You Are the Placebo

by Joe Dispenza, Dr.

  Now glance at Figure 10.16. Bonnie’s QEEG scan in real time has an arrow pointing to 1 Hz in delta brain waves, illustrating her connection to the quantum field (shown in blue). Bonnie also has heightened energy in her frontal lobe in theta brain waves (demonstrated in red) to match exactly what was happening in her EEG scan. Look at the red circle that is highlighting her frontal lobes as well as the arrow pointing to a top view of the brain’s frontal lobe immediately below. The image you are seeing is a snapshot of a motion picture of Bonnie’s brain activity during her entire meditation. Because one of the functions of the frontal lobe is to make thoughts real, what she is experiencing in theta with her eyes closed is very real to her. We could say that Bonnie’s inner experience was like a very vivid, lucid dream. The red arrow at 12 Hz alpha—isolating the red spot in the center of her brain—shows Bonnie’s attempt to make sense of her inner experience and then process what she was seeing in her mind’s eye. The rest of her brain is healthy and balanced (shown in green).

  Bonnie’s new self: Bonnie’s experience that day changed her for good. The amplitude of energy related to the inward experience was greater than any past experience from her external environment, and thus her past was biologically removed. The energy of the momentous peak of her meditation superseded the hardwired programs in her brain and the emotional conditioning in the body—and her body instantly responded to a new mind, to a new consciousness. Bonnie had changed her state of being. In less than 24 hours, her bleeding stopped completely. She had no symptoms of pain and instinctively knew that she was healed. In the months since the event, Bonnie has experienced only normal menstrual cycles. She hasn’t had any excessive bleeding or pain since the workshop.

  Experiencing Ecstasy

  Genevieve’s old self: Genevieve, a 45-year-old artist and musician, currently resides in Holland and travels quite a bit because of her vocation. During the February event, I was watching her brain scan with Dr. Fannin during her meditation. We started to notice some significant changes in her energy during the middle of her inward journey. When we both saw a particular reading on her scan at the same time, we looked at each other, knowing something was about to happen. Within moments, when we turned to look at her, we saw tears of joy running down her face. Genevieve was in ecstasy. She was in utter pleasure, and her body was responding quite readily. We’d never seen anything like this before.

  Genevieve’s scans: If you look at Figure 10.17, you’ll see a relatively normal brain scan before Genevieve’s meditation. The areas of green spread throughout the brain signify a healthy, well-adjusted woman with a balanced brain. The blue areas of lessened sensory-motor activity before she begins, in alpha 13 to 14 Hz, where you see the arrows, probably indicate jetlag, because she’d just arrived from Europe that day. If you observe Genevieve’s brain during the meditation, you see an overall increase in balance. What happens next is off-the-chart amazing. When we saw her reach this peak moment at the end of her meditation, we knew from watching her scans that she had quite a bit of energy in her brain.

  Now take a peek at Figure 10.18. This type of red activity, showing high amounts of energy in all brain-wave range frequencies, suggests that Genevieve is in a highly altered state. Someone who didn’t know that she was meditating and who just saw the brain scan would say that she was experiencing an extreme level of anxiety or psychosis. But because her personal testimonial described her being in sheer ecstasy, we know that all of the red represents a lot of energy in her brain. Her brain is at 3 SD above normal. It’s energy, in the form of emotion stored in her body as the mind, that is being released and is traveling back to her brain.

  Figure 10.19, which shows her EEG reading, validates this position. If you review the purple lines where the arrow is, you’ll see that this part of the brain is processing ten times the normal amounts of energy. The area that’s circled in red tells us that the experience is so emotionally profound that it’s being stored in Genevieve’s long-term memory. At the same time, she is also trying to verbally understand and make sense of what’s happening to her in that moment. She might be saying something to herself like, Oh my God! This is amazing. I feel so great! What is this feeling? Her inner experience is as real as any outward event, and she’s not trying to make it happen—it’s just happening to her. She’s not visualizing; she’s experiencing a profound moment.

  Interestingly, we scanned Genevieve again in July, at the event in Colorado, and she still displayed the same energy changes. When we handed her the microphone during both events, all she could say was that she was so in love with life that her heart was fully open and that she felt connected to something greater than herself. She was in a state of grace, and she felt so great that she wanted to stay in the present moment. If you look at Figure 10.20, you’ll see that her brain had the same patterns and effects at the July event as it had at the February event. The experience was still happening to her months later. She was truly altered from her personal transformation.

  Genevieve’s new self: I spoke with Genevieve several weeks after the July event. She told me that she’s not the same person she was at the beginning of the year. Her mind has deepened, and she’s more present and much more creative. She feels profound love for all things, and most important, she feels so lifted that she no longer feels as if she needs or wants anything. She feels whole.

  Bliss: Moving the Mind Out of the Body

  Maria’s old self: Maria is a highly functional woman with normal brain activity. During the first meditation of the day, a 45-minute exercise, she experienced a significant change in her brain waves within moments.

  Maria’s scans: Look at Figure 10.21 and notice the difference between Maria’s normal brain waves and her state of ecstasy. I watched her as she went into a heightened state of increased energy, and it appeared as though she were having an orgasm in her brain. Her scan shows a fully active brain having a full-on kundalini experience (kundalini is a latent energy stored in the body, which, when aroused, brings on higher states of consciousness and energy in the brain). If you look at Maria’s scans, you can see that all areas of her brain were experiencing a very heightened energy. When the kundalini energy is awakened, it can rise from the lower spine to reach the top of the brain, at which point it can produce an extremely profound mystical experience. Many students in the workshops have these brain orgasms. In Maria’s scan, all areas of the brain are fully engaged with energy, and her brain waves show three to four times the normal amplitude. Her brain is coherent and very synchronized. If you look at the scans, you’ll see that the ecstasy comes in waves, just like an orgasm. She was not trying to do any of this. It was actually just happening to her. Her entire brain was engaged in the inner event, and as a result, she was filled with profound energy.

  Maria’s new self: Today, Maria continues to have similar mystical experiences. Each time they occur, she reports feeling more relaxed, more conscious, more aware, and more whole. She welcomes the next unknown moment.

  Now It’s Your Turn

  These few examples (out of many that were documented) prove that it is indeed possible to teach the placebo effect. Now that you’ve received all of the information, stories, and proof of what’s possible, it’s time for you to learn the “how-to” so that you can experience your own transformation. The next two chapters will outline the steps you can take to begin your personal meditation process. It’s my desire for you to put into practice all of the knowledge you’ve learned so far so that you experience the truth of your efforts. Once you receive the tools that you need to cross the river of change, I hope to see you on the other side.

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  Part II

  TRANSFORMATION

  Chapter Eleven

  Meditation Preparation

  Now that you’ve read and absorbed all the information in Part I, you’re ready to move to transformation. In this chapter, I’ll go over what you need to know to get ready to meditate so that when you get to the next chapter, you’ll be ready for me to walk you through the actual meditation. All of the participants in this book who changed something about themselves had to first go inward and change their state of being. So think of your meditation practice as a way for you to take the placebo every day. But instead of taking a pill, you’ll be going inward. In time, your meditation will become like your belief in taking medication.

  When to Meditate

  There are two times a day that are the most conducive to meditation: right before you go to bed at night and right after you get up in the morning. That’s because when you fall asleep, you naturally shift though the entire spectrum of brain-wave states, going from your waking, beta state to the slower alpha state, when you close your eyes, to the slower-still theta state, when you’re half-asleep and half-awake, all the way down to the deep-sleep delta brain-wave state. And when you wake up in the morning, you do the same thing in reverse: rising from delta to theta to alpha to beta, where you’re fully awake and conscious.

  So if you meditate when you’re getting ready for sleep or just coming out of sleep, it’s easier to slip into alpha or theta brain waves; you’re more primed for being in an altered state, because it’s the direction you either have just come from or are slipping into. You could say that the door to the subconscious mind is open during these two times. I personally prefer to meditate in the morning, but either time is fine. Pick what will work best for you, and then stick with it. If you can meditate every day, it will become a good habit and will be something you look forward to doing daily.

  Where to Meditate

  The most important consideration in selecting a place to meditate is to choose a place where you won’t be distracted. Because you’ll be unplugging from the external, physical world, pick a quiet place where you can be alone and uninterrupted (either by other people or by pets)—a place that you can return to every day and use as your regular, sacred meditation spot.

  I don’t recommend that you meditate in bed, because you associate bed with sleep. (For the same reason, I don’t recommend that you lie down or use a recliner when you meditate.) Pick a chair to sit in, or arrange a spot on the floor where you’ll be able to sit for up to an hour—a spot away from any drafts and in a room where the temperature is comfortable.

  If you prefer to meditate to music, choose soft, relaxing, trance-inducing instrumentals or chants without lyrics. (In fact, a little music works well to cover background noise if you aren’t in an environment that’s completely quiet.) Definitely don’t play music that brings up associative memories of some past event or that would be distracting in any way. Also, be sure to turn off your computer and your phone if they’re in the room. And try to avoid the aroma of coffee brewing or food cooking. You may even want to use a blindfold or earplugs to enhance the effect of sensory deprivation, since the goal in your preparation is to eliminate as much external stimuli as possible.

  Making Your Body Comfortable

  Dress in comfortable, loose clothing and remove your watch or any jewelry that might be distracting. If you wear glasses, take them off, too. Drink a little water before you sit down, and have a glass within reach in case you need it. Use the bathroom before you begin, and try to take care of any similar issues so that you won’t be distracted during your meditation.

  Whether you’re sitting in a chair or on the floor cross-legged, sit up straight and keep your spine erect. Your body should be relaxed, but your mind needs to stay focused, so don’t be so relaxed that you fall asleep. If your head begins to nod during meditation, it’s a sign that you’re moving into a slower brain-wave state, so don’t worry too much about that. With some practice, your body will become conditioned and won’t want to doze off.

  As you begin the meditation, close your eyes and take a few slow, deep breaths. Soon you should drop from a beta brain-wave state into an alpha state. This more restful, but still focused, state activates your frontal lobe, which as you read, lowers the volume on the circuits in your brain that process time and space. Although at first you might not be able to slip easily into the next slower brain-wave state, theta, with practice you’ll be able to slow your brain waves down even further. Theta is the brain-wave state where the body is asleep but the mind is awake, and it’s where you can more readily change your body’s automatic programs.

  How Long to Meditate

  While your meditation will generally last between 45 minutes and an hour, allow yourself plenty of time, if possible, to settle your mind before you begin. If you need to finish by a certain time, set an alarm to go off ten minutes before you have to end the meditation, to give you an opportunity to finish the session without having to come to an abrupt stop. Don’t let time be a distraction though. Remember, just as you’re getting away from sensory input, you’re also getting away from being conscious of time, so if you’re constantly worried about what time it is, you’ll be completely defeating your purpose. If you need a few more minutes in your day to be able to meditate without this distraction, consider waking up earlier or going to bed later.

  Mastering Your Will

  I want to warn you about a very common stumbling block for people who are starting a meditation practice. Any time you start to change something in your life, your body, as the mind, will signal your brain to be in control again. The next thing you know, you might start to hear negative voices in your head like, Why don’t you start tomorrow? You’re too much like your mother! What’s wrong with you? You’ll never change. This doesn’t feel right. That’s the body trying to unseat you so that it can be the mind again. You may have unconsciously conditioned it to be impatient, frustrated, unhappy, victimized, or pessimistic, to name a few examples. So that’s how it wants to subconsciously behave.

  The moment you respond to that voice as if what it’s saying is true, your consciousness immerses itself back into the automated program, so you return to thinking the same thoughts, performing the same actions, and living by the same emotions—but still expecting something to change in your life. If you use feelings and emotions as a barometer for change, you’ll always talk yourself out of possibility. When you instead free the body of the chains of these emotions, you are then able to relax into the present moment (more on that later in this chapter), and you’ll be liberating energy from the body—going from particle to wave—so that it becomes available to create new destiny. To get to that place, to teach your body a new way of being, you have to sit your body down and let it know who the master is.

  We have a ranch with 18 horses, and mastering the will to stay focused in meditation reminds me of what it’s like to ride a favorite stallion after I haven’t been on him in a while. When I first climb up into the saddle, that stallion couldn’t care less about me. He smells the mares on the other side of the property, and that’s where his attention goes. It’s as though he’s saying to me, “Where have you been for the last eight months? I got into some bad habits while you were away, the girls are over there, and I’m not concerned about what you want to do, so I’m going to throw you off. I’m in charge here.” He gets mad, temperamental, and controlling, and he tries to run me into the side of the arena. But I pay attention to him, and when his head starts to turn toward those mares, I take control of him.

  So the moment I see him start to move away from my lead, I slowly but firmly grab the reins and pul
l them in, and I just wait. And before long, he stops and lets out this big snort, and I stroke him on the side and tell him, “That’s right.” And we take two steps and then I see his head starting to turn just slightly again, and I stop him—and wait. And he lets out another big snort, and once he knows I’m in charge, we start to move forward again. I just keep following the same procedure until he ultimately surrenders to me.

  That kind of gentle but firm refocusing is exactly the same approach to use with your body when you sit down to meditate. Think of your body as the animal that you, as consciousness, are training. Every time you become conscious that your attention has wandered and you bring it back like that, you’re reconditioning your body to a new mind. You are mastering yourself and your past.

  So let’s say you wake up in the morning and have a list of people to call, a list of errands to run, 35 texts to respond to, and all these e-mails to answer. If the first thing you do every morning is start thinking about all of those things that you have to do, your body is already in the future. When you sit down to meditate, your mind may naturally want to go in that direction. And if you allowed it, then your brain and body would be in that same predictable future, because you’d be anticipating an outcome based on your same past experience from yesterday.