I've been recording brainwaves for about twenty years. I've looked at the brainwaves of almost
1500 people practicing TM. And over that twenty years the brainwave patterns remain quite similar.
What's changed is the equipment—behind me you see the equipment I started with—it weighs 300 pounds
and only recorded 12 channels. This is what we use now. Records 32 channels we can have up to
256—it's battery-powered, it fits in a carry-on. It allows me to do demonstrations so that when I
give presentations on the EEG patterns during TM, I can actually show you what is happening. I'd
like to show you how the brain changes as a person begins the Transcendental Meditation technique.
My oldest daughter Dariana—she's the brains of this presentation—she's an [MIU] student. We'll
be looking at her brainwaves when she's sitting looking at you, and then also while she's closing
her eyes and transcending. So what I've done is selected four leads—four points on the scalp. This
front top one is a front left of the brain. This bottom fourth one is a front right. The front part
of the brain—that's your executive centers—the back is your visual processing center. The point
I want you to notice is a number of things. What's going on in the front of the brain is different
than what's going on in the back. Also notice how active, how thick these signals. This is very fast
processing. This is what your brain does when 450 people are looking at you. The first time that I
did an EEG demo I had the worst stage fright I'd ever had. Probably because it's not something that
you can fake—if you're really nervous reading a speech you can kind of fake it—you can't fake
it if you start meditating and it doesn't work, everyone would know! But when I got up on stage
and I was sitting there, you know, my heart rate was way up and my palms were sweaty and I was
probably shaking a little bit, and then I was told to close my eyes and start TM. And it worked,
just instantly. All of a sudden I was having, you know, deep experiences of the transcendent and
apparently the brainwaves matched it. So we're going to have Dariana close her eyes and she'll
begin the TM technique. And what you'll notice is, one thing, is this vast activity will begin
to disappear and you see very slow rhythmical activity. It's very high amplitude, rhythmical
activity is alpha activity, and you'll also see it in all the different sensors. It was first seen
here in the back of the brain—notice as well, we see this rhythmical resting rhythm of the cortex
here in the front of the brain. That whole mental chatter that's constantly going on—evaluating,
deciding, planning, worrying—all of that is settling down. What happens is everything else,
all of the normal thoughts and activities—just mental activity goes away—and it just becomes
that mental silence that's there anyway. It's really natural feeling it doesn't feel like
you're doing something foreign to yourself—it's just really just kind of letting your mind
experience itself. What we'll do now is just watch the brainwaves while Dariana meditates.
So the point I wanted you to see is how quickly the brain changes, and how it's
really fundamentally different than just waking experience. This has very real benefits for
you as a student—the experience changes the brain. You're adding experience of silence,
but it's not dul,l it's not passive—there's a lot of vitality, there's wakefulness there, there's
alertness. And that brain state and that inner experience is integrated in a very systematic,
practical, real way with the ability to think and enjoy the world. Lately I've been meditating right
after class and I've noticed that then when I do my homework, I'm just really efficient I just get
it all done and I'm finished with it. But if I do it the other way around and I try and do homework
and then meditate, I have to take this chunk of time in order to kind of relax and regroup
after class— I'd need a snack and have to do all these other things so it actually probably takes
me twice as long if I don't meditate first. The intriguing point is is this happens naturally—it's
nothing you have to try to do because experience changes the brain, and moving the brain back and
forth from this restfully alert state during TM to focus processing activity,
the two begin to be knit together into one very integrated function of brain and consciousness.