When I began my master’s program in cognitive science, an electrical engineering professor told us—rather arrogantly—that the soul is nothing but neurons firing. “You’re deluded if you think otherwise,” she snapped, tossing aside the possibility that the mysteriously charged spark of consciousness could spring from anywhere other than the damp circuitry of flesh.
Times are changing, though. Scientists are increasingly willing to entertain questions once considered taboo, like the idea that consciousness might be more than just sticky brain matter.
Some researchers suggest that consciousness isn’t simply the result of cells in your brain firing like machine wiring, but rather a ripple of energy pulsing through the brain. Instead of billions of synapses firing—the predominant “neurons-as-switches” view that has prevailed since the 1940s when brain science borrowed metaphors from early computer science—conscious awareness may instead ride on resonant fields, or waves that collide and blend, turning the brain into a symphony rather than a circuit board.
Even within this controversial framework, neurons and synapses remain key players in your conscious awareness: they relay electrical signals, release chemicals like serotonin and dopamine, and underpin how everything from antidepressants to anesthesia works in your brain.
A wave-based model of consciousness adds nuance to the conversation by building upon the biological foundation. It suggests the true magic happens when billions of signals overlap and resonate, creating lasting patterns in the brain. In other words, neurons make up the notes, but consciousness—or the unified sense of self—comes from the harmony, when signals fuse together to make one coherent experience: the subjective sense of self.
If consciousness truly is the result of waves of energy interacting with one another, it could completely change how we think about the nature of the mind—from mental health treatments to machine intelligence to the meaning of life and death.
### The Wave-Based Theory of Consciousness
One scientist pushing this concept is Michael Pravica, PhD, a professor of physics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In a paper tentatively titled *Human Nature and Waves*, currently submitted for review in the journal *Metaphilosophy*, Pravica argues that humans are not just particles. Instead, he proposes that it may be more accurate to view humans as complex interference holograms—patterns formed when countless brain waves collide and overlap, producing the texture of our thoughts, memories, and emotions.
After all, particles are just confined waves, Pravica explains. “A human being looks like a collection of particles, but really, it’s all waves. In some sense, we are holograms of these waves,” he continues.
Pravica roots this concept of a consciousness hologram in established physics. Our bodies constantly radiate infrared waves—the heat we emit—producing energy as vibrating particles. At the same time, quantum mechanics tells us every particle, even electrons, carries a de Broglie wave: a hidden ripple of probability that allows matter to behave both as waves and particles.
Combined, these facts mean our bodies are doing two things simultaneously: radiating and vibrating. This convergence led Pravica to see us as shimmering wave patterns rather than just lumps of particles.
In his view, consciousness could be the experience that emerges when all those waves interfere and align into a single, unified pattern. He even extends the idea to hyperdimensionality, proposing that our wave functions may stretch beyond space-time, connecting us not only to one another but possibly to those who have passed away.
This idea might sound wild, but the leap comes directly from quantum physics: every particle is also a wave, described by a wave function that can extend across space and even exist in superposition. If the brain’s activity is wave-like, then in principle, those wave functions might reach beyond the familiar three dimensions of space and one dimension of time—at least according to some interpretations by physicists.
### A Complexity Index for Brain Waves
Independent researcher Michael Arnold Bruna, a musician by training, offers his own contribution to the wave-based theory. In a May 2025 pre-print paper that has not yet been peer-reviewed, Bruna introduces the concept of a “Complexity Index,” a single score designed to capture how brain waves behave.
This index goes beyond measuring speed or strength of waves—it quantifies how intricate, stable, and coordinated they become. The score combines fractal dimensionality (how self-similar patterns repeat), gain (signal strength), coherence (how well signals align), and dwell time (how long patterns persist).
Using computer models called neural-field simulations—which treat brain activity as synchronized fluctuations rather than isolated sparks—Bruna argues that certain wave interference patterns score higher on this index. These patterns may resemble the stability and integration observed in conscious states.
However, whether these patterns truly map onto consciousness remains unproven.
According to Bruna, neurons don’t just fire once but instead throb rhythmically like tiny metronomes. When billions of these fire in unison and converge, they can form “standing patterns”: stable resonances in the brain’s electrical activity. He suggests these resonances could weave separate signals into a single, unified experience.
Though Bruna is not a formally trained scientist, his passion for metaphors tied to consciousness—such as resonance, harmony, and standing waves (which hold their shape like a plucked guitar string)—has led him to formalize those intuitions using simulations and mathematics.
### Expert Perspectives on Brain Oscillations
Several experts have emphasized the importance of oscillations and coherence in brain function.
Neuroscientist György Buzsáki, who has spent decades studying brain rhythms, argues oscillations synchronize signals across distant brain regions, allowing them to work in concert. “Without oscillations,” he says, “thought would be like an orchestra with no conductor.”
Meanwhile, anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff and physicist Roger Penrose have proposed that quantum coherence in neuronal microtubules could be the missing ingredient, suggesting—like Bruna—that resonance matters more than firing rates alone.
Not everyone views oscillations as a replacement for neurons.
Neuroscientist Jennifer Perusini, PhD, founder and CEO of Neurovation Labs, a New York City-based drug discovery company focused on central nervous system disorders, explains that brain rhythms and oscillations are not separate from neuronal activity—they emerge from groups of specialized neurons firing in coordinated patterns.
“Oscillations like theta, gamma, and beta rhythms are relatively regular and prominent in brain areas like the hippocampus and amygdala,” she says. “These rhythms have been implicated in emotional memory, fear conditioning, and attention. Importantly, these oscillatory patterns may temporally organize neuronal firing, helping distant regions synchronize activity for complex cognitive functions, including, potentially, consciousness.”
“It’s not one or the other—neurons or waves,” Perusini adds. “Electrical waves and neuronal firing should be seen as complementary, not competing, frameworks.”
Neurons handle the raw input, but oscillations pull it together, transforming scattered signals across the brain into the unified, subjective stream we experience as consciousness.
This balance—neurons as the silent bee workers, waves as the queen’s rhythm holding the hive together—suggests that consciousness may be measurable, though profoundly complex.
### A New Perspective on the Soul
Which brings us back to the professor who once snapped that the soul was “just neurons firing.” Perhaps she missed the bigger picture.
Consciousness might not be reducible to simple neuronal firing alone. Instead, it could well be the harmonious symphony of waves interacting, resonating, and weaving together an extraordinary, unified experience that defines our very sense of self.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a69099925/consciousness-brain-waves-new-theory/