101 Theory Drive by Terry McDermott

McDermott encamped with Prof. Gary Lynch, a neurobiologist at U.C. Irvine to follow his research into the biology of memory. A good account of some of the life, politics, and mechanics in a modern university research lab. Lynch is a edgy character, driven, iconoclastic, brilliant. An interesting read for me, but probably because of my fascination with neurobiology.

Took a while to get through the book. I won't summarize it.

One interesting idea not further explored is the finding that sharp Theta waves (p.145-146) on the low end of the Theta range are associated with forgetting, while regular Theta waves, when they occur in a particularly timed pair are shown to be key to forming a stronger synapse, ergo, memories. These 'sharp Theta' waves are associated with meditative states.

My question: could meditative states be a shortcut to important forgetting? i.e. pruning unnecessary memories like unimportant details and distractions?