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Dear fellow Bums, I used to post here regularly, then shifted focus to a Consciousness documentary (still a work in progress) and a peer-reviewed published theory paper. I have just finished a podcast and video called "Anatomy of Subjective Experience" about that theory, and I wanted to share them here. Spoilers, sorry, but the gist of the argument is that neurotypical subjective experience is actually the brain's first experiencing of a brand new episodic memory. If our intuitions about subjective experience were correct, by contrast, we would expect to see the following in our brains: a place where all the data streams from all the senses + mind come together to form Experience, and then we should see a single pipe leading from this Experience Generator to the hippocampus, so that complete experiences can become episodic memories, and thereby be remembered later. But, in truth, when we look at the brain, the hippocampal complex IS that place where all the senses + mind come together. The brain builds a memory in the hippocampus, and then immediately plays it back to itself, for reality check, among other things. That first playing of the new memory is what we call 'subjective experience'. In fact, we also only exist within our own memories. The perceived-self is a construct of memory, created by the brain as a mnemonic, to help give memories context. What was I doing in the past event? What decisions did I make? When did I become aware of that threat? And memories, of course, exist to help the future brain learn from its past mistakes and successes. The true self is the body. The brain is a subset of that, and the "me" is just a representation, invented by my brain. The perceived mind is also a construct, within memory, created primarily by the Core Network (also called the Default Mode Network), using the hippocampus' experience generation powers to run mental simulations, like Theory of Mind or daydreaming. The reason why we think in words is because the hippocampus evolved to be able to represent and remember complex audio, including speech. So the Core Network uses the hippocampus' qualia-generation powers to create visual images and word thought. If you happen to know about H.M., a famous patient who had both of his hippocampi fully removed, you may be thinking: but he is 'fully conscious'. And that may be so, but in this case by 'conscious' we mean that he is awake, and responsive, can talk and behave. Those are separate functions from subjective experience, and they happen elsewhere in the brain. The tradition of the word 'consciousness' has combined all these functions into one concept, but they're not actually much related in the brain. I deal with H.M. and similar patients in the podcast and video. There's lots more to be said about the model, but that's what the podcast and video are for. I'll leave a link here to the video, but the podcast can be found on all the major distribution apps. It's called "Anatomy of Subjective Experience", and it's presented a lot like an NPR Radiolab episode. I hope you enjoy it, and I look forward to hearing your responses. https://youtu.be/psyvlO3Ssfc

Been trying to find a a qigong technique or meditation technique for boosting brain performance but cant find anything.

I heard there is qigong for improving brain function and intelligence called wisdom/scholarly qigong. However I have not been able to find much information on it. The only book I have seen on it is Mantak Chia's Wisdom Chi Kung. Also in Damo Mitchells book "The comprehensice Guide to Daoist Neigong" he describes that jing can enter the brain and improve brain function through the microcosmic orbit when it first opens. The brain functions on marrow and the more marrow it has the smarter it is. And jing is the building block of marrow. Also Yang qi at higher stages can pass through the zhong mai/ thrusting channel and enter the center of the brain and improve brain fucntions I think that's a samadhi experience. Lastly I came across Wang Liping's lineage. And started to read books like Opening the dragon gate and Ling bao tong zhi neng gong shu and they describe a technique for increasing intelligence called zhi neng gong. It is started after one has successfully practiced yi xian fa. They basically learn to develop inner seeing and awareness in an empty mind and use that inner seeing and awareness to solve problems. Are there any other techniques with more details describing scholarly/wisdom qigong.

Practice can improve mental and physical functions, rejuvenate and improve longevity. That's what we are taught, and experience shows that it is a possible outcome of proper practice. But why is it so? Years ago, Roger Jahnke wrote an excellent essay on the subject of physiology as it relates to the internal arts. You can find it in one of JAJ's really big and thick books (like that narrows it down 🤪). Now, 2020, that essay is outdated. Physiological research have moved on, new mechanisms have been found and understood, and quite a few of these relates to what you do with proper practice. It's all in the basics: Proper alignments Proper breathing Proper attention If done right, you will entrain several systems that normally do not work together, and this will potentially affect your brain in a major way. If done right, some of the functional networks in the brain will reverse their temporal behaviour. Even the creation of ling sui/amrita can be (partially) explained by this entrainment. Including how it drips down from the soft palate. @Earl Grey wrote about the necessity of intent and micro movements in another thread. That aspect, called nei gong principles by Frantzis, becomes really important if your purpose is to develope entrainment to the max (see my NEW video series Entrainment to the Max, now downloadable at sendmeyourmoney. com). One of these days I will write more about this in a PPD near you, including references so you can read the source material. That might be a slightly dry reading, physiology for the initiated tends to go that way, but you can at least see that I am on the subject.

I started using these products after watching these video lectures by Dr. Jorge Felchas, MD: Boron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJp7SW1pY2I Boron tells calcium where to go in your body, so especially good for teeth, bones, osteoporosis, and arteries. Silica: (I have used diatomaceous earth for this, which is approximately 85% silica, and is MUCH less expensive than commercial silica supplements). Excellent for collagen support (skin, wrinkles, sagging, blood vessels, heart conditions etc.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faBAT3hIbGw Dr. Flechas also has YouTube lectures on iodine (he's an internationally recognized expert on this) and on my new favorite supplement, PQQ, which bolsters mitochondria, especially in heart and brain. Mitochondria are the tiny energy turbines in your cells. Encouraging them is a really good idea. Here's Flechas on PQQ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHQUpNZgFhI&frags=pl%2Cwn&fbclid=IwAR2EDoQ8rUlPBeu2VuGxeoCW-YmcIhhtHmxgbIjp02-fkQYkxnfPaamybOc Here's an article from LifeExtension.org on PQQ: https://www.lifeextension.com/Magazine/2019/8/PQQ-Revitalizes-Cellular-Energy/Page-01?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organicpost&fbclid=IwAR3XcbpPDPuZCawAw6g7DOqwCvvAwcpUINww_QeyX3HB3cgm46W-Rps5PxI

I saw a post the other day that appeared to go unanswered, now I can't find it. The question, if I remember correctly, was correlations with brain areas or structure change? Let me know if you want this brain and the second brain explained. There are many illustrations from past alchemy that show these brain sections in drawings, as ways to achieve this or that. And the recognition factor goes unnoticed... Hopefully we can work on a biofeedback system that helps us to determine if we are in the proper brain wave pattern and feeling the flow of gravity reflected in the upper brain system..

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-feelings-the-second-brain-in-our-gastrointestinal-systems-excerpt/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3845678/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system

http://www.powerofdreams.net/dreamlanguage.html Your limbic system controls "breathing" and "emotion". Both of which are considered necessary for developing and using energy like "chi"... I have had the pleasure of learning a second language after my first, English. The difference is that once you have solidified one language, it is difficult to relaize that thought itself has no language until you learn a second. True fluid language skills come when you don't have to "think" about it to "express" thoughts, feelings, emotion, or details that become instantly clear to the listener. You realize that you are dreaming in another way. You realize that your mind is functioning by using whatever expression, and it was not English it has been babbling all this time, or any other language, even if the end result is the ability to speak it. I realized this is true of walking and moving about. I don't have to think about it, plan it or worry about whether it is the correct way or not. We simply do it once we know how, and call this muscle memory. Even if it is much more than that. So as we move into meditation, and practicing movements, we slowly learn a new way of being. We drag a bit of the limbic into our control, which focusing on breathing and controlling it is. Limbic exercise. And asking any "healer" using chi, they will tell you that it won't flow without breathing and emotions, also both limbic. Science, Language and the Dreaming Brain Only the executive and sensory functions are off line while the rest of the brain is active. This includes the rational thinking and sensing part). The Limbic system, the part of the brain that associates emotions with sensory information, is highly active while in the dream state. Dreams process unresolved emotions though this process in the limbic system. Language centers on the left side of the brain are off-line but the same centers on the right side, responsible for processing associations, are active during dream sleep. Therefore the language of dream is that of association, in particular emotional associations, not the literal naming by which we identify things in waking life.

Perceptual Filling In of Artificially Induced Scotomas in Human Vision.V. S. Ramachandran and R. L. Gregory in Nature, Vol. 350, pages 699-702; April 25, 1991. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mind-the-gap/ I will take this a step further. I suggest that we also use this process to create and support things that we perceive that don't fit the 5 senses. Sometimes by processing them through hearing things, seeing things, feeling things, etc. It may be the closest sensory area we have to the energy at hand. Then, the next point is, that we take that which we are perceiving, and give it form. These are usually mapped in the brain, and depend on the current state of mind. Like being afraid, producing frightening figures visually in the dark. Being elated or happy producing something like an angel, etc. The energy form is there, whether an external source or some form of internal, or from this dimension, or another. The exception being, of course, hallucinations or images purely from fantasy or imagination that are not "real" energy.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/05/31/the-self-illusion-bruce-hood/ The brain creates the illusion of self https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/03/02/character-personality/

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2011/543648/ An Herbal Nasal Drop Enhanced Frontal and Anterior Cingulate Cortex Activity

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0061038 Conclusion Tai Chi Chuan (TCC). Although cross-sectional study cannot rule out the pre-existing difference in brain structures, our findings may suggest the difference in cortical thickness for TCC practitioners might be associated with TCC practice. The underlying neurological mechanism for long-term TCC practice might have similar pattern to cortical morphology associated with meditation and aerobic exercise. Exploration on uses of TCC as one modality of behavioral intervention to maintain and enhance the human brain structure and function is an exciting avenue of research with the potential for a considerable public health yield. At the same time, this result indicates that it is imperative to conduct longitudinal studies aiming to disclose the real causal relationship between the change of brain structures and TCC practice.

If someone had bad vision we wouldn't tell them if they were more optimistic they'd see better. Or if they needed reading glasses, that if they had more energy they'd be able to forego them. Yet the brain is as delicate as the eye and when it has problems we tend to give similar advice. I'm reading the book 'Change Your Brain, Change Your Body..' (Daniel Amen), and he makes the case that sometimes mental problems can be caused by say, falling down and hitting your head at 8, bad drugs at 17 or one hundred martini's too many at 50. That we damage our brain, screwing up our filter and focus leading to emotional problems and that such damage can be clearly seen under MRI's or deduced through questionnaires. Further that there are nutritional solutions and methodologies that can repair the physical brain, and the mental problem gets fixed as a result. Thus for some problems, we can't think our way or change our mood its not a software problem. Rather they require fixing the hardware. Don't know if its correct, I haven't finished the book but I think its an important point to consider. For some problems like dopamine and serotonin imbalances, the book claims exercise helps, ie gets more blood flowing. For others supplements are recommended.

Does anyone else feel that cannabis (marijuana) used in the correct way (emphasis on correct ) it allows you to channel and connect more with your Chi / Qi life force? Smokeable cannabis is from the female part of the herb and I think in men it rejuvanates Qi which women and children generally have more of, according to what I have read.

I would like my mental and intellectual energy to be drawn from LDT, otherwise I'm 'top-heavy' and get dizzy when I think too much, like my head energy gets drained too quickly. I've experienced this very often and get drained so fast that I have to sit down and then I'm unable to function normally again. I've read Mantak Chia's Universal Healing Tao instruction yesterday, where I saw this concept of doing all your brainwork from the LDT essentially. Almost like you are dropping your brain into the LDT, and use the LDT as the center of your awareness the whole time, which can then provide thinking processes the energy from the LDT so you don't get drained by focusing on the upper Dan Tien which doesn't store energy so well. The idea I've received from the instruction is to spin the UDT, MDT and LDT and sort of feel the awareness centered in the head moving down into the LDT. So most of the awareness should be felt in the LDT, with partial attention being paid to the spinning of the UDT and MDT now and then or simultaneously. Could you please give me more direct useful instruction on fully achieving the centering of thinking and intellectual activity in the LDT, like what a strong process I should follow to reliably achieve this?

The master who developed it, Choa Kok Sui, writes his books about Prana and basically combines Indian and Chinese methods and teachings from what I've read.

An interesting article I came across: http://www.kundalini-tantra.com/rtbrain1.html If any field expert here can vet the article for what it is really worth, I'd be grateful. Edit: Dear admins, if you can please edit the Tantra spelling in the title.

It has recently been brought to my attention (thanks cat, and others) that there might be a Qi Gong practice that could assist with my hearing loss or even repair the damage that has been done. My hearing loss has become a part of my life weather or not I wanted it to be, and I've been growing accustomed to the issues associated with being unable to hear fluidly and consistently in conversation only recently. I lost my (good) hearing when I was about 11 years old when I fell and hit my head and got a concussion. It's been a few short of 20 years now, I can read lips pretty well, but I don't know much sign and I have never known a practice I could implement into my personal cultivation that might assist or even repair my hearing loss. I can hear quite well mind you, but as if someone transposed the frequencies up a few hundred thousand hertz; I cannot hear low frequency sounds such as, but not limited to, my own voice lawn mowers, bass guitar, and Dart Vader, but high frequencies are crystal clear, so much so that the sound of crystals themselves gives the phrase a whole new meaning. I would love to be able to function more normally in conversation and social situations, however, I would miss the frequency gain if I had to sacrifice it to retrieve the frequency loss...