What is an "E(e)nlightenment experience?"...a new scientific, secular model

Dr. Andrew Newberg, from the University of Pennsylvania, appeared in earlier blogposts, “How the brain creates mystical states…how we activate them…”, “Are our mystical experiences psychotic?  key indicators” and “Eat, smoke, meditate –research on why meditation works”.  

Dr. Andrew Newberg
Univ. of Pennsylvania

With over 100 research publications and 8 books on the cognitive neuroscience behind belief, mystical experiences and religion including the best-selling “Why God Won’t Go Away”, and Oprah's “must read” - “How God Changes Your Brain”, many folks are listening to what he's saying, whether you agree or not.

His current “How Enlightenment Changes Your Brain: The New Science of Transformation”, gives a useful, researched, secular understanding of what constitutes an “enlightenment” experience.

Andrew had his own enlightenment experience, conducted exhaustive surveys on 2,000 others, and does state-of-the-art neuroscience research. As there is much confusion on this, an informed, professional, secular, scientific perspective is useful.     

Newberg began his own search for “enlightenment” to understand why there were so many different beliefs.   At Haverford, he read everything, East and West, and visited many folk, but it didn’t help.   He found existing neuroscience studies flawed, incomplete, and often contradictory.  At medical school he took an additional year studying the brain.  

In an fMRI he realized, in an aha moment, that “no one can ever know for certain what is going on in another person’s mind and brain”, so he went “inward” for the answer, trying to “quiet down all of my rushing thoughts and try to identify those absolute truths.” 

Andrew didn’t do a meditation practice, but studied his own mind and realized that he didn’t know “the truth about anything”.   He spent two years in an “Infinite Sea of Doubt” that was “probably the most psychologically painful period in my life”, until “everything became Doubt”, the only certainty he could find. 

Doubt Everywhere

Totally surrendering into this Doubt, he found everything unified and connected.  This was 25 years ago, and he “can easily trigger (it) by going into a contemplative state”.  (Hence, an experience, not a state.)

He also discovered that personal transformation from enlightenment experiences is a “biological imperative that drives us from the moment we are born”.   Andrew’s “big” question is “Do you really want to change your life in a radical and profound way, or are you just seeking to improve bits and pieces of your life?”  

When Andrew ran fMRI scans on his own enlightenment experience, a sense of unity occurred with decreased activity in the parietal lobe.  This agrees with much work on the Default Mode Network (DMN) by many researchers that identified it as a/the source of the sense of “self and other” where decreased activity creates an experience of "All is One". 

Default Mode Network
Frontal (MPFC) and Parietal (PCC)

Andrew’s scans also showed decreased frontal lobe activity, consistent with DMN studies.  He did this by manipulating his “thoughts and intentions and the use of movement, sound and breathing”, a favored approach in his research and practices.

Andrew found that “Enlightenment is ‘real’”, and “there is something very powerful going on inside the brain” which has powerful, positive outcomes.   He defined two types of enlightenment experiences; “E” which radically, permanently, transforms our beliefs and values and “e” which is a sudden understanding “aha” moment. 

   

Importantly, Andrew claims that his work and that of hundreds of years of collective research from others showed that every “e” and “E” experience produces long term changes in how we perceive reality and changes the brain centers and improves brain functioning.   (This is what it “feels” like happens, and texts like the Bhagavad Gita say, but it is difficult to prove.) 

Andrew created an on-line form to solicit folks’ stories about their most powerful spiritual or transformational (E) experiences – nearly 2,000 responded.  He asked if suffering was removed, belief systems changed and relationships, religion, or career changed.   Questions included “How did you feel before and after the event?, What emotions did you have?, What behaviors were changed?, Was it peaceful or disturbing?, and How ‘real’ did it feel?”. 

 

Background, religious beliefs, spiritual feelings, ideas about death, etc. were included, as well as how the experience manifested - w/a hallucinogenic drug, near death experience, religious conversion, or intense meditation or prayer.  Responses were world-wide, ages 18 to 82, with equal numbers of men and women, and from all religions as well as 25% who were atheists. 

Andrew found five common elements, with large individual variation, in these “E”/Enlightenment experiences:

a.      Unity, connectedness, loss of individual “self/I”

b.      Incredible intensity

c.      Clarity and a new fundamental understanding

d.      Surrender and loss of control

e.      Beliefs, life, and purpose suddenly and permanently changed

Thalamus

A sixth element was nearly unanimous - “E” experiences were extraordinarily “real”, even more real than everyday reality, (because they are) even looked at years later.   This sense arises from "significant changes" in the thalamus, where sensory information is processed and brain communication coordinated.  This lessened worries, fears and suffering.

Ten % decreased their religious beliefs, while 89 % increased spiritual activities.  Men’s experiences focused on the world, universe and consciousness, while women’s focused on God, love, relationships and children.  Although most folk were religious, only 18% mentioned God, and < 10% of Christians mentioned Jesus.     

An “E” was the same  for atheists, devout Christians, Muslims and Jews.   Many atheists confirmed their view that logic, reason, humanitarianism and science were more valid than religious belief.  This is “trending”, as half of Americans describe themselves as “nonreligious”, with a 60% drop out rate from religion for millennials.  

Magic mushrooms
Psilocybin

Psychedelics were a vehicle for many.  The blogpost “the latest psychedelic research…new meditation +/- psychedelics” @ http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-latest-psychedelic-researchnew.html described research cited by Dr. Newberg, done by Roland Griffiths with psilocybin @ Johns Hopkins.

Newberg observed “The descriptions were generally indistinguishable from the mystical experiences reported in our study…” and “if the drug experience is sufficiently powerful, it might still qualify as enlightenment, perhaps even with a big ‘E’”. 

Newberg acknowledged “bad trips”, but concluded that “the brain can be permanently changed by the effects of the drug itself or the transformational experience or by a combination of the two.”

The “takeaways”, IMHO, are:

         1)   Both large (E) and small (e) enlightenment experiences permanently change the brain.

         2)   There are six critical markers, five of which vary significantly. 

         3)    Religiously-based enlightenment approaches will continue to decline in popularity.

         4)   Approaches for enlightenment experiences need to recognize that differences exist between what males and females value in enlightenment.   Practices developed long ago by men in monasteries may not work for today's women.

         5)  Given variations in the enlightenment experience, to attract more customers, “enlightenment sellers" will broaden their focus, moving to “whatever you want/optimize for”, under the PC banner of "everyone is a valedictorian" (which nobody really believes).
           "Enlightenment" will lose meaning, as have "mindfulness", "yoga", "zen", "nonduality" and "persistent".   As they say, money changes everything.
         
          6) Psychedelics will continue to be an important gateway for an "enlightenment” experience.

         7)  This study focuses only on experiences, not on a lasting state w/o attachments, suffering, and self-referential thought, the focus of most awakening approaches, which does not generate a large "market", which is why 5) manifests.  

   

Stephon Alexander
Brown University

My buddy, Stephon Alexander, was in blogposts "Is the universe alive?  Does it evolve, think, reproduce?" and "Using simple chants meditatively for nondual awakening".

E E Just
Dartmouth
Univ of Chicago

The post "Why should i do nondual meditation? There are many other meditations" referred to my presentation @ Dartmouth @ Stephon's invitation honoring E. E. Just, a pioneering African-American biologist, academic and science writer.


Stephon's new book, "The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe" made the music best-seller list on Amazon.   i worked closely with Stephon while he was @ Penn State and Haverford, and am in the acknowledgments.  This is a book only Stephon could write as he is both brilliant cosmologist and great jazz saxophonist.  If you want to see how jazz and physics are linked you might find this useful.