Brain, meditation expert Fred Travis visits London

One of the world's most published researchers on the brain, meditation, and education, Fred Travis PhD, visited London 13-15 December 2009. He gave a live EEG (electroencephalogram) demonstration of increased coherence in the all-important frontal lobes of the brain during Transcendental Meditation at a well-attended conference.

The next day, in a more in-depth session, he explained that measuring the brain's electrical activity is like trying to monitor a game of football simply by hanging microphones over the audience at a football match. You can only infer what is actually happening in the brain. Indeed, he pointed out, the brain in turn is only a reflector of the person's inner state of consciousness. Nevertheless, during Transcendental Meditation coherence (synchrony) of alpha waves - the indicator of a state of restful alertness – increases demonstrably within minutes or even seconds. This corresponds to the experience of pure consciousness, or the simplest state of awareness, in which the mind is perfectly still yet wide awake, fresh, and clear.

Dr Travis's volunteer practised two other forms of meditation in turn, as well as Transcendental Meditation. Even to the untrained eye, it was clear that the frontal lobes were becoming markedly more orderly and coherent, indicating that they were not actively engaged in directing the attention, but more rested, coordinated within themselves and with one with another, and available for effective activity after meditation