Parker Stephen
Saint Mary's University of Minnesota, Winona, MN, United States.
Prog Brain Res. 2019;244:255-272. doi: 10.1016/bs.pbr.2018.10.016. Epub 2019 Jan 3.
The study of consciousness within cognitive neuroscience has been dominated in recent years by investigations originating from collaborations between neuroscientific investigators and Buddhist meditation practitioners. The results have been remarkable, particularly when quantitative and qualitative research methods have been combined as they are in the neurophenomenological methodology originated by Francisco Varela. The addition of qualitative data about the experience of the subject greatly enriches the interpretive potential of quantitative data and honors the ultimate subjectivity of all phenomena, if we accept consciousness as the universal first principle as some quantum physicists now do. This remarkable progress, however, has dropped a thread of inquiry begun in the late 1960s by the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas (the United States) under the leadership of Elmer and Alyce Green. Their studies of the conscious control of involuntary processes drew on collaboration with an Indian master of yoga meditation, Swāmī Rāma of the Himālayas, which opened a number of intriguing possibilities, which have yet to be followed up in detail with the most recent research tools and methodologies. Among these is the ability to enter the deepest, non-REM delta wave sleep while maintaining awareness both internally and of one's surroundings (yoga-nidrā). The particular interest in this ability lies not only in the benefits that accrue from especially deep relaxation and an especially pure experience of mindful awareness, but also from the yogi's description of this as a way to gradually learn to enter the deepest states of meditation (samādhi) and remain there even when otherwise active in the world (turīya). This chapter is one of a series hoping to elucidate that state from both traditional and contemporary descriptions of the state of yoga-nidrā, draw measurable hypotheses from these descriptions and discuss the methodological problems of conducting these investigations with sufficiently competent samples of subjects. The focus of this chapter is on training subjects who can become capable of entering the state of yoga-nidrā.
近年来，认知神经科学领域对意识的研究主要由神经科学研究者与佛教冥想修行者合作开展的调查主导。研究成果显著，尤其是当定量和定性研究方法结合使用时，就像弗朗西斯科·瓦雷拉开创的神经现象学方法那样。如果我们像一些量子物理学家现在所做的那样，将意识视为普遍的第一原理，那么关于主体体验的定性数据的加入极大地丰富了定量数据的解释潜力，并尊重了所有现象的终极主观性。然而，这一显著进展却遗漏了一条始于20世纪60年代末、由美国堪萨斯州托皮卡市门宁格基金会在埃尔默和艾丽斯·格林的领导下展开的探究线索。他们对非自主过程的意识控制研究借鉴了与印度瑜伽冥想大师喜马拉雅山的斯瓦米·拉玛的合作，这开启了许多有趣的可能性，但尚未用最新的研究工具和方法进行详细跟进。其中包括在保持对内外部环境的觉知的同时进入最深的非快速眼动δ波睡眠状态（瑜伽休息术）的能力。对这种能力的特别兴趣不仅在于深度放松和正念觉知的特别纯粹体验所带来的益处，还在于瑜伽修行者将其描述为一种逐渐学会进入最深冥想状态（三摩地）并即使在身处外界活动时也能保持在该状态（第四意识状态）的方式。本章是一系列文章之一，希望从瑜伽休息术状态的传统和当代描述中阐明该状态，从这些描述中得出可测量的假设，并讨论使用足够合格的受试者样本进行这些调查的方法学问题。本章的重点是训练能够进入瑜伽休息术状态的受试者。
