, of course, began to pester Timosha with ridicule. “How can you not understand? - he fought back, - After all, the box depicts a man who holds the same box in his hands,and on that box is also a man with a box. And on that box too …”. We laughed: "Oh, you, Illusion." But now I understand: Timosha was right. He, "right-brain", was able to imagine infinity in his own way, while an excellent student just memorized the definition.
The peculiarities of the "right-sided" perception of reality are also illustrated by the famous story of Karel Czapek. The only witness of the night traffic accident (a racing car hit a passer-by) was the poet, who immediately captured what he saw in verse: “You were carried away to distant Singapore in a racing car. A broken tulip is cast into dust. The passion fell silent. Silence. Oblivion. About the neck of the swan! Oh chest! Oh drum and these sticks - a sign of tragedy!"
At the time of the incident, the poet was "under the fly" and could not remember anything more significant that could help the investigation. Inspector Meizlik solved the crime only thanks to the fact that he was able to translate the language of the right hemisphere of the poet, who sees and thinks in images, into a common language: the car of the criminals was brown (dark Malays live in "distant Singapore"), and the swan's neck, chest and drum meant (by the similarity of the styles) 235 - car number.
And here is the opposite example, an example of only "left-sided" thinking. Psychologists have studied the abilities of a person with a damaged right hemisphere of the brain. It turned out that his speech, in general, was normal, had two features: he could only answer questions that suggested literal understanding, and he spoke in a "computer" voice devoid of expression. When asked to explain the meaning of the proverb "Seven nannies have a child without an eye", he could only say: "This means that if there are many nannies looking after the child, then the child may be left without an eye." Anyone with normal intelligence and a properly functioning right hemisphere will give it a little thought and explain that a proverb may have to do with raising a child, training a dog, designing a building, creating a work of art, etc.
In life, the functions of the two hemispheres complement each other. The right has an advantage in the sphere of the unknown, the new, the paradoxical, the indefinite, the unconventional. The left organizes and systematizes experience, avoiding chaos and confusion.
In children, a holistic perception with the participation of both hemispheres prevails, but by the age of 9-12 during puberty, the corpus callosum begins to isolate the hemispheres from each other in certain situations. Most school subjects require logical thinking, the left hemisphere becomes dominant. The right hemisphere usually does not receive sufficient stimulus for development, and children - natural runners, poets, artists - lose their gift with age. The only exceptions are those who are naturally exceptionally capable or who support talent with exercise. Yes, our intellectual abilities increase, but when faced in the environment and in ourselves with something that is difficult to understand with the mind and cannot be explained by logic, we ignore the unclear, do not use our subconscious, thereby rejecting important sources of information. As a result, we often make far from the best, forced decisions, we function worse both as individuals and as organisms.
A unique feature of meditation is that it balances the activity of the hemispheres. Scientists who studied bioelectric phenomena in the cerebral cortex of the subjects found that in the course of yoga meditation exercises, the activity of the hemispheres was equalized due to a decrease in the activity of the left hemisphere. This explains the researchers, in particular prof. D. Ebert from the GDR, changes in the state of meditators. We must think that further research will shed light on a phenomenon that has not been studied so far, on the mechanisms of interaction between consciousness and subconsciousness, which make meditation such an effective method of self-regulation.
L. Kaganov. MEDITATION IS THE WAY TO YOURSELF