"A bundle of neurons in the superior parietal lobe, a region toward the top and rear of the brain [...] distinguishes where your body ends and the material world begins. Without it, you couldn't navigate through a door frame. But other areas of the brain, including the thinking regions in the frontal lobes, sometime send "turn off!" signals to this structure, such as when we are falling asleep or when we feel physical communion with another person (that's a euphemism for sex). During intense prayer or meditation, brain-imaging studies show, the structure is also especially quiet. Unable to find the dividing line between self and world, the brain adapts by experiencing a sense of holism and connectedness. You feel a part of something larger than yourself."The article claims that this "ability to shut off the sense of where you end and the world begins" may help explain why people are inclined to accept irrational beliefs, such as belief in the paranormal. It implies that this false sense of connection allows us to accept beliefs that are false.
But my question is this: What if the experience of holism and connectedness is not merely an adaptation to a part of the brain being shut down, but that shutting down that structure is a way for the brain to allow itself to experience holism and connectedness? In other words, the brain is actually designed to allow us to perceive a higher truth--to step through another kind of doorway entirely.
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