Peak Performance Brainwaves by Michael Hutchinson "A neuroscientist used to be like a man in a Goodyear blimp floating over a bowl game: he could hear the crowd roar, and that was about it. But now we're down in the stands. It's not too long before we'll be able to tell why one man gets a hot dog and one man gets a beer."

- Floyd Bollm, neuroanatomist Scripps Clinic

The Brain Revolution has been one of the most momentous events in human history. Perhaps its most exciting development has been that for the first time, as Floyd Bloom observes, humans have been able to get right down into the arena of the human brain and observe the action as it happens -- and then look at it again in slow motion on the instant replay.

With the development of computerized brain monitoring devices of incredible sensitivity, scientists have been able to observe what goes on in our brains during virtually every life experience -- pain, ecstasy, depression, love, having a flash of insight, seeing stripes, remembering, forgetting, eating, sleeping, having sex. Most remarkably, scientists have discovered that by watching the activity of our brains, we can quickly learn how to change our brains, and in doing so change what we are experiencing.

The implications are enormous. If we can change our own brain states at will, then surely we can learn to shift out of unwanted or unhealthy states or experiences into desired states and experiences. Just as we can change channels on our TVs, we may be able to intentionally switch out of states such as pain, depression, anxiety and anger and switch into pleasure, love, well-being, insight and clarity.

If you can control your brain activity, then you can control your life and your experiences in life. While there are numerous new tools for observing the brain, including MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), PET (positron emission topography), and SPECT (single photon emission computerized topography), to SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device), perhaps the most exciting work in the last few years has been done using the relatively old-fashioned EEG (electroencephalograph) -- though in the computerized, multi-channel, superfast models that are very new-fangled -- in the biofeedback or neurofeedback mode.

Why potentially revolutionary? Because unlike the other generally immense and immensely expensive devices, which by necessity are used only in institutional medicine and research, EEG feedback systems are relatively inexpensive (and becoming cheaper all the time), relatively easy to use, and available to anyone with an interest in learning the explore or attain optimal brain states. That means that, like the personal computer or home video games, they can enter the cultural mainstream with incredible speed, and change our way of life. Conceivably, within a few years, personal or home EEG systems could be as common place as the PC, with millions of people blithely fine tuning their states of consciousness as routinely as they change clothes, adjust the thermostat or fix their make-up.

Just as we change channels on our TVs, we may switch out of states such as pain, depression, anxiety and anger and switch into pleasure, love, well-being and insight. For the fact is, as we pointed out above, changing our brain waves means changing what we are experiencing. That means changing our reality. As one of the leading EEG researchers, Dr. James Hardt, writes elsewhere in this issue, summarizing his 25 years of research, "I was learning that brain waves relate to everything, and that control of brain waves had life and death implications, as implications for the quality of life.

Any experience you can have has a specific underlying brain activity associated with it. If you can control your brain activity, then you can control your life and your experiences in life." Using EEG feedback, researches, clinicians and their subjects have, among other things, been able to train the brain to "heal" itself from alcoholism and drug addiction, learning disorders and brain traumas, depression and anxiety. Subjects in some EEG studies have experienced average IQ increases of 20 to 30 points. Some researches have found certain patterns of brain activity that seem linked to extraordinary or peak brain states, such as transcendence, illumination, flow, awakening. And using EEG feedback systems as well as other mind technology, they have found that subjects can learn to enter these peak states.

With such a wealth of breakthrough work being done with EEG and EEG feedback, we have decided to devote this issue of Megabrain Report to exploring this field. The issue you hold in your hands was to be our "EEG Special Issue." And indeed, it is a very special issue: in the pages that follow are articles by many if the leading researchers, clinicians, and theoreticians of EEG brain training, as well as discussions of the most exciting research being done in the field, and reviews of the latest EEG feedback equipment.

However as the articles began to flow in, it soon became clear that there was simply too much information, to many good articles, too many connections to be made between the work of different contributors, to fit into a single issue, even if we expanded far beyond our usual 48-page format. In fact, the first time we began to count pages -- even before many of the articles were in -- we had over 300 manuscript pages of what looked like it would expand to well over 400 manuscript pages! That is, we had the equivalent of a good sized book, and there was just no way to fit it into a single issue without shopping what we felt was important information.

And so our EEG Special Issue has expanded into two jumbo issues -- the one you hold in your hand, and Vol. 2. Number 4, (which will appear in about 2 months) -- both jam-packed with fresh, mind-stretching and original material.

When we invited scientists to contribute, we asked them to write about developments and discoveries in EEG feedback and research that they felt were most important. So it has been fascinating, as the articles have come in, to see how each of these scientists, working largely independently, has focuses on the same few recurrent themes. Dr. James Hardt and Dr. Les Fehmi both provide moving and heartfelt descriptions of how their first-hand experiences of personal transformation through EEG feedback in the 1960's have added an almost spiritual sense of urgency and commitment to their work.

Most if the contributors clearly agree that the extraordinary recent developments in EEG are founded on the pioneering EEG feedback work in the 60's and 70's by Joe Kamiya, Elmer Green, Barry Sterman, Joel Lubar, Tom Budzynski, Jim Hardt, and Les Fehmi, among others. They also seem to share a common perception that the vast potential for human development hinted at by the EEG feedback research of the tumultuous 60's was disturbing to the medical, scientific, and cultural mainstream, and as a result was suppressed, derided or actively discouraged for almost 20 years -- what we can now call the Nixon-Regan Era. As a result, virtually all of them seem to share a sense of personal satisfaction in the recent vindication of EEG feedback and its emergence as a "hot" field. Perhaps the heat of the recent EEG explosion is a natural result of the years of frustration and lack of recognition.

Hardt, Fehmi, Dr. Jon Cowan, Dr. Len Ochs, Dr. Siegfried Othmer, Dr. Thomas Budzynski and Dr. Julian Isaacs, and Anna Wise all write with more or less evident excitement about the extraordinary power of EEG feedback of specific types or at certain frequencies to produce unprecedented and at times seemingly miraculous healings, resolutions of formerly intractable psychological problems (including addiction, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and anxiety), and sudden reorderings of personality. While they may all offer speculations, theories, and conjectures -- using fuzzy words like consciousness, unconscious, subconscious, transformation, "witness" consciousness, "inputting" information, brainwave "training", attention and attention deficit -- they all emphasize the tentative nature of their conclusions. All of them seem to share the view that "we ain't seen nothing yet" -- that we have only begun to begin to understand a bit about the working of brain wave feedback, that astonishing and culturally-transforming breakthroughs are imminent, that the workings of the brain remain the greatest and most fascinating mystery of our age.

Researchers proved that subjects could take voluntary control of virtually any physiological process -- even the firing rhythm of individual nerve cells Each of these scientists look at essentially the same phenomena -- high amplitude alpha, whole brain synchrony, alpha-theta training, "good" and "bad" theta and beta training, "optimizing" brain wave patterns -- through slightly differing lenses, pose the same questions in differing words, and offer answers or tentative conclusions that, while in differing words, are in remarkable agreement accord. Budzynski, Hardt, Fehmi, Isaacs, and Ochs all discuss the importance of proper instruments and offer insights into what equipment works and what doesn't. Virtually all of them emphasize the importance of the right treatment protocol to attain desired results, and offer invaluable descriptions and insights into various protocols, ranging from alpha/theta training for addictions to beta training for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Most of the articles in this special issue of Megabrain Report and the one which will follow it come right from the cutting edge of current EEG research and will be though provoking and stimulating (and in some cases startling) to scientists, therapists and other health professionals. Much of the information they contain is fresh, eye-opening, and is presented here for the first time. It is also, we believe extremely practical. It is our hope that this special issue may serve as a catalyst and a stimulus to therapists, educators, counselors, researchers, and other professionals, alerting them to the revolutionary potentials for enhancing human performance and well-being through EEG feedback, and providing the basic practical information needed to take the first steps toward incorporating the EEG feedback into their practice.

But of course many of us are fascinated by this work and by brainwaves (both other peoples' and our own) not as professionals, but as individuals who want to learn more about ways we can become stronger, healthier and happier and take greater control over our emotions, states of consciousness, and lives. And so, we have worked with contributors to be sure these articles are written in language that is clear, jargon-free, down to earth and accessible to non-scientists. And, as an introduction for non-professionals, we first present a short summary of the historical background, and some of the central issues and discoveries of EEG feedback, and brief sketches of the work of many of the leading EEG explorers, whose articles constitute the rest of this extraordinary issue.

Taken from: MEGABRAIN REPORT The Journal Of Mind Technology Volume 2, Number 3 Page 4,5