Where the brain processes spiritual experiences

[Judi Lynn]

Date:
June 1, 2018
Source:
Yale University

Yale scientists have identified a possible neurobiological home for the spiritual experience -- the sense of connection to something greater than oneself.

Activity in the parietal cortex, an area of the brain involved in awareness of self and others as well as attention processing, seems to be a common element among individuals who have experienced a variety of spiritual experiences, according to a study published online May 29 in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

"Spiritual experiences are robust states that may have profound impacts on people's lives," said Marc Potenza, professor of psychiatry, of the Yale Child Study Center, and of neuroscience. "Understanding the neural bases of spiritual experiences may help us better understand their roles in resilience and recovery from mental health and addictive disorders."

Spiritual experiences can be religious in nature or not, such as feeling of oneness in nature or the absence of self during sporting events. Researchers at Yale and the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia University interviewed 27 young adults to gather information about past stressful and relaxing experiences as well as their spiritual experiences. The subjects then underwent fMRI scans while listening for the first time to recordings based on their personalized experiences. While individual spiritual experiences differed, researchers noted similar patterns of activity in the parietal cortex as the subjects imagined experiencing the events in the recordings.

More:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180601170056.htm

[tblue37]

1. K&R and thanks. nt

[LSFL]

2. hmmm...

So God is all in your head.

[Duppers]

3. Not exactly...

"Spiritual experiences can be religious in nature or not, such as feeling of oneness in nature or the absence of self during sporting events."

This author had to add "during SPORTING events"!! "Sporting"? WTF? Well, okay. Weird tho.

There are folks, like myself (and others such as those in Harvard studies) who've experienced this "spiritual oneness" during LSD use. And I'm an atheist. It was the most awesome experience of my life. This was almost forty yrs ago and was impossible for me to explain and articulate to anyone who'd never experienced it. The few with whom I tried thought I was just delusional.


Related:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism

[LSFL]

5. thank you for your reply

I understand that there are areas of the brain that are more active in certain situations. I think the sports example is valid as I have attended many Pittsburgh Steelers games where I was swept away by the synergy.
Be that as it may....I can accept that that loss of self and connection to the crowd was a result of the time and place and being surrounded by like-minded people. Spiritual is just as good of a description as anything.
What puzzles me is why my religious colleagues scour the internet for scientific validation of their beliefs. (This should be in the religion forum I see)
Are they trying to convince me, or themselves?
If I can accept the transcendance at a football game as a result of circumstance, why do they attribute so much more to a parallel experience?

Sorry to be so scattered and off topic. I have always had a million questions.

[Duppers]

4. Judi, thank you so much for finding and posting this.

My post #3 explains.

🙏