Conclusions: Overall, we have independently replicated and extended previous research documenting prestimulus responses. It appears that the heart is involved in the processing and decoding of intuitive information. Once the prestimulus information is received in the psychophysiologic systems, it appears to be processed in the same way as conventional sensory input. This study presents compelling evidence that the body’s perceptual apparatus is continuously scanning the future. To account for the results presented in Parts 1 and 2, Part 3 will develop a theory based on holographic principles explaining how intuitive perception accesses a field of energy into which information about future events is spectrally enfolded.
http://www.heartmath.org/research/research-library/achieving-collective-coherence-group-effects-on-hrv.html
Objectives: This study examined whether a group of participants trained in achieving high states of heart rate variability coherence (HRVC) could facilitate higher levels of HRVC in an untrained subject in close proximity.
Design: Fifteen adult volunteers were trained to increase their HRVC. In a series of 148 10-minute trials using six different experimental protocols, three of the trained participants were placed together with one of 25 additional volunteers to test whether the three could collectively facilitate higher levels of HRVC in the fourth.
Results: The HRVC of the untrained subject was found to be higher in approximately half of all matched comparisons and was highest in cases where all four participants focused on achieving increased HRVC. A probit analysis revealed a statistical relationship between participants’ comfort with each other and trial success. Greater levels of inter-group comfort were seen to be positively linked to increases in HRVC. Evidence of heart rhythm synchronization between group members was revealed through several methods, including correlation analysis, coherence analysis, wavelet coherence analysis, and Granger causality tests. Higher levels of HRVC were found to be correlated with higher levels of heart rate synchronization between participants.
Conclusions: These results suggest that a coherent energy field can be generated and/or enhanced by the intentions of small groups of participants trained to send coherence-facilitating intentions to a target receiver. This field is made more coherent with greater levels of comfort between group members. The evidence of heart rhythm synchronization across participants supports the possibility of heart-to-heart bio-communications.
http://www.heartmath.org/research/research-publications/energetic-heart-bioelectromagnetic-communication-within-and-between-people.html
This chapter will focus on electromagnetic fields generated by the heart that permeate every cell and may act as a synchronizing signal for the body in a manner analogous to information carried by radio waves. Particular emphasis will be devoted to evidence demonstrating that this energy is not only transmitted internally to the brain but is also detectable by others within its range of communication. The heart generates the largest electromagnetic field in the body. The electrical field as measured in an electrocardiogram (ECG) is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the brain waves recorded in an electroencephalogram (EEG). The magnetic component of the heart’s field, which is around 5000 times stronger than that produced by the brain, is not impeded by tissues and can be measured several feet away from the body with Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID)-based magnetometers (1). We have also found that the clear rhythmic patterns in beat-to-beat heart rate variability are distinctly altered when different emotions are experienced. These changes in electromagnetic, sound pressure, and blood pressure waves produced by cardiac rhythmic activity are "felt" by every cell in the body, further supporting the heart’s role as a global internal synchronizing signal.
http://www.heartmath.org/research/research-publications/correlated-heart-rate-measures-in-the-study-of-nonlocal-human-connectedness.html
Previous studies investigating correlations in brain activity between isolated pairs have found significantly correlated brain activity in approximately 20% of participant pairs when one member is engaged in a specified task and the other is not. Participants who demonstrate correlated electroencephalogram (EEG) activity might hypothetically be expected to demonstrate correlated heart rate (HR) activity. Research questions explored whether there were correlations between HR, dominant heart rate variability (HRV) frequencies, and prestimulus HR responses among individuals in participant pairs.
Participants included 14 pairs of people who were known to each other, and expressed a sense of familiarity and connectedness. They were physically isolated while HR and EEG measures were simultaneously recorded. One participant, the "sender," was shown a randomly timed video image of the other, interspersed with a blank screen. The other participant, the "receiver," was in an electromagnetically sealed chamber with a video camera focused on his/her face. Senders were asked to use the video image as a reminder of their intentional task of focusing on the sense of connection they felt with their partner. Moment-to-moment HR fluctuations averaged across a group of 3 participant pairs with the highest EEG correlations between senders and receivers (high EEG group) were compared with the same measures in a group of 3 participant pairs who had the smallest absolute EEG correlations (low EEG group).
The high EEG group demonstrated a statistically significant normalized HR correlation, while the low EEG group did not reach statistical significance. Results from power spectral density analysis of the range of frequencies suggested that the high EEG group had a dominant 0.1 Hz range, associated with autonomic nervous system balance, while the low EEG group showed a dominant 0.04 Hz range, associated with higher sympathetic nervous system activation. Participants in the high EEG group also appeared to demonstrate a prestimulus heart rate response that was not evident in the low EEG group. Although participant numbers are small, the possibility that heart rate and heart rate variability patterns are correlated at a distance is a new finding. Prestimulus HR response occurring nonlocally in relation to both time and space is also a new finding.
