1. Your Incredible Brain
The recent discoveries in Inner Space
The human brain appears over-endowed. It used to be an often quoted statistic that we only use 10% of our potential brain power. The more psychologists have learnt in the last ten years however, the less likely they are to dare to attempt to quantify our brain potential. The only consistent conclusion is that the proportion of our potential brain power that we use is probably nearer 4% than 10%.
Most of us, then, appear to let 96% of our mental potential lie unused. But it doesn't have to be so. Once we begin to understand how the brain's memory works, the way is opened to tap that vast unused potential. The result can be a quantum leap in learning speed, an enrichment of every part of our life and, scientists now believe, a measurable increase in intelligence, whatever our age. First, let us look at some of the facts.
Neurons
The average adult human brain consists of some 12,000 to 15,000 million nerve cells. (15,000,000,000). That is about three times the entire population of the earth.
The human nervous system, controlled by the brain, begins its development only 20 days after conception. Five weeks from conception brain development starts in earnest and after eight weeks the first of two brain spurts begins. At this stage the brain represents half the total length of the foetus (although it is still only '/2 inch long!). This is when the neuroblasts begin to grow. Neuroblasts are embryonic cells that will in turn become neurons, or brain nerve cells. The speed at which neuroblasts are now developing is staggering. They are added at the rate of several thousand a minute.
Nutrition is vital during the formation of brain cells. Of particular importance is adequate protein to provide adequate amounts of amino acids. Tryptophan is especially important for brain biochemistry and human milk has twice as much of this amino acid as cows milk. In societies where mothers are undernourished, children may have up to 50% less neurons than their counterparts among Western children. Additionally, the part of the brain responsible for limb co-ordination can be seriously impaired.
Twelve weeks after conception, the tiny foetus is now adding neurons at the rate of 2,000 a second. To put this into context, an adult honey bee's brain contains some 7,000 neurons. A bee can accomplish many sophisticated tasks, including building and maintaining a honeycomb, calculating distance, signalling to its companions the direction of pollen sources, and recognizing a course by sight and smell. All with the number of neurons the human foetus develops in under 3 seconds. About twenty weeks after conception or 18 weeks before birth, the human embryo has laid down its entire nervous system: 12-15 billion neurons. Whilst the number of neurons is important, of even greater significance is the next stage of brain development: the second brain spurt.
About ten weeks before birth, each neuron starts to send out numerous thin fibres to make actual and potential connections with other neurons. The power of the brain is largely a function of the number of neurons and the richness of their connections. Since each neuron can itself make thousands of connections, the potential number of inter-connections in the brain runs into trillions. The key point to remember is that only some of these connections are made automatically. Most are made by using the brain. The more your brain is stimulated, the richer the connections and the higher your practical mental ability. Many of the basic interconnections are made before the age of five!
The human head will grow in physical size four-fold after birth. The evolutionary limit to the size of the baby's head at birth has been set by the size of the mother's birth canal. By age five, the skull will be 90% of adult size. Full adult size is, in fact, reached at about age ten. The brain now weighs about 3lbs. That is about 2% of the body, yet the brain requires 20% of the oxygen supply.
Oxygen is so vital to the brain that, should the human be restricted in oxygen intake, the supply will be automatically reduced to all other parts of the body before supplies to the brain are diminished. Not surprisingly, oxygen is equally vital before birth. The foetus of a woman who smokes receives less oxygen, and the subsequent reading scores of such children are generally below those of non-smoking mothers.
The role of nutrition in brain development is as important in the early years after birth as it is before birth, since malnutrition will not only reduce the number of neurons, but also the number of connections between nerve cells. In studies on rats, it has been found that neuron connection can be reduced by 40% simply due to poor nutrition. The reason, in passing, why the long-suffering rat is so frequently studied is that its nervous system is quite similar to that of the human. Some readers will no doubt draw other behavioural parallels.
We have seen how the number of neurons in the brain is fixed before birth. Unlike any other body cells, brain cells do not usually regenerate themselves. However, even if they did die, at the rate of several thousand a day, the loss over a lifetime would be trivial and quite unlikely to affect practical mental ability.
Of far greater significance is the fact that the number of connections between neurons is continuously growing, and this would more than compensate. In fact it would argue for an improvement of mental ability with age - and as we shall see, if an improvement is the expectation, that is indeed the result.
So far we have been speaking of "the neuron". This gives a misleading picture of simplicity. In fact the neuron consists of a cell body (the grey matter) from which leads a principal fibre called the axon. The axon is covered by a fatty coating called myelin and it may terminate either in a connection with another neuron cell, or with branch-like fibres called dendrites. The axon and dendrites are the white matter of the brain.
To over-simplify, the axon transmits the electrical impulses that mark the working of the brain, the dendrites receive them. Gluing the whole brain together, and nourishing it, are glia cells (from the Greek glia meaning `glue'). If you were somewhat surprised by the numbers involved in 15 billion brain cells, and were astonished that there are hundreds of times more dendrites, you may choose not even to try to comprehend the fact that there are probably 100 billion glia cells in the human brain. The mind really does boggle at its own complexity!
The junction at which two nerve cells meet, or at which dendrite meets dendrite, is called the synapse. This is a tiny gap, and the electrical activity of the brain is conducted down the axon to the synapse. A connection is made when one of a number of chemicals is released to bridge the gap at the synapse. These chemicals are called Neuro-transmitters and they permit electrical activity to flow across the synapse. The speed of transmission of a neurological impulse is about 100 metres a second. The transmission of brain activity then is not electrical, but a physical / chemical reaction to an original electrical impulse.
We now know that there are up to 30 different types of neurotransmitter. Some are amines, most are amino acids, the building blocks of protein.
We also know that Neuro-transmitters not only transmit an impulse but are capable of modifying it along the way - although we do not yet know how. When we do, we may begin to unlock the physical secrets of memory and thought. That is a breakthrough comparable to the initial cracking of the `double helix' genetic code, by Crick and Watson.
Sexual differences in Brain Development
Whilst physical development of the brain is largely complete by age five, there are further well established intervals of intellectual development at ages 6 to 8, 10 to 12 and 14 to 16. It seems that we should try to ensure that educational stimuli should be timed to coincide with these natural periods of development.
It is worth noting that psychological researcher H.T. Epstein, has pointed out that the brain development of girls at age 11 is up to twice that of boys, whilst something like the converse is true at age 15.
This could argue for a different curriculum for girls at these ages, with a much more complex and challenging input at 11 and less intensity at 15.
Why so big?
"The creative capacity of the human brain may be, for all practical purposes infinite. "
Educational Technology
"We are only now on the threshold of knowing the range of the educability of man - the perfectibility of man. We have never addressed ourselves to this problem before. "
Dr. Jerome Bruner, Harvard University
"We will by conscious command, evolve cerebral centres which will permit us to use powers that we now are not even capable of imagining."
Dr. Frederic Tilney. Leading French Brain Specialist.
"We are hoarding potentials so great that they are just about unimaginable."
Jack Schwartz, Psycho-physical trainer.
Just what is the potential that causes sober scientists to indulge in such spine tingling prophecies?
The fundamental determinant of the brain's potential is the number of connections it can make. With 10-15 billion nerve cells, each one capable of making thousands of contacts, the possible permutations of connections runs into the trillions.
Yet this massive brain potential was acquired not by astronaut man, but by Neanderthal man, because the 3lb human brain has not physically changed much in the last 50,000 years. Our hunter gatherer ancestors had similar sized brains to ours, but they clearly were not so intelligent, in the sense of the measurable and practical application of intelligence.
There have been five pre-historic landmarks in the use, rather than mere possession, of this vast potential intelligence: walking on two legs, increasing manual dexterity, tool-making, speech and writing.
"Speech alone has rendered man Human" wrote the eighteenth century theologian Herder. Speech enabled us to pass on advice so that each generation did not have to learn everything from scratch. We know from the study of primitive societies that a four hundred word vocabulary will facilitate most basic communication, and an adult today can survive very well on 4,000 basic words of his own language.
The next landmark was the invention of printing, which enabled experience and concepts to be passed on to all who could read. You will learn in later chapters that educators believe mental ability can demonstratively be increased if a child learns to read early and to read widely. The brain is the only organ that expands through use. The more it is used, either to acquire facts or in the process of creativity, the more memory associations are formed. The more associations are formed, the easier it is to remember previously acquired information, and also to form new associations, i.e. create new ideas and concepts. This is a vitally important "virtuous circle", and reading is a key to forming it.
But this brief history only helps to explain how man has, quite slowly, come to make an increasing practical use of a fraction of his mental capabilities. It does not explain why we have such a large brain., Evolution is rarely so profligate. As Arthur Koestler put it -
'It is the only example of evolution providing a species with an organ which it does not know how to use, a luxury organ, which will take its owner thousands of years to learn to put to proper use - if it ever does. "
Of course, our brain was our competitive advantage in achieving the dominant position in the animal kingdom. But it did not need to be anywhere as advanced. Man in the last 50 years has attained near-magical achievements in the technical sphere. He is gaining control over his physical environment at an exponential rate of progress.
However, progress in finding solutions to more philosophical questions has been either non-existent or painfully slow. We appear to have more than adequate brain power to solve material problems. What we need is a parallel improvement in our ability to develop new conceptual solutions, to such age old problems as injustice, and international combativeness.
It is no accident that our material success is largely due to the fact that we are trained to think in a pattern we call logical, and as we shall shortly see, this seems to mainly involve one side of the brain - the left side. Conversely our learning methods are generally not designed to stimulate the development of the side of the brain that processes concepts - the right side. So our success in logical, material pursuits is perhaps not surprising - nor is our comparative failure in conceptual ethical issues.
Left Brain/Right Brain
That the brain is divided physically into a left and right half is not a new discovery. The Egyptians knew that the left side of the brain controlled and received sensations from the right side of the body and vice versa.
It is only in the last two dozen years, however, that the true implication of the left/right split has gradually become apparent, through the work of a number of researchers. The most famous are probably Dr. Roger Sperry and Dr. Robert Ornstein of the California Institute of Technology. Their work has won them a Nobel prize.
Sperry and Ornstein noted that the left and the rig hemispheres are connected by an incredibly complex network of p to 300 million nerve fibres called the Corpus Callosum. They ere also able to show that the two halves of the brain tend to have different functions.
They and other researchers indicate that the left brain primarily appears to deal with language and mathematical processes and logical thought, sequences, analysis and what we generally label academic pursuits. The right brain principally deals with music, and visual impressions, pictures, spatial patterns, and colour recognition. They also ascribe to the right brain the ability to deal with certain kinds of conceptual thought - intangible 'ideas' such as love, loyalty, beauty.
Back view of the two sides of your brain and their probable functions
The specialisation of the two halves of the brain can result in some bizarre behaviour. Patients who, for medical reasons, have had their corpus callosum severed, have effectively two semi-independent brains: two minds in one head.
If a ball is shown to the left visual field of such a person, i.e. registered to their right brain hemisphere, the speaking half of the brain, which is in the other, (left) brain will claim to have seen nothing. If, however, the patient is asked to feel in a bag of assorted shapes he will correctly pull out a ball. If he is asked what he has done he will say 'nothing'. The ball has only been seen with the right brain, and felt with the right brain. The speech centre, which is located in the left brain, has registered nothing.
Even more delicate experiments have been performed on surgically split-brained patients. The word SINBAD was projected to such a patient while his eyes were focused on the precise spot between N and B. The first 3 letters went to his right brain, the last three to his left hemisphere. When asked to say what he had seen, he replied BAD. When asked to point with his left hand to what he had seen he pointed to the word SIN.
The specialisation of the two brains has also been demonstrated by measuring the electrical activity of the brain during various activities.
When the brain is relaxed in a state of rest, it tends predominantly to show an alpha brain wave rhythm - i.e. waves of 8/10 cycles per second. Ornstein found that a subject tackling a mathematical problem showed an increase in alpha in the right hemisphere. This indicated that the right side was relaxing whilst the left was active and, therefore, in a beta brain wave pattern. In contrast, when a subject was matching coloured patterns, the left showed alpha (i.e. was resting) and the right showed beta (i.e. was active). The brain scans reproduced in Chapter 7, show the varying levels of electrical brain activity in a subject listening to music, words and singing.
The first activity (music) involved the right brain.
The second (listening to words only) involved the left brain, but singing (words and music together) involved the whole brain.
The left brain is now thought to be the half that specialises in serial, sequential thought, i.e. analysing information in sequence in a "logical" step by step approach. The left rationalises.
The right brain seems to take in several bits of information "at a glance" and process them into one overall thought. The right synthesises.
When you meet someone it seems to be the right brain that takes all the elements at once and synthesises the pattern into a whole to recognise the person instantaneously. If you were using your left brain only you would probably scan first the hair, then the forehead, then the eyes, nose, mouth and chin in sequence to "build up" a picture. The right brain, however, recognises the pattern immediately.
It is the left brain that is dominant in, for example, mathematical calculations. It is the right brain that processes non-verbal signals.
We have come as a society to stress, and value more highly, the functions of the left brain. The analytical thinking of the physicist is usually valued higher (in money terms) than the artistic and intuitive ability of the musician or artist. Most schools relegate right brain dominant activities to two or three periods a week. Yet those schools who have tried increasing the proportion of arts subjects, have found that levels of all scholastic performance improved. Because, although the two halves of the brain may indeed be specialised, they are far from being isolated. Each compliments and improves the performance of the other.
Education that emphasises only analytical thinking is literally "single minded". As one psychologist put it "Such people's brains are being systematically damaged. In many ways they are being de-educated. "
Two Brains are Better than One!
It would appear that the better connected the two halves of the brain, the greater the potential of the brain for learning and creativity.
Recent research by Dr. Christine de Lacoste Utamsing at the University of Texas has found that the interconnecting area is always larger and probably richer in nerve fibres in women than in men. We don't know why yet, but it has fascinating implications.
Roger Sperry's work further showed that, when people develop a particular mental skill, it produced a positive improvement in all areas of mental activity, including those that are lying dormant. In other words, the popular belief that painters and musicians (right brain people) must inevitably be poor at mathematics is not true.
Einstein, who actually failed mathematics at school, was a creditable violinist and artist, and has described the insight that gave birth to his Theory of Relativity. Alone on a hill on a summer day, he was daydreaming, and imagined himself riding a sunbeam to the far edge of the universe; but in his mind's eye he saw himself returning towards the sun. That flash of inspiration, (which as we shall see was probably associated with a theta brain-wave pattern), suggested that for the dream to come true, it required the universe to be curved. Space, light and time had to be curved also.
The Theory of Relativity is therefore a good example of left brain/right brain synchronised thought.
Since the state of reverie or daydreaming is associated with a predominantly theta and alpha wave pattern, it is also a perfect example of how an alpha brain-wave state creates the meditative background conditions for creativity.
Leonardo da Vinci is often quoted as probably the best example in history of the genius that can be liberated when left and right brain activities are fully combined. He was the most accomplished artist, mathematician and scientist of his day in at least half a dozen different fields, and he could write simultaneously with his left and right hand. The artist Sir Edwin Landseer, had a similar ability he used as a popular party trick. He could draw a horse with one hand, whilst simultaneously drawing a deer with the other!
Now this is not to say that there is a rigorous demarcation between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Each half contributes to the majority of thoughts, but there is no doubt about a specialisation of the two brains. There are cases where patients had lost the power of speech (left brain) but could still sing (right brain).
In the animal kingdom, the bottlenose dolphin is a mammal that has exceptional mental powers and has, according to the Severstsov Institute in Moscow evolved an extraordinary brain. It can sleep with one half or hemisphere of its brain whilst maintaining full consciousness in the other half. Then after an hour or so it switches brains! Moreover, during sleep one eye remains open and the other remains shut.
The dolphin is also capable of incredible feats of memory. Lyall Watson has described how a dolphin can emit a half hour "song" - a series of high pitched sounds that appear to be the main form of dolphin communication. The dolphin can then repeat the exact same sequence of sounds in an identical half hour repeat performance. It's rather like repeating a half hour soliloquy , verbatim.
Educational researchers are talking increasingly of 'whole brain . learning'. Joseph Bogen, writing in the U.C.L.A. Educator, remarks "The current emphasis in education on the acquisition of verbal skills and the development of analytical thought processes, neglects the development of non-verbal abilities." It is, he claims "starving one half of the brain and ignoring its contribution to the whole person."
Since non-verbal communication is a right brain activity and non-verbal actions account for perhaps 80% of all communication, we can see just how much our left brain orientated learning systems may be starving our intellectual development.
Stuart Dimond, a former Professor of Psychology at Cardiff, points out in his book `The Double Brain', "when the two hemispheres work together they perform much better than one."
Dr. Bernard Glueck at the Institute for Living in Hartford, Connecticut found that men and women practising meditation showed an increased synchronicity between the left and right sides of the brain, and suggested that this showed an improved communication through the corpus callosum, achieved by the attainment of relaxation and increased alpha brain waves. Surveys of creative thinking have emphasised the importance of encouraging an initial right brain visualisation, an intuitive solution, which can subsequently be evaluated logically by left brain processes. But the original impetus is from the non-verbal side of our brain.
Left v Right in our culture
The distinction between left and right is deep in the human psyche, and is constant amongst all cultures. It has much significance.
Right is a synonym for correct. Righteousness is good. The angels sit on God's right hand. Right in Latin is "dexter", from which we get dexterity.
Left in Latin is "sinistra" from which we get sinister. In French left is "gauche".
About ninety per cent of humans are right handed, and more girls than boys. Newborn babies will turn four times more frequently to the right than the left, but left-handedness is more common in twins. The speech centres in the brain (Broca's area and Wernicke's area) are located in the left brain, which controls the right side of the body.
It is important to be 'right-eared', because a high proportion of dyslexics `lead' naturally with their left ear. Sound entering through the right ear travels the shortest neurological path across the brain to the left hemisphere, whereas sound entering the left ear follows a longer neurological path to reach the right brain.
It is logical to ask whether left handed people -the 10% minority - also have the left brain as the dominant hemisphere for speech. Or do they, process speech with their right brains? Generally, they do not; but an important 35% of left handers do activate their right brain (as well as left brain) while speaking, In contrast only 10% of natural right handers do so.
The Triune Brain
The brain is not only divided horizontally into left and right. It is effectively divided vertically as well. Dr Paul Maclean in 1973 coined the term triune brain to emphasise the three divisions.
(1) The Reptilian brain (or brainstem), which emerges directly from the spinal column and controls the very basic instinctive responses.
(2) The Limbic system or mammalian brain, which includes amongst other organs, the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. It is this mini brain that controls emotions, sexuality and the pleasure centres.
(3) Finally the Neo-Cortex, which controls the intellectual processes which we have been discussing.
The three parts of the brain show the evolution of the brain from pure instinctual responses, via the acquisition of controlled emotional response and the beginning of memory, to the incredible complexity of the new brain or neo-cortex.
It is of great significance that the limbic system tends to be the conduit through which impulses are transferred from instinctual, involuntary behaviour to `rational' thought. Your personality is determined by the interaction of the limbic system and your neocortex. Psychologists now believe that most learning also involves an interaction between your old and new brains via the limbic system.
Many other scientists in the last few years have increasingly come to the conclusion that the key to more effective learning may lie in the limbic system, since it controls the emotions, and an appeal to the emotions is by far the most effective way to create attention and memory.
In 1971 Rappaport * concluded that emotion is not only involved in memory but is actually the basis on which memory is organised. Recently Luiz Machado, Head of the University of Rio de Janeiro, a prime mover in the Accelerated Learning Movement, claimed that if new material was presented in such a way as to produce emotional arousal, i.e. involve the limbic system, it would activate mental powers not normally used.
Since the limbic system exerts a powerful effect at the subconscious level, he may well be correct. Certainly the activation of the full power of the brain through the subconscious is a theme that we shall return to again and again throughout this book.
Does Mental Ability decline with Age?
Almost certainly not. What does deteriorate is the body. Arteries become clogged as fat builds up inside the walls, and once they have passed fifty years of age, up to 50% of people suffer diminution of blood supply, i.e. oxygen feeding the brain. When these arteries are cleaned, patients show a significant reduction in nervousness, mental distress and a measurable increase in I.Q. Moreover, when older patients are given specific oxygen treatment, there can often be an appreciable improvement in mental ability.
It has also been found that a high blood pressure correlates with loss of mental ability, and when hypertension and blood pressure is reduced, by relaxation exercises or dieting for example, brain function improves.
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* "Emotions and Memory" D.A. Rappaport. International Universities Press.
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Mental activity involves complicated physio-chemical activity. In fact Dr. David Samuels of the Weizman Institute estimates that there may well be up to a million chemical reactions taking place in the brain in any one minute! Yet there is no evidence that these chemical reactions become any less frequent with age; indeed the production of R.N.A., a key and complex chemical involved in memory, actually increases as you get older.
The impression that older people's memory for more recent events is poorer than for further events is perhaps because there are normally fewer outstanding events to remember as one grows older. The novel experiences are mostly encountered in younger years. And novelty aids memory.
Use it - or lose it
Whilst there is no major reason - and certainly no need - for there to be a reduction in mental powers with ageing, there certainly is conclusive evidence that the provision of constant stimuli improves mental ability.
Mark Rosenweig at U.C.L.A. conducted an experiment on three groups of rats.
Group 1 lived in a cage full of wheels, ladders, toys, mazes, etc.
Group 2 lived in an impoverished environment without any stimulation.
Group 3 could see the richer environment in an adjoining cage but could not join in.
Later examination of the three groups showed that group 1 rats, who had directly interacted with a challenging environment, all had a heavier and thicker cerebral cortex, whereas neither the observer rats nor the environmentally deprived rats had any increase in brain size.
The conclusion is that it is necessary to be involved in mental exercise, to experiment directly with new ideas. Many acknowledged intellectuals who have lived to a ripe old age bear out this truth. Tennyson, Wordsworth, Bernard Shaw, Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Haydn, Bach, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, were all doing work of extraordinary quality in the latter part of their lives. We have already seen how adequate oxygen intake is important and regular breaks from mental work and taking exercise is important. The Greeks instinctively realised this. Their senators would regularly pace up and down their forum during debates.
Nature or Nurture?
The way in which the brain actually develops enables us to dispose of the question of whether intelligence is a function of heredity (nature) or environment (nurture). The answer is "Both". The number of brain cells is a factor; but the way those brain cells are stimulated to make rich connections is far more significant. Thus it is probably correct to say that almost every normal child is born a potential genius.
Even if innate intelligence is merely average, a rich intellectual environment during the period of the second brain growth spurt, with plenty of opportunities to learn, can ensure the development of a greater proportion of the brain potential than would normally be expected.
The anecdotal evidence for this in humans (as well as clinical evidence in rats!) is overwhelming.
Genius is more made than born
In 1800 Karl Witte's father, a German doctor, decided to give his son a really rich educational environment. Karl entered the University of Leipzig at nine, and gained his PhD at fourteen! Lord Kelvin's mother made the same decision. Her son became one of the nineteenth century's most successful physicists. More recently in the well publicised "Edith Experiment", New Yorker Aaron Stern determined, in 1952, to give his daughter the best environment he could devise. Classical music was a continuous background. He talked to her in adult terms and showed her reading cards with numbers and animals on them. Edith Stern could talk in simple sentences at one, and had read an entire volume of the Encyclopedia Brittannica by the age of five. She was reading six books a day by age six. At twelve she enrolled in college and was teaching higher mathematics at Michigan State University at fifteen years old. She scores 200 on a scale where 155 is genius. In England, Ruth Lawrence who passed her 'O' level maths at nine and 'A' level at ten (normally 18) was accepted at Oxford University at twelve years of age., She had been educated in an intellectually rich environment by her parents.
We shall be returning in a later chapter to the subject of preschool learning. We shall also be debating the perfectly reasonable concern that no child should be 'forced' like an intellectual hot-house plant. Clearly, it is vital that the child should become a socially well integrated adult, enjoy her childhood and never be pressured. The point to make here, however, is that there is no question that a loving, relaxed and rich environment during the vital formative years definitely does create a higher degree of mental capability. And that is of undeniable benefit.
This benefit is not merely related to intellectual performance. The largest long term study of outstanding ability was started in California by Dr. Terman. Commencing in 1925, it has followed the progress of 1000 gifted children (all above 135 I.Q.s). It has concluded, so far, that:
* Physical health and growth was above normal. * Marriage rates were average/divorce rates were below average. * 70% graduated (7 1/2 times normal)
Society has come to be somewhat perversely suspicious of genius. Almost as if there is something rather `unfair' about actively encouraging mental growth.
As researchers of this book, we have come to believe in all-round education. We are totally against parents indulging their own ego's by pressurising their children to succeed. But we are equally unhappy about the attitude of mind that prompted a Manchester mother, when she was told that her son had an I.Q. of 167, to say ... "But he's such a nice boy."
The truth is we can indeed improve our children's ability and our own. And that is surely a challenge we must accept.
Alpha, Beta, Theta, Delta
The brain generates tiny electrical pulses as thoughts traverse the labyrinth of the mind. The physical conduits of these thoughts are the millions of nerve cells or neurons in the brain. Just as radio signals, in order to make a comprehensible message, are beamed out on radio waves, a band of signals within a defined frequency, so the brain's activity also occurs in waves. Brain waves can be measured on an electro-encephalograph machine (which is normally abbreviated to E.E.G. Machine). By attaching sensitive electrodes to the scalp, it is possible to measure accurately the type of brain wave that a subject is producing. These waves are usually expressed in the number of cycles per second (or C.P.S.) The brain produces 4 main frequencies:
Beta level brain waves - range 13-25 C.P.S. (cycles per second) Alpha level brain waves - range 8-12 C.P.S. Theta level brain waves - range 4-7 C.P.S. Delta level brain waves - range 0.5-3 C.P.S.
The following chart relates each type of brain wave to its principal function. We must remember however, that when we speak of someone being 'in alpha' we mean that this is their characteristic and predominant brain wave. Other brain waves will also be present, but in smaller quantities than usual.
The linking of left and right brain activities is important in producing a shift from learning to accelerated learning. Yet our society is very 'beta orientated'. We are busy thinking about the problem in hand, but don't leave ourselves sufficiently open to I other influences, which would help us memorize faster and make the sort of less expected connections that we call creative thinking.
In beta you don't see the wood for concentrating on the trees. But learn to relax, increase the proportion of the alpha and ideally theta brain waves, and you have created the conditions where you may begin to see the whole picture. 'Alpha' is a natural and receptive state of mind, that we can all attain through the techniques discussed in this book. They principally involve simple and pleasant relaxation exercises and listening to certain types of music.
The theta brain wave pattern is especially interesting. It occurs spontaneously to most of us in the twilight state between being fully awake and falling asleep. Arthur Koestler called it `reverie'. This drowsy stage is associated with fleeting semi-hallucinatory images. Thousands of artistic and literary inspirations and scientific inventions have been credited to this state, a sort of freeform thinking that puts you in touch with your subconscious.
Many psychologists would agree it is a reasonable hypothesis that, when left/right brain symbiosis takes place, conscious and subconscious are also united. The proportion of theta brain waves becomes much higher than normal. This is the moment when logical left brain activity declines. The left brain, which normally acts as a filter or censor to the subconscious, drops its guard, and allows the more intuitive, emotional and creative depths of the right brain to become increasingly influential.
If the hypothesis is true, then do women, popularly characterised as more intuitive, reach a walking theta state more often than men; and can this be associated with the fact that their left/right brain link, the corpus callosum, is larger and richer in connective capabilities than men's? We do not yet know, but it is a fascinating area for future research.
At the University of Colorado Medical Centre and at the Biofeedback Centre in Denver, Dr. Thomas Budzyski has found that, when people were trained to achieve and maintain theta brain waves using biofeedback techniques, they did indeed learn much faster. Moreover, many emotional and attitudinal problems were solved at the same time.
For example, in a theta state, suggestions that racial prejudice is wrong were well accepted. Suggestions to overweight people to follow a sensible eating pattern were accepted and subsequently complied with, and insomnia and drinking problems were successfully tackled.
Some time ago a New York advertising agency was asked to produce a T.V. Commercial to combat racial prejudice. They produced two. The first used a carefully built up rational argument. The second was a highly emotional film featuring attractive young black children and using many subconscious but positive appeals for fairness.
The logical T.V. Commercial actually intensified the degree of racial prejudice. The subjects felt themselves threatened as they realized they could not give an equally dispassionate and rational counter argument. Consequently the only possible response was an aggressive defence involving an increased emotional commitment to their original attitude.
The second commercial however, worked. Emotion laden appeals went beyond the conscious, the intellectual objections, and created a new positive image at the subconscious level that changed the subject's entire personal response, so no conflict or threat was aroused. Can intelligence be increased?
Whilst it is certainly an oversimplification to relate intelligence to brain capacity it is, however, interesting to relate three statements: The average I.Q. is 100 The genius-level is 160 The average human probably uses 4% of his potential brain power
If that average human could learn to use not 4% of his brain but a still minimal 7% of his brain, could he attain genius level? This book is about techniques that probably improve the human memory, that increase creativity and that provide access to unused brain power. The indications are that the same techniques can measurably improve intelligence.
The above "Memory Map" is our way of visualising the main points in the chapter in an easy to remember form.
