Excerpts from Mighty Muso - Musings behind Violetta's adventures for adult minds and readers.
Have you seen the movie Dirty Dancing? Well, I have, not once, but probably one thousand times. Therefore, for all eternity, I will associate the name ‘Sheldrake’ with Dirty Dancing, Baby in blue-eyeshadow and the merengue. I will also fondly remember Patrick Swasey’s black pants, his shoulders and...
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpmILPAcRQo)
Where were we? Oh yes, Sheldrake.
The reason I mention Rupert (Arthur) Sheldrake (1942—) is that he is one of the more modern-day scientists, interested in sound. He coined a term, and wrote a book titled: Morphic Resonance.
Cool name, hey? It intrigued me so much; I thought it deserved its own chapter. He was interested in all kinds of phenomena like phantom limbs, and he wrote several books with clearly expressed titles: Dogs that know when their owners are coming home (1999), The sense of being stared at (2003) and Seven experiments that could change the world (1994).
But what exactly is Morphic Resonance? In an interview for the Scientific American in 2014, Sheldrake himself says: ‘Morphic resonance is the influence of previous structures of activity on subsequent similar structures of activity organised by morphic fields. It enables memories to pass across both space and time from the past. The greater the similarity, the greater the influence of morphic resonance. What this means is that all self-organizing systems, such as molecules, crystals, cells, plants, animals and animal societies, have a collective memory on which each individual draws and to which it contributes. In its most general sense, this hypothesis implies that the so-called laws of nature are more like habits.’
I can’t tell you how excited I am by that. Particularly, the space and time part, collective memory, laws of nature being like habits...and oh, let’s face it. All of it. I’ve longed to believe that time-travel is possible. I’ve even hypothesised that music transcends time, and by playing it, we are directly connected and communicating with the past. And if morphic resonance is really possible, then there is a morphic field...and ooh, what’s that?
In a blog-post on his website at www.sheldrake.org, Sheldrake talks about Morphic fields and telepathy. ‘The morphic fields of social groups connect together members of the group even when they are many miles apart, and provide channels of communication through which organisms can stay in touch at a distance.’
He says this happens today to eighty percent of the population, clear through the use of mobile phones. I nearly always have this experience with my mother, as most of the time as I am about to text, or call, a message from her will arrive, or vice versa. This sense inspired his book on dogs, knowing that their owners were coming home and people who knew they were being stared at.
So, what is telepathy? Well, the oxford dictionary defines it as: ‘the direct communication of thoughts or feelings from one person to another without using speech, writing, or any other normal method.’
When you think about it, musicians do that all the time! Forgetting the music itself, we have body language, various sniffs and other orifice utterances (well, you know which one’s I mean) and then there is the ability of humans to synchronise their movements.
Synchronicity is a fascinating topic too, and various drumming exercises have been used to study the effects of dynamic movement. ‘On a neural level, the adaptive pro-social benefits of synchrony are linked to the activation of reward signals in the brain and mirror neuron activity—both of which may promote future adaptive social interactions and bonding. Neural components that comprise the “social brain” are active during synchronousmotor activity, including the increased midline activation of structures such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, supplementary motor area, primary somatosensory cortex (extending into the primary motor cortex), posterior cingulate and precuneus.’
The hippocampus is the part of the brain I’m most fond of. Mainly because it reminds me of hippopotamuses, and they are so cute, but it stores long-term memories (a bit like its elephant cousin) and lets us know how far away things are. It also is part of the limbic system, and semi-responsible for emotions.
So if we think about Patrick Swayze and his hips…
Ah, yes, I know. They are very fine; but dancing is the point I was trying to make. When people dance or move their feet at the same time as the music, marvellous things can happen inside their brains—with Baby and Johnny, it even made them fall in love.
In fact, many musical collaborations have also ended up in love. You can imagine why. A string quartet, for instance, can be a hotbed of passion. We won’t go there explicitly; but spending that much time with another person, pre-empting their thoughts, trying to read their mind and synchronising the minutest of movements—you can see how easily it could happen.
However, I wonder if synchronicity is bigger than our brains and if telepathy and morphic resonance actually play a part? I’ve often noted that a particular piece of music will suddenly surface and be played by orchestras all over the world. It could be argued that this is because of the power of suggestion, advertising, social-media, etc.
Actually, on that note, I was recently gifted the audio book of Diana the Voice of Change, written and recorded by Princess Diana’s voice coach, Stewart Pearce. Now, I have never ever heard of morphic resonance before. I’ve only properly contemplated the force of vibrations relatively recently, but suddenly I found myself listening to him speaking of Sheldrake. Is this because I knew his name and therefore noted it? Perhaps; but I wonder if some unusual law of attraction has led my ponderous mind in a similar direction. What particularly struck me was Pearce’s observance of the heartache the world felt upon Diana’s death.quote.
So I thought, what would happen if everyone thought of the same thing at the same time? Or played the same music at the same time? And; if everyone did both things, and played it on violins that have a morphic resonance of their own, is it possible that something really remarkable could happen?
“Morphic resonance is the influence…” https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/scientific-heretic-rupert-sheldrake-on-morphic-fields-psychic-dogs-and-other-mysteries/
“The morphic fields of social groups…” https://www.sheldrake.org/research/morphic-resonance/introduction
Kokal, I., Engel, A., Kirschner, S. & Keysers, C. Synchronized drumming enhances activity in the caudate and facilitates prosocial commitment-if the rhythm comes easily. PLoS One 6, e27272 (2011);Wheatley, T., Kang, O., Parkinson, C. & Looser, C. E. From mind perception to mental connection: Synchrony as a mechanism for social understanding. Soc. Personality Psychol. Compass 6, 589–606 (2012); Brothers, L. The neural basis of primate social communication. Motiv. Emot. 14, 81–91 (1990); Fairhurst, M. T., Janata, P. & Keller, P. E. Being and feeling in sync with an adaptive virtual partner: brain mechanisms underlying dynamic cooperativity. Cereb. Cortex 23, 2592–2600 (2012); Cited in: Gordon, I., Gilboa, A., Cohen, S. et al. Physiological and Behavioral Synchrony Predict Group Cohesion and Performance. Sci Rep 10, 8484 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65670-1.
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