For the last day or two, life had felt increasingly ragged. I found myself getting too little sleep, carrying a lot of invisible burdens I had created myself, and trying to solve problems which at that moment, were not solvable. Two days into it, the neatly compartmentalized problems, some involving my business, some involving juggling work and family schedules, etc. within my mind had turned into a mess. I was stuck on a creative endeavor - a talk I was putting together for a couple of days from now. I was getting nowhere.
This morning, while at church for Easter services, I felt myself reach the bottom of the dip. When we got home, I knew the solution. The answer was obvious, go take a nap. And sure enough, two hours later, the world had changed. What had been a closet full of monsters had suddenly become clear once again. The biggest problem I had been trying to figure out seemed to solve itself.
Generally when trying to get a task done, solve a problem, etc., concentration is a good thing. When you are in the groove almost anything is possible. It is a natural form of trance, a form of spontaneous self-hypnosis. Yet after a while, that concentration fades. The brain tires. That focused perspective becomes a limitation and the groove becomes a rut. That obvious answer, or that view of the big picture becomes elusive. You need to get out of trance. You need a break.
The best form of break, the best way to get out of that rut, is simply to walk away for awhile. In NLP it is what is known as breaking state - getting your mind out of the present thought pattern. Ultimately, a nap, or a good night's sleep is the best answer - it not only breaks state, it provides the necessary rest and healing for both mind and body. While the answer seems obvious, when in the midst of the problem it can be pretty hard to see. Concentration is important, yet it is just one aspect of problem solving.
Einstein is quoted as saying, "No problem is ever solved at the level it was created" - or something like that. Often, to solve a problem, you need to break out of the box, see the bigger picture. So once rested, looking at the problem with recharged batteries and a new perspective, you can reapply the creative juices once again. You can get back into a creative mindset - a new trance - this time more suited to the solution you are seeking. The new trance fits the landscape of the problem, and within it is the solution.
And all it took was a good nap.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
God, Wormholes and Static on TV
God, Wormholes and Static on the TV
I was watching an episode of Through the Wormhole this evening. The episode was a fascinating one, exploring the neurology of reality, spirituality and higher perception. The show explored the idea that we create God as part of the higher processes within our own brains - yet God is more than something we imagine. In a way, we create God and God creates us.
One idea the show explored was that the mind tries to impose order on the world around us, even when that order apparently doesn't exist (or so we assume). One particular experiment showed that a feeling of loss-of-control made a volunteer subject more likely to see patterns in static.
The feeling of loss of control was generated by frustrating a logical test of associating a symbol with meaning. The person was made to feel that they failed the test even though they did their best - the reasons being factors beyond their control. In the control group, the person was correctly evaluated as having established the right answer for answers in the test.
After taking the test, the volunteer was then asked to view a screen full of static, indicating whether they observed a pattern within the static, and if so, to indicate what that pattern is.
When a person had a sense of control, making sense of their physical universe as being rational, etc., then when they looked at a screen full of static, they saw exactly that, static with no meaning. However, when they experienced a loss of control, their world was less rational, less rule-bound. When these subjects were shown a screen full of static, they were able to see patterns in the snow.
The conclusion of the experimenter was that the brain seeks to find order in our world. When it can't find order, it will invent it - as in the static on the TV. The assumption was that there was in fact, no order in the static on the TV, that the subject invented the patterns that did not exist. However, was that assumption actually correct?
A more 'Eastern' or theistic view might be that once the ego had given up its hold on the subject's reality, then a higher vision was able to engage. In that case, the higher sight was able to see patterns within the static. This does not necessarily mean that the patterns were actually in the static, but that perhaps the static served as a vehicle of concentration, a local channel for non-local perception.
Another example the show used was that of a Tarot reader. In this case, the experimenter psychologist played with Tarot cards as a hobby, finding uncanny abilities to see patterns in life, reflected in the Tarot deck. Again, she assumed that the pattern reflection was not actually there, and the apparent correspondence was only an illusion.
However, what if, once again, the Tarot deck served only as a vehicle of concentration, allowing a higher level of perception to engage. Then, perhaps this vision was able to see the patterns, maybe non-locally.
The assumption that when a physical channel of perception is not there, that the actual perception process is not present, rather than a non-local or parapsychological process being at work is an assumption. To me, it is a flaw in the methodology of the experiment, reflecting an underlying belief system in which parapsychology is not valid.
The show brought out the idea that we impose patterns on nature, often using vehicles such as spirituality and/or religion as a bridge when no rational cause/effect can be determined. We picture random acts of nature, fortune or tragedy as somehow being the will of God.
Indeed, it is possible to identify areas of the brain which perform this function, a 'God spot' in the brain. Thus, the show suggests that religious or spiritual beliefs are 'nothing more than' attempts to see patterns where none are there.
A fundamental question looked at within the sow was what is the nature of reality? One idea is that our mind, our perception and filters, and even our reality, itself, can be thought of as a pattern of neuronal and synaptic states. At least in principle, by understanding and replicating these aggregate states, we could reproduce the person's mind - their fundamental being.
Is the sum total of a person's mind, the current state of their neuronal brain, their synapses? Are the synaptic weights the means by which a person's mind is fully encoded? This idea does not take non-locality into consideration. Dr. Stewart Hameroff and the University of Arizona team studying quantum consciousness, suggests that more is required - interaction of the brain with the external non-local universe. Indeed, in this model, much of the mind is external to the brain. The brain may even function more as an antenna than a computer
The show looked at brain scans of people of various religious beliefs - including atheists - while conducting meditation or prayer. It found that deep meditation or prayer corresponds to activity in the frontal lobes - similar to being in conversation, except in this case, the conversation is with God, rather than with a person physically present.
Buddhist meditation, where the divine is more, abstract, it found that the patterns in the brain were different. They were less in the pattern a conversation, yet the peak experience was there. Even more so, the atheist in meditation showed no conversational pattern in brain - not having a conversation with God because they did not believe God exists. There may be a spiritual experience, yet the experience may not be religious in nature. Thus for the religious, the experience is real, as if God is physically present. Spirituality and religion may be two separate experiences.
Does the idea that a particular part of the brain specializes in the spiritual/religious experience make religion or spirituality any less valid? Does the idea that a particular part of the brain specializes in mathematics make math any less valid? Similar with music or with any other area of human experience.
The idea of the show suggests that the states of our brains are where reality crystalizes for us. Our reality is the sum of what we observe, filtered by our beliefs, yielding our perceptions and models of the world. Part of this model of the universe is God.
Did we invent God or did God invent us - or both? Are both ideas correct? Searching for God within the self, once we get our egos out of the way, we are able to perceive the God that already exists. Or maybe we do indeed create our creator.
I was watching an episode of Through the Wormhole this evening. The episode was a fascinating one, exploring the neurology of reality, spirituality and higher perception. The show explored the idea that we create God as part of the higher processes within our own brains - yet God is more than something we imagine. In a way, we create God and God creates us.
One idea the show explored was that the mind tries to impose order on the world around us, even when that order apparently doesn't exist (or so we assume). One particular experiment showed that a feeling of loss-of-control made a volunteer subject more likely to see patterns in static.
The feeling of loss of control was generated by frustrating a logical test of associating a symbol with meaning. The person was made to feel that they failed the test even though they did their best - the reasons being factors beyond their control. In the control group, the person was correctly evaluated as having established the right answer for answers in the test.
After taking the test, the volunteer was then asked to view a screen full of static, indicating whether they observed a pattern within the static, and if so, to indicate what that pattern is.
When a person had a sense of control, making sense of their physical universe as being rational, etc., then when they looked at a screen full of static, they saw exactly that, static with no meaning. However, when they experienced a loss of control, their world was less rational, less rule-bound. When these subjects were shown a screen full of static, they were able to see patterns in the snow.
The conclusion of the experimenter was that the brain seeks to find order in our world. When it can't find order, it will invent it - as in the static on the TV. The assumption was that there was in fact, no order in the static on the TV, that the subject invented the patterns that did not exist. However, was that assumption actually correct?
A more 'Eastern' or theistic view might be that once the ego had given up its hold on the subject's reality, then a higher vision was able to engage. In that case, the higher sight was able to see patterns within the static. This does not necessarily mean that the patterns were actually in the static, but that perhaps the static served as a vehicle of concentration, a local channel for non-local perception.
Another example the show used was that of a Tarot reader. In this case, the experimenter psychologist played with Tarot cards as a hobby, finding uncanny abilities to see patterns in life, reflected in the Tarot deck. Again, she assumed that the pattern reflection was not actually there, and the apparent correspondence was only an illusion.
However, what if, once again, the Tarot deck served only as a vehicle of concentration, allowing a higher level of perception to engage. Then, perhaps this vision was able to see the patterns, maybe non-locally.
The assumption that when a physical channel of perception is not there, that the actual perception process is not present, rather than a non-local or parapsychological process being at work is an assumption. To me, it is a flaw in the methodology of the experiment, reflecting an underlying belief system in which parapsychology is not valid.
The show brought out the idea that we impose patterns on nature, often using vehicles such as spirituality and/or religion as a bridge when no rational cause/effect can be determined. We picture random acts of nature, fortune or tragedy as somehow being the will of God.
Indeed, it is possible to identify areas of the brain which perform this function, a 'God spot' in the brain. Thus, the show suggests that religious or spiritual beliefs are 'nothing more than' attempts to see patterns where none are there.
A fundamental question looked at within the sow was what is the nature of reality? One idea is that our mind, our perception and filters, and even our reality, itself, can be thought of as a pattern of neuronal and synaptic states. At least in principle, by understanding and replicating these aggregate states, we could reproduce the person's mind - their fundamental being.
Is the sum total of a person's mind, the current state of their neuronal brain, their synapses? Are the synaptic weights the means by which a person's mind is fully encoded? This idea does not take non-locality into consideration. Dr. Stewart Hameroff and the University of Arizona team studying quantum consciousness, suggests that more is required - interaction of the brain with the external non-local universe. Indeed, in this model, much of the mind is external to the brain. The brain may even function more as an antenna than a computer
The show looked at brain scans of people of various religious beliefs - including atheists - while conducting meditation or prayer. It found that deep meditation or prayer corresponds to activity in the frontal lobes - similar to being in conversation, except in this case, the conversation is with God, rather than with a person physically present.
Buddhist meditation, where the divine is more, abstract, it found that the patterns in the brain were different. They were less in the pattern a conversation, yet the peak experience was there. Even more so, the atheist in meditation showed no conversational pattern in brain - not having a conversation with God because they did not believe God exists. There may be a spiritual experience, yet the experience may not be religious in nature. Thus for the religious, the experience is real, as if God is physically present. Spirituality and religion may be two separate experiences.
Does the idea that a particular part of the brain specializes in the spiritual/religious experience make religion or spirituality any less valid? Does the idea that a particular part of the brain specializes in mathematics make math any less valid? Similar with music or with any other area of human experience.
The idea of the show suggests that the states of our brains are where reality crystalizes for us. Our reality is the sum of what we observe, filtered by our beliefs, yielding our perceptions and models of the world. Part of this model of the universe is God.
Did we invent God or did God invent us - or both? Are both ideas correct? Searching for God within the self, once we get our egos out of the way, we are able to perceive the God that already exists. Or maybe we do indeed create our creator.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
An interesting synchroniticity
I had an interesting little synchronicity this morning. As I was driving to a Chamber of Commerce networking meeting this morning, I kept getting the song "Mr. Postman" running through my head. I decided that I had somehow morphed mailing a letter this morning (a bill actually) into the song, but outside of that, I have no idea how the song popped into my head. But the story deepens.
I drove through a snowstorm to the meeting - there was a snowstorm at the last one, too - and I got there on time. At each meeting there is a presentation from a particular business. THis one was a senior housing complex nearby. They did a take off of a popular oldies song - you never guessed what it was - "Mr. Postman"
After that, for the rest of the day, things seemed to tie together, some positively, some less so. I had several great sessions with clients, great healing work. Then someone did a really excellent healing session on me - it's great to be working with a group of healers.
Then I had a client who booked with me a couple of days before call me to tell me she had to reschedule. She had had a tremendous tragedy happen to her family. I had just been thinking about her a few hours earlier, wondering how she was doing. Another synchronistic closing of the loop, unfortunately less positively.
I've always been fascinated by these synchronicites. What do they mean? They don't seem to make sense. First they lead one way, then another. Paradoxes of metaphysical and trance logic. Do they contain a message? Are they signs at all? Or are they entirely random?
Looking at them, they don't seem to be coherent. One time something happens, and the universe seems to align in a way that encourages what I'm doing. A few days later, something else happens that throws cold water on the whole thing - almost the exact opposite message. It's as if it can't make up its mind what it's trying to say.
I can only conclude that there is a deeper, hidden message. Maybe it's something I don't get - at least not yet. And maybe that's the true message of the synchronicity.
I drove through a snowstorm to the meeting - there was a snowstorm at the last one, too - and I got there on time. At each meeting there is a presentation from a particular business. THis one was a senior housing complex nearby. They did a take off of a popular oldies song - you never guessed what it was - "Mr. Postman"
After that, for the rest of the day, things seemed to tie together, some positively, some less so. I had several great sessions with clients, great healing work. Then someone did a really excellent healing session on me - it's great to be working with a group of healers.
Then I had a client who booked with me a couple of days before call me to tell me she had to reschedule. She had had a tremendous tragedy happen to her family. I had just been thinking about her a few hours earlier, wondering how she was doing. Another synchronistic closing of the loop, unfortunately less positively.
I've always been fascinated by these synchronicites. What do they mean? They don't seem to make sense. First they lead one way, then another. Paradoxes of metaphysical and trance logic. Do they contain a message? Are they signs at all? Or are they entirely random?
Looking at them, they don't seem to be coherent. One time something happens, and the universe seems to align in a way that encourages what I'm doing. A few days later, something else happens that throws cold water on the whole thing - almost the exact opposite message. It's as if it can't make up its mind what it's trying to say.
I can only conclude that there is a deeper, hidden message. Maybe it's something I don't get - at least not yet. And maybe that's the true message of the synchronicity.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
A fitting end to a perfect day
I spent the remainder of the evening, pleasantly tired, watching a re-run of the movie "Contact". It was the fitting end to a perfect day.
Today was the Twin Cities Psychic Symposium, where I had an exhibitor booth. It was a great experience, where I met a lot of great people, did a lot of networking, and sold a lot of self-hypnosis CDs. But even more than that, I got to touch the minds and awareness of a lot of people who are doing the exact same thing I am - trying to reach beyond their own limits. In the words of an author whose name I can't remember at the moment, "to slip the bonds of Earth and touch the face of God."
In one way it was ironic - one of the books on my shelf is "Contact," by Carl Sagan, the book which spawned the movie by the same name. The movie is a pretty faithful replication of the book, and I find it somehow touching that Carl Sagan passed away just before the movie was released.
Next to the book Contact is another of his books, "The Demon Haunted World." It is one of the premiere works of skepticism of that time-frame, around 1996, or so. In it Sagan decries such "pseudoscientific" topics as psychic phenomena, UFOs and alien abduction. He claims that there is no evidence in support for the reality of any of these. Yet only a slight look behind the curtain shows an intriguing host of anomalies, a full spectrum of mystery.
While I admire Carl Sagan for many things, Demon Haunted World was not one of them. Instead, I prefer to reflect on the positive contributions of his work - reaching beyond the edge of planetary science, the speculative book he co-authored entitled "intelligent Life in the Universe," the book "Pale Blue Dot" and what is probably for me, the most inspiring influence in my life, the TV series, Cosmos. (Cosmos came out at just the right time to touch my own world and re-open it to the possibilities I had forgotten at that moment - in short, it restored my vision and in a way, saved my soul.)
That's why it is so ironic that at the end of a day in which my own mind touched so many others, where I talked with so many at a psychic symposium, my experience shoudl be echoed in a movie by Carl Sagan. In one way, his work was so visionary, yet in another, he represented the very box many of there, today are trying to reach beyond.
In "Contact," at the end of the movie, the plight of Dr. Eleanor Arroway seemed symbolic of the experiences so many healers, psychics and experiencers describe everyday. It is the relationship between the edge of the ordinary, and those who are thrust far beyond that edge. While we try to maintain scientific rigor in our study of the extraordinary, there is a dimension of the experience that simply goes beyond what we can objectively define.
Mainstream pushes the envelope using the scientific method, building on existing theories and technologies. Yet much of what we see in studies of the extraordinary transcend those boundaries, moving into the space beyond what science can handle. In some ways, it ventures into the spiritual - and thus, by some peoples' books, religion.
In the movie, at the very end, we find that all of the data recorders recorded nothing, even as Arroway was experiencing an amazing ride through the cosmos. While she claims to have been gone 18 hours, all external observations showed she had never gone anywhere. Yet it turns out that the "nothing" that the instruments recorded lasted exactly 18 hours. In short, we are left with tantalizing hints and visions of the extraordinary, yet at the same time, the reality defies (or at least stretches) our current abilities to study it. I think that Sagan was trying to convey the idea that even as many phenomena defy our efforts to objectively study it, they leave tantalizing clues that point to something far more than we currently understand.
For most of the day, I got to touch minds with a lot of like-minded people, forge new and renew old acquaintances - and sell quite a few self-hypnosis CDs. it was somehow synchronistic that the day should then be capped of with a counterpoint of this movie - touching the edge, reminding us of the sharpness of that edge and the reminding us of fragility of our knowledge. it was a fitting end to a perfect day.
Today was the Twin Cities Psychic Symposium, where I had an exhibitor booth. It was a great experience, where I met a lot of great people, did a lot of networking, and sold a lot of self-hypnosis CDs. But even more than that, I got to touch the minds and awareness of a lot of people who are doing the exact same thing I am - trying to reach beyond their own limits. In the words of an author whose name I can't remember at the moment, "to slip the bonds of Earth and touch the face of God."
In one way it was ironic - one of the books on my shelf is "Contact," by Carl Sagan, the book which spawned the movie by the same name. The movie is a pretty faithful replication of the book, and I find it somehow touching that Carl Sagan passed away just before the movie was released.
Next to the book Contact is another of his books, "The Demon Haunted World." It is one of the premiere works of skepticism of that time-frame, around 1996, or so. In it Sagan decries such "pseudoscientific" topics as psychic phenomena, UFOs and alien abduction. He claims that there is no evidence in support for the reality of any of these. Yet only a slight look behind the curtain shows an intriguing host of anomalies, a full spectrum of mystery.
While I admire Carl Sagan for many things, Demon Haunted World was not one of them. Instead, I prefer to reflect on the positive contributions of his work - reaching beyond the edge of planetary science, the speculative book he co-authored entitled "intelligent Life in the Universe," the book "Pale Blue Dot" and what is probably for me, the most inspiring influence in my life, the TV series, Cosmos. (Cosmos came out at just the right time to touch my own world and re-open it to the possibilities I had forgotten at that moment - in short, it restored my vision and in a way, saved my soul.)
That's why it is so ironic that at the end of a day in which my own mind touched so many others, where I talked with so many at a psychic symposium, my experience shoudl be echoed in a movie by Carl Sagan. In one way, his work was so visionary, yet in another, he represented the very box many of there, today are trying to reach beyond.
In "Contact," at the end of the movie, the plight of Dr. Eleanor Arroway seemed symbolic of the experiences so many healers, psychics and experiencers describe everyday. It is the relationship between the edge of the ordinary, and those who are thrust far beyond that edge. While we try to maintain scientific rigor in our study of the extraordinary, there is a dimension of the experience that simply goes beyond what we can objectively define.
Mainstream pushes the envelope using the scientific method, building on existing theories and technologies. Yet much of what we see in studies of the extraordinary transcend those boundaries, moving into the space beyond what science can handle. In some ways, it ventures into the spiritual - and thus, by some peoples' books, religion.
In the movie, at the very end, we find that all of the data recorders recorded nothing, even as Arroway was experiencing an amazing ride through the cosmos. While she claims to have been gone 18 hours, all external observations showed she had never gone anywhere. Yet it turns out that the "nothing" that the instruments recorded lasted exactly 18 hours. In short, we are left with tantalizing hints and visions of the extraordinary, yet at the same time, the reality defies (or at least stretches) our current abilities to study it. I think that Sagan was trying to convey the idea that even as many phenomena defy our efforts to objectively study it, they leave tantalizing clues that point to something far more than we currently understand.
For most of the day, I got to touch minds with a lot of like-minded people, forge new and renew old acquaintances - and sell quite a few self-hypnosis CDs. it was somehow synchronistic that the day should then be capped of with a counterpoint of this movie - touching the edge, reminding us of the sharpness of that edge and the reminding us of fragility of our knowledge. it was a fitting end to a perfect day.
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