🚀 go-pugleaf

In bionet.neuroscience Dan & Susan Lee <danlee@gate.net> wrote:
> FWIW, yet another proposal I read w/respect to the lymbic system
> was that REM patterns had to include a good amount of alpha
> activity before dreamers in the sleep lab reported lucidity - the
> hypothesis being that the hippocampus (crucial for memory
> processing) had to be involved before lucidity could occur, and
> hippocampus activity was only associated with alpha or beta
> waves.  ?????   

The hippocampus is involved in a certain rhythmic theta activity, but
has to my knowledge nothing in special to do with either alpha or beta.
  The rhythmic alpha activity normally referred to in "relaxation",
"meditation" etc. has to do with the relaxed wakefulness of the brain.
It is normally found when people try to "think of nothing" with their
eyes shut, and disappears as soom as the eyes are opened or they are
aroused. It also disappears when they fall asleep.
  I do not claim extensive knowledge about alpha rhythms. Some people
find it more difficult than others to generate alpha (to relax
properly). I read once that people who are visually imaginative have
this problem, and their alpha comes in short runs of a few seconds. I
cannot find this reference. Personally, it intrigues me that the "alpha
state" has been said to be pleasing to the mind. My alpha is weak and
comes in short runs, and when I try to relax to increase it I feel a
horrible drowsiness with pressure over my head like the start of a
headache, when the alpha becomes continuous. Therefore I doubt that even
the amount of alpha activity has any interindividual significance on the
subjective plane.

Dag Stenberg
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Dag Stenberg     MD PhD                    stenberg@cc.helsinki.fi
Institute of Biomedicine		   tel: (int.+)358-9-1918532
Department of Physiology                   fax: (int.+)358-9-1918681
P.O.Box 9        (Siltavuorenpenger 20 J)   
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki,Finland   
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