I hypothesize that people engage in religious practices, in part, because such practices activate the frontal lobes. Activation of the frontal lobes is both intrinsically rewarding and necessary for acquisition of many of the behaviors that religions seek to foster, including self‐responsibility, impulse and emotion modulation, empathy, moral insight, hope, and optimism. Although direct tests of the hypothesis are as yet nonexistent, there is reasonably strong circumstantial evidence (reviewed herein) for it. Recent brain‐imaging studies indicate greater anterior activation values and (...) increased blood flow to frontal sites during prayer and meditation. Regular prayer is positively correlated with better overall mental health. Religiosity is correlated with higher levels of self‐monitoring, empathy, and moral insight and other positive behaviors and negatively correlated with depression and impulsive and risky behaviors. Independent data show that self‐monitoring, empathy, hope, and moral insight are all selectively associated with intact frontal function, whereas depression, impulsiveness, and drug and alcohol abuse are associated selectively with frontal dysfunction. If religious practices do indeed preferentially activate and stimulate development of the frontal lobes, (a) religious practices should be considered as possible adjuncts for some patients in treatment for mental health disorders, and (b) the frontal lobes (rather than the temporal lobes) should be considered the major brain site that supports the core components of religious experience. (shrink)

Purpose:To test the hypothesis that supernatural agents appear in nightmares and dreams in association with evidence of diminished agency within the dreamer/dream ego.Methods:Content analyses of 120 nightmares and 71 unpleasant control dream narratives.Results:We found that SAs overtly occur in about one quarter of unpleasant dreams and about half of nightmares. When SAs appear in a dream or nightmare they are reliably associated with diminished agency in the dreamer. Diminished agency within the dreamer occurs in over 90% of dreams that have (...) overt SAs. In about half of nightmare reports the SA appears suddenly with no clear emergence pattern. In some two thirds of unpleasant dreams, however, the SA emerged from a human character. The SA’s gender was indeterminate in most dreams with SAs but the SA communicated with the dreamer in 24% of nightmares and only 13% of unpleasant dreams. In most nightmares, the SA intended to harm the dreamer and in one third of nightmares the dreamer was the victim of physical agression by the SA. SA intentions in unpleasant dreams were more varied and actually benign in 13% of cases.Conclusion:Supernatural agents reliably appear in nightmares and unpleasant dreams in association with diminished agency in the dreamer. Diminished agency in an individual may facilitate supernatural agent cognitions. (shrink)

McNamara hypothesized that a 4-step sequential decentering process characterized the phenomenology of religious and spiritual experiences and was rooted in dreams and nightmares. We content analyzed 50 RSES, 50 dreams, and 50 nightmares for presence and ordering of elements of the decentering process. Thirty-six percent of RSES, 48% of dreams, and 44% of nightmares had all four decentering elements. The sense of success occurred most frequently in RSES and least frequently in nightmares. Conversely, diminishment of agency occurred least often in (...) RSES and most often in nightmares. For RSES 66% of instances of effort occurred, as hypothesized, after liminality and diminishment. We conclude that an orderly 4-step decentering process is reliably detectable in many, but not all, RSES, and that randomly ordered decentering elements occur abundantly in dreams and nightmares. (shrink)

McNamara challenges the instructivist view that memories occur when information from the environment is transferred into the mind.

Philosophers of history posit a class of concepts known as colligatory concepts that contribute to historical consciousness and that refer specifically to historical events. Although analysis has identified colligatory concepts in historical discourse, these concepts have not yet been investigated empirically. We present a new methodology for studying these concepts and historical consciousness more broadly, as well as pilot data supporting the methodology. Our aim in the pilot study was to establish whether colligatory concepts are processed differently from control concepts (...) when subjects are asked to judge historical statements. We compared judgments of colligatory concepts in healthy participants and in a patient group with impaired working memory cognitive processing capacity. Forty healthy, college-educated participants and 25 patients with Parkinson's disease were asked to rate narrative sentences containing historical content and an equal number of identically constructed narrative sentences of equ.. (shrink)

This book uses neuroscience discoveries concerning religious experiences, the Self and personhood to deepen, enhance and interrogate the theological and philosophical set of ideas known as Personalism. McNamara proposes a new eschatological form of personalism that is consistent with current neuroscience models of relevant brain functions concerning the self and personhood and that can meet the catastrophic challenges of the 21st century. Eschatological Personalism, rooted in the philosophical tradition of "Boston Personalism", takes as its starting point the personalist claim that (...) the significance of a self and personality is not fully revealed until it has reached its endpoint, but theologically that end point can only occur within the eschatological realm. That realm is explored in the book along with implications for personalist theory and ethics. Topics covered include the agent intellect, dreams and the imagination, future-orientation and eschatology, phenomenology of Time, social ethics, Love, the challenge of AI, privacy and solitude and the individual ethic of autarchy. This book is an innovative combination of the neuroscientific and theological insights provided by a Personalist viewpoint. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of Cognitive Science, Theology, Religious Studies and the philosophy of the mind. (shrink)

We hypothesize that rapid eye movement or REM sleep evolved, in part, to mediate sexual/reproductive behaviors and strategies. Because development of sexual and mating strategies depends crucially on early attachment experiences, we further hypothesize that REM functions to mediate attachment processes early in life. Evidence for these hypotheses comes from (1) the correlation of REM variables with both attachment and sexual/reproductive variables; (2) attachment-related and sex-related hormonal release during REM; (3) selective activation during REM of brain sites implicated in attachment (...) and sexual processes; (4) effects of maternal deprivation on REM; (5) effects of REM deprivation on sexual behaviors; and (6) the REM-associated sexual excitation. To explain why we find associations among REM sleep, attachment, and adult reproductive strategies, we rely on recent extensions of parent-offspring conflict theory. Using data from recent findings on genomic imprinting, Haig (2000) and others suggest that paternally expressed genes are selected to promote growth of the developing fetus/child at the expense of the mother, while maternally expressed genes counter these effects. Because developmental REM facilitates attachment-related outcomes in the child, developmental REM may be regulated by paternally expressed genes. In that case, REM may have evolved to support the “aims” of paternal genes at the expense of maternal genes. (shrink)