Are we wired to perceive/feel other dimensional beings or is it all just imagination ?

I found this article interesting-neuroscience fascinates me. Any opinions most welcome.

NeuroMagnetics

A Canadian neuropsychologist, Michael Persinger has spent years exploring the relationship of spiritual phenomena and electromagnetics with many subjects. Low intensity magnetic fields orchestrate communication between lobes of the brain, faster than biolelectrical or biochemical processes of neurons. He has developed a device, called the Octopus to test his theories.

“Underlying Persinger’s work is the conviction that anomalous electromagnetic fluctuations – produced by solar flares, seismic activity, radio and microwave transmissions, electrical devices, and other external sources or originating in the brain itself – can trigger disturbances resembling epileptic seizures. These ‘microseizures,’ he propses, generate a wide range of altered states, including religious and mystical visions, out-of-body experiences, and even alien-abduction episodes.”

“Persinger conjectures that our sense of self is ordinarily mediated by the brain’s lef hemisphere – more specifically by the left temporal lobe. When the brain is disrupted – by a head injury, epileptic seizure, stroke, drugs, psychological trauma, or external electromagnetic pulses – our left-brain may detect activity in the right hemisphere as another self, or what Persinger calls a ‘sensed presence.’ Depending on our circumstances and background, we may perceive the sensed presence as extraterrestrials, ghosts, angels, fairies, muses, demons, or God Almighty.” (Horgan)

This technoshaman with his electronic art uses solenoids in a helmet for input; a computer controls the fluctuating fields. He sends vast depolarizing waves across millions of cells, releasing all types of memories and fantasies mixed and mashed together. Long-term memory is seated in the surface of the bottom of the temporal lobes in the para hippocampal cortex, closely connected to the hippocampus. Though an atheist, he stops just short of saying the god-experience is just an electrical seizure. However, his research goal is to use his devise to trigger transcendental experiences in nonreligious people face with the fear of death. He admits there is scientific evidence that those with spiritual beliefs are better adapted and statistically healthier.

Persinger can artificially produce a wide range of anomalous experiences by driving the brain with his EM helmet and technology. He identifies the temporal lobes as the biological basis of the god-experience. Bombarding the brain with certain frequencies in certain regions produces different results. As impulses move through the temporal lobe and deep into the brain, they interfere and interact with the complex electrical patterns and neural fields.

Aimed at the amygdala, Persinger’s device produces sexual arousal. Focused on the hippocampus it produces an opiate effect without adverse side effects, other than irritation upon withdrawal. Targeting the right hemisphere temporal lobe creates a sense of a negative presence, while stimulating the left hemisphere creates a benevolent presence.

Sensed presence becomes more common until the day arrives when God’s presence is something a person feels at all times. In mystical experience language fails. Since we can’t experiences two senses of self, one is projected as other, the Beloved, either romantic or spiritual. Thus there is truth in saying that the beloved is God, and that when we love God we are loving ourselves. I and Thou are One. The other becomes the Self.

Electrical activity in the amygdala, hippocampus and temporal can ‘spill over’ into nearby structures. If it ignites the visual area, intense visions emerge. Kindling the olfactory regions leads to unique scents. Somatosensory stimulation leads to buzzing, energetic, or tingling sensations or perceptions of being lifted or floating. Language center activation produces voices, music, or noise. Long-term memory in the lower part of the temporal lobes yields interactive virtual realities, waking dreams. The thalamus is implicated in aura vision; the reticular activating system in life reviews.

New patterns spread through the limbic system, producing sensation ranging from subtle to profound. Usually there is seamless integration of past, present and future. But in déjà vu, there is too much communication between short-term and long-term memories. Then the present can feel like the past. Present perceptions are shunted through areas that process memories, and we feel we are re-living a moment stored in long-term memory. The opposite happens in jamais vu, when nothing we experience seems to have anything to do with the past. Time distortion is another experiential phenomenon stimulated with the electromagnetic gear.

The impulses can induce anything from sleep to “alien abductions”, including a profound sense of presence or the uncanny, auditory and visionary experiences, or a sense of deep meaning. He notes these experiences are tempered by the person’s learning history. God concepts are determined by verbal conditioning; perceptions are constructions. Imagery ranges from vivid landscapes to forms of living things. Sounds, smells, scenes or intense feelings all reflect areas of electrical instability.

Source >> http://www.ajna.com/articles/how_the_brain_creates_god.php

Well if different areas of the brain can be stimulated to produce an altered perception of reality, how does one know that you aren't already within an altered perception of reality and those "stimulations" are returning it to normal?

Well here is a copy/paste on my thoughts on this from another topic that I posted. I don't feel like typing it all over again.





i have a theory that if "something" really DOES exist in our presence that we physically can't see/understand our brains will make something up (which is a side effect of our beliefs/enviroment) to envision it. This is why so many people possibly have similar/different visions experiences according to their cultures/beliefs/fears etc.

It's like when they (in neuroscience) stimulate the part of your brain for laughter your brain will invent a reason why you laughed after the fact. Read about this ? Innerspace (forum member may know something about this-it's her field of work/study. Actually the results of these experiments is where I got this idea from> something went "AHA "in my head >

Our brains are different in minute ways (bio/chemically) from each other. Shy/fearful people have an overactive/larger amygdala for instance. Deeply religious or truly intuitive/psychic people may pick up on other forces/dimensions more readily and their brains may create a vision/voice (not necessarliy in it's actual form/look).
But this explains the skepticism from others when it's appearant everyone sees/hears something else> be it a god/demons/angels or whatever
Some people may not have the ability to pick up on certain things because of their brain structures

Your brain continually generates electrical impulses. Maybe some people are "tuned in" accurately like a radio ?
Yet their brain may not fully be able to comprehend on what/who they are picking up on and so maybe the brain is "partly" filling in the blanks. Anyone know what I mean ?

but where do you draw the line between the brain making up something (to help you understand something from another dimension?) and something completely normal occurring?
If this were even a slightly probable suggestion, would we not see at least one indisputable case of this manifesting into the physical we know? To me this seems to much like the topic of "God", you know, the whole thing is based on evidence which is anecdotal, or subjective only to the persons "inner feelings" and "what i know" that nobody else could possibly feel, touch, understand, comprehend, or test.
Again like god, science of the brain is frequently subject to these alternative theories because science does not have all the answers, and like a weed, these theories grow and claw onto these short comings of science and expect to be taken seriously as real theories, when they are just as impropable as the next crazy story.
Yeah IMO i would have to see at least a tiny tiny piece of this theory manifesting before i could take it slightly even serious.

For your first question>that is what i don't know< maybe some day there will be a way to figure that out ? Physicists suspect there may be between 11-16 dimensions. Read this in a scientific journal & it was posted by Samuran. Who knows ? I don't.

To your second statement. Of course it can't manifest into the physical (I think -unless you believe in poltergeist activity-telekenisis ?). Hence no evidence except word of mouth ?

I can be open to a theory but I don't believe it to be fact till it is proven as just that. Maybe there is nothing to it but fantasy. Who reallly knows ?

Even if I had an experience of a religious nature I would still doubt it's origin because I am pretty well informed in the neurosciences. (a big interest and alot of reading) .I'm no Neuroscientist (pretty obvious )

But it's an interesting theory. I'm sure I'm not the only one considering this possibility. I easily could see a deist,agnostic interested in Neurobiology and those in the sciences/researchers in general raising these questions.