Mirror Neurons and Consciousness

To further validate yesterdays discussion about empathy.

Social psychology looks at the basic human need to fit in and calls this the normative social influence. When we grow up, our moral and ethical compass is almost entirely forged by our environment, so our actions are often a result of the validation we get from society. Recent neurological research has confirmed the existence of empathetic mirror neurons. When we experience an emotions or perform an action, specific neurons fire. But when we observe someone else performing this action or when we imagine it, many of the same neurons will fire again, as if we were performing the action ourselves. These empathy neurons connect us to other people allowing us to feel what others feel. And since these neurons respond to our imagination, we can experience emotional feedback from them as if it came from someone else. This system is what allows us to self reflect. The mirror neuron does not know the difference between it and others and is the reason why we are so dependent of social validation and why we want to fit in. We are in a constant duality with how we see ourselves and ho others see us. This can result in confusion with identity and self esteem. And brain scans show we experience these negative emotions before we are aware of them. But when we are self aware we can alter misplaced emotions because we control the thoughts that cause them. This is a neurochemical consequence of how memories become labile and retrieved and how they are restored through protein synthesis. Self-observing profoundly changes the way the brain works. It activates the self-regulating neo-cortical regions, which give us an incredible amount of control over our feelings. Every time we do this our rationality and emotional resilience are strengthened. When we are not self-aware, most of our actions are impulsive and the idea that we are randomly reacting and not making conscious choices is instinctively frustrating. The brain resolves this by creating explanations for our behavior and physically rewriting it into our memories through memory reconsolidation, making us believe we were in control of our actions. This is also called backward rationalization, and it can leave most of our negative emotions unresolved and ready to be triggered at any time. They become a constant fuel to our confusion as out brain will keep trying to justify why we behaved irrationally. All this complex and almost schizophrenic sub consciousness is the result of a vastly parallel distributed system in our brain. There is no specific center of consciousness, the appearance of a unity, in fact, each of these separate circuits being enabled and being expressed in one particular moment in time. Our experiences are constantly changing out neural connections, physically altering the parallel system that is our consciousness. Direct modifications to this can have surreal consequences that bring into question what and where consciousness really is.   

“We are constantly mirroring people around us subconsciously looking for things that reflect our own states and personality to protect our emotional balance. This is why so often are moods are reflected by the people around us and why we can be so immensed in music, games or movies that resonate with us and we are socially mirroring the artists or characters. Our understanding of others is naturally linking our perception of people actions to memory imprints of our own past experiences. This process gives us an intuitive impression but also makes us unaware of how complex people are.”

taken from: Athenes:Theory of Everything

Empaths

I have convinced myself that empathetic traits are real and existent based on my personal experience and research of the lterature... Therefore, I want to provide a little insight on what empathy really is and possibly bring to light your experiences. Enjoy!
   
What is empathy? Empathy is the ability to read and understand people and be in-tune with or resonate with others, voluntarily or involuntarily of one's empath capacity. Empaths have the ability to scan another's psyche for thoughts and feelings or for past, present, and future life occurrences. Many empaths are unaware of how this actually works, and have long accepted that they were sensitive to others.
How Empathy Works
While there is much we don't yet understand about how empathy works, we do have some information. Everything has an energetic vibration or frequency and an empath is able to sense these vibrations and recognize even the subtlest changes undetectable to the naked eye or the five senses.
Words of expression hold an energetic pattern that originates from the speaker. They have a specific meaning particular to the speaker. Behind that expression is a power or force-field, better known as energy. For example, hate often brings about an intense feeling that immediately accompanies the word. The word hate becomes strengthened with the speaker's feeling. It is that person's feelings (energy) that are picked up by empaths, whether the words are spoken, thought or just felt without verbal or bodily expression.
Empaths are often poets in motion. They are the born writers, singers, and artists with a high degree of creativity and imagination. They are known for many talents as their interests are varied, broad and continual, loving, loyal and humorous. They often have interests in many cultures and view them with a broad-minded perspective. It is more important to notice that empaths are everywhere--in every culture and throughout the world.

Empaths Are Good Listeners

Empaths are often very affectionate in personality and expression, great listeners and counselors (and not just in the professional area). They will find themselves helping others and often putting their own needs aside to do so. In the same breath, they can be much the opposite. They may be quiet, withdrawn from the outside world, loners, depressed, neurotic, life's daydreamers, or even narcissistic.
They are most often passionate towards nature and respect its bountiful beauty. One will often find empaths enjoying the outdoors, beaches, walking, etc. Empaths may find themselves continually drawn to nature as a form of release. It is the opportune place to recapture their senses and gain a sense of peace in the hectic lives they may live. The time to get away from it all and unwind with nature becomes essential to the empath. Animals are often dear to the heart of empaths, not as a power object, but as a natural love.

Traits of an Empath

Empaths are often quiet and can take a while to handle a compliment for they're more inclined to point out another's positive attributes. They are highly expressive in all areas of emotional connection, and talk openly, and, at times, quite frankly in respect to themselves. They may have few problems talking about their feelings.
However, they can be the exact opposite: reclusive and apparently unresponsive at the best of times. They may even appear ignorant. Some are very good at blocking out others and that's not always a bad thing, at least for the learning empath struggling with a barrage of emotions from others, as well as their own feelings.
Empaths have a tendency to openly feel what is outside of them more so than what is inside of them. This can cause empaths to ignore their own needs. In general an empath is non-violent, non-aggressive and leans more towards being the peacemaker. Any area filled with disharmony creates an uncomfortable feeling in an empath. If they find themselves in the middle of a confrontation, they will endeavor to settle the situation as quickly as possible, if not avoid it all together. If any harsh words are expressed in defending themselves, they will likely resent their lack of self-control, and have a preference to peacefully resolve the problem quickly.
Empaths are sensitive to TV, videos, movies, news and broadcasts. Violence or emotional dramas depicting shocking scenes of physical or emotional pain inflicted on adults, children or animals can bring an empath easily to tears. At times, they may feel physically ill or choke back the tears. Some empaths will struggle to comprehend any such cruelty, and will have grave difficulty in expressing themselves in the face of another's ignorance, closed-mindedness and obvious lack of compassion. They simply cannot justify the suffering they feel and see.
People of all walks of life and animals are attracted to the warmth and genuine compassion of empaths. Regardless of whether others are aware of one being empathic, people are drawn to them as a metal object is to a magnet! They are like beacons of light.
Even complete strangers find it easy to talk to empaths about the most personal things, and before they know it, they have poured out their hearts and souls without intending to do so consciously. It is as though on a sub-conscious level that person knows instinctively that empaths would listen with compassionate understanding.
Here are the listeners of life. Empaths are often problem solvers, thinkers, and studiers of many things. As far as empaths are concerned, where a problem is, so too is the answer. They often will search until they find one--if only for peace of mind.

Taken from: http://healing.about.com/cs/empathic/a/uc_empathtraits.htm

Introduction

Good morning, I've created this blogger to reflect on experiences, thoughts, feelings, and insight of my experiences... Most importantly this may educate or spark new interests in some, provide enlightenment to others or just be an entertaining read for most. There is so very little we know and so little time we have....