Brainwaves (December 9)

Have you ever heard of the term “brainwaves”? Before the 1900s, nobody had ever considered the possibility that such a thing existed, let alone that these waves could be detected or measured. But in 1933, a scientist named Alfred Loomis attached electrodes to his own and other family members’ heads and invented a machine to magnify and record the electrical signals that he detected coming from the brain. This discovery was the basis for the invention of the electroencephalograph (EEG), an instrument still used today to detect abnormalities related to electrical activity of the brain.

Loomis discovered that there were different patterns of electrical activity when we are sleeping, dreaming, awake, or emotionally excited. He also discovered that the mind responds to words and sounds even when deeply asleep. Our brain’s pattern of electrical signals repeats in a very periodic, wave-like pattern. This observation solved a mystery that had been noted for centuries. Why could some people look at a clock before going to sleep, decide to wake up at a given time, and then wake up within seconds of that time without an alarm clock?

Since our sleeping brain produces waves in a perfectly repeatable, periodic pattern, it literally can act as a clock to wake us at the exact moment desired by keeping track of the number of waves that pass from the moment it drops into subconscious sleep! The human brain is truly a marvelous organ, which we have barely begun to understand – even 80 years after the invention of the EEG.

Ecclesiastes 2:23

KJV: For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.

NIV: All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.

Learn More

Alfred Lee Loomis