The proposed research combines the thorough behavioral investigation of Tibetan dreaming practices with a neuroscience perspective. Buddhist traditions have cultivated techniques to induce, enhance, and refine lucid dreaming—the ability to understand that one is dreaming amid a dream. Building on the ability to experience a lucid dream, one can then volitionally engage is specific practices …
Continue reading “Investigating the practices, benefits and neural correlates of Tibetan Dream Yoga”
Ryan Herringa, MD, PhD is the Director of the Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and the UW Health Professor in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He is a pediatric psychiatrist and neuroscientist whose work explores the neurobehavioral substrates of childhood traumatic stress and PTSD. …
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As we strive to navigate an uncertain future, could it be that the root causes of some of our most intractable challenges lie in the human mind? And could solutions be found there, too? Such an audacious proposition lies at the heart of the Insights project, with its evolving collection of essays from leading scholars, …
The Mind & Life Institute and Mind & Life Europe are honored to host a free live stream event with His Holiness the Daila Lama. The program will explore insights on the increasing complexity of our world, catalyzed by climate change, rapid technological innovation, and mounting political divisions, which is calling us to change the way we live.
Mind & Life periodically invites guest writers to contribute their perspectives and experiences on the blog as a way of deepening dialogue and understanding around key themes related to our mission. Thirty years ago, people who studied contemplative practices were often marginalized in their own academic departments. Informally, they sought out colleagues at other institutions. …
I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.― John Dewey As we reflect on our world today, we sense and see dramatic, interdependent global challenges—racial, political, economic, and ecological—all around us. This awareness leads many of us to feel an immediate need for action aimed at broad and deep systemic …
The short phrase—well-being is a skill—is a simple yet radical conclusion that comes from more than 25 years of research. Just like any other skill, if you practice it, you will get better. Plasticity, a Key Insight from the Biological Sciences The changes that come from any practice happen through learning. Neuroscience research has taught …
In the midst of growing global crises, including climate change, increasing polarization, inequality, and an overarching sense of disconnection from those around us and the natural world, it’s not a stretch to say that humanity needs change. Without question, the external systems and structures of our world need to be examined and adjusted. Yet a …
One of the most fundamental ways that we can be changed by contemplative practice relates to our sense of self. Both the Buddhist tradition and modern cognitive science have converged on core ideas suggesting that our everyday sense of existing separately from the world around us, and consistently over time, is mistaken. And realizing the …
