Mind over matter

Boundary situations can trigger a superhuman force in certain people. They are sporadic cases and in which they have to concatenate a series of very specific circumstances but, what would you think if I told you that there are people capable of equally inexplicable feats using only the force of their mind?

We are all familiar with the superhuman powers that are attributed to the Buddhist monks of Tibet, whether through film, TV or books like Lobsang Rampa, although they're considered apocryphal are fascinating reading.

Levitate, contemplate the future and the past or taking the human body beyond its physical limits are things that seem impossible. All these look like mystical fantasies of the Far East, but one wonders if this has ever been scientifically proven. The answer is yes.

Scientists have dealt on several occasions with the study of these remarkable beings and have discovered that beyond historical anecdotes more or less fantasy are capable of doing extraordinary things. For example, literally alter neural connections, rewire the brain and make it work in unpublished ways for other human beings.

One of the institutions that has investigated the most in this matter is the medical school of Harvard University, since the eighties has been collecting information about it. Among the things they have been able to certify is, for example, how, through meditation, monks are able to alter their body metabolism at will.

One of the things that caught scientists' attention was their incredible ability to meditate outdoors in the most difficult climatic conditions in Tibet, in the Himalayas, with sub-zero temperatures and no more shelter than their robes. All without getting sick or suffering from symptoms of frostbite.

This small miracle is achieved through what they call 'The Tummo', a difficult meditation technique that allows them, as the Harvard team could certify, increase their body temperature by more than 10 degrees or reduce their metabolism to a state that only we could qualify as hibernation. To put what I say in perspective, we think that while we sleep our metabolism is reduced to just 15% while monks can slow it down at will up to 65%.

This leads them, for example, to be able to quickly dry their wet clothes using only the heat emitted by their bodies and all these feats are not only documented and quantified scientifically but recorded on video.

The conclusion reached by the Harvard scientists could not be more surprising: the monks, using only the power of their mind, acquired complete control over their bodies, including all those functions that are normally automatic such as vasodilation, metabolism, the heart rate, the dilatation of the pupils, etc ...

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