News articles: (1)
The Durham Herald-Sun
reports on our research here. (2) The Epoch Times
mentions our research: in part 3 and part 4 of the 5-part article by
Stephanie Lam.
Welcome! This
web site is dedicated to explaining and discussing our ideas on the self-conscious mind.
Briefly,
we propose that:
The human being consists of (1) an
energetic,
spatially extended, non-material “mind”
that is united with
(2) a material brain and
body.
The mind is a “field of
consciousness”, that is, a
structured, energetic region of space.
The mind is non-material (does
not consist of material atoms or particles) but has extension and
location in space..
The field of the mind can interact with physical
processes.
The mind is united and co-extensive with the brain and
body and interacts directly with brain neurons.
The basic evidence for this proposal
derives from near-death
experience (NDE) phenomena and various neurological
phenomena especially phantom
limbs.
NDE phenomena
The human being is the integration or union of a self-conscious mind
with a physical body
Phantom limb
phenomena
Forearm
amputation without sensations of
the missing limb
Phantom
"mind limb" extending beyond the body, with
sensations
Phantom limbs are exposed “mind limbs” extending beyond the physical
body which
exhibit subtle interactions
with objects and other persons
For
more information, please read our Introduction. We invite
you to read through our ideas
and would
be pleased to hear any comments
you may have about them.
Robert
and Suzanne Mays
Web site contents
The Introduction
consists of a short
introduction to the ideas we have developed about the
self-conscious mind through our research
The Research
Papers page lists the abstracts
of our research papers and includes links to the
full text of the papers
The Other
Writings page lists our additional writings
with links to the full text
Our
different research
projects include:
Research on
phantom limbs
which explores the idea that a phantom limb could have the same
properties as the self-conscious mind: an objective spatial reality,
that has a subtle interaction with physical objects and a subtle
interaction with another person's body
Verification
of George Ritchie's
report
of the out-of-body experience (OBE) portion of his near-death
experience (NDE), including locating the all-night cafe in Vicksburg
and the hospital ward building at Camp Barkeley near Abilene
Collecting cases of apparent
physical interaction during NDE OBE:
reports of interactions with physical processes and objects, including
interactions with another person's body and "merging" with another
person
Verification of other reports of
veridical perceptions during NDE OBE
Research
requests:
we are seeking two types of cases that will assist our research. If you
have had any of these sorts of experiences or sensations, please contact us!
NDE
cases that involve physical interactions
during the OBE phase of the NDE. Interactions might include
(1) light (like seeing a light bulb or readout from a
medical
monitor), (2) sound (like hearing lights humming, monitors
beeping), (3) smells or tastes, (4) touch
(like sensations when passing through a physical object), (5)
the
body of another person (like sensations in touching or passing through
a person), (6) the body of another person where your touch appeared to
be "felt" (when touching the person, the person
“felt” it in some way),
(7) "merging" with another person (where you could see and
hear
with their eyes and ears), or (8) anything resembling these kinds of
interactions
Phantom limb cases
involving (1) sensing the touch of another person, including massage
over your phantom limb, (2) being able to feel an object when you touch
it with your phantom, (3) touching another person with your phantom
which they can feel, (4) relief of phantom limb pain due to Therapeutic
Touch or other type of energetic work on your phantom, or (5) seeing
your phantom limb as a faint glow.
09/07/10
- Papers: moved slide
presentation What
NDEs tell us about consciousness to the Papers page: an overview
of our theory
and work, presented
at the 2009 IANDS Conference (San Diego)
02/18/10
- Ritchie: replaced aerial photo of 1501 Levee
St
after the tornado. The new picture has more detail suggesting that
there may have been writing above the front door and writing on the
side of the building, implying that the building was painted and may
have been white.
01/21/10
- Introduction: added a point
that cases of NDErs "merging" with another person's brain imply that
the mind's internal structure is similar from person to person. Home
page: reformatted the brief introduction
12/26/09
- Introduction: completely revised the Introduction to the
Self-conscious Mind to include how our theory
addresses the "hard problem" of consciousness
11/21/09
- Papers: added reprint to our 2008 paper, The
Phenomenology of the Self-conscious Mind, to this site
11/17/09
- Phantom limb research: added
information
about apparent involvement of peripheral nerves in phantom pain and
sensations of movement; split off cases of Therapeutic Touch use in
treating phantom
pain to a separate
page
11/08/09
- Phantom limb research: added
information
about Therapeutic Touch which apparently can be felt in the
phantom (like M.G.) and appears to alleviate phantom limb pain; added note
to use galvanic skin response in conjunction with M.G. tests
of “touch” of an object.
04/19/09 -
Other writings: added slide presentation What do NDEs tell us about
consciousness? which summarizes
our theory of the self-conscious mind and the latest lines of
reasoning about it
04/19/09 -
Phantom limb research: added highlights of the phantom limb
research from 2007: summarized in 10 slides,
including three video excerpts of the experimental sessions
