How does the brain work at its deepest levels? And to what extent can we radically upgrade it, creating neuroplastic changes? Ruben Laukkonen, PhD is a cognitive neuroscientist, contemplative, speaker, and poet. His eclectic background includes competing semi-professionally in Muay Thai Kickboxing, founding two businesses (including the first online market for bitcoin in Australia), and intensive meditation training. Dr. Laukkonen is currently a principal investigator and lecturer at Southern Cross University and holds honorary fellowships at VU Amsterdam and The University of Queensland. He uses methods such as behavior, neuroimaging, machine learning, and phenomenology to empirically investigate some of the rarest states of human consciousness. This episode is a full tour of the mind, including a deep dive into some of those rare states of consciousness and what they reveal about achieving the highest levels of human happiness. FitMind Neuroscience-Based App: http://bit.ly/afitmind Website: www.fitmind.com   SHOW NOTES 0:00 | Introduction to Ruben Laukkonen, PhD 2:02 | Early Experience  10:45 | How the Mind Makes Itself 22:18 | Predictive Processing & Agitation 25:30 | Why There's Always Something Wrong 31:28 | Chain of Causality in the Mind 36:00 | The Mind Rebuilding After Deepest Levels of Meditation 38:25 | Meditation for Reconditioning the Mind 52:06 | Doing Nothing Very Well 53:14 | Stages of Meditation & Predictive Processing 1:08:28 | Cessation & Awakening Research 1:17:12 | Jhanas - Stages of Deconstruction 1:24:22 | Rapid Fire Questions   LINKS https://rubenlaukkonen.com https://fitmind.com/give