What Is Cosmic Consciousness? The Quest for Hidden Reality

By Deepak Chopra, M.D., FACP, and Menas Kafatos, Ph.D.

 

Is there such a thing as higher consciousness?  For a tiny fraction of the population, who believe they have experienced God directly, this is a spiritual question with a definite answer. But for most people the question is hypothetical.  Every spiritual tradition has asserted that there is a hidden reality which can be uncovered through transcending – or going beyond – the five senses. There are elaborate directions for accomplishing this leap, in the form of prayer, meditation, renunciation, and faith – the religious history of humankind has never stopped directing its aspirations to a higher plane. But everyday life consumes our attention, and in a skeptical age the erosion of belief makes higher consciousness seem very far away if not irrelevant.

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Sleep: A mystery at the crossroads of neuroscience (Part 2)

By Deepak Chopra, M.D., FACP, P. Murali Doraiswamy, MBBS, FRCP, Professor of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina

 

In the last post we saw how essential sleep is for the physiological needs of  almost all animals, but sleep would seem to be a poor survival trait as far as evolution goes.  Because sleep put our ancestors (and other living creatures) at risk from predators, the benefits must outweigh the risks –that’s all that scientists can manage to agree on. Unlike humans, some animals (e.g., newborn dolphins) can survive sleep deprivation for a couple of weeks without apparent harm.  However, in most species, after extended sleep deprivation their body temperature and metabolism becomes unstable and they die.  The longest period a human has survived sleep deprivation is believed to be about two weeks, but many physical and mental deficits occur long before that; driving ability is significantly impaired after one night’s bad sleep. (more…)

Sleep: A mystery at the crossroads of neuroscience (Part 1)

By Deepak Chopra, M.D., FACP, P. Murali Doraiswamy, MBBS, FRCP, Professor of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina

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Sleep crops up in unexpected places medically, as in the recent finding that for people suffering from bouts of depression, irregular sleep is often the first sign of an attack, and conversely, getting a good night’s sleep can help prevent the onset of depression. But the importance of sleep has become more global in recent years, involving it in obesity, for example, where bad sleep throws off the hormonal balance that tells the body when it’s hungry. (more…)

The Best New Year’s Resolution: Be Good To Your Genes

By Deepak Chopra, MD and Rudolph Tanzi, Ph.D.

Image: hiddenlighthouse

The New Year occasions all kinds of resolutions (which only 8% of people keep, according to Forbes magazine), but almost no one, I imagine, resolves to improve the function of their genes. The fact that this is even possible sounds mystifying, since the specific genes you’re born with remain the same throughout your lifetime (except in certain cells as we age, e.g. in tumors). But now geneticists increasingly appreciate that the output of our genes varies considerably, not just from year to year but from minute to minute. The genetic read-out of two identical twins is quite similar at birth, but looks very different by age seventy. This understanding, still in its infancy, belongs to a growing field known as epigenetics. In the coming years research projects are set to reveal just how deeply a person can affect the activity of their individual genome – the findings so far are very promising. (more…)