Brain synchrony

Inter-subject EEG synchrony

RomanZidarič, MTHP

Study conducted in July 2018

Summary

This article is describing three pilot studies, which probe into the mechanics of Maharishi Effect - how an individual can influence the whole society in an evolutionary way. In particular these studies are probing into induced group transcending - how an individual can increase the brainwave orderliness of another individual, or even of a group of individuals. Their brainwaves not only become orderly in their own brains, the EEG signals from different individuals become synchronized with one another.

Introduction

Large body of research has identified great benefits form the practice of Transcendental Meditation (TM) for the development of mental potential and good health, but there are also positive sociological and ecological effects of this practice^[1]. During the practice of TM the brainwaves become very coherent. Subjectively this coherent functioning of the brain is experienced as pure, or unbounded awareness, without any particular content. This state of consciousness is also referred as Transcendental Consciousness in the literature, because it is physiologically distinct from other major states of consciousness. This orderly functioning of the brain is correlated with improved mental performance^[5].

Sociological studies have discovered Maharishi Effect - when 1% of a population practices TM, the whole society becomes more orderly, there is less crime and there are more positive trends in society^[2,3,4]. This effect can be greatly amplified, if there is a group of advanced meditators, or sidhas. Their practice is so powerful, that only a square root of 1% of the society practicing TM-sidhi in a group is enough to improve the trends in that society. The most powerful of all the sidhi techniques is called yogic flying. Studies have shown that this practice creates maximum coherence in the brain^[6]. But is there any relationship between these orderly brainwaves, and the increased orderliness of the whole society?

Maharishi Effect is known mostly from sociological studies. For example, crime statistics has been collected from public records, and then correlated with the known intervention (usually a group of sidhas in a World Peace Assembly). But some studies also looked into physiological parameters. One study found increased levels of serotonin in the population in the vicinity of one such group of sidhas^[7]. Another study found increased EEG coherence in the population in the vicinity of the same group of sidhas.

Another study has discovered, that such an intervention (group yogic flying) can be detected a thousand miles away, in the form of increased inter-subject EEG coherence between subjects meditating together^[8]. This means that the brainwaves of two individuals became more similar to one another, while a distant group was practicing yogic flying. This study is very interesting, because it directly demonstrates the functioning of collective consciousness. This detection can be likened to the detection of gravity waves, where a distant object can create ripples in space-time, and these ripples affect distant objects in the same way.

A different kind of experiment was needed to probe into the mechanics of how yogic flying can increase EEG coherence between two subjects. The previous study has identified the effect of group flying over vast distances, while this new study is looking into a direct influence of an individual yogic flyer on two meditating witnesses, sitting nearby.

Procedures and results

A two-channel EEG machine (EEG-SMT) was used for the first study. The electrode cables were custom made to accomodate for this study. The electrodes used were the disposable ECG electrodes with solid gel. The skin was first scrubbed and cleaned with alcohol. Both witnessing subjects were sitting next to one another. The EEG signal was taken from their forehead (F3), their left earlobe was connected to the respective reference electrode. The common drive electrode was connected to their left hand (both hands were wired together). The flier was sitting and flying nearby. He was not connected to any EEG machine. There was a large screen on the wall, showing live EEG correlation chart (more on this later). The entire experiment was captured by a camera, which showed all the three subjects and the screen at the same time.

The protocol consisted of five minutes of group meditation, after that there was a five minutes flying session, while the two witnesses continued to meditate.

A special new live correlation chart has been developed for this study. This chart was developed in particular to show transient orderliness, even if it happened within less than a second. Coherence charts are not so suitable for this purpose, because they rely on Fast Fourier Transform, which requires many samples, and this is making the coherence curve less sensitive to rapid changes in orderliness. Correlation can be defined even with a few samples, or one can take many more samples to calculate it. This new chart calculates hundreds of correlation figures for every new sample, taking into consideration varied number of previous samples. All these correlation figures are stacked verticaly in the chart, ranging from short-term correlation at the bottom, to long-term correlation at the top of the chart (up to four seconds worth of samples). The correlation is colour-coded, ranging from blue (r<=0) to green (r=0.3), yellow (r=0.6), orange (r=0.8), red (r=0.95) and finaly purple (r=1). The chart is refreshing itself in real time, constantly overwriting the 4-second window with new data. The raw EEG signals used to calculate correlation have been restricted in frequency from 4 to 30 Hz (low frequencies contain many artefacts). Coherence can be high even if the two signals are slightly shifted, while correlation requires complete alignment. This synchrony is seen during the deepest stages of meditation.

The video recording was most instrumental, because one could easily identify the effects of yogic flying (at this point most fliers are only hopping). After about a minute or so of yogic flying, virtually every individual hop had a marked influence on the brains of the two witnesses. The EEG correlation between the two brains is usually zero, but during group meditation there were times of marked increase of inter-subject EEG correlation (more on this in the next study below). But group meditation also made the witnesses more sensitive to the effects of yogic flying. These two witnesses otherwise have very high frontal EEG coherence in the alpha range during TM, and the flier is very experienced. The frontal EEG (F3) of the two witnesses was mostly in the alpha range, but with every hop these alpha waves became synchronized, as can be seen on the chart below.

The second burst of correlation on this chart coincided with the hop. The bottom chart is showing raw data for this same time frame. The two EEG signals are superimposed on one another to show how well they fit. In the perfect fit only the green and red colors would be visible, the misalignment is seen as white and yellow areas on this chart. You can see that these bursts of correlation coincided with good alignment of the two EEG signals.

The second study had only one witness, everything else was the same. The EEG machine used here was a 4-channel Bliss Master machine, compatible with the OpenBCI standard (more on these EEG machines and the corresponding software can be found online - Google:Bliss meter). Only the two channels were considered in this study (F3 and F4). The witness has not been meditating during the flying session, so he was not so sensitive to the inter-subject effects. But these effects could still be seen quite frequently. In particular the hops tended to induce frontal EEG synchrony in the witness (r=1). One of my colleagues commented that such results could be due to auditory cueing or motion artefacts, so another study was conducted, with the flier in a different room. But the results were still the same.

In the third study both the witness and the flier were hooked up to their own independent EEG machines (EEG-SMT for the flier and Bliss Master for the witness). Two screens were seen in the video, each showing a live correlation chart (top screen for the witness, bottom screen for the flier). The correlation charts were shown for the frontal EEG signals (F3 and F4). Yogic flying introduces excessive motion artefacts in the EEG signals, so data can not be used for analysis. But the effects of yogic flying on the witness could be clearly seen, as mentioned in the previous study.

The most interesting thing happened during the initial group meditation. Both subjects in this study have very high frontal EEG correlation during TM (in excess of 0.95), so the correlation charts were mostly red. But there were also periods of frontal synchrony (r=1, purple colour). These synchrony events happened virtually simultaneously in the two subjects. Moreover, the transcendence (synchrony) of one individual induced a similar transcendence in another individual a fraction of a second later. This induced transcending was going both ways - sometimes the first subject became the leader, sometimes the second one.

Discussion

This group transcending has been noticed before by some researchers (simultaneous breath suspension), but this last study also shows that there are leaders and followers in this process. And the first two studies show that the yogic flier is a very powerful leader in this process. It would be good to do more studies like this, with more subjects in a group.

The implication from this finding of induced inter-subject EEG synchrony is that there must be some underlying mechanism for this synchronization to happen. This mechanism must be more fundamental than individual consciousness, we call it collective consciousness. This finding opens the door for studying the group dynamics of consciousness, or how different individuals can together create an orderly society, which as a whole functions more inteligently than all the individuals taken together.

Literature:

1. www.tm.org/research-on-meditation
2. DILLBECK, M. C., LANDRITH III, G., & ORME-JOHNSON, D. W. (1981). The Transcendental Meditation program and crime rate change in a sample of forty-eight cities. Journal of Crime and Justice, 4, 25–45.
3. ORME-JOHNSON, D. W., ALEXANDER, C. N., DAVIES, J. L., CHANDLER, H. M., & LARIMORE, W. E. (1988). International peace project in the Middle East: The effect of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 32(4), 776–812.
4. HAGELIN, J. S., ORME-JOHNSON, D. W., RAINFORTH, M., CAVANAUGH, K., & ALEXANDER, C. N. (1999). Results of the National Demonstration Project to Reduce Violent Crime and Improve Governmental Effectiveness in Washington, D.C. Social Indicators Research, 47, 153-201.
5. DILLBECK, M. C.; ORME-JOHNSON, D. W.; WALLACE, R. K. Frontal EEG Coherence, H-Reflex Recovery, Concept Learning, and the TM-Sidhi Program. International Journal of Neuroscience 15: 151-157, 1981.
6. TRAVIS, F. T., and ORME-JOHNSON, D. W. EEG coherence and power during yogic flying. International Journal of Neuroscience 54: 1-12, 1990.
7. PUGH, N. D.; WALTON, K. G.; and CAVANAUGH, K. L. Can time series analysis of serotonin turnover test the theory that consciousness is a field? Society for Neuroscience Abstracts 14: 372, 1988.
8. ORME-JOHNSON, D.W.; DILLBECK, M. C.; WALLACE, R. K.; and LANDRITH III, G. S. Intersubject EEG coherence: Is consciousness a field? International Journal of Neuroscience 16: 203-209, 1982.