Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. So today I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to have doctor Andrew Nuberg on the show. Andy is
Speaker 1: a neuroscientist who studies the relationship between brain function and
Speaker 1: various mental states. He is a pioneer in the neurological
Speaker 1: study of religious and spiritual experiences, a field known as neurothology.
Speaker 1: His research includes taking brain scans of people in prayer, meditation, rituals,
Speaker 1: and trans states, and an attempt to better understand the
Speaker 1: nature of religious and spiritual practices and attitudes. His latest
Speaker 1: books are How God Changes Your Brain and How Enlightenment
Speaker 1: Changes Your Brain. Thanks so much for talking in with
Speaker 1: me today, Andrew. Oh, thanks Scott, thanks for having me
Speaker 1: on your program. Wow, you study some pretty hefty topics,
Speaker 1: you know, have you always sort of thought at this
Speaker 1: kind of really existential, deep level, like this was a
Speaker 1: kid that you were you fascinated with these kinds of questions.
Speaker 1: I think I really was. You know, it's something that
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, I was always asking questions,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was funny. I was very disturbed
Speaker 1: by the fact that there were people who had different
Speaker 1: religions or different political you know, different political parties and perspectives.
Speaker 1: Of course, very relevant today. You know. I felt like, well,
Speaker 1: if we're all looking at the same world, how can
Speaker 1: we all haven't come to the same conclusion. Shouldn't there
Speaker 1: be some uniform answer that we all come to? And clearly,
Speaker 1: I mean when you do look at religious traditions and
Speaker 1: cultures and political parties, you know, not only do they
Speaker 1: see the world a little differently, it's almost completely dichotomous
Speaker 1: in terms of how they look at the world. So
Speaker 1: I started to think about it and I try to
Speaker 1: understand what was going on and why that would be
Speaker 1: the case. And first I thought about, well, it must
Speaker 1: have something to do with our brain, because that's what
Speaker 1: helps us to look at the world and figure things
Speaker 1: out and try to make sense of our world. So
Speaker 1: that was the first step, and I looked at science,
Speaker 1: and I looked at what science tell us about the world.
Speaker 1: But after a little while, I realized that science is
Speaker 1: also performed by us as human beings, and so it's
Speaker 1: still subjected in many ways to our own biases and
Speaker 1: the ways in which we look at the world and
Speaker 1: the ways in which we think we can measure the world.
Speaker 1: And I started to reflect inwardly about these questions, and
Speaker 1: it became a much more philosophical process, something that became
Speaker 1: almost a kind of philosophical meditation, so that I was
Speaker 1: actually just spending my time thinking about these big questions
Speaker 1: about the nature of reality and who we are and
Speaker 1: how we can understand anything about the world. And as
Speaker 1: I went through that process, it was really the combination
Speaker 1: of both these kind of philosophical meditations as well as
Speaker 1: the scientific pursuits that kept trying to kind of find
Speaker 1: a way to come together in my own mind. And
Speaker 1: ultimately I was very fortunate that it came together in
Speaker 1: a field, this field of neuro theology. I found two
Speaker 1: wonderful mentors, one in the world of imaging of the brain,
Speaker 1: and we did studies of all different kinds of you know,
Speaker 1: brain states and disorders and so forth, and another colleague
Speaker 1: who was looking at the same kind of questions about
Speaker 1: the relationship between religion and the human brain, and kind
Speaker 1: of going back, we realized that we could actually start
Speaker 1: to use these brain scans to study this and put
Speaker 1: this all together. And that was really what ultimately kind
Speaker 1: of put the whole idea of neurotheology together for us,
Speaker 1: and was something that allowed us to go forth and
Speaker 1: try to explore these questions in a very complex and
Speaker 1: very rich way. Sure, are you one of the founders
Speaker 1: of the field of neuro what is it called neuro
Speaker 1: neurotheology theology? Are you one of the founders? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I would say that. Interestingly, the
Speaker 1: term neuro theology actually originated with Aldus Huxley in a
Speaker 1: novel he wrote called The Island back in nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: where he just mentioned it as a term. My late
Speaker 1: mentor Eugene d'quilli was perhaps one of the founders of
Speaker 1: the idea of neurothology of sort of putting together the
Speaker 1: relationship between the brain and religion. And there was also
Speaker 1: a scholar named James Ashbrook who actually was the first
Speaker 1: person I'm aware of who actually published an academic article
Speaker 1: in a peer review journal that carried the title of neurothology.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if I was the founder, but
Speaker 1: I certainly hope that I've helped to push the field
Speaker 1: along and really tried to expand it and get it
Speaker 1: into many different domains, as I feel it should be
Speaker 1: a very multidisciplinary kind of field and field of scholarship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so before you set your sites on enlightenment, you
Speaker 1: worked with Mark Waldman to study just religious beliefs, Is
Speaker 1: that right? Yes, So you know, my early work was
Speaker 1: looking at a variety of practices like meditation and prayer.
Speaker 1: We studied people speaking in tongues, and we studied Brazilian
Speaker 1: mediums and trance states, really trying to get a sense
Speaker 1: as to what was going on during these practices and
Speaker 1: the different experiences that they ultimately had as part of
Speaker 1: those practices. Right, and then when did you start thinking like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I want to study like Nirvana. Well, I think
Speaker 1: part of it came from the fact that that that's
Speaker 1: part of what these people often experience. People start to
Speaker 1: describe for us these incredible experiences, these mystical experiences, and
Speaker 1: in many ways they're the culmination of these practices we
Speaker 1: all you know, obviously the you know, we always have
Speaker 1: this notion of the Buddhist monk who spends you know,
Speaker 1: forty years of his life and then finally hits enlightenment.
Speaker 1: So it's through these practices that people have these incredibly
Speaker 1: intense experiences. So that was part of it, and part
Speaker 1: of it also grew out of this growing concern that
Speaker 1: I had that as we continue to do brain scans,
Speaker 1: and we've done now over about two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: brain scans of people doing all these practices, I kept
Speaker 1: thinking to myself that, you know, I really don't have
Speaker 1: a good handle on the subjective nature of these experiences. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we've heard of what Buddha had to say
Speaker 1: about the experience, or what some you know, very learned
Speaker 1: monks and masters had to say about it, or you know,
Speaker 1: some of the great Christian mystics or Jewish capitalistic mystics.
Speaker 1: But what do people feel? And so part of what
Speaker 1: ultimately led us to exploring the concept of enlightenment was
Speaker 1: an online survey that we ran where we asked people
Speaker 1: about their most intense spiritual experiences, their most intense enlightenment experiences,
Speaker 1: and we actually ran it when I started at the
Speaker 1: University of Pennsylvania. I was on faculty there, and we
Speaker 1: started to get all kinds of day. We got data
Speaker 1: on almost two thousand people who gave narratives about the
Speaker 1: experiences that they have told us about who they were,
Speaker 1: their religious and spiritual tradition, their background, what they believe,
Speaker 1: what medications they were on, mental and physical illnesses they
Speaker 1: may have had. So we got all of this data,
Speaker 1: which is really a treasure show of data and we're
Speaker 1: still working through it today. That told us a lot
Speaker 1: about the subjective nature of these enlightenment experiences. And then
Speaker 1: by using that information, we could then go back to
Speaker 1: the brain scans and say, oh, okay, well, when people
Speaker 1: say that they have this incredible feeling of joy, of
Speaker 1: overwhelming joy and love, what's going on in the brain.
Speaker 1: And then we find that when people have that kind
Speaker 1: of an experience through a practice such as for example,
Speaker 1: loving kindness meditation, then what we see are changes of
Speaker 1: activity going on in the emotional centers of the brain
Speaker 1: and the reward centers of the brain, those areas of
Speaker 1: the brain that make us feel really really good, make
Speaker 1: us feel very very positively in terms of our emotions,
Speaker 1: and so again we started to put all of that together,
Speaker 1: which led to the discussion about how enlightenment changes your brain.
Speaker 1: So do you think we were designed by evolution to
Speaker 1: find spiritual experiences rewarding? Well, I think that ultimately the
Speaker 1: answer to that is yes. I mean, when you think
Speaker 1: about how these experiences come about, how they help human
Speaker 1: beings to function and understand the world in very very
Speaker 1: intense ways, I think it does make some sense that
Speaker 1: these experiences would evolve within us. Now, part of what
Speaker 1: was also an important part of our approach to neurothology,
Speaker 1: which was based on my late colleague Genedquilli's work in anthropology,
Speaker 1: was the notion that to some degree, these experiences are
Speaker 1: built upon our brain and what our brain is trying
Speaker 1: to do for us in general, and part of that
Speaker 1: process has to do with various rituals, and in particular
Speaker 1: mating rituals. And so the idea that the conclusion of
Speaker 1: the mating ritual, of the sexual orgasm, for example, which
Speaker 1: is this incredible ecstatic experience, it's not surprising that religious
Speaker 1: and spiritual rituals will ultimately kind of access some of
Speaker 1: those same basic feelings and lead to ecstatic experiences. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very interesting to me how the most intense spiritual
Speaker 1: experiences and sexual experiences are described using a lot of
Speaker 1: very similar terms. So whether or not these processes evolved
Speaker 1: in our brain for mating and for creating cohesive societies,
Speaker 1: which ultimately led to these experiences, and then once these
Speaker 1: experiences happen, we developed into these wound up having our
Speaker 1: brain evolve even more to be able to have those experiences.
Speaker 1: It's not totally clear exactly what led to what, but
Speaker 1: certainly the idea that through the evolutionary processes that allow
Speaker 1: our brain to help us to survive, to help us
Speaker 1: to basically move from one stage of being, one stage
Speaker 1: of life to the next, religious and spiritual experience seemed
Speaker 1: to fit very well into that whole process. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense that we're pulaying off
Speaker 1: these drives that we share with other animals. So let's
Speaker 1: step back a second. I want to ask you, like,
Speaker 1: what is enlightenment. Well, that's a great question, and you know,
Speaker 1: when we first started to think about this as a topic,
Speaker 1: we kind of came at it as Okay, it's you know,
Speaker 1: the Buddhist monk who has this incredible experience. But as
Speaker 1: we as we got into it. First of all, just historically,
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that enlightenment has meant different things, even
Speaker 1: on a historical level. So for the religious and spiritual,
Speaker 1: enlightenment meant the idea of truly understanding God and being
Speaker 1: intimately connect to God. In fact, perhaps even becoming one
Speaker 1: with God, as people have described in some of the
Speaker 1: mystical sects of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. In the Buddhist
Speaker 1: and Hindu perspective, enlightenment actually didn't involve God so much
Speaker 1: as it involved the ability for us to connect to
Speaker 1: some greater universal consciousness, as you mentioned, sort of that
Speaker 1: nirvana experience, becoming one with everything, becoming one with the universe.
Speaker 1: But interestingly, if you go back to the seventeen hundreds
Speaker 1: and eighteen hundreds, the age of Enlightenment actually was in
Speaker 1: many ways completely the opposite of this. The idea was
Speaker 1: to actually go away from religion and to turn to
Speaker 1: rational thought and science and investigation of the natural world
Speaker 1: as the process that led to a kind of intellectual
Speaker 1: enlightenment and the idea of getting beyond these archaic concepts
Speaker 1: of religion and spirituality, which were actually shrouding us in
Speaker 1: darkness and trying to come into the light through rational
Speaker 1: thought processes. So I mean, and that is ultimately what
Speaker 1: enlightenment means is to bring light to something. So for
Speaker 1: the religious or spiritual person who feels that they're kind
Speaker 1: of in the dark and then they become you know,
Speaker 1: they enter into the light of God, that's their perspective
Speaker 1: of enlightenment. For the individual who believes in science, it
Speaker 1: has more of a scientific connotation. Now, when we looked
Speaker 1: at our survey and we looked at all the different
Speaker 1: words that people used, what we ultimately came away with
Speaker 1: were five basic elements of the enlightenment experience. So let
Speaker 1: me just I'll go through them briefly. One of them
Speaker 1: is a profound sense of intensity, the idea that this
Speaker 1: is the most intense experience that a person has ever had.
Speaker 1: So sometimes it's the most intense feeling of love, or
Speaker 1: it's the most beautiful music they ever hear, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: it's something that is just beyond the most intense thing
Speaker 1: that they have ever experienced. Another aspect is a sense
Speaker 1: of clarity, And this is the notion so many people
Speaker 1: say that when they have this experience, is that they
Speaker 1: get it for the first time, they understand what the
Speaker 1: world is all about, what they're all about, and what
Speaker 1: they're supposed to do in life. So that sense of
Speaker 1: clarity is also a very fundamental concept and a very
Speaker 1: fundamental part of these experiences. The sense of unity is
Speaker 1: another critical piece of these experiences, the sense of becoming
Speaker 1: one with God, with the universe, with some type of
Speaker 1: universal consciousness, and that is again another core component of
Speaker 1: these kinds of experiences. And the fourth core component, at
Speaker 1: least in terms of the experience itself, is a slightly
Speaker 1: different concept, which is the notion of surrender, the notion
Speaker 1: that they themselves are not making this experience happen, but
Speaker 1: it's basically something that's happening to them. They are going
Speaker 1: along for the ride, and they essentially have to surrender
Speaker 1: themselves to that entire process. The fifth element of the
Speaker 1: enlightenment experience is not so much an experience so much
Speaker 1: as the result, which is the permanency of it and
Speaker 1: the radical transformation that occurs as part of the experience.
Speaker 1: So for people who have enlightenment, they go from one
Speaker 1: way of looking at the world to a fundamentally different
Speaker 1: way of looking at it. So maybe they thought, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever they thought was important before. Now they know what's important,
Speaker 1: and it's something completely different, and it changes the way
Speaker 1: they think about their lives, about their health, about their
Speaker 1: well being, about their relationships, about their job, and ultimately
Speaker 1: about their religious and spiritual beliefs. But all of those
Speaker 1: things seemed to change in literally moments, and that, to
Speaker 1: me is also a very fascinating aspect of these experiences,
Speaker 1: not only because from the perspective of the experience itself,
Speaker 1: but also from the perspective of the human brain and
Speaker 1: how it seems to change so radically as a result
Speaker 1: of these experiences. Yeah, I found it's so fascinating reading
Speaker 1: the stories some people described you know, in the layment
Speaker 1: feeling more real than everyday reality. I don't really know
Speaker 1: what that means, though. Well, that was actually one of
Speaker 1: the things that was very important to me because that
Speaker 1: had to do going back to your very first question
Speaker 1: about you know, was I always asking these kind of
Speaker 1: existential questions, and part of what I felt was so
Speaker 1: essential is how do we know what's real? And when
Speaker 1: we start to think about that from a brain perspective,
Speaker 1: ultimately we're sort of trapped within our brain and we're
Speaker 1: always looking out on the world, and our brain is
Speaker 1: interpreting the world around us and trying to make some
Speaker 1: sense out of that. And so how do we assess
Speaker 1: what is real and what is not? And I think
Speaker 1: the best example of that is if that everybody can
Speaker 1: relate to is the dream state. So when you're having
Speaker 1: a dream, and I'm sure everyone has had this experience
Speaker 1: where the dream feels incredibly real whatever it is, you know,
Speaker 1: whether you're you know, vacationing in Paris, whether you're being
Speaker 1: chased by some monster, whatever it is. When you're in
Speaker 1: that dream, it feels incredibly real and your body and
Speaker 1: your or at least your mind is reacting to whatever
Speaker 1: it is. If there's a guy with a gun who's
Speaker 1: chasing you, at least in the dream, you're running, and
Speaker 1: you're running as if that person is real. Now, when
Speaker 1: you wake up, the very first thing that we say is, oh,
Speaker 1: that was just a dream. We immediately recognize the dream
Speaker 1: state as a kind of inferior form of reality, and
Speaker 1: by whatever characteristics we apply to it, we say no, no, no,
Speaker 1: This everyday reality is the real reality, and that dream
Speaker 1: state is no longer the real reality. Now, when people
Speaker 1: have these enlightenment experiences, they look at the everyday reality
Speaker 1: in much of the way we look at the dream state.
Speaker 1: So suddenly they feel like now they get it, They
Speaker 1: really understand the real reality and the way that we
Speaker 1: normally think about reality in our everyday world that's not
Speaker 1: really that real. It's you know, there's elements of it
Speaker 1: that are real. But just like our dream states don't
Speaker 1: feel real, suddenly our everyday reality doesn't feel as real.
Speaker 1: And so people do describe it as being a more
Speaker 1: intensely real state. And that's part of why they feel
Speaker 1: like it's intense. They feel that they deprive clarity, and
Speaker 1: usually part of that unbelievable sense of realness is associated
Speaker 1: with that sense of unity of becoming part of that
Speaker 1: realness as part of the experience. Yeah, and they're clearly
Speaker 1: different paths to that same experience. And you know what
Speaker 1: about drug induced and malignment. You know, Abraham Maso used
Speaker 1: to call those unearned peak experiences, right, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of very interesting information that comes out
Speaker 1: of those experiences for us, and people are stuck trying
Speaker 1: to study them more and more, and even you know,
Speaker 1: we've looked at them into the context of our survey,
Speaker 1: there's some really interesting aspects to come out about it,
Speaker 1: both in terms of the biological as well as the spiritual.
Speaker 1: So from a biological perspective, part of what's important is
Speaker 1: is that we know where these drugs go. I mean,
Speaker 1: we know certain drugs like LSD go to the serotonin
Speaker 1: system and affect different chemicals in the brain, and that
Speaker 1: that's part of what leads to that kind of very
Speaker 1: intense experience for that individual. So that's part of it,
Speaker 1: which it tells us a little bit about what parts
Speaker 1: of our brain are involved in these experiences. But the
Speaker 1: other thing is is that when people have these experiences,
Speaker 1: even though you know, I think our Western perspective is
Speaker 1: that they're not real, when people have those experiences, they
Speaker 1: do recollect them, and they do feel that they represent
Speaker 1: some very fundamental perspective on reality and something which often
Speaker 1: can transform them and change their lives in many the
Speaker 1: same ways that a more natural enlightenment experience can actually
Speaker 1: do that. And some of the work that I've been
Speaker 1: doing with David Yaden, who's been one of my students
Speaker 1: and colleagues, you know, he's looked at how these experiences
Speaker 1: are described and found that they're every bit as real,
Speaker 1: as intense, as spiritual as the more naturally occurring ones,
Speaker 1: so to speak. And yet you know, obviously they're part
Speaker 1: of this drug induced experience. Some of the work that's
Speaker 1: been done by another colleague of mine down at Johns Hopkins,
Speaker 1: Roland Griffiths, has found similar things by actually inducing these
Speaker 1: experiences in people and finding that they represent these perhaps
Speaker 1: the most intense experiences that these people have had. And
Speaker 1: the one other piece that I'll add to this, which
Speaker 1: to me is always important because it gets back to
Speaker 1: the realness piece, is that you know, there are many
Speaker 1: shamanic cultures around the world that use different use mushrooms
Speaker 1: and peyote and all that to induce these kinds of states,
Speaker 1: and for them, these are the windows into that spiritual realm.
Speaker 1: And the analogy that I always thought about for myself is,
Speaker 1: you know, I have very poor vision. So when I
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning, the world is a very
Speaker 1: blurry place, and I put my glasses on and suddenly
Speaker 1: I see the world clearly. Well, the world hasn't changed,
Speaker 1: and I haven't changed, it's just that I am now
Speaker 1: seeing the world better. And so one might make the
Speaker 1: argument that by taking one of these drugs that you're
Speaker 1: allowing your brain to see the world in a more
Speaker 1: accurate and more real kind of way. Wow, So you know,
Speaker 1: it's not that it's a fake vision of the world.
Speaker 1: It's just that you've now allowed your brain to get
Speaker 1: to some level of activity that can perceive the world
Speaker 1: in a way that it's really meant to be perceived.
Speaker 1: So there's different perspectives that people could take on it.
Speaker 1: Did you do a lot of LSD in your day?
Speaker 1: I actually have never done ELIS, And you know, again,
Speaker 1: part of the reason why I actually haven't is the
Speaker 1: notion that I don't know if that perspective on reality
Speaker 1: necessarily is based on everything that we understand about how
Speaker 1: our brain works, if we're always trapped within our brain,
Speaker 1: than any experience we have of reality, whether it's a
Speaker 1: dream state, a drug induced state, a near death experience,
Speaker 1: a mystical experience, these are all experiences that we have
Speaker 1: of reality. So even though they might give us a
Speaker 1: new perspective, they don't necessarily get us any closer to
Speaker 1: answering the question about what is the true nature of reality?
Speaker 1: And so to me, that's still part of my kind
Speaker 1: of larger philosophical, spiritual, and scientific journey that is looking
Speaker 1: into that kind of a question and hopefully someday I
Speaker 1: might find an answer, but at the moment I haven't.
Speaker 1: As I always tell everybody, if I ever figured it
Speaker 1: all out, I'll certainly let everybody know. But I think
Speaker 1: that the only way that we're going to get to
Speaker 1: those kinds of answers is through some type of very multidisciplinary,
Speaker 1: integrated roach, which I think neurotheology may have the best
Speaker 1: option or the best opportunity for us to figure out
Speaker 1: how to answer those questions. Whether it will or not,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I'm going with that for the moment.
Speaker 1: Cool what's the difference between big eie and literally? So well,
Speaker 1: the biggie and literally when it comes to enlightenment is
Speaker 1: a way that we were thinking about it to help
Speaker 1: people understand the variety of Enlightenment experiences and also to
Speaker 1: give people a little bit of a sense of what
Speaker 1: enlightenment is. The literally experiences or experiences that all of
Speaker 1: us have had. They can be those little aha moments
Speaker 1: where we suddenly figure something out in life, where we
Speaker 1: suddenly know what job to take, what person to marry,
Speaker 1: a new way of thinking about the world in some
Speaker 1: particular way. So those are those little, aha, little Eureka moments.
Speaker 1: They have different terms that we all have had. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe some more than others, but we've all had at
Speaker 1: least a few of them in our lives, and they
Speaker 1: give you that little taste of what an enlightenment experience
Speaker 1: is about. You get that moment where you suddenly get something,
Speaker 1: you feel something a little bit more intense, a little
Speaker 1: bit more emotional, a little bit more connected to the
Speaker 1: world in some way, a little bit more clarity that
Speaker 1: comes out of it, and it changes the way you
Speaker 1: think about things. The difference is is in the big
Speaker 1: e Enlightenment the sort of the truer Enlightenment experiences, These
Speaker 1: are experiences that aren't changing the way you think about
Speaker 1: the world. They're changing basically everything that you know and
Speaker 1: understand about the world and about yourself. So you know,
Speaker 1: in many ways, these experiences are the most intense kind
Speaker 1: of experiences that we can have, and they are the
Speaker 1: experiences that we really kind of typically think of when
Speaker 1: we think about the Enlightenment experience, and that's why we
Speaker 1: refer to them as the big eie experiences, the ones
Speaker 1: that really change and transform a person's life in a
Speaker 1: person's way of thinking about things. Yeah, it sounds good.
Speaker 1: I want to get the big E. Well, that would
Speaker 1: be always the ultimate goal, I would think. But you
Speaker 1: argue there's kind of like a spectrum of human awareness,
Speaker 1: that there are various levels of awareness or levels of
Speaker 1: reality along the way to enlightenment. Can you tell me
Speaker 1: what the what lies on that spectrum? Well, yes, I
Speaker 1: mean the spectrum of awareness has to do a lot
Speaker 1: with our consciousness, and it really does range from the
Speaker 1: very kind of basic ways of looking at the world
Speaker 1: and responding to the world, and almost an instinctual kind
Speaker 1: of way all the way through the more how we
Speaker 1: sort of make decisions and think ourselves through kind of
Speaker 1: what we talk about like intentionality and a way of
Speaker 1: sort of planning for our world, which is kind of
Speaker 1: in our everyday reality, our everyday mindsets, and then ultimately
Speaker 1: up to the more creative ways of thinking about the world.
Speaker 1: And that's almost where you're getting to that higher consciousness,
Speaker 1: that notion of creating something new, coming up with something
Speaker 1: different than has ever been thought of before. You know,
Speaker 1: that's like a slightly higher level of awareness and perceptions
Speaker 1: about consciousness and then ultimately all the way up to
Speaker 1: this sort of more transcendent nature of consciousness where we
Speaker 1: actually get beyond our ego self, that we get beyond
Speaker 1: how we actually normally think about the world and feel
Speaker 1: this incredible sense of connectedness and oneness of our consciousness
Speaker 1: with the consciousness of everyone else, or perhaps even a
Speaker 1: universal consciousness, as certain traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism have
Speaker 1: actually suggested. So there's this kind of transition that goes
Speaker 1: all the way through these different stages, and as with
Speaker 1: all of the things that we've been talking about, we
Speaker 1: can start to relate these back to different brain processes.
Speaker 1: So you know, when you talk about our instinctual processes,
Speaker 1: you're talking about our sensory areas of our brain and
Speaker 1: our very basic emotional responses. When you start talking about
Speaker 1: the way we think about things through sort of a
Speaker 1: conscious intention and decision making, we're talking about our frontal
Speaker 1: lobes and our temporal lobes that help us to sort
Speaker 1: of think through things and concentrate on things. And then
Speaker 1: when we get into these mysticals types of states where
Speaker 1: consciousness changes into this other kind of altered state of
Speaker 1: consciousness and this sense of oneness. Then we're talking about
Speaker 1: changes going on at the level of our parietal lobes
Speaker 1: that help us with our sense of self, and also
Speaker 1: our frontal lobes in terms of how they begin to
Speaker 1: actually shut down as we kind of surrender to the
Speaker 1: experience itself. So we can get into a lot of
Speaker 1: how our brain is working as we start to think
Speaker 1: about the subjective nature of these different aspects and the
Speaker 1: experiences that we have. Yeah, there's a lot of information
Speaker 1: they just gave everyone, and it's super fascinating. My friend
Speaker 1: Daniel Bora wrote a delightful book, The Ravenous Brain. I'm
Speaker 1: arguing that that frontal parietal brain network is kind of
Speaker 1: the seat of consciousness, is the strongest correlative consciousness because
Speaker 1: it allows you to hold patterns in working memory and
Speaker 1: everything is chunking. Basically, in his model, we chunk the
Speaker 1: world down, and that the frontal pridal lobe is very
Speaker 1: important for holding that kind of information in a working
Speaker 1: memory state. It's a technical book, but it's also a
Speaker 1: really interesting book. But it seems to me like what's
Speaker 1: kind of confusing to me is you're saying like the
Speaker 1: highest level of enoyment involves deactivation of literally the frontal
Speaker 1: priedal network. And yet you're also saying it's like higher
Speaker 1: levels of consciousness. So how can that brain network that
Speaker 1: seems to be the most strongest corela of consciousness, the
Speaker 1: more deactivated is the more ennoyant we are. Do you
Speaker 1: see what I'm saying, I'm trying to understand that. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it. The short answer is, we're not totally short,
Speaker 1: you know. The more complex answer is that, you know,
Speaker 1: the brain is always dynamic, it's always changing, and part
Speaker 1: of what we think is going on is that as
Speaker 1: you get to sort of higher and higher levels of consciousness,
Speaker 1: you do kind of ramp up the activity in the
Speaker 1: frontal lobe for example. And in fact, the analogy that
Speaker 1: we're using is that you know, if you were to
Speaker 1: climb up a step and jump off, not much happens
Speaker 1: to you. If you climb up a ladder and jump
Speaker 1: to the ground, well, you know you'll feel that. You know,
Speaker 1: you might be okay, but you'll feel that. But if
Speaker 1: you climb all the way up a ladder and then
Speaker 1: you jump up into an emptied swimming pool and you
Speaker 1: fall you another ten feet down, you're probably going to
Speaker 1: get hurt. I mean, there's something pretty significant is now
Speaker 1: going to happen to you. And so part of what
Speaker 1: we think happens is is that there are many different
Speaker 1: states of consciousness, and so some levels of consciousness do
Speaker 1: involve an increase in that frontal lobe activity as we concentrate,
Speaker 1: as we focus our mind on whatever it is that
Speaker 1: we're consciously aware of. But then when we get to
Speaker 1: a point where our ego consciousness actually seems to disappear,
Speaker 1: then it seems to be associated with a profound drop
Speaker 1: of activity in this frontal lobe area. And we've seen
Speaker 1: evidence for that on some of our brain scan studies
Speaker 1: where people have that kind of an experience. But it
Speaker 1: does raise some very interesting questions about where exactly is consciousness.
Speaker 1: And I appreciate one model being the idea of the
Speaker 1: frontal parietal connection as being part of it, but there
Speaker 1: are lots of other parts of our brain that may
Speaker 1: have something to do with our awareness of the world.
Speaker 1: The thalamus, for example, which is a very central structure
Speaker 1: that brings in our sensory information and relays it up
Speaker 1: to the frontal and the parietal lobes. So that may
Speaker 1: be part of our awareness and part of our consciousness.
Speaker 1: You know, there's our emotional centers, which may have something
Speaker 1: to do with our memory and our ability to think
Speaker 1: about things and feel about things. And the other piece
Speaker 1: of this, and we've talked about this a little earlier
Speaker 1: about sort of the animal world and animal models of this,
Speaker 1: is that when you think about it, I mean, animals
Speaker 1: have a certain level of conscious awareness as well, and
Speaker 1: even animals that almost don't even seem to have a brain,
Speaker 1: I mean ants, you know, they don't eat themselves, they
Speaker 1: eleite something else. So there's some sense of self, some
Speaker 1: sense of awareness of the self, and the relationship between
Speaker 1: that self and the world that seems to kind of
Speaker 1: keep growing and changing as it goes through different animal
Speaker 1: species all the way up into human beings. So my
Speaker 1: guess is that it's very complex, and again I hope
Speaker 1: that more research in neurothology will able be able to
Speaker 1: help us to truly understand what these relationships are. Maybe
Speaker 1: if we take those individuals, those Buddhist meditators who are
Speaker 1: perhaps the most adept at modifying their consciousness, maybe we
Speaker 1: can get a better feel for what's going on in
Speaker 1: the parietal lobe, in the in the frontal lobe and
Speaker 1: how that varies and changes as an individual goes through life,
Speaker 1: as they go through meditation, as they go through enlightenment,
Speaker 1: and really try to get a sense as to how
Speaker 1: these different brain areas are ultimately related. But consciousness is
Speaker 1: certainly a huge, huge question. There's you know, obviously there's
Speaker 1: a whole field of consciousness studies, and I think neurotheology
Speaker 1: bumps up to that very very well in a very
Speaker 1: interesting ways, because there's a lot of interesting implications not
Speaker 1: only for the brain and consciousness, but for our religious
Speaker 1: and spiritual selves as well. Oh no, I definitely agree.
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of unanswered questions about this. Like
Speaker 1: you know, you find in the intelligence literature that for
Speaker 1: those who with low IQ scores when they take an
Speaker 1: IQ test, you see an awful lot of activity in
Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex, right, But for those with very very
Speaker 1: high IQs you actually see reduce bus activity because it's
Speaker 1: an efficiency issue exactly. Now. I wonder how much of
Speaker 1: what you're finding as an artifact of you know, expert
Speaker 1: meditators are kind of just becoming more efficient in their
Speaker 1: usage of the prefrontal cortex. Well, that very well may be.
Speaker 1: I mean, we actually did one study that was kind
Speaker 1: of interesting in regard to that, which was our study
Speaker 1: of Brazilian mediums. What was interesting about that study is
Speaker 1: we had ten different individuals come up from Brazil to
Speaker 1: study them, and after we when we looked at all
Speaker 1: of the information, we scanned them while they were in
Speaker 1: this intense trance state, and then we scan them while
Speaker 1: they were in just kind of a regular state. And
Speaker 1: what we found was was that we didn't see very
Speaker 1: much changing when people were in the trans state. We
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out what was going on, and so we said, well,
Speaker 1: are there differences between these people? And it came out
Speaker 1: in our discussion with them that there were five individuals
Speaker 1: who were highly adept and highly practiced and been doing
Speaker 1: this for years and years, and then there were about
Speaker 1: five people who were relatively new at it, pretty novice
Speaker 1: at it. And when we divided that into looking at
Speaker 1: the areas of the brain that that we thought would
Speaker 1: be involved, like the frontal lobe and the parietalobe, we
Speaker 1: saw a very interesting dichotomy between these two groups of individuals.
Speaker 1: Those individuals who were very adept at it kind of
Speaker 1: what you were just saying with regard to intelligence, they're
Speaker 1: the areas of the brain, like the frontallobe and the
Speaker 1: parietallobe during the trance state actually decreased in activay, whereas
Speaker 1: in the in the novices it actually increased. And I
Speaker 1: think you know that. To me, one of the best
Speaker 1: maybe analogies to that is playing the piano, as I
Speaker 1: learned to play the piano when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: You know, when you first start out and you're playing
Speaker 1: Twinkle Twink a Little Star, you have to concentrate on
Speaker 1: every note that you're playing. So you're going to increase
Speaker 1: the frontal lobe activity once you ultimately develop enough skill
Speaker 1: that you can kind of play the piano even without
Speaker 1: thinking about it, you know, certainly like a concert pianist,
Speaker 1: you know, they don't have to think about it, and
Speaker 1: so not only is it an efficiency aspect, but it
Speaker 1: becomes so natural for them that their frontal lobe activity
Speaker 1: and some of the their motor activity actually can decrease
Speaker 1: as part of the pro especially when they become very
Speaker 1: creative in the process. So I think that we're ultimately
Speaker 1: talking about some very complex dynamics in terms of how
Speaker 1: the brain works, how it changes and shifts depending on
Speaker 1: what we're doing, depending on how we have learned and
Speaker 1: trained our brain to do these different tasks and to
Speaker 1: engage these different experiences. And so I definitely think that
Speaker 1: there is a kind of training process that is part
Speaker 1: of it that does change the brain. And there's other
Speaker 1: data that certainly support that as well, that those people
Speaker 1: who are long term meditators, who've been meditating for fifteen
Speaker 1: plus years on a daily basis, they have fundamentally different
Speaker 1: brains than people who are non meditators, and it includes
Speaker 1: changes in the frontal lobe, changes in the thalamus, and
Speaker 1: so we are able to see where those changes occur
Speaker 1: and understand that these changes occur as the result of
Speaker 1: these practices. Yeah, so what makes you so sure about
Speaker 1: the brain is giving you useful information here? I mean,
Speaker 1: you could imagine a really spiritual person who believes in God,
Speaker 1: a rare religious person would say that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff flies outside the realm of brain activations,
Speaker 1: that you're getting in touch directly with some sort of
Speaker 1: higher being that is not going to be reflected by
Speaker 1: brain scans. How do you respond to that sort of thing? Well, actually,
Speaker 1: I mean, as I have said before, to me, the
Speaker 1: thing that would actually excite me more than anything is
Speaker 1: for somebody to say to me, I had the most
Speaker 1: amazing spiritual experience I've ever had, and when I look
Speaker 1: at their brain, nothing's changed, because then maybe I really
Speaker 1: would have captured something spiritual. But short of that, you know,
Speaker 1: what I usually say to people is that even if
Speaker 1: there is something that's spiritual outside of the brain, which
Speaker 1: I have no problem with, I mean, you know, from
Speaker 1: a neurotheological perspective, I think neurotheology has to be open
Speaker 1: to both sides, and we have to be open to
Speaker 1: God's existence to the spiritual realm. That doesn't mean, you know,
Speaker 1: that's the ultimate conclusion that we wind up taking, but
Speaker 1: we have to be open to what those different perspectives
Speaker 1: are about. And but irrespective of whether or not you know,
Speaker 1: a nun is literally in God's presence or a Buddhist
Speaker 1: is literally connect to a universal consciousness that we can't measure,
Speaker 1: what we can say is well, but how did that
Speaker 1: affect their brain? How did they ultimately make some sense
Speaker 1: out of it, make meaning out of it? How did
Speaker 1: it change the way they felt, the way they thought,
Speaker 1: the way they understood the world. So there's always still
Speaker 1: that more cognitive emotional experiential element that can be looked
Speaker 1: at in the context of the human brain. But you know,
Speaker 1: for somebody making that argument there, it is a valid argument.
Speaker 1: And the question ultimately is the analogy I always think
Speaker 1: about is is you know, a boat on the ocean,
Speaker 1: So am I looking at the boat itself? Or am
Speaker 1: I just looking at the wake that the boat leaves?
Speaker 1: And you know, we don't know for sure. Neurotheology may ultimately,
Speaker 1: by continuing to give us data and information about the
Speaker 1: subjective nature of those experiences as well as the biological
Speaker 1: elements associated with them, may ultimately lead to an answer
Speaker 1: that they could address both sides of the equation. But
Speaker 1: we do have to be careful, and of course, you know,
Speaker 1: I always warn people of that that. You know, so
Speaker 1: many times when some of my researchers out, you know,
Speaker 1: the religious people say, ah, you know, you see there,
Speaker 1: that's where God has there has his influence in our brain.
Speaker 1: And then you know, the atheist would say, aha, you know,
Speaker 1: it's purely produced by the brain. And I always try
Speaker 1: to say, well, you know, it could be either of
Speaker 1: those explanations. We have to be a little bit more
Speaker 1: cautious about how we interpret what these studies and what
Speaker 1: these scans ultimately mean. Yeah, but your scans are showing
Speaker 1: that this state of enlightenment certainly involves. When people say
Speaker 1: they're experiencing these common set of characteristics that resemble enlightenment,
Speaker 1: it seems like it's a fundamental shift in or suspension
Speaker 1: of their ordinary view of the world. Well, I think so.
Speaker 1: And again, I mean that is something that happens subjectively,
Speaker 1: and it also makes sense in the context of that
Speaker 1: frontal lobe change that we were talking about a few
Speaker 1: moments ago. You know, our funnel lobes, among many of
Speaker 1: their functions, you know, basically help to keep all of
Speaker 1: our ideas in their proper place. It's sort of the big,
Speaker 1: you know, filing system in our brain that you know,
Speaker 1: the funnelip sort of helps us maintain that index and
Speaker 1: make sure we know where everything is. So we when
Speaker 1: we meet our friend, we know that their name is Scott.
Speaker 1: When we meet our mother, we know her name. You know,
Speaker 1: we know who these people are, We know our ideas,
Speaker 1: and the funnel up kind of keeps all of that
Speaker 1: very well organized for us. However, when the funneloe suddenly
Speaker 1: shuts down, it's almost as if you take those file cabinets,
Speaker 1: throw all the folders up into the air and then
Speaker 1: quickly rearrange them back into the file cabins, and suddenly
Speaker 1: we don't think about the world anywhere near the same
Speaker 1: way that we did a few moments before. So I
Speaker 1: think it is part of that whole process about how
Speaker 1: we utilize our brain to help us understand the world,
Speaker 1: and how that can be radically changed by the nature
Speaker 1: of these experiences. Yeah, and there's lots of different as
Speaker 1: you say, there are lots of different ways to get
Speaker 1: to these experiences. Maybe one can listen to music and
Speaker 1: feel this kind of great sense of all our transformation,
Speaker 1: or maybe a medium could do so you've studied mediums
Speaker 1: right in the brain scanner. Yeah, so you know, we
Speaker 1: have looked at many different kinds of practices and in
Speaker 1: our survey, as you mentioned, you know, I was fascinated
Speaker 1: by this incredible variety of ways in which people getting
Speaker 1: into these experiences, and as you mentioned, some through music
Speaker 1: and creativity, some through drug induced experiences, some through near
Speaker 1: death experiences. Some one of my favorite ones was the
Speaker 1: guy who basically was driving his truck down the street
Speaker 1: and it just hit him. So, you know that doesn't
Speaker 1: happen very often, but it can, and so one never
Speaker 1: really knows exactly how or when or where these experiences
Speaker 1: will come about. You know, part of what we talk
Speaker 1: about in our book is the ability to try to
Speaker 1: prime the brain, if you will, towards having those experiences. Obviously,
Speaker 1: one can never guarantee enlightenment in any way, but the
Speaker 1: idea of pursuing these kinds of practices and sort of
Speaker 1: consciously and purposely exploring these questions and these you know,
Speaker 1: and trying to explore these experiences is something that virtually
Speaker 1: everyone can do. So while enlightenment may not happen may
Speaker 1: not happen to everyone, everyone can ultimately experience it. But
Speaker 1: you know, we ultimately have to see as we go
Speaker 1: forward how well people ultimately can get to those kinds
Speaker 1: of experiences. Well, let's talk about how anyone could prime
Speaker 1: the brain to have more of these kinds of experiences.
Speaker 1: You have this kind of multi step program, so to speak,
Speaker 1: how to do that? Can you give some advice? Sure? Well,
Speaker 1: I think that there's a couple of very basic things
Speaker 1: that almost anybody can do, and people can literally start,
Speaker 1: you know, today down the path. And I think the
Speaker 1: first thing is basically to understand what enlightenment means to you,
Speaker 1: you know, what the person is looking for as far
Speaker 1: as that experience goes. And I think also to sort
Speaker 1: of prepare themselves for that experience. You know, even though
Speaker 1: it is an incredible experience, to radically change who you
Speaker 1: are is a scary thing, and so that there's a
Speaker 1: certain degree of preparation that you have to be kind
Speaker 1: of willfully interested and be consciously approaching that kind of process,
Speaker 1: and you have to be kind of prepared and ready
Speaker 1: for that kind of process. So that's part of it.
Speaker 1: I think the most important from the perspective of the
Speaker 1: individual is to find that exact approach, find the ritual,
Speaker 1: as we talk about it, and maybe more than one,
Speaker 1: but to find that ritual or rituals that will ultimately
Speaker 1: lead you as an individual down the path towards those experiences.
Speaker 1: And whether that is something that's creative, whether it is
Speaker 1: through questioning things, whether it is through meditation, whether it
Speaker 1: is through the church, whether you know, whatever it is
Speaker 1: for that individual or some combination of things. Finding that
Speaker 1: individual process, if you will, is the key, and that
Speaker 1: is always obviously the biggest challenge. But to start down
Speaker 1: a path to keep moving down that path, to be
Speaker 1: open and aware of other paths and keep an open
Speaker 1: mind to the different experiences and different paths that might
Speaker 1: be out there. All of that is part of that process.
Speaker 1: And then ultimately surrendering oneself to that process, I think
Speaker 1: is very key that ultimately you kind of even though
Speaker 1: you're purposely trying to get to something, there has to
Speaker 1: be this moment where you kind of release yourself and
Speaker 1: allow yourself to just have that experience and then ultimately
Speaker 1: to kind of reflect back on what these experiences are
Speaker 1: and how they ultimately are something that can be incorporated
Speaker 1: into your life and what it means to be so
Speaker 1: to speak, and enlightened being how you use that information
Speaker 1: in terms of your relationships, in terms of your job,
Speaker 1: in terms of your sense of spirituality, Those to me
Speaker 1: are all very very critical parts of the process. And again,
Speaker 1: I mean it's obviously never a guarantee, but there are
Speaker 1: ways in which people can do that and kind of
Speaker 1: purposely do that, and those are some of the easy
Speaker 1: steps to take right off the bat, you know, just
Speaker 1: going home and writing down what you think enlightenment means
Speaker 1: and thinking about the paths that you might take. What
Speaker 1: are the rituals that you might pursue. What are those
Speaker 1: things that you do now and or the things that
Speaker 1: you might try and continue to explore. And I think
Speaker 1: that's ultimately, you know, to me, that's the fundamental basis
Speaker 1: of neurotheology. Is this sort of what I call a
Speaker 1: passion for inquiry, that the idea that we just keep
Speaker 1: asking questions, that we keep pursuing the answers to those questions.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's part of neurotheology. I think
Speaker 1: it's part of spirituality. I think it's part of science.
Speaker 1: I think it's part of enlightenment. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: such this really gets a kind of the heart of
Speaker 1: human existence and what makes us feel purposeful and meaningful
Speaker 1: in life. As you know that the state is intimately
Speaker 1: tied with meaning, and so it seems almost like enlightenment
Speaker 1: is so individualized per person, depending on their own source
Speaker 1: of unique source of meaning and the interpretations they make
Speaker 1: of what they're viewing in the world. Is that right? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, And again it's interesting because when we look
Speaker 1: at these couple thousand people's experiences and how they wrote
Speaker 1: the narratives about them. On one hand, we can get
Speaker 1: to those certain core elements that sense of unity and
Speaker 1: clarity and so forth, But each of them also has
Speaker 1: a profound uniqueness to them, and so yes, I mean
Speaker 1: no one actually has the same exact enlightenment experience. And
Speaker 1: it also raises some interesting neurotheological questions too, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, if somebody in the midst of that experience
Speaker 1: feels a force, and someone feels God, and someone feels loved,
Speaker 1: are they the same experience that is then interpreted in
Speaker 1: three different ways or are they fundamentally different experiences that
Speaker 1: are simply all labeled as enlightenment. And those are some
Speaker 1: big questions that neurotheology has yet to figure out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit more about some of the
Speaker 1: benefits of What are some of the outcomes you find
Speaker 1: from people who go through this process? Well, when we do,
Speaker 1: when we question people about what happened to them afterwards,
Speaker 1: what we do typically find is that many aspects, many
Speaker 1: facets of their life have changed, and almost always uniformly
Speaker 1: for the better. So their sense of meaning and purpose
Speaker 1: in life is enhanced and grows, their sense of spirituality
Speaker 1: is enhanced and grows, their sense the sense of their
Speaker 1: relationships and the importance of relationships in their lives and
Speaker 1: how their relationships go improves, their ideas about their job
Speaker 1: and vocation improved, And it's really pretty dramatic. I mean,
Speaker 1: only about a couple of percent, three or four percent
Speaker 1: at most in any of those categories actually describe a
Speaker 1: worsening as the result of these experience. So you know,
Speaker 1: over ninety percent in general found some kind of improvement
Speaker 1: in their life as the result of these experiences. So
Speaker 1: they are incredibly powerful and to some degree, you know,
Speaker 1: and I know I'm biased because of the work that
Speaker 1: I've done, but it seems to me, like you know,
Speaker 1: and I think you said this too, is that it's
Speaker 1: the kind of experience that virtually everyone should want to
Speaker 1: try to find a way to get, and I think
Speaker 1: that the data suggests that anyone can have it. I mean, again,
Speaker 1: these couple thousand people, These are not the Buddhas of
Speaker 1: the world, These are not the you know, Saint Teresi's
Speaker 1: these these are just everyday people. And so I think
Speaker 1: one of the big take home messages of our book
Speaker 1: and of this work is the notion that we it's
Speaker 1: within all of us, all of our brains, have the
Speaker 1: potential ability to have these experiences and whether we, you know,
Speaker 1: purposely try to get to them, whether we take the
Speaker 1: easier way out, perhaps through a drug induced experience, whether
Speaker 1: it happens in a near death experience, whatever it is is,
Speaker 1: we all are capable of getting to those experiences, and
Speaker 1: that's what I think the data bears out. And I
Speaker 1: think that, to me is very exciting because it ultimately
Speaker 1: can lead all of humanity to an enlightened state, an
Speaker 1: enlightened sense of our species, and I think that would
Speaker 1: be wonderful. We certainly need to get to something a
Speaker 1: little bit better than where we are right now. Agreed,
Speaker 1: that would be wonderful. Thanks for chatting with me today
Speaker 1: and for the incredible work that you've done in your
Speaker 1: long career and the work that you're continuing to do. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Thanks for listening to The Psychology
Speaker 1: Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found
Speaker 1: this episode just as thought for booking and interesting as
Speaker 1: I did. If you'd like to read the show notes
Speaker 1: for this episode or hear past episodes, you can visit
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast dot com.