Making neurons responsive to light may lead the way to everything from erasing painful memories to restoring vision
Reality has stiff competition these days. Wild fantasies are coming “true” right before our eyes via “virtual reality” or VR: the use of high-tech simulations that allow us to interact with environments and situations that seem incredibly authentic but aren’t really there. VR is claiming more territory in our perceptual landscape, thanks to simulated discussion groups (Usenet, Chat, ICQ), virtual…
When you get your heart broken it can feel like the world stops spinning. Caught up in a whirlwind of negative emotions, you somehow convince yourself that you will be alone forever and you will never find love again. It goes without saying that after a breakup you need to brace yourself for an emotional roller-coaster ride. Over the years,…
Brent Baum is an important person in my life and a remarkable man. He’s a therapist and a teacher who developed Holographic Memory Resolution (HMR), a method combining meditation, exercise, and emotional reframing techniques to ease the impact of stress and trauma. He defines trauma as “any experience large or small that overwhelms us in our daily existence.” Left unresolved,…
Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit like my mom on her 60th birthday when she announced, “No more physical presents! From now on, just give me experiences. I want to see more, hear more, feel more.” So when I discovered an upcoming Tibetan Crystal Bowl concert at a local enlightenment center, it piqued my interest. I decided my mom and…
According to Mary’s relatives, she’d had a severe water phobia since infancy. She couldn’t take a bath in a full tub of water or go to the beach. The mere sight of water triggered an extremely disturbing feeling in the pit of her stomach. Mary was so phobic that she was even frightened when it rained and suffered water-related nightmares.…
Music is now a government-endorsed painkiller. This is not to say the Food and Drug Administration has approved rock, jazz, or hip-hop MP3 downloads as over-the-counter analgesics. But stretching beyond the labels of “alternative” or “complementary” healing techniques, music and sound have been studied and applied to patients in recent years in well-funded federal labs with impressive and verifiable results.…
Growing pains. No pain, no gain. A pain in the neck. No matter how you say it, pain hurts. But being able to feel pain is vital to our survival; that’s why we have millions of pain receptors all over our bodies. Pain helps us learn to avoid what can hurt us. It also alerts us to conditions that may…
Nelson, a musician, was a lifelong smoker and had tried to quit many times. He also struggled with a tendency to overeat and had attendant blood sugar issues. He had tried so many diets that he said he was pretty sure he could write a book about nutrition. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what to do to improve…
