Keitha Berry's List: The Soul of the Human Experience

• The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain by Kevin Nelson, M.D
• a number of reproducible observations combined with a bit of conjecture yield an entirely plausible neurological explanation for all the reported experiences that comprise NDEs.
• normally 20% of the heart's blood flow is directed to the brain, but that it can drop as low as 6% or so before we fall unconscious (and even at this level, no permanent injury will result).
• when our blood pressure drops low and we faint, the vagus nerve (a large nerve that connects to the heart) tilts consciousness toward REM sleep—but interestingly in some people not all the way.
• REM intrusion most typically occurs, when it does, in the transition from wakefulness to sleep.
• Nelson found in his research that the functioning of the mechanism that flip-flops people between REM sleep and wakefulness tended to be different in people who reported NDEs. In those people, he found the switch was more likely to "fragment and blend" those two states of consciousness (control of our state of consciousness is found in the brainstem and is tightly regulated), causing such people to simultaneously exhibit features of both. During REM intrusion people have found themselves paralyzed ("sleep paralysis"), fully awake but experiencing light, out-of-body sensations, and stunningly vivid narratives.
• During REM sleep, many of the brain's pleasure centers are stimulated as well (animals that have had their REM regions injured lose all interest in food and even morphine), which may explain the feelings of peace and unity also reported during NDEs.
• People are well known to experience "tunnel vision" immediately before fainting.
• (the periphery of the retina is more susceptible to drops in blood pressure than its center, so that the visual field appears compressed, making scenes appear as if viewed through a tunnel).
• the experience of tunnel vision to be caused by decreased blood flow to the eye.
• timulated
• temporoparietal region of his brain, he reported leaving his body. Wh
• The Tell-Tale Brain, V.S. Ramanchandran
• the temporoparietal region of the brain is responsible for maintaining our body schema representation.
• When external current is applied to this region, it ceases to function normally and our body schema "floats."

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• seat of the soul and the place in which all our thoughts are formed
• the pineal gland is an endocrine organ, which produces the hormone melatonin in amounts which vary with the time of day
• “psychic pneuma,” a fine, volatile, airy or vaporous substance which he described as “the first instrument of the soul.
• according to which the pineal gland regulates the flow of psychic pneuma in the canal between the middle and posterior ventricles of the brain, just as the pylorus regulates the passage of food from the esophagus to the stomach
• the pineal gland is attached to the outside of the brain
• it cannot move on its own
• presented by Posidonius of Byzantium
• first theory
• imagination is due to the forepart of the brain, reason to the middle ventricle, and memory to the hind part of the brain
• Nemesius of Emesa
• the anterior ventricle is the organ of imagination, the middle ventricle the organ of reason, and the posterior ventricle the organ of memory
• Avicenna
• projecting the psychological distinctions found in Aristotle's On the soul onto the ventricular system of the brain
• treatise called On the difference between spirit and soul, Qusta ibn Luqa (864-923) combined Nemesius' ventricular localization doctrine with Galen's account of a worm-like part of the brain that controls the flow of animal spirit between the middle and posterior ventricles
• people who want to remember look upwards because this raises the worm-like particle, opens the passage, and enables the retrieval of memories from the posterior ventricle. People who want to think, on the other hand, look down because this lowers the particle, closes the passage, and protects the spirit in the middle ventricle from being disturbed by memories stored in the posterior ventricle
• the term pinea was applied to the worm-like obstacle, so that the view that the pineal gland regulates the flow of spirits (the theory that Galen had rejected) made a come-back
• Niccolò Massa (1536, ch. 38) discovered that the ventricles are not filled with some airy or vaporous spirit but with fluid (the liquor cerebro-spinalis)
• Treatise of man
• The passions of the soul
• pineal gland played an important role in Descartes' account because it was involved in sensation, imagination, memory and the causation of bodily movements
• the gland is surrounded by veins rather than arteries
• phylogenic relic, a vestige of a dorsal third eye
• The hormone secreted by the pineal gland, melatonin, was first isolated in 1958. Melatonin is secreted in a circadian rhythm, which is interesting in view of the hypothesis that the pineal gland is a vestigial third eye. Melatonin was hailed as a “wonder drug” in the 1990s and then became one of the best-sold health supplements.
• theosophy
• “eye of Shiva” of “the Hindu mystics”
• the pineal body of modern man is an atrophied vestige of this “organ of spiritual vision”
• Journal of Pineal Research

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• Melatonin is a hormone that helps regulate the onset of puberty and helps protect the body from cell damage caused by free radicals.
• The soft tissue of the adult pineal gland contains more fluoride than any other soft tissue in the body - a level of fluoride (~300 ppm) capable of inhibiting enzymes.
• The pineal gland also contains hard tissue (hyroxyapatite crystals), and this hard tissue accumulates more fluoride (up to 21,000 ppm) than any other hard tissue in the body (e.g. teeth and bone).
• Luke found that animals treated with fluoride had lower levels of circulating melatonin, as reflected by reduced levels of melatonin metabolites in the animals' urine. This reduced level of circulating melatonin was accompanied - as might be expected - by an earlier onset of puberty in the fluoride-treated female animals.
• "In conclusion, the human pineal gland contains the highest concentration of fluoride in the body. Fluoride is associated with depressed pineal melatonin synthesis by prepubertal gerbils and an accelerated onset of sexual maturation in the female gerbil. The results strengthen the hypothesis that the pineal has a role in the timing of the onset of puberty. Whether or not fluoride interferes with pineal function in humans requires further investigation."

  • Good quote and source to use for paper.
• “The single animal study of pineal function indicates that fluoride exposure results in altered melatonin production and altered timing of sexual maturity.
• The two studies of menarcheal age in humans show the possibility of earlier menarche in some individuals exposed to fluoride, but no definitive statement can be made.
• Recent information on the role of the pineal organ in humans suggests that any agent that affects pineal function could affect human health in a variety of ways, including effects on sexual maturation, calcium metabolism, parathyroid function, postmenopausal osteoporosis, cancer, and psychiatric disease.”
   SOURCE: National Research Council. (2006).
• SOURCE: Luke J. (1997). The Effect of Fluoride on the Physiology of the Pineal Gland. Ph.D. Thesis. University of Surrey, Guildford. p. 177.
• It has the highest calcium concentration of any normal soft tissue in the body because it calcifies physiologically in the form of hydroxyapatite (HA).
• It has a high metabolic activity coupled with a very profuse blood supply: two factors favouring the deposition of F in mineralizing tissues.
• The fact that the pineal is outside the blood-brain barrier suggests that pineal HA could sequester F from the bloodstream if it has the same strong affinity for F as HA in the other mineralizing tissues.
• The intensity of the toxic effects of most drugs depends upon their concentration at the site of action.
• The mineralizing tissues (bone and teeth) accumulate high concentrations of F and are the first to show toxic reactions to F. Hence, their reactions to F have been especially well studied. If F accumulates in the pineal gland, then this points to a gap in our knowledge about whether or not F affects pineal physiology. It was the lack of knowledge in this area that prompted my study."
   SOURCE: Luke J. (1997). The Effect of Fluoride on the Physiology of the Pineal Gland. Ph.D. Thesis. University of Surrey, Guildford. p. 1-2.
• "After half a century of the prophylactic use of fluorides in dentistry, we now know that fluoride readily accumulates in the human pineal gland. In fact, the aged pineal contains more fluoride than any other normal soft tissue. The concentration of fluoride in the pineal was significantly higher (p <0.001) than in corresponding muscle, i.e., 296 ± 257 vs. 0.5± 0.4 mg/kg (wet weight) respectively."
   SOURCE: Luke J. (1997). The Effect of Fluoride on the Physiology of the Pineal Gland. Ph.D. Thesis. University of Surrey, Guildford. p. 167.
• "Fluoride is now introduced at a much earlier stage of human development than ever before and consequently alters the normal fluoride-pharmacokinetics in infants
• A complex series of enzymatic reactions within the pinealocytes converts the essential amino acid, tryptophan, to a whole family of indoles.
• If F accumulates in the pineal gland during early childhood, it could affect pineal indole metabolism in much the same way that high local concentrations of F in enamel organ and bone affect the metabolism of ameloblasts and osteoblasts."
• The controlled animal study carried out in this study produce compelling evidence that fluoride inhibits pineal melatonin output during pubertal development in the gerbil."
• At 7 weeks, the HF females were significantly heavier than the LF females (p < 0.004); as heavy as the HF males and LF males. The ventral gland in the HF female developed significantly earlier than in the LF female (p < 0.004). Vaginal opening occurred earlier in the HF female than in the LF female (p <0.03)."
• "The first step in assessing a health risk by a substance to humans is the identification of its harmful effects on animals. A health risk to humans is assessed using results from human epidemiological studies in conjunction with results from animal studies. The Newburgh-Kingston Study (Schlesinger et al, 1956) showed an earlier age of first menarche in girls living in the fluoridated Newburgh than in unfluoridated Kingston. The current animal study indicates that fluoride is associated with an earlier onset of puberty in female gerbils. Furthermore, more research was recommended on the effects of fluoride on animal and human reproduction (USPHS, 1991). This project has contributed new knowledge in this area."
• Fluoride may affect the enzymatic conversion of tryptophan to melatonin.
• fluoride may also affect the synthesis of melatonin precursors, (e.g., serotonin), or other pineal products, (e.g., 5-methoxytryptamine).
• For some unknown reason, pineal calcification starts intracellularly. Calcium has been demonstrated in pinealocyte mitochondria.
• it may be a mitochondrial enzyme that is sensitive to the effects of fluoride, e.g., tryptophan-5-hydroxylase. Alternatively, fluoride may affect pinealocyte enzymes which require a divalent co-enzyme because such enzymes are particularly sensitive to fluoride."
• if increased plasma-fluoride levels cause a decline in the levels of circulating melatonin during early human development, significant physiological consequences may have already occurred. Changes in plasma melatonin concentrations are serious functional disturbances because melatonin has many functions in the organism. The pinealogists have not completely unravelled the mechanisms by which the pineal gland performs its tasks in the brain.
• The neurochemical phenomenon elicited by melatonin in CNS are unclear.
• I do not intend to discuss the relative merits of the claims made by the anti-fluoridationists that chronic ingestion of low levels of fluoride has harmful effects on human health, i.e., increases the risk of cancer, affects the immune system, and hastens the aging process. These claims could be associated with the effects of fluoride on the pineal because the gland has been linked to oncogenesis, immunocompetence, and, in recent years, to the process of aging.

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• 1988 movie "Altered States" starring William Hurt, the main character, a research scientist (Hurt) dives deep into his consciousness and genetic roots.
• this DNA-related line of thinking focuses on the previous lives within us that are based on genetic memories, encoded on the DNA helix within us.
• BLUEPRINT, MEMORY BANK, INNER SPACE
• The DNA within all living things is the blueprint for what each organism becomes, subject to the environmental influences that can also have significant effects.
• Our IQ and aptitudes, musical skills, athletic ability, even our psychological and emotional traits may be significantly affected by the DNA within us.
• It has been demonstrated that experiences necessary for survival of a species are learned and that this knowledge is passed on to subsequent generations.
• In some cases this is mostly likely at least partially through DNA and the unconscious "instinct" that results. Even tiny and simple organisms learn crucial survival skills and pass these on.
• Because learning about situations that are necessary for survival of a species are probably saved as a kind of unconscious genetic memory, those fundamental human experiences could be deep down in our DNA somewhere.

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• a life-changing experience
• resulting in knowledge very useful for survival,
• possibly be encoded in the DNA and passed on to future generations
• a way to go deep down into your mind and consciousness
• into your genetic history, maybe through some kind of altered state like a dream or through some kind of trigger, could you recall and experience that event?
• Many genes remain a mystery and their purpose is unknown.
• Sometimes, these mystery genes are called "junk DNA."

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