A New Mental Vision: Brain State Echos
I often wonder how much my state of mind at any given moment was still being shaped by past or recent environments and experiences - even after my actual surroundings and activities have changed. Could an unconscious distraction from a recent experience play a role in the ‘conscious background noise’ present when feeling out-of-sync (or even frustrated)? When we may say something like, “give me a minute, my mind is still catching up”.
A good friend who works at Utah-based Vital Neuro recently gave me the opportunity to shed some light on this lingering question with an early-release version of their neuro-sensing headphone and smartphone app. The system helps a person learn to intentionally counter and override brain patterns through biofeedback assisted focus and relaxation techniques.
The first time I put on the device, I was just finishing up a busy morning. My attention span was waning, I felt mentally drained, and my stress levels were likely rising while juggling various demands. Then I sat down in my quiet home office, tried to shift gears into focus mode, and opened up a book to relax and recharge.
Glancing down at the app readings from my now-calm brainwaves, I was shocked to still see patterns indicating distraction, hyper-vigilance and tension. It was almost like my fried mental state from before was lingering as a ghost imprint shaping my ongoing perceptions.
This visibility into a sort of ‘mental momentum effect’ continued over the next few weeks as I started monitoring my brain activity rhythms more consistently. I noticed how after mentally taxing events or environments, that stressed neurological signature could stubbornly persist long after I left those stimuli behind. This opened my eyes and contextualized this unseen mental lag time phenomenon.
By illuminating these subtle forces shaping my conscious background, the data gave me a valuable new self-awareness. It’s a vision of the lingering mental ripples left by life’s constant flow of diverse contexts and experiences. This understanding has already helped me become more conscious and proactive about managing my inner ecosystem. I never thought much before about the unseen baggage my brain might still be carrying around from one situation to the next - even when I assumed I had hit the mental reset button.
