Is Your Body A Quantum Source of Intuitive Guidance?

Most everyone has had meaningful intuitions, premonitions, or forebodings at some point in their lives and yet may find it difficult to believe their experience, and even less likely to understand how it happens.

While there are different types of intuition, a mysterious form is where we can know things about people, places, or events that seem impossible to know and appear to defy the known laws of science. These experiences are examples of extrasensory, or non-local perception that many people experience, especially hIghly sensitive people.

What if there was a logical explanation for those seemingly impossible experiences that would allow us to trust in and benefit more consistently from our intuitive guidance?

Conventional neuroscience posits that consciousness is generated by the biological activity in the brain and is confined to the cranium. This materialistic perspective on consciousness encourages a belief that humans are isolated entities, separate from others and the environment.

However, in August of this year a study was published in the neursoscience journal eNeuro that offers credible evidence for a quantum basis of consciousness. The research was conducted by Mike Wiest and his team at Wellesley University and focused on the quantum function of a brain structure called microtubules. A quantum understanding of consciousness could revolutionize our awareness of who we really are, how we’re connected to all of creation, and what’s really possible for us.

A decades old HeartMath study proved that the human body, in particular the heart, was capable of non-local, or quantum perception. The study proved what the body is capable of but didn’t offer a specific mechanism, such as microtubules, for explaining precisely how this could happen.

An (Almost Impossible) Reality Expanding Study on Intuition

The study performed by HeartMath researchers, led by Rollin McCraty, involved subjects connected to electro-cardiogram (EKG) and electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring devices to measure activity from the heart and brain.

The participants were watching computer monitors that every sixty seconds randomly displayed photographs that were either very pleasant or horrific. Images were chosen that would be sure to produce an emotional reaction.

The first surprising finding was that the heart was responding to the positive or negative content of the photos before the brain. In fact, the heart was communicating its reactions to the brain via the vagus nerve. The brain and consequently the participants conscious awareness was informed by the heart. This shows that the heart is more than a pump.

Next, and here is where the impossible becomes possible, the test data showed that on average the heart was responding to the emotional content of the photos four to five seconds before the photos appeared on the computer screen. This pivotal study in the field of neurocardiology, that generated scientific papers on intuition, has been repeated numerous times by different research facilities.

Intuition is More than a Mysterious Experience

This research shows that intuition is more likely to result when there is greater resonance or coherence between the heart and brain as measured with heart rate variability. The reality defying results of the study mentioned earlier suggest that greater heart-brain coherence, and greater heart rate variability, couples the human organism to a larger, non-physical plane of existence where the laws of classical physics no longer apply. The heart appears to be a portal to a larger, non-physical, experiential reality.

This non-physcal plane has be referred to in language ranging from the scientific to the spiritual and religious, such as the quantum field, the implicate order, soul, god, and universal mind, to name a few. Regardless of the language used, I’ll suggest that this non-physical reality is akin to an invisible web connecting all of life and of which we are a part. We might even consider this larger webbing as related to the spiritual essence of who we really are.

The phenomological philosopher Merleau-Ponty suggested that our most authentic sense of self is based in our sensed, embodied connection with this larger, non-physical reality. Is it possible that intuition is a natural part of our true nature?

A Natural Bridge to Intuitive Knowing and A Larger Spiritual Self

What if our heart and the intuition it fosters was a bridge to a larger and more kind, loving, and compassionate human identity. Could it be that our hurtful, judgmental, and divisive reactions are a reflection of not knowing who we really are?

So many times I’ve seen others, including myself, exhibit hurtful language or behaviors and then proclaim “that’s not a reflection of who I really am”. My initial reaction to those denials is to not give them much credence. But what if on some level, in spite of our hurtful actions, we knew the truth that we are essentially kinder, more caring, compassionate, and loving.

Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself, everyone else is already taken”. Our search for self has been an illusive one. Perhaps our search for our most real self has been misguided, using intellect and rational thought as our primary tools. 

What if the body, feelings and sensations, were the bridge to our experiential sense of a larger kinder and compassionate self? The direct experience of the body by sages, mystics, and meditators, suggests this is true. Research on the quantum nature of microtubles and the heart also suggest this is true.

If these thoughts are resonating with you I’ll finish this post with an experiential piece from the HeartMath drawer in the next section below. The key to most all of these embodied techniques is to drop attention down out of the head, out of thinkiing, out of efforting and controlling, to allow a larger mind or presence (of which we are a part) the opportunity of serving us.

The creators of Biospiritual Focusing, Edwin McMahon and Peter Campbell, both Jesuit Priests and Psychologists, have been very influential in my personal and professional life. They say that we’re all connected to spirit, especially in times of need. However, we may not notice spirit’s presence because it’s felt as challenging bodily felt feelings or sensations, rather than the etheric angel bells or harp tune we might expect or prefer.

Campbell and McMahon suggest that we welcome and connect curiously with these feelings or sensations and allow them to occupy some bodily felt space, rather than trying to resist them, change them, figure them out, or somehow control them. This allows spirit to sense that we’ve let go of the reigns, let go of control, and are giving spirit permission to do for us.

When our life energy that’s experienced as feelings and sensations is unopposed and free to flow we become authentically guided by a larger, but felt, presence. Campbell and McMahon call this authentic forward movement provided by spirit “the gift of grace”.

They also suggested that as we learn to nurture this deeper felt and nonjudgmental connection with our bodily felt experience, we become not only more connected to our essence, but to others and the environment. And further, this feeling connection with others and the natural environment makes doing harm to either less likely because it’s such a painfully felt experience.

We’ll finish with an embodied practice from the HeartMath Institute.

What if We Could Nurture and Trust Our Intuition?

Is there a way to make intuitive insights a more predictable source of inspiration and guidance? The HeartMath research shares practical techniques for enhaning the neural circuitry that encourages greater intuitive awareness.

Their research demonstrates that practicing Heart/Brain coherence over time helps to establish a new neurological baseline that supports intuition.

One technique is called Freeze Frame.