Can your heart think and feel?

Can your heart think and store memories?

A number of years ago, Claire Silvia from Boston, USA, had a heart transplant. Pretty soon she started to experience strange things. “It was like a whole new rhythm, a whole new feeling,” she explains. And when a journalist asked her, soon after the transplant, what she now wanted most in the world, the words “I’d die for a beer right now!” suddenly popped out of her mouth, much to her embarrassment and surprise – she didn’t previously even like beer! “Little by little,” she says, “other things started happening until I was convinced I was living with the presence of another within me.” Claire not only noticed changes in her tastes, her preferences for foods and drinks, but even in her handwriting. All she knew of the person who had donated her heart was that he was a young man who died in a motorcycle accident, strict confidentiality rules mean that organ recipients aren’t allowed to know the details of their donor. Then one night she dreamed of her donor, and the name ‘Tim L’ popped into her mind. The next day she rang her transplant co-ordinator and told her about the changes she had experienced, and asked her if her donor’s name was in fact Tim L. There was silence on the other end of the phone, and then the co-ordinator said “Please don’t pursue this.”

It turned out that her donor’s name was in fact Tim Lamarand.

Throughout most of Human history people didn’t locate their thoughts and emotions within the brain. For example, the ancient Egyptians didn’t even see fit to preserve the brains of their kings and queen’s in the same way that they did with other organs when mummifying them. But while it wasn’t until recently that the brain was identified as the seat of our thoughts, emotions or soul, then where did the ancients believe was the centre of these things? The answer is the heart.

Today we laugh at the notion that our hearts could be intelligent, we see them as basic pumps. A pump doesn’t have thoughts, emotions and memories. But perhaps we don’t know as much as we think we do. For example, our modern association of thought and emotion with the brain may have gone a bit too far.

One association with the heart that we have still kept, to some extent, is that its something to do with our emotions, particularly with love – the heart remains a popular visual symbol of love. Also it’s often used as a symbol for our intuition and morals. We often use phrases like “listen to your heart.” Or “follow what your heart tells you is right.” Admittedly, most people when using these phrases are not always literally asking you to stop and try and sense how your heart feels, they are using the word ‘heart’ as a metaphor for your intuition. But could that metaphor for locating feelings and emotions in the heart actually have some reality to it?

Well, at the most basic level, we know that emotional stress can harm the heath of our hears, putting them under strain, and perhaps leading – in extreme cases – to people suffering heart attacks, as the end product of years of chronic stress. Also, the heart regulates the blood flow, and blood contains hormones and neuro-peptides which transmit emotional information. But could there be a stronger connection than this?

Amazingly, Dr Andrew Armour, a neurologist from Montreal, Canada, discovered a small but complex network of neurons in the heart, which he has dubbed ‘the little brain in the heart’. These neurons seem to be capable of both short and long term memory. Why should the heart even have neurons and the ability to remember? Well, for one thing, there is a lot of muscle co-ordination that goes on in the heart in order to allow it to function properly. The fact that hearts can even be transplanted shows that there is a long-term memory stored in the heart for its rhythms. When a heart is removed, it is cooled and can stay alive for up to four hours. Once the heart is connected into its new recipient, as blood enters it, it begins to beat again. It is almost certainly the ‘little brain in the heart’ that is enabling the heart to remember how to beat.

Furthermore, there is a lot of communication that occurs between the heart and the brain. There are 40,000 neurons in the heart which communicate with the brain. Hormones from the heart travel in our bloodstream. Every time the heart beats, it creates both pulse waves of pressure, and of electromagnetic energy which travel through the body and to the brain. Amazingly, the heart generates a magnetic field 5000 times more powerful than that of the brain. It can be measured six feet away from the body. It almost certainly extends further, but this is the limit of our current sensing equipment.

We all too often forget that the brain is just the most complex end of a whole nervous system which extends throughout our body. For example, the nerves in our hands are in almost constant communication with our brains, a fact that leads some to believe that the ancient art of palm-reading may have some validity: if the nerves on our hands are constantly communicating back and forth with our brains, then its not an unreasonable stretch of the imagination to wonder if our personalities could imprint themselves on the lines of the skin of our palms. Similarly, our hearts are also in constant communication with our brains. Could a similar effect be occurring with the heart? Could the 10-15% of heart donation recipients who – like Claire Silvia – experience changes in their tastes, personalities and memories be picking up on information on the heart’s original owner that was stored in the heart itself?

Gary Schwartz, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Yale university believes so. He has developed a theory that could explain how the heart learns and remembers. Schwartz points out that all that is required for a system to be able to learn is that it has dynamic feedback: the outputs feed back to the inputs. Any such system that has feedback can learn. As the brain and the heart have feedback – both through neurons and through the bloodstream – the heart can in theory learn. Schwartz, in collaboration with Professor Paul Pearsall, a cardioneurologist from the University of Honalulu (and author of ‘The heart’s code’), collected a number of case studies of heart donation recipients who have experienced these unusual changes. Among them is the case of a 47 year old white man who received the heart of a young black man. Whilst the 47 year old was not racist, he did have a number of underlying assumptions about what kinds of tastes a young black man would have. He joked that if his tastes had changed, perhaps he would now start to like rap music! But what actually happened was the man became obsessed with classical music, and would listen to it over and over. It turned out that the young black man had in fact been a classical violin player. Another heart recipient suddenly became obsessed with competitive cycling and swimming, and began training for, and eventually winning competitions at these sports. One year later he discovered his donor had been an athletic Hollywood stuntman.

Whilst there are a number of scientists and doctors who are now convinced that these types of stories could point to the reality of ‘heart memories’, there are many who also remain sceptical. They argue that there are alternative explanations.

One explanation that’s been put forward for these strange experiences is that the drugs that the person has to take so that their immune system doesn’t reject their new transplanted heart (immunosuppressants) are causing some kind of psychological effect that makes a person believe they are accessing memories from the organ, particularly as even having a deceased person’s heart in your body might play on your imagination. However, while this explanation would account for having some kind of psychological effect, it doesn’t account for the accuracy of the information that such heart recipients have come out with. This accuracy is all the more impressive considering that hospitals maintain a policy of not telling the recipient or their family any of the personal details of who their donor was.

Another theory is that the patient manages to pick up enough information from the medical staff around them to piece together – perhaps even subconsciously – some basic details of their donor. It may even be that conversations that doctors and nurses have while the patient is anesthetized are somehow being absorbed by their mind, below the level of conscious awareness. This is certainly plausible, yet in most of the documented cases it’s been confirmed that the surgical team had not discussed patient details whilst performing the operation, and indeed it would be highly unusual for such a discussion to take place.

There may be many orders of magnitude far fewer neurons in the heart than the brain, but many simple animals such as insects can display intelligent behaviour and memory with a relatively small number of neurons. So perhaps this is also true of our hearts? Ironically, the kind of feedback that Dr Swartz says is present between the heart and brain and is responsible for heart-memories is the very thing that’s currently lacking in the scientific world on this issue, and is holding back our understanding of it. We need feedback from all heart donor cases, we need much more study on this area in order to finally understand whether hearts can remember. Simply ignoring this possibility will block us from ever understanding it.

And if it turns out that our hearts can remember, I think many more people would find comfort in knowing that a part of their dead relative’s personality was living on in the recipient. Some may even chose to meet the recipient and place their hand on their chest to once again feel the heart-beat of the person they loved. It may also encourage more people to carry a heart donor card.

Scientific theory of astrology

An interesting theory from Terence Guardino:



And heres part two:

Superb self development website

I can highly recommend this self development website:

StevePavlina

It has a great range of articles and audio podcasts.

The Kybalion

The Kybalion

The kybalion is a little known book that is based on secret
teachings which date back millennia to ancient Eygpt. Despite the
information within this philosophy being jealously guarded over the
centuries, and hidden from the public, the Kybalion claims that
it's ideas have influenced all major religions. The book was
published in 1908, and the authors choose to remain anonymous,
calling themselves only 'the three initiates'. Due to the length of
time since it was published, it's now in the public domain and can
be downloaded for free online.

Basically the Kybalion is based on seven key principles:

1. The principle of mentalism

This principle states that our reality is, at essence, mental. That
rather than minds being a property within a purely physical
universe, the universe is itself a mind, or like a mind. In a
sense, the whole universe is alive, or at least is intelligent. The
world doesn't create consciousness, consciousness creates the
world. While this idea runs against the view that science has held
over the last few centuries about reality, the most advanced,
cutting edge thinkers in physics are now proposing ideas very
similar to this. Also, the very fabric of our world, the molecules,
atoms and even the sub-atomic quantum world, is now known to be
able to be harnessed into a form of computer. So the idea that
reality itself may be a kind of computer is gaining ground in some
quarters.

How to use this principle: Don't dismiss your thoughts as
unimportant, they are extremely powerful and influential! The life
you are living today is, to a large extent, the result of your
thinking in the past. Test this principle for yourself: start to
keep your eyes open for events which occur which you had previously
thought about, you will eventually be amazed at these apparent
'co-incidences'.

2. The principle of correspondence

This principle can be summarised in the phrase 'as above, so
below'. The idea being that Humans are a reflection of the cosmos
itself. The best way to think of this is like one of those fractal
patterns that used to be popular in the 1990s. The patterns, if you
don't recall them, looked like something natural, perhaps the
jagged edge of a leaf or a tree. And just as the overall shape of
the branches and leaves of a tree is reflected in the shape of a
leaf itself, this principle states that similar patterns keep
repeating themselves at different scales. This is also related to
the ancient art of astrology, which is based on the idea that the
large-scale cycles of the planets are repeated in the cycles of
Human affairs on Earth.

How to use this principle: If you are interested, I would suggest a
proper study of astrology, you will find it an eye-opening
experience, I promise you! Also you could start to think about
trends within your life that repeat themselves. Try to look at the
underlying theme of things that happen in your life and see how
that theme repeats in different ways. It could point towards
revolutionary ways to improve your life.

3. The principle of vibration

According to this principle, everything in the universe is moving,
or vibrating, nothing is completely at rest. The speed of vibration
determines its energy, and explains the different forms of matter
(solid, liquid, gas, plasma, and some would add mind and spirit).
The higher the rate of vibration, the higher something is on the
scale of being. What the Kybalion calls God - the all - is said to
be at such a high level of vibration that it in fact appears at
rest, just as a fast spinning wheel starts to look like its not
moving at all. Equally, something vibrating fairly slowly may be
heard as a sound, when it vibrates faster it can be seen as light,
and when it vibrates faster still it will emit x-rays. All the
points along the electromagnetic spectrum are but degrees of
vibration.

Again, this principle is not really that controversial to science.

However, the Kybalion goes further than this. It says that every
Human thought, emotion and mental state has a certain vibration.

How to use this principle: We can raise the vibration of our own
thoughts and emotional states. If you are feeling down, try taking
some exercise or thinking about something that excites or motivates
you. If that doesn't work, simply pretend that you are feeling more
energetic and happy and pretty soon you will be.

4. The principle of polarity

"Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair
of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical
in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are
but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled." -- The Kybalion.

The quote above neatly describes the forth principle: the principle
of polarity. This principle says that basically everything has an
opposite, and the opposites are not as different as they might
appear. Similar to travelling in a circle: the two extremes meet.
The further West you travel around the globe, eventually you arrive
at the extreme east (as shown on a typical map of the world)! This
is even true of what we call 'good and bad'. The most extreme a
person becomes in pursuing 'good' the more likely they are to do
something bad (for the good cause), and often extremely good things
can be born out of extremely bad events.

How to use this principle:
Trying looking beyond simple duel-distinctions (such as that
something can only be one thing or another), because often we find
that opposites are really an illusion and they are almost the same.
One good way to do this is to continually question your assumptions
about whether two things are really so separate. Often we limit
ourselves in life by artificially assuming two things must be
separate, when they needn't be. We assume that only one of two
possibilities can be followed, but instead trying looking for ways
in which both possibilities can be allowed to co-exist.

5. The principle of rhythm

The principle of rhythm states that everything is moving back and
forth. For every action there is a reaction, every tide that goes
out will also come back in, and what goes up must come down! These
are all examples of the principle of rhythm.

Again, nothing new here you might think, but, again, the Kybalion
goes further. It points out that this principle of rhythm operates
in the realm of human thought and emotions too. And if you think
about it, you will notice this: those who have the greatest
capacity for happiness also have the greatest capacity for sadness,
whilst those who never get that happen usually never get that sad
either. Similarly, we tend to have swings of emotion, sometimes
lasting hours, sometimes as long as years.

How to use this principle:
If you are having a period of bad luck or depression, remember that
eventually things will probably swing back in your favour. So start
to prepare to make the most of things when they do! Also, be aware
of when your own moods and fortunes start to swing in the negative
direction. The Kybalion teaches that if we become aware of this we
can consciously choose not to participate in it, and the pendulum
swings off in the negative direction while will hold on, still at
the positive end!

6. The principle of cause and effect

According to this principle nothing happens by chance, everything
has a cause. If something appears to happen by chance then it
merely means that we have not uncovered its cause. Of course, this
doesn't mean that everything is meaningful in the way we might
think it is. For example, if we look up and see a cloud which seems
to look like our old aunt Betty, that doesn't mean that it has
genuinely been created to look like that! The cloud has formed
according to the laws of physics, and our mind has merely seen a
meaningful pattern where there wasn't one. Our minds, too, operate
according to laws, and sometimes they can lead us to incorrect
conclusions!

How to use this principle:
As Humans, we evolved to tend to only notice the links between
cause and effects when the one follows the other quite quickly. It
can be difficult for us to perceive how something that is happening
today was directly caused by something that happened last month,
last year, or even last decade! But it can be tremendously
rewarding to uncover these cause-and-effect links. Two useful
questions to ask yourself: Which actions in the past have led you
to your greatest successes (however you define success)? And what
could be the hidden causes - usually things we ourselves have
thought, done or not done - that have caused any undesirable
effects in our lives?

7. The principle of gender

This final principle states that everything is either masculine or
feminine. This distinction is not quite the same as the difference
between the Human sexes, it's more of a general, abstract
principle. This is very similar to the principle of polarity: that
everything is composed of two opposites (and that, often, these
opposites attract!). There are always two types of energies, the
one being attracted to the other.

How to use this principle: Understand that most creative acts
involve the joining together of two different elements. Also be
aware that two people can usually achieve together in harmony what
one person alone cannot.

So, overall the Kybalion is about looking at the general laws of
the universe and showing how these laws also operate in the Human
mind. This was key to the ancient philosophy of Hermeticism: that
humans are a reflection of the whole of nature, or the universe.
One other way of expressing this is the way that Christians believe
that man is made in God's image.

( To read more on the Kybalion, visit:
http://www.kybalion.org/kybalion.asp )

Does photographic memory exist?

Does photographic memory exist?

Throughout history people have desired perfect memories. During the ancient Greek and Roman eras, having a highly developed memory was the key to power, as those politicians who could best remember long and impressive speeches, with lots of facts, were the most likely to win popular approval. Also, before the printing press, a good memory was the key to having access to information: when there weren't any books, you had to rely on your own memory totally. Then
during the middle ages, a well developed memory was seen as a sign
of holiness (but if your memory was too good, you were suspected of witchcraft!).

Whenever I speak to people about memory, the one question always
crops up: how can I get a photographic memory?

What do they mean by photographic memory? Mostly people mean the
ability to use your eyes and brain as a sort of camera. So that you
can just look at something for a split second, and....click! Take a
mental photograph of it. Then, days, weeks, or years later you can
then just retrieve this mental image from your memory and look over
every detail of it, perfectly, as if you were still looking at it.

Most people would love to have this skill!

However, the truth is this: photographic memory, as described
above, does not exist!

Human memory never operates in this camera-like way. We are not
so objective, our memories are affected by our emotional states and
what we are looking at. As does our level of interest in what we're
looking at (we tend to remember more of the aspects of an image
that we're most interested by).

There are some rare cases of people through the years who've seemed
to have photographic memory, but in reality it turns out that their
memories - whilst exceptionally good, are not quite photographic.
They don't just look at the item for a split second, but usually
look at it carefully for many seconds, or minutes, studying it.
Also, they tend to be highly focused in how they concentrate on the
thing to be remembered, and they almost always use some kind of
memory techniques (as described in my book:
www.LostArtsOfTheMind.com/Book.htm ) rather than being born with
a natural photographic memory.

However, what *does* exist - and often gets confused as being
photographic memory - is something called eidetic imagery. Eidetic
imagery is like a kind of afterimage. If you've ever stared at
something very bright - such as a flame - and then looked away, you
might have experienced being able to still see the thing, albeit in
a ghostly form. This is an afterimage, and it usually isn't very
detailed, and fades very fast. However, about one in ten children
have a more enhanced version of this, called eidetic imagery,
whereby they can look at something, then close their eyes or look
away and still see the exact image for a number of seconds. Sadly,
most of the children who have this ability grow out of it, and its
therefore very rare in adults.

So, while it's a waste of time to search for the 'holy grail' of
photographic memory, we shouldn't despair as we can all improve our
memories by simply using memory enhancement techniques. And the
fact that some people can improve their memories so much using
those techniques that others think they have a photographic mind
just shows how powerful they can be!

Memory Event in the UK

Readers in the UK who are interested in memory should check out an exciting event happening on Saturday 18th November, as psychologist Dr David Lewis and 8-times world memory champion Dominic O'Brien will be holding a special 'memory masterclass' at the University of Brighton' to help people improve their memory.

I interviewed Dr Lewis to ask him about improving memory, and what will be happening at the event:

Q1: Can anyone improve their memory?

The short answer is Yes. Over the twenty years which I have been researching this topic and working with a wide variety of clients ranging from students to retirees, I have found almost everyone is capable of dramatically improving both the speed of retention and the accuracy of recall. Sadly far too many people tell themselves that they have a bad memory which then becomes a self-fulfilling belief.

Some of the greatest memory champions in the world, including eight-times world memory champion Dominic O’Brien, who will be giving a demonstration at the memory event, started out with what we might term perfectly ‘ordinary’ memories. Indeed, Dominic himself admits to being so dismal at school that his teachers believed in to be dyslexic. Yet by rigorously training, his memory he is now able to memorise the order of 40 packs of playing cards or a number more than a thousand digits in length.

Q2: How can some people perform such astonishing memory feats?

There are a variety of methods, but they all boil down to using your imagination to create vivid associations between the items you wish to remember - a technique developed by the Greeks some two and a half thousand years ago.

For most of us, just knowing about these techniques can be handy as we can then use them when necessary, but those who wish to develop a super-memory, perhaps for competitions or revising for exams, can simply just train themselves on these techniques for longer and so enjoy even more impressive improvements.

Q3: What kinds of benefits come from improving your memory?

Firstly, there are all the obvious things, such as having better recall, and not missing appointments and so on. But there are also some less obvious spin-offs, such as improved confidence, better career prospects, and better social interactions (particularly when you find it easier to remember people’s names and birthdays!). These memory strategies can also be used to gain more enjoyment out of life by, for example, learning a foreign language or a new skill. Improving your memory can also help increase your general intelligence levels, making life easier and making you more effective in your work.

Q4: What are the main memory problems people have?

When people think of improving memory they tend to think of it in terms of students revising for exams, but actually most of the problems people have with memory are things like constantly loosing things, not remembering what they intended to buy in the shops or having problems recalling people’s names. This latter is probably the most frequently cited difficulty and one which leaves people feeling embarrassed and ashamed when they find themselves unable to remember someone’s name within a few moments of meeting them for the first time.

Q5: Do we know much about memory?

Whilst many of the practical techniques for improving your memory date back thousands of years, its only in recent years that we’ve begun to get a good scientific grasp on how memory works. In fact, we’ve learned more about the working of the brain in the last decade than in the whole of previous history!

In our own research we use equipment which measures what is happening inside the brain when people are using their memories on a wide variety of tasks. We have found, for example, that certain mental states are especially good for establishing new memories and recalling old ones. I shall be showing people how to develop these states of mind during the lecture.

Q6: What will be happening at the memory event?

During the morning I will be introducing the Memory Enhancement programme developed from our research. This is called I.MP.AC.T, an acronym standing for Imagery. Mental Preparation. Active Concentration & Training. There will also be a talk by Dominic O’Brien who will be giving a demonstration of his truly remarkable memory skills.

In the afternoon I will be giving some more one-on-one memory and learning training to a smaller number of people. There are about 60 places left for the morning session, but only about 10 places left for the afternoon.

Q7: How can people get hold of tickets?

The tickets are free, but there are only a limited number. So please apply as soon as possible. You can get hold of tickets by emailing us at memory@mindmasterclass.com or by phoning us on 01323 422447. You can also get more information on the event by visiting www.MindMasterclass.com