"Performed a functional neuroimaging study with SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) with 10 mediums. We compared writing complexity of the produced texts and brain activation patterns during "psychography" (trance writing) and control writing (non-trance, regular writing).
"Experienced mediums produced texts during psychography with higher complexity scores than during control writing. However, despite this more complex writing, they presented lower activation in several brain areas related to the cognitive processing and writing planning (left culmen, left hippocampus, left inferior occipital gyrus, left anterior cingulate, right superior temporal gyrus, and right precentral gyrus).
"These findings are consistent with mediums' reports of automatic (non-conscious) writing and their claims that an ‘‘outer source’’ was planning the written content (Peres et al., 2012)."
Alexander Moreira-Almeida is Chair of the WPA (World Psychiatric Association) Section on Religion, Spirituality and Psychiatry and Coordinator of the Section on Spirituality of the Brazilian Psychiatric Association. He is the editor of Exploring Frontiers of the Mind-Brain Relationship, and is also a co-founder of the Campaign for Open Sciences to promote the movement toward a Postmaterialist Science.
Alexander
Moreira-Almeida, “Consciousness and the Brain: What Does Research on Spiritual
Experiences Tell Us?” in Beauregard, Mario; Dyer, Natalie; Woollacott,
Marjorie, editors. Expanding Science: Visions of a Postmaterialist Paradigm,
(p. 301-317). AAPS. Kindle Edition.
Peres, J. F., Moreira-Almeida, A., Caixeta, L., Leao, F., & Newberg, A. (2012). “Neuroimaging during trance state: a contribution to the study of dissociation.” PLoS One, 7(11), e49360.
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