Institute of Noetic Sciences Petaluma, CA, USA ; Institute of Neural Computation, SCCN, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Front Psychol. 2013 Nov 20;4:834. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00834. eCollection 2013.
During advanced meditative practices, unusual perceptions can arise including the sense of receiving information about unknown people who are deceased. As with meditation, this mental state of communication with the deceased involves calming mental chatter and becoming receptive to subtle feelings and sensations. Psychometric and brain electrophysiology data were collected from six individuals who had previously reported accurate information about deceased individuals under double-blind conditions. Each experimental participant performed two tasks with eyes closed. In the first task, the participant was given only the first name of a deceased person and asked 25 questions. After each question, the participant was asked to silently perceive information relevant to the question for 20 s and then respond verbally. Responses were transcribed and then scored for accuracy by individuals who knew the deceased persons. Of the four mediums whose accuracy could be evaluated, three scored significantly above chance (p < 0.03). The correlation between accuracy and brain activity during the 20 s of silent mediumship communication was significant in frontal theta for one participant (p < 0.01). In the second task, participants were asked to experience four mental states for 1 min each: (1) thinking about a known living person, (2) listening to a biography, (3) thinking about an imaginary person, and (4) interacting mentally with a known deceased person. Each mental state was repeated three times. Statistically significant differences at p < 0.01 after correction for multiple comparisons in electrocortical activity among the four conditions were obtained in all six participants, primarily in the gamma band (which might be due to muscular activity). These differences suggest that the impression of communicating with the deceased may be a distinct mental state distinct from ordinary thinking or imagination.
在高级冥想实践中，可能会出现一些不寻常的感知，包括接收关于已逝者的未知信息的感觉。与冥想一样，这种与死者交流的精神状态涉及到平息思维的喋喋不休，以及对微妙的感觉和知觉变得敏感。从六位以前在双盲条件下报告过准确的死者信息的个体中收集了心理物理和脑电生理学数据。每个实验参与者都闭着眼睛完成了两个任务。在第一个任务中，参与者只得到了死者的名字，并被问到 25 个问题。每次提问后，参与者被要求静默感知与问题相关的信息 20 秒，然后口头回答。回答被转录下来，然后由了解死者的人进行准确性评分。在可以评估准确性的四个媒介中，有三个的得分显著高于随机水平（p < 0.03）。在一个参与者的额部 theta 中，准确性与静默媒介交流 20 秒期间的大脑活动之间存在显著相关性（p < 0.01）。在第二个任务中，参与者被要求体验四种心理状态，每种状态持续 1 分钟：（1）思考一个已知的活着的人，（2）听传记，（3）想象一个人，（4）与一个已知的死者进行心理互动。每种心理状态重复三次。在六个参与者中，在经过多次比较校正后，在四个条件下的脑电活动中获得了统计学上显著的差异（p < 0.01），主要在伽马频段（这可能是由于肌肉活动）。这些差异表明，与死者交流的印象可能是一种不同于普通思维或想象的独特精神状态。
