Xref: utzoo sci.misc:1421 sci.med:5182
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!doug-merritt
From: doug-merritt@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: sci.misc,sci.med
Subject: Re: Transedental Meditation....
Message-ID: <5042@cup.portal.com>
Date: 2 May 88 23:12:00 GMT
References: <1126@maccs.UUCP> <13110@tektronix.TEK.COM> <2313@ttidca.TTI.COM> <253@aplcomm.UUCP> <4624@cup.portal.com> <10205@stb.UUCP>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
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XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.4407


Jeff Boeng recently posted some misinformation about TM.
A) His comments about therapists thinking meditators have "thinned
   out auras" is content-free, given no real definition or objective
   evidence for auras.
B) The fall-back comment about other therapists thinking that meditators
   are spaced out or out of contact is also content-free, since those
   are wholly subjective comments devoid of denotative meaning. Except
   that they might think they're a little strange, but consider that
   if TM does in fact produce any kind of state different than normal
   at all, then of course people in normal states *would* consider that
   strange, now wouldn't they.
C) *Wholly* inaccurate is the comment about TM causing alpha-production.
   What it causes is a complex cycle of EEG patterns that includes alpha,
   delta, and theta. Simple biofeedback training produces simple alpha,
   and there have been zillions of studies by third party investigators
   that show the difference between the two.
D) Also 100% inaccurate is the comment about losing the ability to
   use one hemisphere or the other. Virtually *all* neuropsychologists
   are in complete agreement that currently popular notions of people
   being "left brained" or "right brained" are hopeless simplifications
   that never occur in fact. Everyone (aside from those who are severely
   brain damaged, perhaps) uses both hemispheres, and they use them
   both 100% of the time. There's a good article in an issue of Science
   sometime in early 1987 by researchers at EEG Systems Labs that gives
   a very nice explanation of how people use different *patterns* of
   activitity in different regions of the brain, depending on what they're
   doing (e.g. walking versus solving math problems). This does not at
   all cleanly map into the layman's "left brain versus right brain model".

In general the state of the art of research into areas like this is
nowhere near advanced enough to be able to give definitive answers to
questions like: does TM have a positive or negative effect on my brain
waves? So don't go around claiming scientific support for your
personal opinions. There's no strong proof either way. (Note I
say this despite having posted a positive article about meditation
recently; but I made it clear it was based on subjective personal
opinion.)

      Doug Merritt        ucbvax!sun.com!cup.portal.com!doug-merritt
                      or  ucbvax!eris!doug (doug@eris.berkeley.edu)
                      or  ucbvax!unisoft!certes!doug