You Are the Placebo

by Joe Dispenza, Dr.

  A similar process happens with the firewalkers, the glass chewers, and the snake handlers. They get clear that they’re going to move into a different state of mind and body. And when they hold that firm intention to make that shift, the energy of that decision creates internal changes in their brains and bodies that make them immune to the external conditions in the environment for an extended period of time. Their energy now is protecting them in a way that, in that moment, transcends their biology.

  As it happens, our neurochemistry isn’t the only thing that responds to heightened states of energy. The receptor sites on the outside of the body’s cells happen to be a hundred times more sensitive to energy and frequency than they are to the physical chemical signals, like neuropeptides, that we know gain access to our cells’ DNA.12 Research consistently reveals that invisible forces of the electromagnetic spectrum influence every single aspect of cellular biology and genetic regulation.13 Cell receptors are frequency-specific to incoming energy signals. The energies of the electromagnetic spectrum include microwaves, radio waves, x-rays, extremely low-frequency waves, sound harmonic frequencies, ultraviolet rays, and even infrared waves. Specific frequencies of electromagnetic energy can influence the behavior of DNA, RNA, and protein synthesis; alter protein shape and function; control gene regulation and expression; stimulate nerve-cell growth; and influence cell division and cell differentiation, as well as instruct specific cells to organize into tissues and organs. All of these cellular activities influenced by energy are part of the expression of life.

  And if that’s true, then it has to be true for some reason. Remember the 98.5 percent of our DNA that scientists call “junk DNA” because it doesn’t seem to serve much of a useful purpose? Surely Mother Nature wouldn’t place all of this encoded information in our cells, waiting to be read, without giving us the ability to create some type of signal to unlock it; after all, nature doesn’t waste anything.

  Could it be that your own energy and consciousness is what creates the right kind of signal outside of the cells to enable you to tap into that vast “parts list” of potentials? And if that was true, if you changed your energy the way you read about earlier in this chapter, could that help you access your true ability to authentically heal your body? When you change your energy, you change your state of being. And the rewiring in the brain and the new chemical emotions in the body trigger epigenetic changes, and the result is that you become quite literally a new person. The person you were before is history; a part of that person simply vanished along with the neurocircuitry, chemical-emotional addictions, and genetic expression that supported your old state of being.

  Chapter Eight

  The Quantum Mind

  Reality can be a bit of a moving target—literally. We’re used to thinking of reality as something fixed and certain, but as you’ll soon see in this chapter, the way we’ve always been taught to see it isn’t the way it really is. And if you’re going to learn how to be your own placebo by using your mind to affect matter, it’s vital that you understand the true nature of reality, how mind and matter are related, and how reality can shift—because if you don’t know how and why those shifts occur, you won’t be able to direct any outcomes according to your intentions.

  Before we dive into the quantum universe, let’s take a look at where our ideas about reality came from and where they’ve brought us so far. Thanks to René Descartes and Sir Isaac Newton, for centuries the study of the universe was divided into two categories: matter and mind. The study of matter (the material world) was declared the realm of science, because for the most part, the laws of the universe that govern the objective outer world could be calculated and therefore predicted. But the inner realm of the mind was considered too unpredictable and complicated, so it was therefore left to the auspices of religion. Over time, matter and mind became separate entities, and dualism was born.

  Newtonian physics (also known as classical physics) deals with the mechanics of how objects function in space and time, including their interactions with each other in the material, physical world. Because of Newton’s laws, we can measure and predict what path planets take around the sun, how quickly an apple accelerates when it falls from a tree, and how long it takes to go from Seattle to New York by plane. Newtonian physics is about the predictable. It looks at the universe as if it functioned like an enormous machine or a huge timepiece.

  But classical physics has its limitations when it comes to the study of energy, the actions of the immaterial world beyond space and time, and the behavior of atoms (the building blocks of everything in the physical universe). That realm belongs to quantum physics. And it turns out that this very tiny subatomic world of electrons and photons doesn’t behave anything like the much larger world of planets, apples, and airplanes that we’re more familiar with.

  When quantum physicists began to look at the smaller and smaller aspects of an atom, like what makes up the nucleus, the closer they looked, the less distinct and clear the atom became, until eventually it just completely disappeared. Atoms, they tell us, appear to be 99.999999999999 percent empty space.1 But that space isn’t really empty. It’s actually filled with energy. More specifically, it’s made up of a vast array of energy frequencies that form a kind of invisible, interconnected field of information. So if every atom is 99.999999999999 percent energy or information, that means that our known universe and every thing in it—no matter how solid that matter may appear to us—is essentially just energy and information. That’s a scientific fact.

  Atoms do contain a smattering of matter, but when the quantum physicists tried to study it, they discovered something really strange: Subatomic matter in the quantum world doesn’t behave anything at all like the matter we’re used to dealing with. Instead of adhering to the laws of Newtonian physics, it appears somewhat chaotic and unpredictable, completely disregarding the boundaries of time and space. In fact, on the subatomic quantum level, matter is a momentary phenomenon. It’s here one moment, and then it disappears. It exists only as a tendency, a probability, or a possibility. In the quantum, there are no absolute physical things.

  That wasn’t the only strange discovery that scientists made about the quantum universe. They also found that when they observed particles of subatomic matter, they could affect or change their behavior. The reason they’re here and gone (and then here and gone again all the time) is that all of these particles actually exist simultaneously in an infinite array of possibilities or probabilities within the invisible and infinite quantum field of energy. It’s only when an observer focuses attention on any one location of any one electron that the electron actually appears in that place. Look away, and the subatomic matter disappears back into energy.

  So according to this “observer effect,” physical matter can’t exist or manifest until we observe it—until we notice it and give it our attention. And when we’re no longer paying attention to it, it vanishes, going back from whence it came. So matter is constantly transforming, oscillating between manifesting into matter and disappearing into energy (about 7.8 times per second, as a matter of fact). And so because the human mind (as the observer) is then intimately connected to the behavior and appearance of matter, you could say that mind over matter is a quantum reality. Another way to look at it is this: In the tiny world of the quantum, the subjective mind has an effect on objective reality. Your mind can become matter; that is, you can make your mind matter.

  Since subatomic matter makes up everything we can see and touch and experience in our macro world, then in a sense we—along with everything in our world—are also doing this disappearing and reappearing act all the time. And so if subatomic particles exist in an infinite number of possible places simultaneously, then in some way, so do we. And just as these particles go from existing everywhere simultaneously (wave, or energy) to existing precisely where the observer looks for them at the moment the observer is paying attention (particle, or matter), we’re also potentially capable of collapsing an infinite
number of potential realities into physical existence.

  In other words, if you can imagine a particular future event that you want to experience in your life, that reality already exists as a possibility somewhere in the quantum field—beyond this space and time—just waiting for you to observe it. If your mind (through your thoughts and feelings) can affect when and where an electron appears out of nowhere, then theoretically, you should be able to influence the appearance of any number of possibilities that you can imagine.

  From a quantum perspective, if you observed yourself in a particular new future that was different from your past, expected that reality to occur, and then emotionally embraced the outcome, you’d be—for a moment—living in that future reality, and you’d be conditioning your body to believe it was in that future in the present moment. So the quantum model, which states that all possibilities exist in this moment, gives us permission to choose a new future and observe it into reality. And because the entire universe is made of atoms, with more than 99 percent of an atom being energy or possibility, that means that there’s a lot of potentials out there that you and I might be missing.

  However, this also means that you create by default as well. If you, as the quantum observer, look at your life from the same level of mind every day, then according to the quantum model of reality, you’re causing infinite possibilities to collapse into the same patterns of information day in and day out. Those patterns, which you call your life, never change, so they never allow you to effect change.

  So the mental rehearsal I talked about earlier is certainly not idle daydreaming or wishful thinking. It is, in a very real sense, the way you can intentionally manifest your desired reality, including a life without pain or disease. By focusing more on what you do want and less on what you don’t want, you can call into existence whatever you desire and simultaneously “fade away” what you don’t want by no longer giving it your attention. Where you place your attention is where you place your energy. Once you fix your attention or your awareness or your mind on possibility, you place your energy there as well. As a result, you’re affecting matter with your attention or observation. The placebo effect is not fantasy, then; it’s quantum reality.

  Energy on the Quantum Level

  All atoms in the elemental world emit various electromagnetic energies. For example, an atom can give off invisible fields of energy at different frequencies that include x-rays, gamma rays, ultraviolet rays, and infrared rays, as well as visible light rays. And just as invisible radio waves carry a frequency with specific information encoded into it (whether it’s 98.6 or 107.5 hertz), each different frequency likewise carries specific diverse information, as shown in Figure 8.1. For example, x-rays carry very different information than infrared rays do, because they are different frequencies. All of these fields are different energy patterns that are always giving off information at the atomic level.

  This chart shows two different frequencies that each carry different information and therefore have different qualities. X-rays behave differently from radio waves and thus have different inherent characteristics.

  Think of atoms as vibrating fields of energy or small vortices that are constantly spinning. To better understand how that works, let’s use the analogy of a fan. Just like a circular fan creates wind (a vortex of air) when it’s turned on, each atom, as it spins, radiates a field of energy in a similar fashion. And just like a fan can spin at different speeds and so create stronger or weaker wind, atoms also vibrate at different frequencies that create stronger or weaker fields. The faster the atom vibrates, the greater the energy and frequency it emits. The slower the speed of the atom’s vibration or vortex, the less energy it creates.

  The slower a fan’s blades spin, the less wind (or energy) is created and the easier it is to see the blades as material objects in physical reality. On the other hand, the faster the blades spin, the more energy is created and the less you see of the physical blades; the blades appear to be immaterial. Where the fan blades can potentially appear (like the subatomic particles the quantum scientists were trying to observe that kept popping in and out of view) depends on your observation—where and how you look for them. And so it is with atoms. Let’s look at this in a little more depth.

  In quantum physics, matter is defined as a solid particle, and the immaterial energetic field of information can be defined as the wave. When we study the physical properties of atoms, like mass, atoms look like physical matter. The slower the frequency that an atom is vibrating, the more time it spends in physical reality and the more it appears as a particle that we can see as solid matter. The reason physical matter appears solid to us, even though it’s mostly energy, is that all of the atoms are vibrating at the same speed we are.

  But atoms also display many properties of energy or waves (including light, wavelengths, and frequency). The faster an atom vibrates and the more energy it generates, the less time it spends in physical reality; it’s appearing and disappearing too fast for us to see it, because it’s vibrating at a much faster speed than we are. But even though we can’t see the energy itself, we can sometimes see physical evidence of certain frequencies of energy, because the force field of atoms can create physical properties, such as the way infrared waves heat things up.

  If you compare Figure 8.2A to Figure 8.2B, you can see how slower frequencies spend more time in the material world and thus appear as matter.

  When energy vibrates slower, particles appear in physical reality for longer periods of time and thus appear as solid matter. Figure 8.2A shows how matter manifests from a slower frequency with a longer wavelength. Figure 8.2B depicts particles spending less time in physical reality, therefore they are more energy and less matter. That’s because they have shorter wavelengths, faster frequency, and a faster vibration.

  So the physical universe may look as if it’s made up of only material matter, but in truth, it shares a field of information (the quantum field) that unifies matter and energy so intimately that it’s impossible to consider them as separate entities. That’s because all particles are connected in an immaterial invisible field of information beyond space and time—and that field is made of consciousness (thought) and energy (frequency, the speed at which things vibrate).

  Because each atom has its own specific field of energy or energy signature, when atoms assemble collectively to form molecules, they share their fields of information and then radiate their own unique combined energy patterns. If everything material in the universe radiates a specific unique energy signature because everything is made of atoms, then you and I radiate our own specific energy signatures as well. You and I are always broadcasting information as electromagnetic energy—based on our states of being.

  So when you change your energy to alter a belief or perception about yourself or your life, you’re actually increasing the frequency of the atoms and molecules of your physical body so that you’re amplifying your energy field (as shown in Figure 8.3). You’re turning up the speed on the atomic fans that make up your body. As you embrace a heightened, emotional creative state like inspiration, empowerment, gratitude, or invincibility, you’re causing your atoms to spin faster, just like the fan blades, and to broadcast a stronger energy field around your body, which affects your physical matter.

  So the physical particles that make up your body are now responding to an elevated energy. You’re becoming more energy and less matter. You’re now more wave and less particle. Using your consciousness, you’re creating more energy so that matter can be lifted to a new frequency, and your body responds to a new mind.

  When you change your energy, you lift matter to a new mind, and your body vibrates at a faster frequency. You become more energy and less matter—more wave and less particle. The more elevated the emotion or the higher the creative state of mind, the more energy you have to rewrite the programs in the body. Your body then responds to a new mind.

  Receiving the Right Energetic Signal

  So how does matter
become lifted to a new mind? Think of the preacher who moves into a state of religious ecstasy and drinks strychnine, with no biological effects. How did he overcome that chemistry that would normally poison the average person? It was his level of energy that transcended the effects of matter. He made a decision with such firm intention that his choice carried an amplitude of energy that transcended the laws of the environment, the effects on the body, and linear time. In that moment, he was more energy and less matter, and as a result, it was a new energy that rewrote the circuitry in his brain, the chemistry in his body, and his genetic expression. In that present moment, he wasn’t his identity that was connected to his familiar environment, nor was he his physical body, nor was he living in linear time. His elevated consciousness and energy were the epiphenomenon of matter. In other words, it’s both information and frequency that give rise to the blueprints of matter. And when we’re demonstrating an elevated level of awareness and energy, it’s these elements that influence matter—because matter is created from a lowering of frequency and information.

  It’s entirely possible that the preacher’s cell-receptor sites weren’t selectively open for the strychnine; the cells’ doors were closed to poison and so were suspended from its effects. By being moved by the spirit—that is, moved by energy—he instantly upregulated the cells in his body for immunity and downregulated the cells in his body for poison. The same thing is at work with the firewalkers; once they change their state of being, their cell receptors are no longer open to the effects of heat. This is also what allowed the teenage girls to lift the 3,000-pound tractor to free their father, as you read about in Chapter 1. When they saw their father trapped and almost certain to die, their heightened state of energy turned off the cell receptors that normally would tell their bodies that the tractor was too heavy to lift and turned on the muscle-cell receptors to bear a greater load so that when they tried, their muscles responded and they were able to free their dad. It wasn’t matter (body) that was moving matter (tractor); it was energy that was influencing matter.