I like my links round ups. Here's a set on ADHD relating to Autism research. As posted to WP by Ettina. My thanks to her.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp3839282.html#3839282

http://jad.sagepub.com/content/4/4/203 - found that ADHD/autistic kids and ADHD/non-autistic kids didn't differ on ADHD traits, and ADHD/autistic kids and non-ADHD/autistic kids didn't differ on autistic traits.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/n25368v67r1302v3/ - found a subset of kids who met criteria of autism as preschoolers but around school age they'd grown into non-autistic ADHD kids

http://www.springerlink.com/content/c456651pq5231117/ - found inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive and combined type ADHD could be recognized among autistic kids, and each subtype had different correlations with other symptoms, with combined type generally being the worst off and non-ADHD autistics being the best off.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0387760405002561 - found high rates of autistic traits in ADHD kids and ADHD traits in autistic kids, and suggested that the two conditions were basically different flavours of the same thing.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/g41444784g0011jh/ - found autistic and ADHD traits were common in siblings of ADHD kids. Autistic traits between siblings correlated strongly, as did ADHD traits, but ADHD traits in one sib didn't correlate with autistic traits in the other sibling or vice versa.

http://jad.sagepub.com/content/9/3/543 - found that Donepezil, a stimulant used to treat ADHD, was effective in reducing ADHD traits in a series of autistic teenagers, and also seemed to help with communication and social skills.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/5d5qqrk9x9ykf964/ - found that 68% of autistic kids met criteria for ADHD, with it being more common in higher functioning children and in younger children, and that dual diagnosis of ADHD/autistic kids served them better than either diagnosis alone.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/5ajn6behem4ujc9j/ - found that AS individuals scored poorly on an attention task used to screen for ADHD, with greater variability in scores than NT controls.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0387760404001780 - found that several school-aged autistic kids met criteria for ADHD, but no kids under 6 did. They also found that presence of inattentive ADHD traits correlated with internalizing (depression/anxiety) problems on the CBCL.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2827258/ - found that ADHD kids experienced social problems similar to autistic social problems but less severe.

Self-Directed Neuroplasticity - A 21st-Century View of Meditation:

http://www.noetic.org/noetic/issue-nine-april/self-directed-neuroplasticity/

Meditation Changes the Structure of the Brain:

http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2011/03/08/meditation-can-change-the-structur...

Study finds meditation can ease pain more effectively than drugs:

http://www2.turnto10.com/lifestyles/2011/apr/05/health-check-mind-over-matter...

Brain imaging illustrates how meditation reduces pain:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-04/wfub-dm033111.php

Meditation Classes for Kids, Boost Grades:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1376003/Meditation-yoga-classes-pri...

Brains of Buddhist monks scanned in meditation study:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12661646

Meditation Helps People Make More Rational Decisions:

http://www.tinyurl.com/6blhzmj

Noise Cancellation Without Headphones:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/health/research/03regimens.html

Link to first roundup: http://recollection.posterous.com/meditation-links-roundup

I happened to be watching TV a few minutes ago when I saw an advert for Lazy boy chairs.

I noticed that the logo looks a bit like an egg with a crack in it, perhaps it's hatching. I wonder what might come out?

Maybe I picked up on it because it's near easter and eggs are prominent in that religious festival.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_egg

Some see spring as the 'rebirth' of the world out of winter's 'death'

It makes me think of another one, the Santander Logo, which I think is a winged egg.

In Egyptian mythology, winged eggs would carry the soul to its next (re)birth.

Lady Gaga being born from an egg...

If you know of any other eggy symbols, logos, or mythology please post them!

Fuck the slice we want the pie

Why ask why till we fry

Watch us all stand in line

For a slice of the devil's pie

 

Main ingredients2 this dish

Goes like this here's the list

Materialistic, greed and lust

Jealousy, envious

I once asked my cards if there was such a thing as God, and if there was such a thing as the Devil.I forget what I pulled for God, but I do recall that this card was chosen for the Devil:

Go down yonder Gabriel

Put your foot on the land and sea

Now don't you blow your trumpet until you hear from me

There ain't no grave can hold my body down

There ain't no grave can hold my body down

When I hear that trumpet sound

I'm going to rise right out of the ground

There ain't no grave can hold my body down

Henri Rousseau - The Dream

After many months of attempting to induce lucid dreams, it finally happened without me trying.

When I'm dreaming, my mind fools me. I don't know I'm dreaming, I think I'm awake, and just doing odd stuff. My mind finds ways to explain away even the most bizarre dream.

That is until recently.

The lucid state just kind of kicked in, halfway through a dream I was having. Once I was lucid, there was a marked change of quality about everything within the dream. It was not entirely as 'real' as being in 'reality' but there was a more profound sense of being in a place, being inside the dream, rather than merely observing it remotely, as though watching it on a screen.

I was rather surprised that my recognition that I was dreaming didn't instantly 'collapse' the state as so often happens. I believe I have had moments of lucidity before but they were all too brief.

I didn't get much chance to explore, but I did notice a few things. I could look around, and that's what I mainly did. I looked around the room. The characters in the dream with me seemed to go into a suspended animation state, suddenly lifeless and empty where seconds before they'd seemed like fully autonomous human beings. I looked at a mirror on the wall, and there was my reflection in it. But it was a distorted, parodic version of me.

I was a bit distracted by the content of the dream to do much more exploring, and I awoke fairly quickly. But it's a small success and a signpost of lucid adventures to come, hopefully.

The plan is as follows:

You guys provide me with your date of birth, time of birth, place of birth, and an e-mail address I can contact you with.

I will then generate an astrological natal (birth) chart for you. I will select some planetary positions, angles, houses, midpoints and aspects from your chart. For each astrological feature of your chart chosen, I will provide several different interpretations, one true, and three false. If you would then kindly read the provided interpretations and decide which (if any) of the interpretations is most applicable to you, then return your answers to me. It'll be like a little pop quiz about you.

I was inspired to try this by James Randi's famous astrology debunking test which was basically a variation on a experiment by Bertram Forer ('Forer effect'). While that experiment does reveal certain things about human cognitive biases, I do not feel it invalidates astrology. Randi gave an identical astrological reading to all his subjects and persuaded them that it was their own personal reading. The participants in that test then found things in it that did apply to them and because they trusted the authority that told them it was their personal reading, they decided that it was indeed their personal reading.

How my experiment is different (and I think fairer) is I am giving people several different interpretations, and asking them to choose which they think is their reading. I tailor my readings so as to minimise forer style statements. I have not read the reading Randi used, I would be most interested in seeing it.

Of course, I will not divulge your personal information to anyone, and I will not share your charts with anyone but yourselves.

I will publish the results (numerical data) and the implications thereof to this blog.

Please express your interest by sending me an email: mango.factory@gmail.com

Thanks!

Anicca or impermanence is understood by Buddhists as one of the three marks of existence, these being anicca (impermanence), dukkha (unsatisfactoriness) and anatta (non-selfhood).

All things in the universe are understood by Buddhists to be characterised by these three marks of existence. According to the impermanence doctrine, human life embodies this flux in the aging process, the cycle of birth and rebirth (samsara), and in any experience of loss.

This is applicable to all beings and their environs including devas (mortal gods). The Buddha taught that because conditioned phenomena are impermanent, attachment to them becomes the cause for future suffering (dukkha).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impermanence