Kenneth Pelletier

(Ph.D Dept of Psychiatry, UCSF/ Director Psychosomatic Medicine, Berkeley)

Excerpts from “Toward a Science of Consciousness”:

Karl Pribam’s analysis of brain information processing involves cybernetics, holography and neuro-physiology. Holograms offering the most potential for understanding brain functions are those which can be expressed in mathematical terms as FOURIER TRANSFORMS [which can be best understood by picturing a continuously oscillating wave e.g. EEG frequencies]. Fourier analysis is a means of breaking up such a compound wave into its constituent components. Such transforms, essential in assessing brain activity, are an integral part of hologram theory.

Fourier transforms have a unique attribute, since the identical equation convolves and devolves itself, and thus any process represented by the spatial Fourier transform can encode and subsequently decode simply by recurring at some second stage, pointing to the hologram property of storing the whole in each part, each part being capable of generating the whole.

In Pribam’s theory, memory functions in a two-step process. A stimulus such as a sound, smell or an image triggers an individual’s short-term memory, which then resonates through the infinite complexity of the brain’s stored holograms until an association is triggered in long-term memory. The correspondence between an immediate sensory stimulus and a fragment of a stored memory initiates the retrieval of the entire stored memory.

Remember, holographic theory states that the whole image is replicated in each of its component parts – i.e. there is total multi-level redundancy: therefore any pattern or pattern-set of long-term memory can be elicited selectively from all others with infinite facility. Just as the memory was encoded within an infinitesimal space by means of a Fourier-like transform, that same memory can be decoded into a certain dimensional wholeness by a precise reversal of the same Fourier transform. Through these holographic transformations a highly complex, yet utterly discrete, memory can be retrieved quite readily from an infinite array of possibilities. While this is the ideal model, variables such as age, sex, stimulus intensity, circumstances and environment, etc., affect the memory recall process in actual experience.

Environmental influences could comprise circadian or natural biological rhythms, or electrical field interaction; also the effect on behavior as a result of alterations in the brain chemistry (neurotransmission fluids) via drugs; or via meditation and biofeedback as a result of self-induced changes in brain-wave frequencies. (During an altered state of consciousness, the meta-programs of the individual’s holograms are altered such that the probability of perceiving events on the periphery of the programs greatly increases.)

Neuro-physiologists and physicists now familiar with many details of cell life consider synaptic vesicles, slow wave potentials and Fourier transforms to be the key principles by which MIND is operational – ephemeral mind acting upon static matter – a model of ineffably subtle interactions among infinitesimal energy fields occurring in quantum space. Advanced thinking about brain function no longer employs hardware metaphors of the brain as a machine or even a sophisticated computer, but rather the brain is thought to function by virtue of ‘spatio-temporal fields of influence’.

The Theta wave (4 – 7 Hz) frequency is augmented during non-emotional activities – either perceptual or imaginative - and this frequency offers significant creative potential to a person. At the interface between Alpha (7 – 15 Hz) and Theta, an individual appears to be able to use his conscious mind to focus upon unconscious imagery in a paradoxical manner resembling free association. The ability to focus on unconscious processes allows a person to formulate more creative problem solution – taking advantage of previously unavailable information from his subconscious mind.

Re: psychosomatic disease: How ironic it is that normal sub-cortical reactions are misinterpreted in the cortex as indications of disease which, in turn, increase the individual’s anxiety. Perfectly normal stress reactions are labeled as disturbing or even pathological by the individual who views them as inconsistencies to be overcome rather than vital signals that he is under stress. Essentially, an accumulating cycle of minute stress symptoms that is ignored rather than halted appears to be the means by which psychosomatic disease becomes established…While the basic instincts of sex, hunger, sleep and fear are governed by sub-cortical systems in the brain, the wide range of human emotions such as pity, shame, hope, guilt and joy are considered to be cortical elaborations or interpretations of the more basic instincts…Phobic activation of the sub-cortex by cortical processes is the neurological basis of stress diseases such as ulcers, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, obesity and psychological disorders such as guilt and depression.

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