How God Changes Your Brain - Andrew Newberg, M. D_ [25]
At the other end of the neurological spectrum, if both the frontal cortex and the emotional centers of the brain remain inactive when a person contemplates God, God will hold little meaning or value. This is what we believe happens in the brains of nonreligious individuals, and our preliminary brain-scan studies with atheists points in this direction.15
In order to have a positive perception or experience of God, you need to have just the “right” balance of frontal and limbic activity. However, the neurological literature makes it clear that every meditative experience is somewhat unique and stimulates different parts of the brain to different degrees. Perhaps this explains why each person's experience of God is unique. Even in the Pentecostal tradition of speaking in tongues, each message is highly original and rarely repeats itself to the practitioner.
Anatomical location of major lobes and brain regions.
Other parts of the brain are associated with different notions and experiences of God. For example, the occipital cortex, which is at the back of the brain, helps us to envision an anthropomorphic God, while the temporal lobes (situated above the ear but below the parietal area) allow some individuals to hear God's voice. If these areas are injured, some patients begin to see or hear all sorts of phenomena that they interpret as religious, mystical, or demonic.16
The parietal lobe, when active, gives us a sense of our self in relation to time, space, and other objects in the world. This allows us to imagine a God that is separate from ourselves, existing beyond the boundaries of our personal being. Our brain-scan studies of contemplative forms of Buddhist and Christian meditation show that when activity in the parietal areas decreases, a sense of timelessness and spacelessness emerges. This allows the meditator to feel at one with the object of contemplation: with God, the universe, peacefulness, or any other object upon which he or she focuses.
Brain scan of a nun at rest and during prayer showing decreased activity in the parieta lobe that may be associated with the loss of the sense of self.
However, when Pentecostals speak in tongues, parietal activity increases. This gives them the sense that a separate entity is communicating with them. Thus, they do not report the experience of feeling at one with God. Since the parietal area also plays a role in language formation and articulation,17 it makes sense that we would see this type of activity during the Pentecostal experience. Yet, when our memory patients sang sa-ta-na-ma during their meditation, parietal activity decreased, just as with the Buddhists and nuns. We don't fully understand this phenomenon, but we suspect that one would need to maintain a strong sense of self in order to maintain an internal dialogue with God. A repetitious chant may interrupt the brain's propensity to create a self/other relationship with the words.
We also found that advanced meditators had a higher level of parietal activity when they were not meditating. This suggests that meditation, over time, strengthens one's sense of self in relationship to the world, as well as to the spiritual dimensions of life. It also suggests that conscious manipulation of parietal activity strengthens this part of the brain in the same way that intellectual activity strengthens the frontal lobe. Indeed, increased parietal activity is associated with increased consciousness, alertness, and the ability to resonate to other people's feelings and thoughts.
ENHANCING COMPASSION AND SOCIAL AWARENESS
Many forms of meditation stimulate another important part of the brain: the anterior cingulate cortex.18 The anterior cingulate is situated between the frontal lobe and the limbic system, acting as a mediator between our feelings and our thoughts.∗ It is involved in social awareness and intuition, and is larger in women than