During open-eyed 'seed stage meditation' practiced by Brahma Kumaris Rajayoga meditators, brain activity shifts: delta frequencies decrease and low alpha frequencies increase. These changes involve the central executive, mirroring, task-positive, and task-negative networks, reflecting attention modulation, self-related processing, and the experience of the soul as a point of light endowed with peacefulness. The study used frequency domain brain electric source localization on EEG recordings from 52 meditators, comparing meditation to open-eyed, task-free resting. Exploratory analyses examined effects of time from rest through meditation to final rest. Future research should differentiate between the meditation's stages.
During breath counting (a meditation-like task), meditation-naïve males showed reduced functional connectivity between cognitive control and sensory perception areas in the brain, as measured by a method that corrects for common artifacts in EEG analysis. When using conventional head-surface coherence, the opposite pattern appeared—higher connectivity during the task. The reductions were similar to, but less widespread than, those previously reported in experienced meditators during meditation. The findings suggest that focusing attention on a bodily sensation without cognitive reasoning lowers connectivity between brain regions involved in executive control and sensory processing.