[MD] What is SOM?

[Krimel]

dmb,
First I would like to thank you for the thoughtful reply.

If anything I think you underestimate the importance of mystical experiences
and their frequency of occurrence. You say for example, "Insights and
epiphanies powerful enough to shake things up and re-arrange the attitude, a
new gestalt. Feels like an avalanche, like weight shifting of its own
accord." I would say that is exactly what drives most good scientists. It is
what I suspect drives almost anyone who is good at anything.

Personally I achieve a feeling of Oneness, unity, identity, unification,
wholeness, pure, undivided, immediate and undifferentiated, experience in
movie theaters. I like to sit in the first third of the theater, dead
center. In a stadium theater with Dolby I am totally absorbed in the film. 

I also frequently lose myself in driving, reading, playing guitar or
diapering my grandkids. I am not saying this to be facetious. I think these
are genuine mystical experiences. 

You say:
"If the professor in my department are right, those projects require
interdisciplinary methodologies, team work across disciplines and
interpretive rather than observational skills. You also need people who can
have a mystical experience, who have some actual experience and training.
This is a tall order and its not a simple matter. But its simple in
principle."

Ok, your professor it right. It does take that kind of team and that kind of
experimental subject. Here it is. In practice complete with control group:

http://psyphz.psych.wisc.edu/web/pubs/2004/meditators_synchrony.pdf

Your wishes have been granted. What do you make of it?

Krimel