Homonculus Meditation
The Little Man's Voice Inside Your Head
Homonculus is Latin for 'little man' and neuroscientists have known about the little man or representation of our bodies inside our cerebral cortex for years. For those of you familiar with Manga, this will come as no surprise.
The nervous system is a two way street and as you become more adept at meditation you will be able to quickly access and build a feedback loop between the synapses in your brain and the nerve cells in your body. This can become incredibly relaxing as you feel the correspondence between the two. There are thirty-six (36) trillion cells in the human body and each of them is capable of sensing heat, light, pressure and responding.
There are some rapid paths to the relaxation response when knowing you have separate areas of the brain to relax your subcutaneous muscles, large muscle groups and intra-skeletal muscles individually.
Take A Journey To The Center Of Your Mind
Here is a method of relaxation that really is, all in your head. Relax your forehead, scalp, cheeks, ears, jaw... Relax your eyes all the way to the back of your brain along the optic nerve. Feel relaxation from the tip of your nose back through your sinus cavities. Place your tongue to the roof of your mouth. Relax your tongue from the tip to the base and allow your throat to relax.
You are safe here now.
Slightly above and behind the base of the tongue is the limbic system. The amygdala and hypothalamus are physical structures inside your brain and you can relax them just as you would any other part of your body. You are using your prefrontal cortex to send messages to your limbic system that it is okay to relax the little man inside your head. In a few minutes your pineal gland and pituitary will begin in releasing melatonin, glutamate. Flooding the brain with relaxation chemicals and sending electrochemical messages down though the body and elation develops. These are the combined effects of acetylcholine, GABA, dopamine, and endorphins released with your assistance.Now you will feel the reward of relaxation traveling back up to the brain saying yes, I am relaxed and here is a dopamine reward. This is the feedback loop of relaxation attempted and acheived. Play with this for several minutes. If a part of the body does not seem to relax, ask if it could be 10 percent more relaxed and 10 percent more and 10 percent more and a little bit more and it is subtle but you will feel very cozy and warm and floating as if in amniotic fluid.
How do you experience your thoughts? Do you hear them? See them? Feel them? How is this similar or different to hearing, seeing, feeling the wind? Can you predict the next thought? How so?
Feel free to hang out in the space between thoughts.
Thank you for making our world a more peaceful place.