Philip T. Nicholson is a professional medical writer whose articles on the neural correlates of meditation-induced light visions have appeared in books (Meditation & Light Visions: A Neurological Analysis), in medical journals (Medical Hypotheses; Journal of Neuropsychiatry & Clinical Neuroscience), in academic publications (The Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies; The Harvard-Peking University Conference on Comparative Mythology, 2006), and presentations at academic conferences (The Sanskrit Roundtable on Comparative Mythology, Harvard, 2004).
He holds degrees from Princeton University (B.A. cum laude in Philosophy), from Stanford Law School (J.D. with a concentration in Law & Psychiatry), and the Harvard School of Public Health (M.S.P.H.).
OTHER PROJECTS
that led to an interest in Light Visions
While Mr. Nicholson was serving as a Judge Advocate assigned to the USAF Headquarters in the Pentagon, he was the lead author for the article, “Ineffective Military Personnel: An Ethical Dilemma for Psychiatry,” published in The Archives of General Psychiatry, 1974. After discharge, he co-authored a high school text, Your Self: An Introduction to Psychology (1976) with a psychology teacher and a psychiatrist. He also wrote video scripts for the American Bar Association’s series, “Dilemmas in Legal Ethics” (1976), for video scripts sponsored by The American Cancer Society and The National Heart Lung & Blood Institute, and for pharmaceutical manufacturers like Pfizer, Merck, and Ethicon. Before he began studying meditation-induced light visions, the author specialized in writing about the psychological impact of living and working in computer-driven environments, publishing articles like “Technostress at the Top: Work, Morale and Self-Scrutiny” in Leaders Magazine, 1992.
Experience of light visions through meditation in the author's own words
I'm a medical writer who specializes in writing technical videos for the continuing education of physicians. For many years I practiced meditation at irregular intervals, and often I would see two sets of geometric phosphenes, one following another in a predictable manner. These same phosphenes might also appear spontaneously if I were relaxing in bed, waiting for sleep to come. But if this were all I saw, I would not have begun the research that produced this book: what startled and intrigued me was a dramatic elaboration of the light vision sequence that occurred on one occasion when I inadvertently triggered a paroxysmal progression of phosphene images.
Circumstances that led to my light visions
I had been suffering from insomnia—an unusual experience for me—and, as a result, I'd accumulated a substantial sleep deficit. I can be quite sure about the timing because I knew precisely when I got in bed and when I got out, and, by this criterion, I could not have slept for more than four of the preceding thirty-six hours. The night when the paroxysmal episode occurred, I found myself still awake and alert at four o'clock in the morning. I decided to get in bed and meditate in the hope that this would induce enough relaxation for me to fall asleep.
When I concentrated my attention while in this sleep-deprived condition, the familiar light visions begin to flow. I noticed that the phosphenes seemed to be unusually bright, but then suddenly everything changed: the familiar geometric phosphenes I'd seen on so many occasions were eclipsed by light visions that were much more dramatic and attention-riveting. These light visions evolved in an elaborate progression that culminated in lightning-like flashes, loud sizzling sounds, paroxysmal sensorimotor symptoms, and an “ecstatic” emotional accompaniment.
questions inspired
This prolonged progression of light visions is seen only rarely and then only by religious mystics who are more interested in the metaphysical significance of the visions than in the neurological origins. So it is rarer still—and perhaps even unique—for someone with a scientific background and with no sectarian commitments to see these same visions. I can testify that the emotional experience was as powerful as the mystical texts suggest, but what caught my attention was the paradox that an ecstatic visionary rapture highly prized in the mystical traditions of India and Tibet had to be some kind of seizure. Was this really a seizure, and, if so, what kind of seizure? How it is possible for someone who has no symptoms of epilepsy to learn how to trigger this kind of ecstatic seizure and to do so at will? ( Meditation & Light Visions, p. 3)