Bliss Brain

I reviewed the author’s previous book on the science of peak mental states – Mind to Matter – about three years ago, and here he addresses the neuroscience of remodelling your brain for resilience, creativity and joy, drawing not only on a wide range of scientific literature, but also 50 years of personal experience and practice. The thesis is that it is in fact possible to remodel entire networks in the brain over a relatively short period of time with regular and systematic practice. This helps transform states into traits by shriveling stress circuits and expanding the ‘Enlightenment Circuit’ associated with joy, compassion, productivity, creativity and equanimity.

The book begins with a dramatic account of Dawson’s catastrophic loss of his home and possessions in the California fires, including three vintage cars, one of which was a Silver Shadow Rolls-Royce. This gave him a fast-track practical experience of psychological trauma, in which he was an expert on a theoretical level – he decided to honour a conference commitment within 72 hours. It is striking that he turns to his wife just after escaping to say that now is the time to meditate, and indeed to use his expertise on EFT. The pressure he found himself under was almost unimaginable with the extra load of making inventories and dealing with insurance while trying to keep his businesses going during Covid – he was forced to cash in his retirement funds and even the educational fund for his son in order to keep himself afloat. His is a story of post traumatic growth – he and his business have since flourished.

The rest of the book is devoted to an explanation of the changes brought about by meditation practice, and each chapter contains deepening practices and extended play resources available on blissbrainbook.com, including his highly effective EcoMeditation technique. He begins by describing his own experience of bliss brain in the context of research into mystical experience. An important insight is the four stages of the meditation cycle entailing focus, mind wandering, awareness, shift and back to focus, which will be familiar to all meditators as a result of alternation between the Task-Positive Network (TPN) and the Default Mode Network (DMN), which kicks in to spacious consciousness with random thoughts and worries, commandeering the prefrontal cortex (PFC) or executive function (pp. 64, 131). It also seems that our brains are hard-wired for negativity due to evolutionary survival functions. Dawson shows how meditation quietens self-awareness and gives us relief from what he calls selfing. This can ultimately lead to Extasis, characterised by selflessness, timelessness, effortlessness and richness.

The chapter on ‘ordinary ecstasy’ explains in detail the functions of different parts of the brain and striking corresponding activation and deactivation benefits, depending on the region. Given that ‘to our brains, our thoughts are reality’, this indicates the importance of our capacity for selective attention, which is fully mature probably in only 1% of the population seriously dedicated to the spiritual path. The author developed an integrative technique to bring about ‘a combination of alpha, heart coherence, and parasympathetic dominance’, the results of which he has extensively researched, also in terms of brain function using a control group. Interestingly, ‘research shows that loving-kindness and compassion produce more beneficial brain changes than other types of meditation.’

The next chapter explains electrochemical functions in the brain with specific discussions of beta-endorphin, anandamide, nitric oxide, oxytocin and the endocannaboid system. Dawson shows how we can change the hardware of the brain with the software of the mind, specifying the key brain regions changed by meditation and how this modifies the emotion regulation, attention and empathy networks. It is extraordinary to read that the use of EFT enables recovery from PTSD in veterans in over 85% of cases, and it is here that attentional control plays a central role. The final chapter discusses flourishing in compassion, arguing that a flourishing consciousness is necessary for a flourishing world and that this involves becoming more compassionate. Here the shift from Caveman Brain to Bliss Brain is critical – we need a widespread realisation of the extent to which we are driven by survival impulses, with disastrous consequences. In this respect, we can each contribute by refining our own consciousness and changing our story about the past in order to create a new future anchored in nonlocal consciousness and heart coherence. It all begins with expectation, and this remarkable book provides you with valuable practical tools along the path.