Reviewed by: Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: Descending Underground in the Search for Ultimate Truth Suzanne Lye Yulia Ustinova . Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: Descending Underground in the Search for Ultimate Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. x, 315. $95.00. ISBN 978-0-19-954856-9. Yulia Ustinova provides a study of the use of caves and underground chambers in ancient...
Human beings, like all living organisms, use energy ceaselessly with whatever they do. Nothing at all happens without spending some energy, not even a glance or a dream. The Author proposes that dreams happen automatically in sleep to help us release unresolved frustration energy and emotional dilemmas left over from the day before. Energy administration is the common denominator behind the...
Monaco F, Mula M, Cavanna AE. The neurophilosophy of epileptic experiences. Background:Specific alterations of consciousness have a central role in the phenomenological description of epileptic seizures and in the patient's subjective reports. Methods:This article discusses the use of philosophical methodology within a neurological framework to understand consciousness. Results:How the...
The vegetative state is a devastating condition where patients awaken from their coma (i.e., open their eyes) but fail to show any behavioural sign of conscious awareness. Locked-in syndrome patients also awaken from their coma and are unable to show any motor response to command (except for small eye movements or blinks) but recover full conscious awareness of self and environment. Bedside...
The phenomenological relationship between consciousness and sleep are reviewed.Consciousness has a selfreflexive component, and while sleeping that is not working as in awakenings.The necessity of some change in narrow concepts of conscious as to be aware and self reflective as well of some aspects of Altered State of Consciousness are explained.In fact, in rapid eye movements [REM] sleep is...
The feeling of being in control of one's own actions is a strong subjective experience. However, discoveries in psychology and neuroscience challenge the validity of this experience and suggest that free will is just an illusion. This raises a question: What would happen if people started to disbelieve in free will? Previous research has shown that low control beliefs affect performance and...
Previous researchers have studied meditation practices as a means to understand consciousness as well as altered states of consciousness. Various meditation techniques, such as Transcendental Meditation (TM) and Qigong, have been explored with source localization tools; however, the concentrative meditation technique has yet to be fully studied in this manner. The current study demonstrates...
Self-consciousness has mostly been approached by philosophical enquiry and not by empirical neuroscientific study, leading to an overabundance of diverging theories and an absence of data-driven theories. Using robotic technology, we achieved specific bodily conflicts and induced predictable changes in a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness by altering where healthy subjects experienced...
Purpose of review: Brain MRI (diffusion tensor imaging and spectroscopy) and functional neuroimaging (PET, functional MRI, EEG and evoked potential studies) are changing our understanding of patients with disorders of consciousness encountered after coma such as the 'vegetative' or minimally conscious states. Recent findings: Increasing evidence from functional neuroimaging and...