Meditation found to increase brain size

Does staring at your big toe and drooling on yourself count? If so my brain is huge.

Hey I've come up with an easy way to clear your mind...it just requires that you have an attention span greater then a small rodent. When your relaxing yourself and breathing only focus on your breathing. It really seems to help me out because of all the mindless chatter going on in my head.

I often wonder whats up with all the random questions that pop into my head...maybe we're all connected somehow =S

There are many ways to meditate. I'm wondering if the results work only with the meditation used, not clearing the mind, but focusing on wandering stimuli, a passing thought, a bodily sensation, in a detached way. I wonder if the same results apply to the many types of meditations.

ha, yeah i agree with the senses man.. I've been meditating consistantly for about 3 years and I bet I'd feel pain from one of those dog whistles. But yeah.. I have much less tolerance for high frequency sound, and i'm able to hear it more then most other people. I can't stand when a TV is on and no'ones watching it because of the high pitch it emits, its one of most brutal ones.

I also think my vision is getting sharper, well much more then that, now I am "seeing things"..

I believe in meditation they call this "awareness"... and in that respect.. its not a system of belief but experience.... its not blindness its the persuit of clarity and balance. Theres a simple meditation excerise where you just close your eyes, get relaxed, stay silent, and just listen.. you'll find after like X amount of time... 10 minutes maybe.. you'll start to hear several other sounds you didn't know were there, with distinct patterns.

So after you know the other sounds are there, does that knowledge or attunement of the senses remain, or expand?

I've also become much more sensitive to the energy people emit. Believe it or not... and in fact, Don't believe it... experience it.. its the only way you'll know. But yeah... Theres so much depression and negative feelings on public transportation that I didn't think I was gunna make it one day, I was restraining myself from getting off the bus, and i sure as hell never used to be like that... in fact i am more calm then ever.

Also through meditation i've noticed my ability to focus has dramatically increased, as well as other analytical functions. Things seem to make more sense now. I am able to learn things quickly, hell I could go on. If my brain hasn't drastically changed... then some other subliminal energy pattern has.

They say telekinetic abilities comes from the top of your brain, but i'm not sure.

Ahh and i'll leave on this note... my freind was studied at a university ( i can find out which one because I don't know)... and yeah shes a pretty psychic girl, and they found that her brain used different pathways then normal for many functions... perhaps more efficient routes? She was born this way too, she always had her extra "sense".

by the way if you don't meditate, you would not believe what its like to reach that balance for the first time.. in fact every meditation it feels like your old self dies in a way and is replaced with a much wiser one.. but that balance, man.. I really felt like all of a sudden I was an imposter in someone elses life, i didn't know I could be this person.

Total balance... to not really FEEL like doing anything, but yet, totally able and willing to do anything, even if its undesireable, you don't even think about it, your just... balanced, focused on what your doing, and being content at it. I don't know what I would do without meditation... I used to be the shyest kid, who like feared everything and had like no confidence to do anything. I'm finding I keep pushing the bar for myself, trying to tackle harder things and excelling at them. Its just great. I swear this is what kids should be learning at an early age, to focus their mind and find realisations about their qualities, addressing hindering subconcious thinking etc.

Another thing.. I used to drink, quite a bit... and I would deny that it was any kind of balancing act, or stress reliever.. but now I just can't find a reason to have even one drink, even after a hard day of work, i just see it as something that gets in the way with my day.

MEDITATION WILL CHANGE YOU IN MANY WAYS. But I don't mean it will make you a different person... it picks away all those layers that aren't really YOU. It removes influences society has on your thinking and you find you really are... i mean we all think we know who we are, but with meditation I find you just keep re-defining that.

reply to post by CavemanDD

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I totally agree that meditation can change you. It can bring balance and peace to your life. You tend to focus more inward as you said, instead of worrying so much about unimportant things. It brings a great sense of self-realization.

CavemanDD

I couldn't have said it better...thank you! I find it's also about pushing the boundaries of what we think we're capable of, and allowing space for Spirit to show us completely new possibilities that we hadn't even considered. I've found that it has also increased my capacity to trust and be led in the right direction, which has been wonderful. Getting in touch with that feeling that "something" good is on it's way, and we just have to wait for it to materialise is quite magical, and lends such a sense of excitement to every day. I see it as moving one part of who I am into a whole other dimension in meditation, and the images and information that part of me collects are what inform my intuition or knowing in this dimension...a gateway, if you like, to bring back a little enlightenment.

Hope this makes sense...!

Cait

reply to post by caitlinfae

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yeah man for sure. I didn't wanna get all scientific, or off in space there.. I believe the two actually meet on middle grounds, that there is a balance in everything.. Its like... we seemingly live in a logical world...even though many of our calculations are incorrect.. we still try to measure things even though I think they are immeasurable... They are intertwined. Ah i'm not getting into this one just yet, i don't have time to type for hours tonight.

But yes.. it totally gets into experimenting what you can and can't do, trying expand your understanding of everything you percieve.

I'll say this... people think the dream world is wierd... but a little while ago I had a very intense astral projection and man... things made sense there... and comming back to the physical conciousness.. i really felt like the physical world was infact the wierd one.. I tried to cling on to that perception but it kinda left as I adapted back to the physical, but i'll remember the feeling, thinking... just where the hell am I really?

Meditation is

Some years ago I experimented with meditation.

For a mantra I simply repeated 1,2,3,4 in my head and concentrated on the counting only, when I felt the 'drift off' (like shifting a mental gear) I stopped counting and just concentrated on my breathing.

One time I felt that I hovered over my body and had a visual of a flower with hundreds of petals. (I think it was yellow? Can't really remember. )

Another time, this was so weird that it snapped me right out of my state of mind; I felt my head expanding to fill the whole room, that is a weird sensation!
It can only be explained by experiencing it yourself.

I must meditate again sometime.

Toadmund...maybe what you were sensing or seeing was your crown chakra, or a representation of it? It's traditionally depicted as a thousand petaled lotus, gold or lilac in colour, and it's our link to our outer bodies and higher realms...very cool if you managed to see it!

Caveman...I've had that feeling of correctness too, of not wanting to return, especially when talking to spirit guides and other beings..it's like all the answers are there and I could talk for hours, and just BE there with them...leaving is very difficult, for me and them, sometimes. But hey...I know I can go there when ever I want!

Cait

[edit on 26-6-2008 by caitlinfae]

Caveman...sorry...I just noticed what you said about public transport...I find it almost impossible to be in really busy built up places for any length of time...the energy there is so dense, it really pulls me down. It seems even more extreme as we raise our vibration, and the gap between us and that stretches...it feels muddy and angry and stressful. We are blessed enough to live out in the sticks away from almost all of it! I would recommend it if you can...it will help a lot just to be out of the "civilised" world. Increases your sensitivity like you wouldn't believe.

Ok...I blethered enough!!

Cait

Hmmm, interesting!
I just remembered another thing about the flower, it all began with a vision of a (like a) camera shutter, the black shutters opened, revealing the flower.

I was also under the spell of a flower that I inhaled just previous to this session of meditation.
(but not the mind expansion episode)

reply to post by caitlinfae

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yeah I bet. I take any chance I get to get out to nature, but I find it even loud and busy out there, in a different manner of speaking.

I live in the city, but I get out to see my parents, and i mean they live in a small town, but its a big difference, but still, not the same as being right out in the wilderness. I'm holding up alright though, I need to be around civilisation, I learn so much and feel I have a lot to give, I can find peace in a busy city, as long as I have my space ..

Yes I am finding it more difficult to be around that "old environment".. so much stress and fear that i'm just not attuned to. If I have the energy (and if I don't feel my energy levels are being scrambled by my surroundings).. i often meditate on public transportation, trying to put out good thoughts and good energy... people pick up on that, whether they realise it or not. And I see it this way... it spreads out... if you can relieve some stress from someone, thats a little less stress they might put on someone else.

I've also noticed that liek half.. IF THAT... of my vision/attention is individual, or rather, controlled soley by ME.. perhaps its all controlled by my surroundings.

What I mean is... any time someone so much as glances at me, I don't pan my eyes.. my eyes snap to meet theres directly.. I can do this whether someone is distant, in a car driving by etc.. and I started to really think about it one day, and it actually annoys me a bit sometimes.. its totally seemingly "unvolunary looking". But then I realised my eyes started to "snap" attention to trees and plants, animals.... but hell.. i'm not getting in that one.

Theres deffinately more to us then we innitially think.

Caveman...I see what you mean...like something is "making" you look at it? Like energy talking to you? Have I understood? It could be in response to the energy you're kicking out, and you're more in cotrol than you think.

I also think that the urban environment is definitely better for younger people...I lived in a city for the first 40 years of my life, and then suddenly, I couldn't stand it. I'm sure everyone has a different experience of that one tho!

Toadmund...the flower thing is interesting...they are much more powerful than we realise...flower essences for instance. Did the flower look like what you saw in your meditation maybe?

Cait

This particular flower was rolled into a thin paper tube and ignited.

So, no, the flowers were a bit different, but smelled just as sweet! (at least I assumed the multi-petaled flower smelled as such.

Ah ha!! I see what you mean...not what I would recommend meself, but each it his own! Try the other kind sometime...

Cait

yeah I know. .. I know if I want to be totally ignorant I can turn it off.. essentially I just take control and tell myself to focus on a specific spot, or just close my eyes... but if i try just being at peace, and letting things flow subconciously...looking passively instead of actively they call it, then thats when it happens.

I'll post more later, I'll talk about my "inner visions" that i've taken notice of because of meditation.



[edit on 26-6-2008 by CavemanDD]

Yup...letting the Universe talk to you and lead you. Will look forward to your next posts...

I gotta go bed...I'm sleepy...talk soon

Cait

Interesting.

Juggling also has been shown to increase brain size, at least while you're practicing regularly.

A German study used MRI and showed structural changes in the brain's gray matter in the visual and motor areas - the mid-temporal area and the posterior intraparietal sulcus.

I'd suspect it's similar in mediation - the increase only last while you are doing it regularly then after a few months drops back to the original size.

I wonder if this may coincide with the belief of Albert Einstein's brain being larger than the average-sized human brain. He was supposed to be known for his thought experiments which was to have brought about things like his theory of relativity and some others.

Einstein's Brain

I would guess that this does bring about a higher understanding of how things in the universe come together and move about almost flawlessly.

edit: fix link

[edit on 26-6-2008 by spec_ops_wannabe]