The Science of Changing Your Mind JOE DISPENZA, D.C. Health Communications, Inc. Deerfield Beach, Florida www.hcibooks.com The content of this book is published for educational and informational purposes only. The content of this book should not be used for the diagnosis or treatment of any condition or disease. The case histories presented are provided for illustrative purposes only. No express or implied guarantee of results is made. If you are cur- rently being treated by a physician or other healthcare practitioner for any condition or disease, consult with that provider prior to changing or modifying any treatment program. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available through the Library of Congress. © 2007 Joe Dispenza, D.C. ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-0480-4 ISBN-lO: 0-7573-0480-X All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publica- tion may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, with- out the written permission of the publisher. HCI, its logos and marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc. 3201 S.w. 15th Street Deerfield Beach, FL 33442-8190 Cover design by Larissa Hise Henoch Interior book design and formatting by Lawna Patterson Oldfield Interior illustrations by Larissa Hise Henoch FOR JACE, GIANNA, AND SHENARA CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................................... xi FOREWORD BY AMIT GOSWAMI, PH.D ................................................................... xv CHAPTER ONE: Beginnings .............................................................................. 1 CHAPTER Two: On the Back of a Giant... .................................................... .31 CHAPTER THREE: Neurons and the Nervous System: Traveling the Original Information Superhighway .................................. 73 CHAPTER FOUR: Our Three Brains and More ............................................. 1 03 CHAPTER FIVE: Hardwired by Nature, Changeable by Nurture ................ 145 CHAPTER SIX: Neuroplasticity: How Knowledge and Experience Change or Evolve the Brain ................................................. 179 CHAPTER SEVEN: Putting Knowledge and Experience into Practice ......... 223 CHAPTER EIGHT: The Chemistry of Survival ............................................. .251 CHAPTER NINE: The Chemistry of Emotional Addiction .......................... 295 CHAPTER TEN: Taking Control: The Frontal Lobe in Thought and in Action ............................................................................................ 337 CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Art and Science of Mental Rehearsal .................... 381 ix x CONTENTS CHAPTER TWELVE: Evolving Your Being .................................................... .419 Epilogue: A Quantum Change .................................................................... .469 Notes .............................................................................................................. 479 Index .............................................................................................................. 493 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . ,t~" J ::0: ;::~~:: ~;t;::n:n~h::::n:7~ T~:::;:;~~:e'~::::' ."., "" There are moments when we feel truly inspired and uplifted, because we have made some progress in climbing to a new level to see a better view. In the next moment, when we see that there are bigger obstacles to overcome, we wonder if we even made a difference and if our efforts were really worth it. Like the birthing process, creation comes with labor pains, complications, nausea, fatigue, sleepless nights, and even woeful moments of thinking about the future. Questions lurk about our personal abilities, what we know, what we don't know, who our critics are, who we are doing this for anyway, and why. I have had such moments in writing this book. And yet, it is almost natural that we fret with such encumbrances, because somewhere inside us, we know that the only terrain we are overcoming is our lim- ited view of ourselves. It's a process, and most certainly, there are speed bumps along the way. I must say that this book has been a great and wonderful teacher for me. I am different today because I continued on in spite of the many reasons to stop. I understand better now why I wrote this book. My sole purpose and hopeful intentions were to contribute toward helping people change their lives. If this book makes a difference in even one person's life, then the whole process was worth it. Evolve Your Brain was not written primarily for the scientist, the researcher, or the academic, but for the average person who wants to understand that science sup- ports our ability to change, and that we, as human beings, have great potential. xi xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I certainly do not know everything there is to know about the brain. What I have come to learn, to experience, to research, and to personally conclude are only doorways to greater understandings. Some might say to me, why didn't you discuss this topic or that topic in the book? Simply, I have chosen to keep this body of work about the science of changing our mind and what implications this has for our health and our well-being. There are many more subjects I could have discussed about energy, mind, quantum physics, and our greater abilities that would make this book too broad to be useful. My epilogue suggests greater applications. I do want to acknowledge several people who have supported, influenced, and inspired me to complete the book. First, I want to thank my publishers at HCI, Peter Vegso and Tom Sand, who believed in me. A special thank you to my editor, Michele Matrisciani. I also want to express my appreciation to Carol Rosenberg for being such a thorough managing editor and to Dawn Von Strolley Grove and Lawna Patterson Oldfield for their production expertise. To Tere Stouffer, my copy editor, who helped me with perspective. Also, to Sara Steinberg, my content/copy editor, who taught me about the tortoise and the hare and who showed such caring and love ... I am grateful. To Gary Brozek, your contribution to my work is truly appreciated. My graphic artist Larissa Hise Henoch showed her true talent in this book. I also want to give my acknowledgments to my staff for keeping up with my pace. Thanks to Bill Harrell, D.c., Jackie Hobbs, Diane Baker, Patty Kerr, Charlie Davidson, and Brenda Surerus. Your sincerity is invaluable to me. Special grati- tude is given to Gabrielle Sagona for her assistance, encouragement, and fabulous energy. Thank you for everything. To Joanne Twining, Ph.D., I am expanded by your skills, your knowledge, and your patience. To Will Arntz, James Capezio, and Rebecca Capezio for their important feedback with the manuscript. To Marjorie Layden, Henry Schimberg, Linda Evans, Anne Marie Bennstrom, Ken Weiss, Betsy Chasse, and Gordon J. Grobelny, D.C., for true encouragement and sup- port. My immense appreciation goes to Paul Burns, J.D., D.C., who helped me in innumerable ways. I also want to give thanks to JZ Knight for giving up her life to help humanity. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii To Ramtha, who inspired me to write this book and from whom I have learned enough to think about for a hundred lifetimes. To the students at RSE, who live their lives with a passion for adventure and a love of God. I am always inspired by their dedication to the great work. My gratitude to Amit Goswami, Ph.D., for his brilliant intellectual mind, true compassion, and willingness to be an individual. You are a true maverick. Thank you as well to Nick Pappas, M.D., Margie Pappas, R.N., M.S., and John Kucharczyk, Ph.D., who played an important role in informing me about the brain, mind, and body. I want to personally thank John and Katina Dispenza and my mother, Fran Dispenza, for having strong shoulders to lean on. And finally, a profound thank you should be written across the sky to my lovely lady Roberta Brittingham, for naturally being and living everything that I have tried to explain in this book. I am always inspired by your humility and greatness. FOREWORD \ I~ .~" .~" ince you are holding this book in your hand, you may already be ~ i . aware of the paradigm shift that is going on in science. In the old par- '~'i";' .(;;;c;;; adigm, your consciousness-you-is regarded as an epiphenomenon of your brain. In the new paradigm, your consciousness is the ground of being and your brain is the epiphenomenon. Feel better? Then you are ready to reap the benefit of this book. If consciousness is the primary ground and brain is secondary, then it is natural to ask how to use the brain in an optimal fashion to fulftll the purpose of consciousness and its evolution. The new paradigm research has been going on for a while, but this is the first book that addresses this question and bril- liantly guides you toward that end. Truly, Dr. Joe Dispenza has written a user's manual par excellence for the brain, from the new primacy-of-consciousness perspective. Dr. Dispenza, not being a quantum physicist, does keep the primacy of con- sciousness implicit, not explicit, until the very end of the book. Because it requires quantum physics to see the primacy of consciousness explicitly, it may be useful for you, dear reader, to receive a little background information from a quantum physicist; hence, this foreword. To go back to the beginning of the new paradigm revolution, quantum physics has a fundamental interpretational problem. It depicts objects not as determined "things," but as waves of possibility. How do these possibilities become actual "things" of our experience when we observe or "measure" them? xv xvi FOREWORD If you think that our brain-being the site of us, or our consciousness-has the capacity to change possibility into actuality, think again. According to quantum physics, the brain itself consists of quantum possibilities before we measure it, before we observe with it. If we, our consciousness, were a brain product, we would be possibilities as well, and our "coupling" with the object would change neither the object nor us (our brain) from possibility to actuality. Face it! Possibility coupled to possibility only makes a bigger possibility. The paradox only thickens if you think of yourself dualistically-you as a nonmaterial dual entity, not bound by quantum laws and separate from your brain. But if you are nonmaterial, then how do you interact with your brain, with which you have not a thing in common? This is dualism, a philosophy intractable as science. There is a third way of thinking, and this one leads to a paradigm shift. Your consciousness is the primary fabric of reality, and matter (including the brain and the object you are observing) exists within this fabric as quantum possibil- ities. Your observation consists of choosing from the possibilities the one facet that becomes the actuality of your experience. Physicists call this process the col- lapse of the quantum possibility wave. Once you recognize that your consciousness is not your brain but tran- scends it, once you recognize that you have the power to choose among possi- bilities, you are ready to act on Joe Dispenza's ideas and suggestions. It will help additionally to know that the "you" that chooses is a cosmic you, a state of con- sciousness available to you in non-ordinary situations. You reach such states when you have a creative insight. In those times, you are ready to make changes in your brain circuits. Dr. Dispenza shows you how. There is another reason that I think Dr. Joe Dispenza's book is a welcome addition to the growing literature of the new paradigm of science: he empha- sizes the importance of paying attention to emotions. You may already have heard the phrase emotional intelligence. What does that mean? First of all, it means that you don't have to fall prey to your emotions. You do because you are attached to them; or as Joe Dispenza would say, "You are attached to the brain circuits connected with the emotions." FOREWORD xvii There is a story that when Albert Einstein was leaving Nazi Germany for America, his wife became very concerned that she had to leave behind so much furniture and other household items. "I am attached to them;' she complained to a friend. To this, Einstein joked, "But my dear, they are not attached to you." This is the thing. Emotions are not attached to you; because you are not your brain, you don't have to identify with your existing brain circuits. With regard to the concept of emotional intelligence, some writers are a little confused. They talk about emotional intelligence and how you can develop it, but they also insist that you are nothing but the brain. The problem in think- ing that way is that the brain is already set up in a hierarchical relationship with the emotions. Emotional intelligence is possible only if you can change this existing hierarchy, only if you are not part of that hierarchy. Joe Dispenza recog- nizes the primacy of you, your consciousness, over your brain, and by doing so, he gives you some useful advice about emotional intelligence, about how to change your existing brain circuits and hierarchies. Gandhi's wife was once asked by a journalist how Gandhi could accomplish so much. "Simple;' said the wife. "Gandhi is congruent in regards to his speech, thought, and action." All of us want to be good accomplishers; we want to fulftll the meaning and purpose of our lives. The crucial challenge is how to achieve synchrony between speech, thought, and action. Put another way, the challenge is to integrate thought and emotion. I believe that the evolution of consciousness demands this from us right now. Recognizing this, Joe Dispenza has provided indispens- able knowledge on how you can integrate your feelings and thinking. 1 met Dr. Joe for the first time at a What the Bleep Do We Know!? conference. This movie, as you may know, is about a young woman who is struggling to change her emotional behavior. In a scene of catharsis (played beautifully by actress Marlee Matlin), the woman looks at her image in a mirror and says, "I hate you:' In that moment she frees herself to choose among quantum possibil- ities of change. She goes on to transform her brain circuits, creating a new state of being and a new life. You can change your brain circuits, too. You have that power of quantum xviii FOREWORD choice. We have always had the tools to do this, but only now have we become aware of how to use them. Dr. Joe Dispenza's book, Evolve Your Brain, will help you use your power to choose and to change. Read this book, use its ideas in your life, and realize your potential. -Amit Goswami, Ph.D. Professor of Physics, University of Oregon, and author of The Self-Aware Universe CHAPTER ONE BEGINNINGS But strange that I was not told That the brain can hold In a tiny ivory cell God's heaven or hell. -OSCAR WILDE invite you to have a single thought, any thought. Whether your thought was related to a feeling of anger, sadness, inspiration, joy, or even sexual arousal, you changed your body. You changed you. All thoughts, whether they be "1 can't;' "1 can;' ''I'm not good enough;' or "1 love you;' have similar measurable effects. As you sit casually reading this page, not lifting a single finger, bear in mind that your body is undergoing a host of dynamic changes. Triggered by your most recent thought, did you know that suddenly, your pancreas and your adrenal glands are already busy secreting a few new hormones? Like a sudden lightning storm, different areas of your brain just surged with increased electrical current, releasing a mob of neurochemicals that are too numerous to name. Your spleen and your thymus gland sent out a mass e-mail to your immune system to make a few modifications. Several different gastric juices started flowing. Your liver began processing enzymes that were 1 2 EVOLVE your BRAIN not present moments before. Your heart rate fluctuated, your lungs altered their stroke volume, and blood flow to the capillaries in your hands and feet changed. All from just thinking one thought. You are that powerful. But how are you capable of performing all of those actions? We can all intel- lectually understand that the brain can manage and regulate many diverse func- tions throughout the rest of the body, but how responsible are we for the job our brain is doing as CEO of the body? Whether we like it or not, once a thought happens in the brain, the rest is history. All of the bodily reactions that occur from both our intentional or unintentional thinking unfold behind the scenes of our awareness. When you come right down to it, it is startling to realize how influential and extensive the effects of one or two conscious or unconscious thoughts can be. For example, is it possible that the seemingly unconscious thoughts that run through our mind daily and repeatedly create a cascade of chemical reactions that produce not only what we feel but also how we feel? Can we accept that the long- term effects of our habitual thinking just might be the cause of how our body moves to a state of imbalance, or what we call disease? Is it likely, moment by moment, that we train our body to be unhealthy by our repeated thoughts and reactions? What if just by thinking, we cause our internal chemistry to be bumped out of normal range so often that the body's self-regulation system eventually redefines these abnormal states as normal, regular states? It's a subtle process, but maybe we just never gave it that much attention until now. My wish is that this book will ?ffer a few suggestions for managing your own internal universe. Since we are on the subject of attention, now I want you to pay attention, become aware, and listen. Can you hear the hum of the refrigerator? The sound of a car passing by your home? A distant dog barking? How about the resonance of your own heart beating? Just by shifting your attention in those moments, you caused a power surge and voltage flux of electricity in millions of brain cells right inside your own head. By choosing to modify your awareness, you changed your brain. Not only did you change how your brain was working moments before, but you changed how it will work in the next moment, and possibly for the rest of your life. BEGINNINGS 3 As you return your attention to these words on this page, you altered blood flow to various parts of your brain. You also set off a cascade of impulses, rerout- ing and modifying electrical currents to different brain areas. On a microscopic level, a multitude of diverse nerve cells ganged up chemically to "hold hands" and communicate, in order to establish stronger long-term relationships with each other. Because of your shift in attention, the shimmering three-dimen- sional web of intricate neurological tissue that is your brain is firing in new com- binations and sequences. You did that of your own free will, by changing your focus. You quite literally changed your mind. As human beings, we have the natural ability to focus our awareness on any- thing. As we will learn, how and where we place our attention, what we place our attention on, and for how long we place it ultimately defines us on a neurologi- cal level. If our awareness is so mobile, why is it so hard to keep our attention on thoughts that might serve us? Right now, as you continue to concentrate and read this page, you might have forgotten about the pain in your back, the dis- agreement you had with your boss earlier today, and even what gender you are. It is where we place our attention and on what we place our attention that maps the very course of our state of being. For example, we can, in any given moment, think about a bitter memory from our past that is only tattooed in the intimate folds of our gray matter and, like magic, it comes to life. We also have the option of attending to future anxi- eties and worries that do not readily exist until they are conjured up by our own mind. But to us, they are real. Our attention brings everything to life and makes real what was previously unnoticed or unreal. Believe it or not, according to neuroscience, placing our attention on pain in the body makes pain exist, because the circuits in the brain that perceive pain become electrically activated. If we then put our full awareness on something other than pain, the brain circuits that process pain and bodily sensations can be literally turned off-presto, the pain goes away. But when we look to see whether the pain is gone for good, the corresponding brain circuits once again activate, causing us to feel the discomfort return. And if these brain circuits repeatedly fire, the connections between them become stronger. Thus by paying attention