Una questione che sorge studiando i ritmi EEG è appunto quella di identificare se il soggetto preso in esame sia effettivamente in meditazione oppure si stia semplicemente addormentando. Per distinguere lo stato meditativo dallo stato ipnagogico sono stati condotti numerosi studi che ne hanno cercato le differenze.
Le similitudini psicofisiologiche tra meditazione e stato ipnagogico sono note dagli anni „70 (Elson et al., 1977; Fenwick et al., 1977). Lo stato ipnagogico è uno stato di transizione tra la veglia e il sonno, molto instabile e difficile da studiare. È stato proposto un modello (Fig. 19) che suddivide l‟addormentamento in varie fasi, ognuna caratterizzata da specifiche oscillazioni all‟EEG, stato mentale e risposte comportamentali (Tanaka et al., 1997).
Figura 19: fasi dell’addormentamento (da Tanaka et al., 1997)
Durante l‟addormentamento le onde delta e teta aumentano, mentre quelle alfa diminuiscono. In particolare l‟alfa diminuisce dal livello 1 al 6 ma aumenta dal 6 al 9. Dal livello1 al 9 le alfa si spostano dalla corteccia posteriore all‟anteriore. Il sonno può
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subentrare allo stato 6 o 7 insieme ad un‟ampia sincronizzazione EEG (Tanaka et al., 1997).
Studi EEG riportano che durante la meditazione i ritmi alfa e teta sono molto simili a quelli presenti nei primi stadi del sonno (Younger et al., 1975; Pagano et al., 1976). Lo stadio 1 rappresenta infatti uno stato di ipoattivazione molto simile allo stato meditativo, con una graduale transizione dalla veglia al sonno ed il passaggio da una prevalenza di onde alfa ad una prevalenza di onde teta. Lo stadio 1 comprende ipoattivazione corticale, disattivazione del sistema dello stress, ridotta capacità di attenzione e di interpretazione degli stimoli esterni e bassi livelli di coscienza di sé (Elson et al., 1977; Young and Taylor, 1998; Jacobs and Friedman, 2004).
A differenza del sonno però, dove ad un aumento del ritmo teta diminuisce quello alfa (circa del 50%) e diminuisce la sincronizzazione alfa, durante la meditazione l‟aumento del ritmo teta è affiancato da un aumento di quello alfa e da una stabilizzazione di quest‟ultimo al livello del ritmo teta (Rechtschaffen and Kales, 1968; Lou et al., 1999; Travis and Wallace, 1999; Cantero et al., 1999; Travis et al., 2002; Aftanas and Golocheikine, 2003).
Ovviamente anche dai resoconti soggettivi si nota che addormentamento e meditazione non sono la stessa cosa. La meditazione differisce dal rilassamento perché, oltre a coltivare uno stato di calma, promuove anche un‟attivazione necessaria a mantenere uno stato di consapevolezza e di meta-consapevolezza attiva. Come l‟addormentamento, la meditazione è uno stato che si situa a metà strada tra la veglia e il sonno, ma è esperito in maniera diversa. I soggetti, a differenza del sonno, riescono a mantenersi coscienti in questo stadio auto-indotto consapevolmente (indipendentemente dal ritmo circadiano) e questa abilità di stare “sospesi” tra la veglia e il sonno può essere coltivata con la pratica (Williams and West, 1975; Fenwick et al., 1977).
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