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If you've been around this world for a while like me, of course you know
that the heart has it's own brain and consciousness...but if not, check
out the article below - fascinating!
The best proof I've seen offered that the heart has its own brain is the
fact that quadripalegics continue to breathe and have a heart beat even
though the neural connection to the brain has been completely severed.
I used HeartMath for a while years ago, and it's pretty cool.
-Brent
The Heart Has Its Own “Brain” and Consciousness
Last updated
on August 20, 2012 at 12:00 am EDT by in5d Alternative News
Many believe that conscious awareness originates in
the brain alone. Recent scientific research suggests that consciousness
actually emerges from the brain and body acting together. A growing body
of evidence suggests that the heart plays a particularly significant role
in this process.
Far
more than a simple pump, as was once believed, the heart is now
recognized by scientists as a highly complex system with its own
functional “brain.”
Research in the new discipline of neurocardiology
shows that the heart is a sensory organ and a sophisticated center for
receiving and processing information. The nervous system within the heart
(or “heart brain”) enables it to learn, remember, and make functional
decisions independent of the brain’s cerebral cortex. Moreover, numerous
experiments have demonstrated that the signals the heart continuously
sends to the brain influence the function of higher brain centers
involved in perception, cognition, and emotional processing.
In addition to the extensive neural communication
network linking the heart with the brain and body, the heart also
communicates information to the brain and throughout the body via
electromagnetic field interactions. The heart generates the body’s most
powerful and most extensive rhythmic electromagnetic field. Compared
to the electromagnetic field produced by the brain, the electrical
component of the heart’s field is about 60 times greater in amplitude,
and permeates every cell in the body. The magnetic component
is approximately 5000 times stronger than the brain’s magnetic field and
can be detected several feet away from the body with sensitive
magnetometers.
The heart generates a continuous series of
electromagnetic pulses in which the time interval between each beat
varies in a dynamic and complex manner. The heart’s ever-present rhythmic
field has a powerful influence on processes throughout the body. We have
demonstrated, for example, that brain rhythms naturally synchronize to
the heart’s rhythmic activity, and also that during sustained feelings of
love or appreciation, the blood pressure and respiratory rhythms, among
other oscillatory systems, entrain to the heart’s rhythm.
 We
propose that the heart’s field acts as a carrier wave for information
that provides a global synchronizing signal for the entire body.
Specifically, we suggest that as pulsing waves of energy radiate out from
the heart, they interact with organs and other structures. The waves
encode or record the features and dynamic activity of these structures in
patterns of energy waveforms that are distributed throughout the body. In
this way, the encoded information acts to in-form (literally, give shape
to) the activity of all bodily functions—to coordinate and synchronize
processes in the body as a whole. This perspective requires an energetic
concept of information, in which patterns of organization are enfolded
into waves of energy of system activity distributed throughout the system
as a whole.
Basic research at the Institute of HeartMath shows
that information pertaining to a person’s emotional state is also
communicated throughout the body via the heart’s electromagnetic field.
The rhythmic beating patterns of the heart change significantly as we
experience different emotions. Negative emotions, such as anger or
frustration, are associated with an erratic, disordered, incoherent
pattern in the heart’s rhythms. In contrast, positive emotions, such as
love or appreciation, are associated with a smooth, ordered, coherent
pattern in the heart’s rhythmic activity. In turn, these changes in the
heart’s beating patterns create corresponding changes in the structure of
the electromagnetic field radiated by the heart, measurable by a
technique called spectral analysis.
More specifically, we have demonstrated that
sustained positive emotions appear to give rise to a distinct mode of
functioning, which we call psychophysiological coherence. During
this mode, heart rhythms exhibit a sine wave-like pattern and the heart’s
electromagnetic field becomes correspondingly more organized.
At the physiological level, this mode is characterized
by increased efficiency and harmony in the activity and interactions of
the body’s systems. [1]
Psychologically, this mode is linked with a notable
reduction in internal mental dialogue, reduced perceptions of stress,
increased emotional balance, and enhanced mental clarity, intuitive
discernment, and cognitive performance.
In sum, our research suggests that psychophysiological coherence is
important in enhancing consciousness—both for the body’s sensory
awareness of the information required to execute and coordinate
physiological function, and also to optimize emotional stability, mental
function, and intentional action. Furthermore, as we see next, there is
experimental evidence that psychophysiological coherence may increase our
awareness of and sensitivity to others around us. The Institute of
HeartMath has created practical technologies and tools that all people
can use to increase coherence.
Heart Field Interactions Between Individuals
Most people think of social communication solely in
terms of overt signals expressed through language, voice qualities,
gestures, facial expressions, and body movements. However, there is now
evidence that a subtle yet influential electromagnetic or “energetic” communication
system operates just below our conscious awareness. Energetic
interactions likely contribute to the “magnetic” attractions or
repulsions that occur between individuals, and also affect social
exchanges and relationships. Moreover, it appears that the heart’s field
plays an important role in communicating physiological, psychological,
and social information between individuals.
Experiments conducted at the Institute of HeartMath
have found remarkable evidence that the heart’s electromagnetic field can
transmit information between people. We have been able to measure an
exchange of heart energy between individuals up to 5 feet apart. We have
also found that one person’s brain waves can actually synchronize to
another person’s heart. Furthermore, when an individual is generating a
coherent heart rhythm, synchronization between that person’s brain waves
and another person’s heartbeat is more likely to occur. These findings
have intriguing implications, suggesting that individuals in a
psychophysiologically coherent state become more aware of the information
encoded in the heart fields of those around them.
The results of these experiments have led us to
infer that the nervous system acts as an “antenna,” which is tuned to and
responds to the electromagnetic fields produced by the hearts of other
individuals. We believe this capacity for exchange of
energetic information is an innate ability that heightens awareness and
mediates important aspects of true empathy and sensitivity to others
Furthermore, we have observed that this energetic communication ability
can be intentionally enhanced, producing a much deeper level of nonverbal
communication, understanding, and connection between people. There is
also intriguing evidence that heart field interactions can occur between
people and animals.
In short, energetic communication via the heart field
facilitates development of an expanded consciousness in relation to our
social world.
The Heart’s Field and Intuition
There are also new data suggesting that the heart’s
field is directly involved in intuitive perception, through its coupling
to an energetic information field outside the bounds of space and time.
Using a rigorous experimental design, we found compelling evidence that
both the heart and brain receive and respond to information about a
future event before the event actually happens. Even more surprising was
our finding that the heart appears to receive this “intuitive”
information before the brain. This suggests that the heart’s field may be
linked to a more subtle energetic field that contains information on
objects and events remote in space or ahead in time. Called by Karl
Pribram and others the “spectral domain,” this is a fundamental order of
potential energy that enfolds space and time, and is thought to be the
basis for our consciousness of “the whole.” (See heartmath.org for further
detail.)
Social Fields
In the same way that the heart generates energy in the
body, we propose that the social collective is the activator and
regulator of the energy in social systems.
A body of groundbreaking work shows how the field of
socioemotional interaction between a mother and her infant is essential
to brain development, the emergence of consciousness, and the formation
of a healthy self-concept. These interactions are organized along two
relational dimensions—stimulation of the baby’s emotions, and regulation
of shared emotional energy. Together they form a socioemotional field
through which enormous quantities of psychobiological and psychosocial
information are exchanged. Coherent organization of the mother-child
relations that make up this field is critical. This occurs when
interactions are charged, most importantly, with positive emotions (love,
joy, happiness, excitement, appreciation, etc.), and are patterned as
highly synchronized, reciprocal exchanges between these two individuals.
These patterns are imprinted in the child’s brain and thus influence
psychosocial function throughout life. (See Allan Schore, Affect
Regulation and the Origin of the Self.)
Moreover in a longitudinal study of 46 social
groups, one of us (RTB) documented how information about the global
organization of a group—the group’s collective consciousness—appears to
be transmitted to all members by an energetic field of socio-emotional
connection. Data on the relationships between each pair of
members was found to provide an accurate image of the social structure of
the group as a whole. Coherent organization of the group’s social structure
is associated with a network of positively charged emotions (love,
excitement, and optimism) connecting all members. This network of
positive emotions appears to constitute a field of energetic connection
into which information about the group’s social structure is encoded and
distributed throughout the group. Remarkably, an accurate picture of the
group’s overall social structure was obtained from information only about
relationships between pairs of individuals. We believe the only way this
is possible is if information about the organization of the whole group
is distributed to all members of the group via an energetic field. Such
correspondence in information between parts and the whole is consistent
with the principle of holographic organization. [2]
Synthesis and Implications
Some organizing features of the heart field,
identified in numerous studies at HeartMath, may also be shared by those
of our hypothesized social field. Each is a field of energy in which the
waveforms of energy encode the features of objects and events as energy
moves throughout the system. This creates a nonlocal order of energetic
information in which each location in the field contains an enfolded
image of the organization of the whole system at that moment. The organization
and processing of information in these energy fields can best be
understood in terms of quantum holographic principles. [3]
Another commonality is the role of positive emotions,
such as love and appreciation, in generating coherence both in the heart
field and in social fields. When the movement of energy is intentionally
regulated to form a coherent, harmonious order, information integrity and
flow are optimized. This, in turn, produces stable, effective system
function, which enhances health, psychosocial well-being, and intentional
action in the individual or social group.
Heart coherence and social coherence may also act to
mutually reinforce each other. As individuals within a group increase
psychophysiological coherence, psychosocial attunement may be increased,
thereby increasing the coherence of social relations. Similarly, the
creation of a coherent social field by a group may help support the
generation and maintenance of psychophysiological coherence in its
individual members. An expanded, deepened awareness and consciousness
results—of the body’s internal physiological, emotional, and mental
processes, and also of the deeper, latent orders enfolded into the energy
fields that surround us. This is the basis of self-awareness,
social sensitivity, creativity, intuition, spiritual insight, and
understanding of ourselves and all that we are connected to. It
is through the intentional generation of coherence in both heart and
social fields that a critical shift to the next level of planetary consciousness
can occur—one that brings us into harmony with the movement of the whole.
For more information on the Institute of HeartMath’s
research and publications, please visit www.heartmath.org.
Footnotes
1.Correlates of physiological coherence include:
increased synchronization between the two branches of the autonomic
nervous system, a shift in autonomic balance toward increased
parasympathetic activity, increased heart-brain synchronization,
increased vascular resonance, and entrainment between diverse
physiological oscillatory systems.
2.Holographic organization is based on a field concept of order, in which
information about the organization of an object as a whole is encoded as
an interference pattern in energy waveforms distributed throughout the
field. This makes it possible to retrieve information about the object as
a whole from any location within the field.
3.The term “quantum,” as used in quantum holography, does not mean that
this kind of energetic information processing is understood in terms of
the principles of quantum physics. Rather, quantum holography is a
special, nondeterministic form of holographic organization based on a
discrete unit of energetic information called a logon or a “quantum” of
information.
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