It was recently discovered that lucid dreamers produce the highest brainwaves ever recorded. Since I have lucid dreams, this made me want to bring out the party balloons. I wanted to shout, "Look at this, all you people who are good at worldly things like getting up early and paying bills on time! I have a skill too!"
Granted, my skill won't save me from credit card late fees. Or maybe eventually it will ... if mastery of consciousness translates to mastery of life. Which I think it does.
In the article on the discovery, the author notes that the other group of people who have brainwaves as high as those in a lucid dream state, are monks who have maintained a meditation practice for at least a decade. I can't imagine a subset of people with more life mastery skills. Joyful? Check. Excellent focus? Check. Get along well with others? Check.
The article brings up the question of what kind of world it would be if everyone functioned in the high brainwave state of meditating monks. I suspect it would be a world of compassion, peace, and sensible shoes. If there's one potential solution to the problems we face that doesn't have "yes, but human nature..." to refute it, this is it. And what if we're not only capable of this solution, we're well on our way to it?
What was most fascinating in the article, was the idea that:
"Although the size of the human brain has remained unchanged for 200,000 years,
brainwave frequency and states of consciousness have changed over time.
Humans seem to increase the brainwave frequency, and operate at different
brainwave states as we continue our journey forward."
What if all the talk about 2012 heralding a coming change in consciousness, is simply our normal evolution from one brainwave frequency to the next? Maybe, from the gamma state (the highest brainwave state) this seems completely obvious. The people who are telling us about it can see it from a mile away, just like I can sometimes see that the scary robotic aliens in my dreams aren't real or scary at all.
It's pretty obvious that the only way humans are going to remain a viable life form is to change the way we think. Maybe practices like meditation and lucid dreaming can help us speed up this process. Whether there's a grand design behind it or it's simple necessity doesn't really matter. It's time for us to evolve.