Sublime

Melanie Boly, a neurologist and neuroscientist at the Medical School of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is painstakingly collecting EEG data from long-term Buddhist meditators during a state known as pure presence, an experience with no self, no discursive thoughts, and no perceptual content except for a luminous expanse, an empty mirror.

When the alarm bell of the emotional brain keeps signaling that you are in danger, no amount of insight will silence it.

One common observation is that psychedelics destabilize longrange cortical communication patterns and reduce activity in the posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus in the posterior regions of the neocortex. This is the compatible with our knowledge of the brains of people trained in mindfulness. It appears that the less these midline structures

Our self-experience is the product of the balance between our rational and our emotional brains. When these two systems are in balance, we “feel like ourselves.” However, when our survival is at stake, these systems can function relatively independently.

neuroscience research has shown that we possess two distinct forms of self-awareness: one that keeps track of the self across time and one that registers the self in the present moment.

The structures along the midline of the brain are devoted to your inner experience of yourself, those on the side are more concerned with your relationship with your surroundings.