ABSTRACT
Prior to the introduction of the concept of biofeedback, Western scientists lacked a meaningful model for studying the voluntary self-regulation of visceroautonomic body functions achieved via hypnosis and/or Eastern meditation techniques. Biofeedback provided a comparative scientific model for operational examination of altered states of consciousness and visceroautonomic self-regulation achieved by whatever means–yoga, hypnosis, or drugs. The major sensation with malfunction of the latter systems is the relatively crude sensation of pain, sometimes referred to a distant dermatome. The basic psychophysiological principle of biofeedback is the provision of parallel external proprioception via an external biofeedback loop, so that an inner machinery function becomes observable at the conscious level. Biofeedback then, has enhanced the psychophysiologists research armamentarium by permitting him to create a variety of relative physiological steady states in subjects under a variety of conditions. An analogy would be the mathematician's use of asymptotes and intercept crossings to analyze boundary properties of a mathematical function.
