I’ve literally just seen God! Can you explain why?

Over the course of our history, there have been people who claimed that they have seen God (Christian and others). These people are often able to vividly describe the ‘god’ that they have seen. They usually have an interaction with this ‘god’, which changes the way they live their lives. This phenomenon has been experienced by people, regardless of their stance on religion. But why? Did a ‘god’ really visit them? Or is it all in their minds?

 

Temporal Lobes and Spiritual Experiences

One theory proposes that there is a part of the brain, called the Temporal Lobe, which possesses the circuitry for religious experiences. This theory was proposed by Professor Vilayanur Ramachandran, who found that around 25% of people with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) are obsessed with religion. After an episode of intense seizure, these patients claimed that they saw ‘god’ and afterwards are convinced that they should follow the path shown to them by that ‘god’. Prof. Ramachandran mentioned in an interview that after such an experience, most patients will be walking around with huge necklaces with crosses and bibles.

In order to test this theory, Prof. Ramachandran and his colleagues seeked to find out how people respond when they are shown neutral words (e.g. chairs and tables), sexual ones and religious words by measuring their Galvanic Skin Responses. What they found was that TLE patients are highlly responsive to religious words, but not on sexual and neutral ones. In addition, based on their skin responses, they are far less interested in sexually loaded words that neutral ones. Participants without damage to their Temporal Lobes on the other hand, were highly responsive to sexual words.

 

Can this be induced?

A better question, I suppose is that is it possible to give healthy (people without TLE) people these experiences by altering their brain circuitry? Dr. Persinger set out to do just that. He developed a helmet connected to a machine which if worn, alters the function of an individual’s Temporal Lobes. He asked participants, who did not know what the experiment was about, to wear this helmet while doing various activities. 80% of them reported feeling that something or someone (which they cannot see) was around them. It should be noted that Dr. Persinger insisted that the susceptibility to experience such a thing varies from one person to the next.

 

 

 

Advertisement

Why do Alzheimer’s disease sufferers remember songs from distant past?

Alzheimer’s disease, the 6th leading cause of death in America, is a form of dementia, commonly associated with memory loss in later life. It affects different areas of people’s lives such as planning, organisation and co-ordination. Despite being widely known as a condition of the elderly, it is not uncommon for people in their 40s or 50s to develop Alzheimer’s. At the time of writing, the causes of this disease is unknown, and hence, there is very little known about its treatment and prevention.

 

SYMPTOMS

Brain imaging studies have shown that little by little, the brains of people with Alzheimer’s are getting thinner and are losing their connections to each other. Such degeneration of the brain causes significant memory loss, particularly of newly presented items. Symptoms also include a decline in organisation skills, planning and co-ordination, as well as having (unfounded) suspicions over significant others.  These symptoms will gradually worsen over time- the progression varies from one person to another.

 

THE EFFECT OF MUSIC

There has been some cases where Alzheimer’s sufferers who were non-responsive and were unable to communicate suddenly awakens when they hear a piece of music which they liked in the past (before they had Alzheimer’s). A case in point is that of Henry, which as you will see in the video, was unresponsive to other therapies and interventions. But after being given an ipod which played music from his era, he began to respond to simple questions. Here’s the video:

 

 

One of the reasons why people such as Henry is able to respond to music is because our medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC) is one of the last parts that are affected by Alzheimer’s. A recent fMRI study conducted by Dr. Janata of the University of California-Davis has shown that the mPFC is the part of our brains which processes music and interlinks it with memory and emotions. As long as the mPFC is still intact and relatively undamaged by Alzheimer’s disease, significant pieces of music will still be able to evoke emotions and memories.

 

For an abstract of Dr. Janata’s research, click HERE