"Part of our 'fight or flight' reflexes to keep us alive includes the switch into the REM state of consciousness, " he said.

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By this time, I am in an altered state of consciousness.

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Even better is that this state of consciousness can be witnessed in EEG recordings of the brain as a heightened, synchronous pattern of brain waves (called gamma synchrony).

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All reported that during the study they were able to reach their usual trance-like state during the psychography task and were in their regular state of consciousness during the control task.

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In this sublime state of consciousness which Maharishi has declared as the natural birth right of every man and woman on earth, man is one with the Creator, the process of creation and the creation itself.

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She is unable to talk and had been thought to be in a vegetative state, with no awareness or consciousness of her surroundings.

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Thomas Nagel, a distinguished American philosopher, once remarked that to say now that consciousness is a physical state of the brain is to be in the position of an ancient Greek who proclaims that matter is energy: what he says is true, but there is no understanding of how it can be true, no framework into which to fit the discovery.

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The case has highlighted the difficulties doctors face when trying to diagnose the level of consciousness of a patient in a coma-like state.

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