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How are different body parts connected to the emotions we traditionally associate with them?
This week in my bioelectricity class, I learned about cardiac electrophysiology. Afterwords, I read an article about the growing field of neurocardiology: http://madurasinghe.blogspot.com/2008/06/neurocardiology-brain-in-heart.html. The heart’s nervous system contains over 40,000 neurons, and is sufficiently complex that it is referred to by some as its own “little-brain”. This little-brain communicates directly with the medulla in the brain-stem, both sending and receiving signals that have to do with hart rate, hormones, chemicals, and pressure in the heart. These signals help regulate other signals to blood vessels, glands and other organs, but they also “cascade up into the higher centers of the brain, where they may influence perception, decision making and other cognitive processes.”
This article made me wonder: Does perhaps the term “thinking with your heart” have a biological basis after all? How did the heart become the symbol of love? How might this association relate to the connection between emotion and heart health, and what makes up this connection in the first place?
To explore the biological basis of emotional experience, particularly as we traditionally associate these experiences with different parts of the body, I also watched the TED talk “Trust, Morality – and Oxytocin” (http://blog.ted.com/2011/11/01/trust-morality-and-oxytocin-paul-zak-on-ted-com/), in which Paul Zak talks about how oxytocin (a mammalian hormone) increases trustworthiness, generosity, empathy, while oxytocin release is inhibited by high stress.
And so I ask the TED Community: What connections might exist between body parts and the meanings we associate with them? For example, when we say we have a “gut feeling,” how might it relate to the activity of our autonomic nervous system on the GI tract? What about the emotional meanings we associate with the eyes, mouth, hands, and so on? Could age-old associations between body parts and emotion be rooted in biology?
daniel hehir 20+
Thanks for the info on smooth muscles and skeletal muscles. I will look into it. There may be a connection there yes. It's morning here. Off to work soon. Get back to you later.
Best wishes
Daniel
Ten Farsi
thank you very much for your reply. I am very well aware that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. What I was suggesting was that maybe there is not just a correlation between depression and heart diseases but also a causal relation between the two.
I was not thinking that the heart diseases would lead to depression but rather I thought, after reading the topic of this discussion - that since the brain and the heart seem to communicate also chemically that maybe this communication may be affected by the unbalanced state due to depression and that this maybe could be a causal link explaining another facet of the depression - heart disease correlation. And it would even be really interesting to disproof this idea :)
Kindly,
Ten
Joanna Cruz
The first thing I want to say is probably off topic but it is something that I always tend to do or notice. I tend to look at person’s hands and fingers. I do not know if there is a common association with fingers but finger types and shapes can determine what a person is interested in or capable of doing. Long, slender fingers can signify a musician’s hand. I guess the length enables proficient musicians to reach certain keys or strings, etc. that others cannot.
Anyway back to your question, the one of the first things that came to my mind is something that my dad says when I am looking for something that I have misplaced, “Look with your eyes and not with your mouth.” I know it sounds incredibly silly because you cannot see with your mouth. The only connection I can make with your question is that this saying tells me that if multiple sensory parts are active, it is difficult to be aware of all of them maybe due to signal interference. For those who lose a sense, the others become more sensitive and stronger.
Matthew Wieder 50+
Riela Isabel Antonio 500+
Human, as time molds them, just became more and more refined with how they put their emotions to literal meaning. For example, a "Heartbreak". For people who experienced it, they (including I) will say that it does feel as though their heart is breaking or being cracked open. Piercing pain and lost of proper reaction as rapidly associated to it. So yes, human beings just became so good with their sense of identifying what they really felt inside I suppose.
About your second question, based on the article you read, it is as though our organs have their own brains, own reflex system. Since the external physical body parts such as eyes, nose, hands, so on are connected to our "gut" as outside communication means, it just pretty much apply similar to the initial idea. Maybe your question here is, "SHOULD we consider those external physical body parts included in the "organs" you specified."
This is very interesting Andrew. Thanks!
Maria Georgescu 50+
I suppose one way to test out this theory is to plant a certain type of emotion or feeling connected with an event and associated with a body part. It has to be completely novel to the person and completely accepted as a relevant and meaningful connection. Then one would induce this feeling or event and monitor the signals between the brain and the body part. This would be a very difficult study to implement because you are dealing with a mind-game in a subject. Even then, there may be body parts, such as eyes (as was mentioned below), that carry an innate connection to an emotion. We are born and without any prompting, we fasten our attention on other people's eyes, their windows to the soul.
Nicolette Sinensky 50+
daniel hehir 20+
Another thing that came to mind for me is what they call Sensory Deprivation Tanks. Surf in on youtube and you can hear how people have OBE's using such tanks. I don't propose trying it. But just the same, there seems to something happening here ... and we don't know what it is... The "self" seems to slip out of the body. We loose contact with the "here and now" and slip into an alternate form of consciousness that could be compared with a NDE. So the body, its form, its sensory experiences, more or less conscious (for example atmospheric pressure) hold us in our body. The relaxation that takes place in the tank loosens our consciousness from its physical bondage.......
Cat Anderson
Stuart Woods 10+
Yu-An Chen 50+
I agree with you that skin is definitely a pathway to conduct our feeling. Besides personal experience such as goosebumps. I came across two articles that support the idea of skin can reflect human emotion:
In http://archderm.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/summary/60/6/1063, past dermatologists have observed and believe there is correlations between skin disorder and human disorder. In http://www.mendeley.com/research/eventrelated-skin-conductance-responses-to-musical-emotions-in-humans/, it uses skin conductance response (SCR) to measure emotional reactions.
Steven Nikolidakis 50+
daniel hehir 20+
I would like to post this link one more time. There wasn't much response to it the first time.
The story behind the heart and lung transplant here might be pointing to the possibility that the brain may be just one of many organs that serves as a storage for memories. This is becoming a common phenomenon with organ transplant patience. .... What could this be telling us??
Adriaan Braam 20+
The more we believe that we are a spirit in a body, and that when the body dies the spirit does not, the more real the different communications can become.
Obviously there is a way back otherwise there could not be NDE's but how possible or direct or for how long the connection can be between one having died and this world I do not know. But when our body dies we do have a complete spiritual body to the point that we do not know we have died unless told.
Harnsowl Ko 50+
Ariel Habshush 50+
Here's another heart transplant story:
The science journal Discover, in a review of the book A Man after His Own Heart by Charles Siebert, said that the book claimed “that the heart is no mere pump, as some physicians still insist, but a sophisticated participant in the regulation of emotion. The heart has a mind of its own: It secretes its own brain-like hormones and actively partakes in a dialogue among the internal organs.”
The incident that was quoted to support this claim was the artificial heart transplant received by William Schroeder. Although Schroeder was able to live, he was intensely unhappy. They claim that some emotionally charged communication between heart and mind had been lost.
daniel hehir 20+
The human being's self imposed materialism has lead us to think that man is a machine, the brain is a computer, the heart is a pump. This way of thinking has got to stop. The heart as you say Ariel is more like a venting system that regulates the flow of the blood. Blood is the carrier of the spirit being in us.
The blood is not simply pumped around in the body as many think. This has actually been know for hundreds of years... it's only our modern day science that has lead us to this delusion. If the heart was merely a pump, it would not be physically possible for it to pump blood into the minute capillaries that fill the body. The blood seems rather to be self perpetuating. All according to many circumstances both in our outer environment as well as our emotional state of being. A perfect example was given earlier on this discussion by Steven Nikolidakis about under the condition of fear the blood rushes inward from the face... and in the case of shame, the blood rushes outward towards the surface of the skin... amazing I say!! This is really the expression of the experience of the soul in the special fluid of the blood.
Andrew Leader 50+
Thanks again for the poem. I'm thinking of sharing it with my class tonight.
What aspect of "modern day science" do you suggest accounts for "this delusion" of the heart pumping our blood through the capillaries? Also recall, science has also shown us the network of smooth muscle which assists the arteries and arterioles, while skeletal muscle movement predominantly accounts for circulation of blood through the veins. Could this what you mean when you say the blood moves on its own?
Jaana T
Some examples of sayings in Estonian going back as far as the Ice-age:
- the referrals to hand: "in the hand of the cold/sun/rain/wind" / "he was bitten from the hands of dogs" / "to order" = "to give order's with ones hand"...
Explanation: power over human beings was symbolised by a hand. The hand in all those expressions always occurs in singular which was the integral part of our ancestors that everything formed a whole, also the paired parts of body which were always used in singular. If one wanted to talk about 1 hand, they had to say "half a hand"
- use of body parts as spatial references: "on the ear" = next to / "on the head" = on top / "on the root" = nearby. I've heard that aborigines are able to know cardinal points at all times, so they will use "to the south" instead of "to my right" etc. Kind of cool if you think about it...
Andrew Leader 50+
Concerning the origin of these parts of language, I hadn't even considered belief systems. When you think about it though, it makes a lot of sense: Just think about how often people make reference to the New Testament in predominantly Christian societies in everyday language. Next time someone sneezes, rather than saying "Bless you!" I'll try saying "Sorry your nose feels weird!" and see how that goes over.
But of course you can tell that, as a Science and Engineering Student, my interests lie predominantly in the hints that language and emotion can give us about the body and biology and vice-versa. Given that we, here, are drawing a strong connection between language and religion, would it be too completely heretical of me to ask if there is a connection between someone's belief system and biology?
Before you jump out of your seat, no, I'm not claiming that the Bible was just people's minds playing tricks on themselves. There's a body of anthropological research pointing to a natural human tendency to have some form of religion, supernatural beliefs, etc. This is a rhetorical question because I don't think Science is at a place where we can answer it, nor would it be proper of us to speculate here, but does Biology play a role in this human tendency toward religion? If so, via what mechanism? Does it also exist in animals?
Anna Zanger
Adriaan Braam 20+
I very much hope this will show us that what and how we think is who we are, or have dicided to be. We are not our body, its parts or chemical (im)balance, we are our mind and thus spirit.
Bedankt for the link.
Adriaan Braam 20+
I do however believe it is part of the human condition to explain things that we look at or that happen to us. We can be searchers for truth and reason, explanations that make sense.
AA seems to suggest that a bellief in a higher power would help people overcome issues as well.
I also believe humans can focuss very much on one thing and completely ignore another.
Animals cannot go outside of their instinct by choice, unless trained by a human.
Rafael Lecuona
Heather White 10+
You can download a free book under the publication tab.
Anna Zanger
Rafael Lecuona
Josh Mayourian 50+
Wow, type 3 diabetes is definitely interesting and different from types 1 and 2. Type 3 diabetes is described as:
"A problem with insulin production in the brain is thought to result in the formation of protein "plaque"---not unlike that which is found among suffers of Type 1 (insulin-dependant) and Type 2 diabetes (insulin-resistant). But in the case of diabetes Type 3, plaque appears in the brain and leads to memory loss and problems forming memories."
Check out the link that gives more information.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/22165-diabetes-type/#ixzz1qM1X7IaH
Heather White 10+
Earth - Spleen / stomach - worry, pensiveness
Metal - Lung / large intestine - grief, sadness, anxiety
Wood - Liver / gallbladder - anger, frustration
Fire - Heart (pericardium) / small intestine (triple burner) - lack of vitality, depression, fright
Water - Kidney / bladder - fear, isolation
It sounds superstitious but don’t dismiss it out of hand. The tongue, hands and feet can be read like a map of the bodies health - useful diagnostic tool if you learn how to read their secrets.
Ten Farsi
Depression because it is known that there is a link between Depression and Cardiovascular Diseases.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071015131515.htm
Therefore the question I ask myself is: could research focusing on neurocardiology bring a better understanding of the processes involved in Depression, and maybe even find explanations for the link between Cardiovascular Diseases and Depression?
Who ever is interested in such a research, or who ever knows if it is researched already - I would love to be contacted.
Simon Khuvis 50+
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181839/figure/DialoguesClinNeurosci-9-9-g002/
This is a situation in which I am quite tempted to say that correlation does not imply causality. The same factors which put an individual at risk for heart disease: a sedentary lifestyle, poor nutrition, substance abuse, etc., generally increase an individual's chances of depression.
While there is no shortage of explanations for the correlation in the data for these diseases, I don't think there is any doubt that they are, themselves, exacerbating factors in one another. The article claims that depression "has regularly been shown to lower adherence to prescribed medication and secondary prevention measures," according to another study by Glassman. It also stands to reason that poor physical health will have a negative impact on one's mental and emotional well-being. So it is easy to imagine that the result is a kind of positive feedback loop or vicious cycle promoting the progression of both diseases.
Ten Farsi
I think you make a good point by differentiating correlation and causality. When I wrote the question, I did not think about this in the first place but I was aware that depression influences your life style and life choices that as you write promote the progression of both diseases.
The reason I still believed that there could be a causality involved is because Andrew Leader writes at the beginning of the discussion that:
"This little-brain communicates directly with the medulla in the brain-stem, both sending and receiving signals that have to do with hart rate, hormones, chemicals, and pressure in the heart. These signals help regulate other signals to blood vessels, glands and other organs, but they also “cascade up into the higher centers of the brain"
and knowing that research found out that Depression seems to involve a pathway in the brain that is disturbed which involves "disturbances" in the prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex (affected and lower count of glia cells) together with the hypothalamus. (Peter Kramer writes in his book "Against Depression" mentioning the studies of Yvette Sheline and Rajkowska)
I thought that maybe there is a possibility that depression affects the signals send to the heart via a " down cascade" through the medulla to the heart maybe influencing chemical and hormonal balance and therefore explaining the correlation between the two diseases.
Rafael Lecuona
Veronica Shalotenko 50+
While I do believe that research in the field of neurocardiology could lead to improved treatments of heart disease, I don’t think that neurocardiology will give us better ways to treat depression. Today, the accepted belief among psychiatrists is that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain (most commonly serotonin or dopamine). In other words, the causes of depression lie in the brain and not in other areas of the body. I know that some people don’t believe that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance. After all, it is impossible to measure serotonin or dopamine levels in a living brain.
However, I would argue that the high success rate associated with serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (the most common type of prescribed anti-depressant) suggest that depression is, in fact, caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. I’m willing to admit that illnesses like heart disease can exacerbate depression systems, but they’re not the leading causes of depressions. Even if a depressed patient is cured of heart disease, he or she will most likely continue to show symptoms of depression. The good news, though, is that depression is very much treatable; in most cases, all it takes is some therapy and anti-depressants.
George Kong 30+
If we were to scour many different cultures for emotional associations to body parts, we would doubtless find a large number, providing each organ with a multitude of different, even contradictory descriptors. The number is likely to be large enough, and the things that we discover numerous enough, and the acceptable associations vague enough, that we will find more than enough evidence to reinforce our bias, if that is indeed what we are after.
Still, it's handy to know which of the memes that we pass down from generation to generation are actually (coincidentally) grounded in reality, and which ones are not.
Anna Zanger
With an SRS that is stuck, and with stored emotions and experiences, you are limited in your appropriate responses to the here-and-now. You can’t follow your heart, cause the heart itself is strung up by the heart protector. In the absence of guidance from the heart, the cortex takes over. You start doing what you THINK is good for you, rather than what is good for you. Whole different energy.
The gut, too, is lined with finely tuned nervous tissue. It, too, stores memories and is programmed to warn you for safe/unsafe situations.
As to Love, what is that? I think it is one of the names for what sheer Life Energy (chi, prana) does for you. It’s the feeling that arises when you are very much aware of being alive (a biological being!) at all! What a miracle!
(Which, unfortunately, you can only fully enjoy when you are not stuck in old patterns acquired by your SRS along the way. Which, fortunately, can be achieved by “rebooting” your SRS and putting your old pain patterns out (which may take some time, but it is concrete and absolutely satisfying).)
Suggestions for further exploring – some snippets, get the books!
PS These people are medical doctors and scientists...
Waking the Tiger, Peter Levine, check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByalBx85iC8
Molecules of Emotion, Candace Pert, check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJBUmdXxsSg
Cell Talk, in which it is explained that you can get into touch with your body to the level of individual cells to find out what is going on. Written by John Upledger.
Deepak Chopra on heart health, check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnYL28GGiN4 and his book about the heart
What are your organs talking about? Jean Pierre Barral, check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK1j0XswJQY&feature=related
Anna Zanger
One clear instance for me is when at age 11 my brother from another mother refused to play with me any longer. I got stuck in a mode of quickly assuming, in new situations, that I was only there on sufferance, with the concomitant stress. Again, the reason for this is very sound. Your thinking brain is too slow; therefore you respond through available scenarios (made a.o. by the Amygdala). It does mean you respond with old pain, distrust, distance, sometimes aggression, rather than with unencumbered Love.
So, your SRS can get stuck when something happens that is too big to deal with: your body stores the experience and the emotions away for future reference, for such a time as you are able to deal with it. It’s the thalamic part of your brain that decides when. Good reason for that: the show must go on. You only collapse when you have a shoulder to cry on. The storing away costs energy. That is energy you do not have available for living your life today, for your immune system to function properly (health) and for thinking clearly.
You can get into touch with these stored experiences and emotions and deal with them through body work (for instance: cranio sacral therapy). Though any experience or emotion can be located anywhere, there are striking similarities to where you can find them: burdens on the shoulder, sadness in the lungs (you never cried) and the large intestine (you never let go); note Chinese Traditional Medicine has these for the seat of sadness too; fear in the kidneys, anger in liver and gall bladder, pain of loss and separation in the heart…. Check the old proverbs and you will know. A knot in your stomach, a pain in the xx, we have a lot in our language!
I saw a film yesterday in which one Bruce suffers from congestive heart failure. It is a case in point when it comes to emotions and (heart) health: "Beautiful Kate". Also read http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/StudentJournal/volume2/kate.pdf
Anna Zanger
In the Zak-video you post a link to, it is said that oxytocin is the foundation for trust. Indeed: there is a specific area in the brain called cingulate gyrus that is activated right after birth by sounds that make the newborn feel safe and welcome after its ordeal in the birth canal. If that doesn’t happen, for whatever reason, the mammalian and human brains are not correctly jump started and the child will be fearful and untrusting, having a hard time fulfilling its complete potential. It’s one way in which our system can get stuck in an “unsafe” mode. Any overwhelming situation may do it, even the Moro reflex test done on newborn infants.
Let me give you an example of stuckness. I was loped down by a German shepherd when I was 4. It was larger and heavier than I was. It may have wanted to play; whatever its intentions, it trampled my thorax. Forever after, one bark of a dog, or one sighting of one caused my SRS to be on the highest possible alert. Not an appropriate response, but a conditioned one; I would freeze in terror, convinced that I did not understand dogs and hence would die: my mom had told me that I shouldn’t have run away. Only at 48, things began to change when I learnt how to get into touch with the brain and body parts involved in the SRS (which you can Google, by the way ;-), it involves thalamus, amygdala, hippocampi, hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenals, locus ceruleus, raphe nuclei, and many more).
One part of the stress response system is the pericardium, the heart protector in Chinese Medicine. When you experience emotional pain, it contracts. A real blow can cause it to stay contracted, as if in shock. This is in order to shield the heart from further pain. However, the heart can then no longer move in its natural rhythm. It backfires. You’re not as well connected to your heart’s desires; the term “follow your heart” feels empty to you.
Anna Zanger
Where to start, dear Andrew, now that you are asking us to help explore the miracle that you are? Preferably at the level of biology, if I read your post correctly? Let’s see what my posts do for you, even if they’re a bit haphazard because this is such an extensive subject to explore.
A first practical piece of information is about the heart in the embryo. When you look at the developing embryo, the brain develops after/on top of the spinal cord. Picture that as top-heavy and upside down. The top of the developing brain then detaches itself from the cortex, migrates to what will become the rib cage, crawls in there and starts to beat. Presto: the heart. A piece of brain. Physically separate from the brain now, or so it seems (after all, it is ennerved, and that is the least of it), but they still work closely together.
It is the heart-centre of the brain that decides which brain parts are to become active. Thinking with your heart means: responding to the present moment as-is with exactly the appropriate tools.
However, most of us have a ‘stuck’ stress response system. A beautiful system by the way, designed for our survival and that of the species. It is built up from proven parts: the medulla (fish-worm brain), the pons (reptilian brain) and the mammalian brain all have their specific workings. The human (thinking, talking, reflecting) brain, doesn’t have to bother with the stress response. It is too slow for instant life saving responses; the thalamus will let the cortex know what the problem was only after the fact. Now this is a learning system. Yours began to learn what is safe and what isn’t when you were still a pancake shaped piece of tissue in the womb. For the first nine months of your existence, you got information from your mother (you were one, after all). And then after you’re born, your SRS will, in early childhood, be conditioned according to your experiences of what is danger and what requires which response.
Cat Anderson
Kai Quale
Let's see:
* Most of the brain is used to control processes in the body
* These parts of the brain are largely interwoven and -linked with the parts involved in thinking and feeling
It would be a wonder if there WASN'T any correspondence between these areas.
Cat Anderson
VAUGHN BRESHEARE
http://www.ee.washington.edu/research/compbe/ pico is stronger than femto
http://www.mindfulmuscleblog.com/heart-has-consciousness/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091211131520.htm
arzhang tahmosybayat
http://media.noetic.org/uploads/files/Gut_feelings_intuition_and_emotions_An_exploratory_study.pdf
Andrew Kiang 50+
Here is a somewhat related article about the relation between emotions and bacteria in the stomach: http://www.sciencedebate.com/science-blog/science-gut-feeling-gut-bacteria-influence-brain-chemistry-and-behavior
Christophe Cop 500+
Please don't take it personal, just verify for yourself and then think about it whatever you want yourself.
I think Hearthmath deserves some debunikng...
http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=12645
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1202--is-heartmaths-emwave-personal-stress-reliever-scientific-.html
Other than that:
As my previous post stated: there are many links between brain and the rest of our body (just look at the anatomy of the nervous system: it has sensors, receptors and actors almost everywhere)...
Andrew Leader 50+
Christophe Cop 500+
But what exactly are the limits of science?
(I'm interested in your opinion/thoughts about this)
Andrew Leader 50+
First, I think we're in the same camp in that I'm primarily interested in using this conversation to find more scientifically plausible connections between "mind and body," such as those I outline at the top of the conversation.
Moving on to the question at hand, I think many scientists--as well as lay people who value science--tend to subscribe to some level of scientism, "a belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints." (from wikipedia) (not to be confused with science itself). But there are many important questions that are simply not appropriately addressed by the scientific method. For example: Certain historical questions are best tested by gathering primary sources and making inferences. In the comment I just directed you toward, I mention that the existence of a supernatural deity is beyond scientific inquiry, as it can neither be proven nor disproven through reproducible testing of a hypothesis.
It seems to me that the popularity of science as one of mankind's most important philosophical instruments has risen greatly over the past centuries, particularly with the industrial revolution and the technological age. However, I think scientism has come with it to a great degree. In my opinion, scientism has something of an uglier face, having been used time and time again to justify experiments that would today be considered unethical and to support debunked theories such as racial Darwinism.
This said, I respect the less scientifically oriented posts on this conversation topic so long as they do not purport to be scientific results. Thank you for helping me keep a watch on this.
What do you think?
Christophe Cop 500+
I do think scientism can be used wrong... though I often do fall into the trap of scientism.
But that does not mean it is an argument that can refute science.
Though, when it comes to exploring new ideas and hypothesis, it is useful (if not necessary) to be congruent with scientific knowledge.
In short: I'm rather wrong by being too skeptical than being wrong by contradicting well established scientific findings.
Adriaan Braam 20+
As my post below emphasizes, because I see us as having been created, there is a strong connection between our mind (spirit) and our body.
We have a mind consisting of a will and an understanding. The book link in my previous post explains in detail the similarity between our lungs and heart and the will and understanding of our mind.
I am sorry that this is a newer translation (from the Latin) and instead of the words "will and understanding" which I like, they now say "volition and dscernment". Please have a look
Adriaan Braam 20+
Please allow me to quote Swedenborg here
"There is a correspondence between volition and the heart and between discernment and the lungs. This will be presented in the following series.
1. Everything in the mind goes back to volition and discernment, and everything in the body goes back to the heart and the lungs.
2. There is a correspondence of volition and discernment with the heart and the lungs and a consequent correspondence of everything in our minds with everything in our bodies.
3. Volition corresponds to the heart.
4. Discernment corresponds to the lungs.
5. This relationship enables us to discover many secrets about our volition and discernment and also about love and wisdom.
6. Our mind is our spirit, and the spirit is a person, with the body being a covering through which the mind or spirit senses and acts in its world.
7. The union of the human spirit and body is accomplished through the correspondence of volition and discernment with the heart and lungs, and disunion is caused by a lack of correspondence."
I am wholy convinced you'll love to read this. It is on page 102 of this book in paragraph 371.
http://sites.google.com/site/liveitupspiritually/home/writings/DLW_DP.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1
There is a total correspondence (relationship)
Cat Anderson
Andrew Leader 50+
What I find particularly interesting are the traditional associations between the mind and body that have associated scientific evidence that can help explain, or at least provide additional perspectives on, the existing notion. To me, this is not a matter of science "catching up"--rather, it's a matter of comparing two separate questions: What do we feel, and what do we observe scientifically?
Mary M. 50+
Hmmm...interesting topic of conversation. I wish I knew more.
Jami Broom
Rafael Lecuona
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind's_eye
Rafael Lecuona
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm