What do Muslims, Christians and Hindus All Have In Common?

[VWFringe]

What do Christians and people of all other religions on this planet have in common?

Brain scans of people in prayer/worship show elevated dopamine levels, regardless of the religion they practice.

So, the answer, editorially speaking, is that each religion has basically the same purpose: To focus the student on increasing their understanding and control of their individual Human Reward System, or creation of Dopamine pathways which can be used on-demand.

Watch out for anybody who tries to cast another religion as "the enemy" because they are just trying to use you for politics. Enemy is a control word.

 

[storybookhero]

Interesting...... i wonder if people who go to meditate have this same effect?

 

[VWFringe]

Yes

I believe when we do it right, each of these excercises IS a meditation (a trick we do with our brains):
Loving someone,
emotionally bonding to someone (or a cat, or a rabbit, in my experience),
meditation,
worship or prayer,
Zen Mudita (experiencing joy in someone else's accomplishments or good fortune),

and I believe we are given dopamine in response to certain physical activities, like when we poo or urinate, or jogging (though it's been a long time for me, so can't say really). I do notice some when I cop a squat, and believe it has something to do with why I was so anal retentive when I was a child, and how some elements of that may have survived.

Wallowing in pain also generates some dopamine, which I believe is why people develop depression, as an addictive way of modifying their brain-chemistries. (In the absense of love, who's to judge? But, there are better ways to get it - that's what makes it innappropriate.) So, to someone with ADHD "Failure becomes it's own reward," but watch out for that.

Here's a study showing one type of meditation generates dopamine:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11958969

Increased dopamine tone during meditation-induced change of consciousness.

Kjaer TW, Bertelsen C, Piccini P, Brooks D, Alving J, Lou HC.
Source

John F. Kennedy Institute, Gl. Landevej 7, 2600, Glostrup, Denmark. kjaer@nordita.dk
Abstract

This is the first in vivo demonstration of an association between endogenous neurotransmitter release and conscious experience. Using 11C-raclopride PET we demonstrated increased endogenous dopamine release in the ventral striatum during Yoga Nidra meditation. Yoga Nidra is characterized by a depressed level of desire for action, associated with decreased blood flow in prefrontal, cerebellar and subcortical regions, structures thought to be organized in open loops subserving executive control. In the striatum, dopamine modulates excitatory glutamatergic synapses of the projections from the frontal cortex to striatal neurons, which in turn project back to the frontal cortex via the pallidum and ventral thalamus. The present study was designed to investigate whether endogenous dopamine release increases during loss of executive control in meditation. Participants underwent two 11C-raclopride PET scans: one while attending to speech with eyes closed, and one during active meditation. The tracer competes with endogenous dopamine for access to dopamine D2 receptors predominantly found in the basal ganglia. During meditation, 11C-raclopride binding in ventral striatum decreased by 7.9%. This corresponds to a 65% increase in endogenous dopamine release. The reduced raclopride binding correlated significantly with a concomitant increase in EEG theta activity, a characteristic feature of meditation. All participants reported a decreased desire for action during meditation, along with heightened sensory imagery. The level of gratification and the depth of relaxation did not differ between the attention and meditation conditions. Here we show increased striatal dopamine release during meditation associated with the experience of reduced readiness for action. It is suggested that being in the conscious state of meditation causes a suppression of cortico-striatal glutamatergic transmission. To our knowledge this is the first time in vivo evidence has been provided for regulation of conscious states at a synaptic level.
Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science B.V.

 

[Vicki]

I was watching Dark Matters on The Science Channel, and they were talking about something similar to this. They had 12 people participate in a test where they were lightly shocked in an MRI machine, or something like that. (It was 2AM, and I was really tired, so the details could be off a little about how they shocked the people) Anyway, they separated the 12 into two groups of 6. Six were devote Christians, in this case Catholic. The other six were Atheists. They showed both groups two pictures. One was a picture of the Virgin Mary, the other was just some random piece of work by DaVinci. The 6 people that were Christian said that when they looked at the picture of the Virgin Mary, they experienced less pain. The 6 people that were Atheist, were not affected by either image.

 

[weedemon]

so it's more of a spiritual thing, not a religious one then right? I'm all for spiritualism and souls. I think religion is a crock though

 

[VWFringe]

Often in nature when a monkey leaves their group, they are torn to pieces by another group, just for being a foreigner. But within their group they are loved and cared for, until they are excluded.

I think there are parallels in the human world. But it may be kind of a chicken and egg thing when it comes to drawing down the particulars of how our religions teach us to be territorial - were those just script edits done by the one percent at the time (religious authorities), or did they truly reflect the will of God, or even the will of men and women? I do think the Bible has been edited by people with power, and that had to transfer something, if only a particular way of looking at things, or how things were framed.


That we can teach ourselves to feel love when we are just by ourselves, is huge. That we choose not to do so all the time is strange. That we choose to do so from *negative pursuits, instead of natural ones, is learned behavior, or aversions that we haven't tackled and torn up.

When it comes to dopamine and me - It's like there is a room where I live, but I stay out mostly.



*negative ways of experiencing dopamine (from my experience):
jealousy, anger,
self-righteous indignation
making people wrong/making myself right
dwelling on failure, negative self-thoughts,

 

[weedemon]

you sound like a buddist man i like thoughts thoughts there

you usually post "deep" stuff i find

 

[storybookhero]

alan watts is kinda amazing to listen to if you never have.