5 weird phenomena of your concious brain still perplexing scientist (and the vedic view of these parapsychological phenomenon)

our brain, the most complex thing in the universe is beyond understanding for the most of us. But what we actually consider perplexing is nothing but a small fraction of what our 'concious self', as I prefer to call it, actually is. The consciousness, the harnesses of real 'we' has in store many things they even the science cannot explain. 

Here are a few of such things . 

1. Past life memories -  these memories that the brain brings on either spontaneously or hypnotically. The first kind of memories , hypothetically induced , the subject recollects the memories during hypnotic regression. 

The subject is hypnotised and taken back into time by a series of questions. These regressions into past lives have helped cure many long standing phobias . The person may recollect a fatal happening and later becomes free of the phobia. 

This might be, In some cases derived from the subject's prior knowledge or history. But in some cases, like those involving xenoglossy, this seems improbable. 

Xenoglossy ( from Greek meaning strange tongue. The term was coined by Nobel laureate Charles richet) refers to the ability to speak or write in a language that couldn't have been from normal sources. 

A man named Harold jakowski recollected during a regression , a past life as a viking named Thor. When the therapist instructed him to write down the vocal exchanges he recollected, he wrote down some words and phrases which not even he recognised himself after coming out if regression. After extensive research, it was found that the words belonged to old Norse, an extinct language spoken by vikings in around 700 to 1300 CE. 

A majority of these words were related to the sea . Natural for vikings. 

These past life memories also occur spontaneously. The pioneer of this subject is professor Ian Stevenson, having studied over 3500 cases of spontaneous past life memories around the world. 

A famous such case is of Shanti devi, a girl from Delhi who remembered her past life from Mathura. The link redirects to the detailed story of Shanti devi. 

The case of shanti devi. 

Question may be raised that why don't we all remember our past lives. The answer to that mostly lies on our weak memory. We go through the immense pain of death before transmitting to the next body. Thus , it is forgotten by the brain. Even if we remember them at first , we are not able to express what we want to and our memories are eventually suppressed. 

2. Near death experiences - near death experiences deal with our soul  (yes we'll have to use that word ) moving in and out of the same body unlike in past life experiences in which the soul changes it's whole body.

before our transmission into another body and we have to 'die'. But in NDE's we return to the same body after some span of death, or we are near death, and hence the name. these typically refer to cases where the subjects were clinically dead but after coming back to their consciousness, they remember themselves leaving their body, observing their body from  outside (mostly above the ceiling) as they are being operated upon. their body, that is. they also, sometimes go through a dark tunnel where they feel profound peace and tranquillity, see the review of all the good and bad deeds they have done, flashing before their eyes, or in some cases, they see and interact with sacred people of their religion or their deceased relatives.

more understanding of the conceptual structure of body

an interesting thing found in some NDE's is that some blind subjects could also see during NDE's. it is to be noted that they couldn't see before or after the NDE, just during it. 

after decades of studies of various NDE's around the world, Sam Parnia said," what is clear is that something profound is happening. the mind-- the thing that is 'you' - your 'soul' if you will-- carries on after conventional science says it should have drifted into nothingness"

3.  Out of Body experiences - nothing much different from NDE's except that near death experiences are a subcategory of OBE's and out of body experiences can also be self induced or spontaneous, where the subject can also be in healthy condition bodily unlike in NDE's where they have to leave their body because of the bad conditions of the body.

the near death experiences feel more real and life changing, and there is no interaction with deceased relatives or religious icons during out of body experiences.

4. Dreams - you may be wondering why they are introduced into the list. but dreams are more than what you think them to be. Scientists are still unsure of why we dream, as dreams are a work of our subconscious mind, and they are unique in a strange way. 

we can't walk in our dreams, our movement is either by floating or flying, or we can't move at all.(yeah, an indication towards sleep paralysis). also, we can't have any clocks in our dream.

dreams have been a medium of communication for the deceased or ghosts with normal people, this is so because when our conscious mind is dozing, there is ample space for another subtle, or astral body(soul and the mind). you may have heard about many people who communicated with their deceased relatives through dreams. dreams have also been a medium to talk to gods also in many mythologies.

for example, Madvendra Puri, a devotee of lord Krishna was instructed almost 600 years ago by him to unearth his Gopal deties, and afterwards told him to fetch malaya chandan(special fragrant sandalwood) for him to relieve him from the heat. since then, the Chandan Yatra(sandalwood festival) is still celebrated in India during the month of Vaisakh.

Lord Jaggannath is also famous for appearing in dreams of pujaris, devotees and public many a time.

6. Consciousness - Consciousness isn't mostly included as a phenomenon, but this question is perplexing till today, what do we exactly mean by consciousness?

even the 125th issue of science published in 2005 contained 125 questions still unanswered by scientists. the second most important of these was, "what is the biological basis of consciousness?"

The writer Greg Miller put it this way, "How a particular pattern of photons hitting the retina produce the EXPERIENCE of seeing say, a rose?"

The origin of this sense of I-ness is still unexplored by science, and this creating many contradictions in respect to the gross aspect we are aware of, like how can the activity of dead neurons produce something as astonishing as consciousness? moreover, if this is so, then how do the thought processes and memories remain intact even though our brain cells have been removed. for example, in a rare form of brain surgery named hemispherectomy, the half of the brain is removed for uncontrollable disorders. unbelievably, the surgery has no effect on the memory of the person. 

yet the vedas explain the extensively the existence of the self beyond the 'chemically formed body'.

the vedic view -   All the above mentioned phenomenon certainly point towards the existence of something, termed as aatma(soul) by the ancient vedic scriptures. here is a view of the concept of the soul as given in the Bhagvad Gita, the famous philosphical classic. 

"That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul."
-BG 2.17

"The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind."
-BG 2.23
These verses indicate the nature of the soul, indestructable and unaffected by material factors. the subtulity of the soul is indicated as..............
"when the tip of a hair is divided by the 1/10000th of it, each such part is the measurement of the dimension of the soul"
-shvetashvatara upanishad 5.9
the phenomenon of consciousness and past life memories are explained as follows...

"O son of Bharata, as the sun alone illuminates all this universe, so does the living entity, one within the body, illuminate the entire body by consciousness."
- BG 13.34

" As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones."
- BG 2.22