Meditation & Light Visions: A Neurological Analysis

This neurological, "reverse-engineering" analysis of the spatial andtemporal characteristics of meditation-induced light visions observedby the author and described in ancient Indian, Tibetan, and Chinesetexts is an indispensable reference for neuroscientific researchers,physicians, psychotherapists, anthropologists, scholars of religion,and intellectually curious meditators. The analysis shows how sleeprhythms generate meditative states and how destabilization of sleeprhythms triggers hypersynchronous activity in corticothalamiccircuits that drives the emergence of hippocampal seizures withecstatic attributes. A review of EEG studies of experiencedmeditators reveals the unacknowledged presence of topologicalpatterns typical of simple partial seizure. The book includesdetailed, empirically-oriented drawings of the complete progressionof light visions and charts that compare descriptions of lightvisions in ancient texts.