Meditation is becoming a very hot topic in contemporary psychology. I think the draw has a bit to do with the fact that, while the benefits of meditation are well documented, we still aren’t very sure why these things happen. We are still on the front lines of discovering what is affected in the brain by meditation and how conscious intention can affect the subconscious and pre-conscious functions of the brain.
I recently stumbled across a RadioLab podcast that recounted an experiment done by University of California psychologist Dr. Benjamin Libet. For as controversial as its results have become in the world of psychology, the experiment itself was extremely simple. The subject was asked to sit in a room with a clock. Whenever it struck her fancy she moved her wrist while remembering the exact time when she consciously decided, “I’m going to move now.”
While she was doing all of this, her muscle movements and brain functions were being recorded. After preforming this experiment several times with several different subjects, Libet noticed something a bit strange: the spikes in brain activity that he expected to see when the subjects decided to move their wrists actually came, on average, 350 miliseconds before the subject consciously decided to move.
Wait. What?
These results were groundbreaking. What Libet had found was that the brain “decided” to move the wrist before the person did. Needless to say, criticism of this experiment and the interpretation of its results was fierce and still continues to this day.
But what if Libet is right? The implications of this would be (and have been) almost endless. Consciousness would be demoted to nothing more than an epiphenomenon, a mere byproduct of an automatic brain function. Free will would be all but destroyed. At the very least, we must admit the fact that we have less control over our actions than we would like to think.
Now getting back to meditation. Libet’s experiement leads me to wonder how much of what we gain through the practice of meditation is cultivated at a subconscious (or, perhaps, pre-conscious) level. Sure, the act of meditation gives us the ability to better deal with annoyances and stress on a conscious level. But how much of our behavior is changed because we are forcing our subconscious to restructure its deeply entrenched habits? How can a conscious thought influence our subconscious mind to be less reactive to stress? Looking into this would be an interesting experiment–if we take as a truth that the brain reacts before our conscious mind does, can we influence that pre-conscious reaction through intentional conscious thought? Can I reprogram my pre-conscious mind to react less adversely to stress?
More about Dr. Libet’s Experiments: Overview Criticism Libet’s Published Papers
