Our research into heart rate variability synchronisation has delivered some extraordinary results and shows just how connected we are in our relationships, even if this is not immediately obvious. We have shown that we are energetically communicating all the time with the people around us, even at a distance. As soon as we focus on somebody with love, appreciation, or gratitude, a communication channel is opened and information is transferred. If you haven’t seen our research data before, you can watch some live demonstrations of our experiments in this video. As you will see, our ideas about non-sensory communication aren’t wishful thinking — we can measure synchronisation in heart rate patterns in real-time and we know it fluctuates depending on our level of attention and presence with the other person. The question immediately arises as to the scientific explanation for this phenomenon. In this article, I want to discuss what might be going on scientifically as we experience love or friendship for another person and what this tells us about the nature of consciousness.
Evidence of nonsensory and nonlocal communication. Changing heart rates for a married couple. Husband in blue alternating feelings of love for wife in red who was distracting herself — 25 metres apart in different buildings
We were not the first to discover that the heart rate patterns of two people will synchronise when they feel love or appreciation for each other. Several academic researchers have observed this phenomenon in romantic and friendship couples. It has also been seen between mothers and babies, family members, and between members of a choir. All this research was conducted atclose proximity, with experimenters located within a few metres of each other. Not surprisingly, the researchers concluded that the mechanism causing this phenomenon was related to the exchange of conventional sensory information, such as seeing or hearing the other person move or breathe. The two experimenters were then assumed to have unconsciously adjusted their heart rate patterns to match each other. This is a reasonable conclusion but CANNOT explain why we have seen the same synchronisation in heart rate patterns when experimenters are located in separate rooms or are at a great distance away and unable to pick up any sensory information. We concluded that although body language and the physical senses probably do impact the degree of physiological synchronisation between two people in close proximity, there must be another explanation for the results we have obtained at large distances of separation.
I am a curious person and I had a strong urge to explore the mechanism for our heart synchronisation results. If the synchronisation was something to do with feelings of love and a sense of connection with another person, then it should be possible to monitor the synchronisation changing in real-time. I developed a smartphone app that could measure two people's heart rates simultaneously. The protocol for the experiments was really simple. We monitored the two heart rates of the experimenters and asked one to focus on the other with love, appreciation and gratitude while the other experimenter was asked to distract themselves by reading a book. We also asked the person who was focusing their love to intermittently distract themselves during the experiments. We saw the synchronisation increase during the periods of focus and fall away when the focus was removed. We repeated these ‘attentional’ experiments at a range of distances of separation and in each case saw the synchronisation changing with the level of focus and attention. To be able to deliberately change someone else’s heart rate patterns by feeling love or friendship for them and without the involvement of the physical senses showed us that
There must be some form of energetic communication going on between the two people
Of course, this challenges the orthodox scientific explanation of human communication. I was certainly taught in my own scientific education that communication between two people was only possible through the five physical senses. So, what are the scientific possibilities for the synchronisation we were seeing?
One explanation for the synchronisation would be to invoke some external field that was entraining the hearts of both experimenters. We were able to discount this possibility straight away because our app allowed us to timestamp when the ‘sender’ experimenter was deliberately paying attention to the ‘receiver’ experimenter. We confirmed that the changes in synchronisation were clearly related to that changing level of attention and not changes in the external environment.
The HeartMath Institute of California, experts in heart rate variability and with their own interest in heart synchronisation, have suggested that the mechanism for the distant (what is called nonlocal by scientists) synchronisation is the exchange of electromagnetic information between the two bodies of the experimenters. They have shown that the heart muscles produce the strongest magnetic field in the body and have speculated whether changes in the electromagnetic field from one person’s heart could be transmitted and then received by another person at a distance. While this is a possible explanation, we find it difficult to believe that such a mechanism would be effective over the hundreds of kilometres that we have observed synchronisation.
Heart rate variability (1/HF) synchronising over thousands of kilometers for two people experiencing love for each other (UK to USA). No electronic devices in operation at the time
We have been drawn to a more profound explanation for the synchronisation and attentional effects that we have been seeing. We suspect that these extraordinary communication abilities are something to do with consciousness. Trying to understand the nature of consciousness is a hot topic in scientific research at the moment. Most of this research is focusing on the brain, trying to locate consciousness within the complex firings of the billions of neurons that we all have. These researchers assume that consciousness has evolved as a human ability due to the incredible complexity of the brain. The problem is that nobody has yet come even near to showing where or how consciousness arises from our grey matter! We have taken the radical view that is held by a small number of visionary philosophers and scientists, such as Rupert Spira, Bernardo Kastrup, and Donald Hoffman, that consciousness is the primary reality of the Universe and the material part is a secondary manifestation from this fundamental state. You might think this is a huge jump from the simple measuring of heart rates, but let me explain why I share this belief and think it is the best explanation for our research results.
Nondual philosopher Rupert Spira and physicist Bernardo Kastrup explain how the experience of love is the realisation of pure consciousness. They suggest that when two people become fully aware and present with each other, that they experience total connection and oneness. Love is therefore transporting these people to their most fundamental state of being, where there is no separation. Of course, these ideas are not new — mystics and sages have been telling us that we are spiritually connected for millennia. We believe that the idea of a primary consciousness elegantly explains our research results.
Nonlocal communication is possible between two human beings
What our research shows is that nonlocal communication is possible between two human beings. If the two experimenters share the same consciousness, it is reasonable to assume that information could effortlessly pass between them. At that moment they are effectively one person. Those two people may be physically separate and could be thousands of miles apart, but the consciousness that their brains and bodies tap into is not in space or time. This is something many of us feel when we experience love, awe, or beauty. When we experience these feelings, our hearts open and the sense of distance or time falls away. We believe it is in these moments of connection and oneness that our heart rate patterns synchronise. When we experience love we are effectively meditating and returning ourselves to our true state of enlightened being.
Physicists have known that consciousness is fundamental to reality since the discovery of the observer effect in quantum mechanics, where somebody can affect the result of an experiment simply by observing it. Despite many objections to this idea, theory and experiments consistently show that this is true and that there is no objective reality in the Universe. Entanglement, the ability for information to instantaneously transfer across vast distances is a consequence of this nonlocality. This astonishing effect, confirmed by experiments, along with problems reconciling quantum physics and gravity, is forcing physicists to question their assumption that space and time are fundamental aspects of reality. Cognitive psychologist, Donald Hoffman is creating a mathematical theory that places consciousness as the fundamental state of the Universe and shows how this could then manifest the physical world and the interactions within it. I am describing here the very leading edge of scientific and philosophical thinking and am hugely encouraged that it provides powerful evidence for the profound level of connection that we have been observing in our experiments. We applaud these efforts to radically challenge the understanding of reality and hope that our own discoveries might provide a bridge between science and spirituality and contribute to this transformation in human knowledge and bring about a much more holistic and loving appreciation of life.
If you are interested in our research you can read all about it in my book - Connected Hearts and learn how to put our discoveries into practice to build happier and more sucessful relationships.
