Take the Red Pill
March 28th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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In my last post, I mentioned that I believe there’s some kind of linkage between thought and reality that bypasses direct action. In this post I’d like to clarify what I mean by that and why I believe this.
First of all, recognize that this is a field in which we cannot apply the Scientific Method. Why not? The Scientific Method has four steps: observation, hypothesis, prediction, testing. The underlying assumption to this methodology is that the observer and the object of the experiment are separate entities. The Scientific Method pre-supposes the existence of an external reality separate from the consciousness of the observer. So it can only be used effectively within such a reality. What I’m saying, however, is that we do not live in such a reality.
If we live in a reality where the thoughts of the observer can influence the object of the experiment, then the Scientific Method will not work. Why not? First, the process of observation is corrupted. If you try to use the Scientific method to observe reality, you won’t be passively observing it as something separate from yourself. You’ll actually be creating some of the reality as you observe it. There’s no way to completely separate yourself from it. Secondly, when you form a hypothesis based on your observations, you’re again creating with your thoughts instead of assessing something objective. Prediction is another creative process. And by the time you reach the testing stage, the object of your experiment has become so corrupted by the influence of your own thoughts that you’re measuring a combination of the object plus your creative impact on it, not the object itself. Every additional test conducted by other “impartial” testers will likewise be affected by the creative powers of their thoughts, beginning with their initial reaction to hearing of your results. So if this is indeed the reality in which we live, then the Scientific Method is not what it appears. Instead of being a pure process of measurement, it is a combined process of measurement plus creation. There is no pure act of passive observation for conscious beings — every one of our thoughts has a creative impact. The observer cannot be separated from the experiment. Think of this as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle applied to consciousness. Whatever we try to measure is changed by the act of measurement.
What if you firmly belief that there is an objective reality separate from your thoughts. Am I saying then that the Scientific Method is bunk? After all, look what it has given us. We’ve discovered all these laws of physics and created all kinds of useful things with them. How can I say it’s useless?
I’m not saying the Scientific Method is useless. I’m saying that it isn’t a process of measuring objective reality. It is actually a process of creation. So while you might say that we discovered the laws of physics, I’m suggesting that we created them.
Set aside your skepticism for just a moment, and consider the possibility that you’re right now living inside a thought bubble created by your own beliefs and expectations about reality. Now if that were true, then if you believe in an objective external world separate from your thoughts, then that will become your reality. So if you don’t believe there’s any direct linkage between thought and reality, then you’re not going to experience that linkage in your life. You won’t be able to see it. It won’t exist for you. Your thought that it’s impossible will form a reality for you in which such things are impossible. You’ll interpret my words in such a way that they’ll be congruent with your reality — most likely you’ll just conclude I’m mistaken (although you may choose a less kind word for it).
And this is exactly how I reacted to anyone who suggested there was no objective reality when I was in a similar thought bubble.
But after many years of living within that thought bubble, I began getting curious. Was I indeed living within a thought bubble of my own creation? Did I have the ability to step outside of it simply by changing my beliefs and expectations about reality?
Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!
I decided to go for it. I wanted to know if changing my beliefs would actually change my experience of reality in such a powerful way that I felt I was actually changing reality itself. If I was wrong, reality would slap me back. Assuming I began with changes that wouldn’t prove fatal if I was wrong, it seemed a reasonable risk. But what if I was right? I took the red pill and opted to find out.
The mere act of making this decision seemed to have an effect. My first obstacle was that I didn’t really know how to recondition my old beliefs. I couldn’t see a way to convince myself to believe something that I didn’t think was true. After all, I was going into this experiment with skepticism — I doubted it would actually work. And that would corrupt the experiment because those doubts would hold my beliefs about reality fixed. So I needed a way to really believe something new, almost like a way to hypnotize myself. It was around this time that I discovered NLP and learned how to do exactly that. I needed a way to recondition my beliefs, and it suddenly appeared. Hmmm….
Through NLP I learned how to interrupt the pattern of old beliefs and condition new ones. These techniques are often used for overcoming fears and phobias. So first, I learned that it was indeed possible to intentionally reprogram my own beliefs, and I learned how to do it. A good book on this subject is Using Your Brain for a Change by Richard Bandler.
The next step was to think about what new beliefs to install and which old ones to erase. I wanted to begin gently, but I also wanted to change big global beliefs that would affect my experience of reality. We’re talking years of experimenting here, which is far more than I can write in a blog entry. And if you’re in a certain type of thought bubble right now, you probably won’t even believe me. I guess the question is what should I share that will get you curious enough to try this experiment yourself and start pushing to expand your current reality vs. what will freak you out too much and make you afraid to try it or just conclude I’m nuts. The hard part is explaining all of this within the confines of a thought bubble that says it’s impossible.
So I’ll keep it gentle for starters.
One of the first experiments I tried was to reprogram my religious beliefs. I was raised Catholic, and then went atheist for several years, but I was somewhere between atheist and agnostic when I started these thought experiments. This was around 1993. I didn’t believe in the Christian idea of God anymore, but I was open to the idea of there being some kind of higher power at work, although I had no clue what it’s nature might be. So I started with some of the more interesting new agey belief systems and adopted some of their beliefs, many of which conflicted with my previous beliefs. These included beliefs about the interconnectedness of all conscious beings and the existence of other astral realms populated by conscious beings. As soon as I installed these new beliefs, it was like a floodgate opening. This first thing that happened was that I attracted into my life other people whose beliefs were congruent with my new ones, people unlike any I’d ever met, including my future wife. When I was Catholic it was as if such people didn’t exist — they never seemed to intersect my reality. Now they were suddenly the people with whom I was spending the most time. That alone was strange.
I learned about lucid dreaming and astral experiences, and out of nowhere I suddenly started experiencing them frequently.
Lucid dreaming means having a dream where you become consciously aware that you’re dreaming, thus able to take control of the dream and do whatever you want — fly around, create characters, wield superpowers, etc. Incidentally, if you want to start having lucid dreams yourself, then expand your thought bubble by reading Stephen LaBerge’s books: Lucid Dreaming and Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. But the most important step to begin lucid dreaming is just to decide to start having them. Eventually you’ll be dreaming, and you’ll wake up within your dream and become aware that your body is asleep on your bed, and you’re inside your own dream. But it will feel like you’re wide awake. Then you’ll most likely freak out and wake up within a matter of seconds. But with practice you can learn to do some pretty cool stuff. I’m getting pretty good at flying without crashing into trees. Sleep is just as restful when you lucid dream.
An astral experience is a form of OBE (out of body experience). Near-death experiences are one example. It’s a feeling of leaving your body and traveling somewhere else, possibly on earth, but most often for me it was the feeling of being in some alternate reality, full of other conscious beings with whom you can communicate. In some ways it’s similar to a lucid dream, since you remain conscious while it’s happening. I don’t think we have adequate words to explain the difference between lucid dreams and astral experiences, but I don’t know anyone who’s experienced them both who can’t tell the difference.
Usually the astral stuff would happen while I was sleeping, but sometimes it would even happen while I was awake. I documented many of these experiences in my journal, especially because this stuff seemed so unreal at the time. But for certain people I met, it was no big deal — they’d been experiencing similar things their whole lives, even taking steps to develop their abilities to do interesting things while having astral experiences or lucid dreams, like communicating with other conscious beings and coming back with answers.
Of course, this is nothing new for people who have such beliefs; it’s just a normal part of their lives. If you’re in such a belief system right now, you’re probably just nodding along as if I’m describing a piece of lint. If you’re in a belief system where such things are impossible, then you’re obligated to conclude I’m nuts or that I’m misinterpreting reality because your thoughts prevent you from ever having such experiences yourself (either that or you’ve already stopped reading). But these experiences are just a belief away.
After a few months of this stuff, I’d had my fill of leaving my body (most of the time it would happen unintentionally), and I shifted my beliefs again, this time going in a more Hindu/Buddhist direction. And lo and behold, my reality changed too. All those freaky astral experiences died off almost immediately, and I started having very different experiences.
After several years of these kinds of belief-shifting experiments, it became clear to me that there was something happening that went beyond anything I could explain as a form of reinterpreting an objective reality. Stuff was happening “out there” that had to be more than tricks being played on my senses. I began to experience events, even with other people, that would just never happen to me in other belief systems, stuff I used to believe was impossible. It was as if the mere decision to allow the impossible to become at least possible not only make it possible but invited it into my daily reality. One of the milder examples was telepathy — like picking fairly unique full sentences word for word out of people’s heads before they said them and having others do the same to me. Shared dreams (having the exact same dream as another person) was another. Creating money when I needed cash was yet another.
Eventually I came to understand that whether you’re an atheist or a Christian or a Buddhist, you’re right. But instead of your beliefs being based on reality, they’re creating your reality. If you don’t believe in stuff like ESP, you’ll find none of it anywhere in your life. But if you do believe in it, incontrovertible evidence of it will be everywhere.
I can’t prove to you that you’re in a thought bubble right now. But you can prove it to yourself if you have enough curiosity to make the attempt. You have to decide to swallow the red pill. The only way to prove you’re in a thought bubble is to consciously change your thoughts in such a way that you contradict at least one of the foundational beliefs that form the bubble. This begins with opening your mind to the possibility that your thoughts are shaping your reality. You think your thoughts are actually based on some reality “out there,” but they’re really creating your reality. If you believe in an objective external reality, then that will be true for you. But are you aware that you don’t have to subscribe to this belief? And that doing so unnecessarily limits your experience of life?
Start to challenge some of your beliefs and see what happens. Actually expect to experience something that contradicts one of your beliefs this week. Just open yourself up to the possibility, and even invite it. Dare the universe to prove you wrong; ask it to show you which of your beliefs is limiting you the most. Then see what happens. Don’t challenge your belief in gravity. Start small. Pick something that you know isn’t going to hurt you if you’re wrong, something that won’t make you gullible and do something really stupid if you’re wrong, but something that will open you up to fun new experiences if you’re right.
To what degree do our thoughts create our reality? That I don’t know. I’m convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that our thoughts have a strong and powerful effect on creating the reality we experience. But I don’t know how strong this factor is. I don’t know how deep the rabbit hole goes. I’m sitting in a thought bubble of my own, and as such my own reality is being shaped by the nature of that bubble.
In my current thought bubble, I experience a reality where my thoughts combine with those of others to create a shared reality, yet we each experience that reality through a different lens. Every time I shift my beliefs consciously, I can see my reality changing faster and faster to reflect the new beliefs. So I think my increasing comfort with this process allows the changes to manifest faster. One of my current thoughts is that we cannot adopt beliefs that would contradict the realities of others. So if everyone thinks it’s impossible for me to fly, then I can’t do it because it would conflict with their reality. But whenever there’s the possibility for a personal experience which people can easily explain within the terms of their own thought bubbles, there’s no conflict. That means personal experiences like ESP and astral stuff can be had abundantly without any contradiction — if there’s no physical proof, then other people with different thought bubbles can just dismiss them. It’s the same way that non-Christians can easily dismiss Jesus’ rising from the dead; for Christians it’s reality, but for non-Christians it’s just a story. Of course, what I really wonder is whether my beliefs about these limitations on our shared reality are themselves part of a thought bubble which can be escaped by conscious choice, and if I go that way, then what? I’m not quite ready to try that just yet, since I’m still getting a lot of mileage experimenting within these limitations, but someday….
Changing your beliefs is a powerful concept. Even though I’ve been doing this for well over a decade, I still feel I’m just scratching the surface of it. There are so many interesting beliefs to try, and I’ve mostly been experimenting with high-level philosophical and spiritual beliefs. If you opt to go this path, do be careful though. If you change too much too quickly, you can easily lose perspective, fall into a prolonged funk, and wind up meditating in a cave the rest of your life. And just as a word of caution, I don’t recommend challenging any beliefs that include the word “alien” for your first attempt unless you’re really brave. They don’t exist, OK. 
March 28th, 2005 at 2:13 pm
Interesting post, Steve. I can’t totally agree or disagree with you because my understanding of this subject is incomplete. I can however offer some different viewpoints based on information that I’ve gathered over the years.
One thing that I’ve found to be true is that our brain will agree to believe just about anything if we have the genuine desire to believe it. Take magic tricks for example. Everyone knows that there’s no such thing as magic, but when people are watching magic tricks they choose to believe that magic is real. If the audience didn’t take on this belief while watching magic tricks, the whole show wouldn’t work.
I can give a personal example of how different beliefs affect one’s perception of magic tricks. Not long ago, I was given a Power Point presentation with a “magic trick” slideshow. It was supposedly created by David Copperfield, which in itself helps put you in the right mood. In the slide show I was shown a bunch of cards and asked to select one. The slide claimed that David Copperfield will magically know what card I picked and remove it in the next slide. And guess what? in the next slide, my card was gone.
So was it magic? At first I thought “Wow, that’s pretty cool. Magic!” I chose to believe that it really was magic, and to me it was real at that moment. Then my analytic senses kicked in. I scratched my head and thought that this can’t really happen. It’s completely illogical since it’s a linear Power Point presentation. So I went back through it, and analyzed the slide where I picked a card, and the slide which showed the cards without the one I picked. Turned out that the slide without my card actually had completely different cards from the ones in the slide that asked me to pick a card.
The point is that since I wanted to see magic (and wanted the trick to work), I chose to believe that it would happen. And magic was what I saw.
I bring this up because what you describe is your perception of reality, which is based on your beliefs (I think you said the same thing pretty much). But what if your brain just plays along with what you want to experience? How can you be sure that what you’re experiencing in your dreams isn’t just fabrication of your own mind?
A malfunctioning brain can create its own reality. We tend to call that “mental illness” and more technical names like “schizophrenia.” To me, it seems like what you are doing is similar but in a controlled environment. Either that, or people with schizophrenia don’t actually have a malfunctioning brain but one that just enters the astral plane or whatever without any conscious control. I’m certainly open to different interpretations of reality, but being an analytical person it’s hard for me to believe something without a reasonable explanation.
March 28th, 2005 at 2:48 pm
What you describe, Ilya, is a common “first stop” down the rabbit hole, where you try to stretch existing paradigms to explain as much as possible, yet without fully letting go of those paradigms. Yet we can also choose to snap our beliefs in those paradigms entirely… with interesting results.
What is reality? Is it something separate from our perceptions, or do our perceptions define our personal reality? Is it possible that someone who appears insane from my perspective is perfectly sane within their own reality? Which one of us is at fault for being unable to bridge the gap and create a common shared reality?
My perspective on this is that each of us lives in a slightly different reality. In order to communicate, we must enter a shared reality together. Anyone who can’t do this with you will appear to be insane from your perspective. If there is an objective reality, then insanity is an inability to accurately perceive and model that reality. If reality is co-created by our thoughts, however, then insanity could be defined as an inability to cooperatively co-create a shared reality which permits effective communication with others.
What I enjoy about shifting my beliefs is that I’m always able to “reload” previous belief systems and thereby communicate effectively with those who exist within them. Most people experience this automatically to some degree — get back with a group of old friends, and you automatically reload shared experiences. Spend some time with family that you haven’t seen in a year, and you’ll feel your personality shifting to reload your old communication paradigms. But you can do it with new people too — reload your experience of Christianity or Buddhism when meeting Christians or Buddhists, for example. Wherever we can build enough of a shared reality, we can communicate. But when the gap is too great, we experience relative insanity. I think this is why squirrels seem insane to me; we can’t communicate well because our realities are too different. But if I adopt the belief system of a squirrel, who knows… Tarzan Squirrel?
When you stretch your paradigms so far that they break the shared reality experienced with other people, then from the perspective of other people, you’d appear to be insane or missing, meaning that you can’t communicate. This is what happens when you sleep. Your mind is off in another reality, and you need to be pulled back into a common reality in order for someone to talk to you. Someone who is awake can’t communicate with you without waking you up, and you can’t communicate with them via your dreams. So one way of viewing sleep is that it’s a period where we all go temporarily insane, losing our ability to communicate and interact with the physical world. And when you get into exploring dream and astral worlds deeply enough, you’ll discover there are persistent shared places there too, also full of persistent conscious beings. With some practice two people can go to sleep, intentionally visit one of those astral locations, share some experiences together, and then wake up and remember the shared experience. You can even pass messages to each other through a non-human third-party intermediary.
So we needn’t really fear long-term insanity because we can always go back and reload this reality whenever we wish to share it. We return through the same process whereby we return from our dreams. We wake up.
I think the kind of insanity where you get locked up in an asylum, however, means that you’re stuck in some alternate reality and can’t find your way back to a shared one. You buy into an alternate reality of your own making and lose sight of the fact that you’re creating it. You become unable to escape it because your own beliefs trap you inside of it. But as long as you maintain an awareness that you’re the creator, you don’t need to worry because you can always shift your beliefs back and forth as needed. It’s similar to the idea that once you learn how to ride a bike, you never forget.
March 28th, 2005 at 4:36 pm
Once upon a time, I lived in Louisiana where the heat and humidity are stifling. One year, after a lifetime of hating the heat and really being bothered by it, I decided that was it: I was going to like the heat. After a couple of weeks, I found that the heat didn’t bother me any more (I even sweated less) - my wife thought I was nuts, but it seemed to work. It wasn’t a persistent state, though - I live in Oregon now, where the weather is much milder, and when I go back to Louisiana, the weather sucks again.
Mind over matter does work, though. At least to a degree.
March 28th, 2005 at 9:15 pm
Steve, I think our thoughts/intentions only work through direct-indirect action and there is no way to “bypass action”. Although, the power of intention and focus is so powerful that they can orchestrate an infinitely complex cause-effect chain that seems “magical” to the unconscious observer requiring no real action, even seemingly “by-passing” action.
To explain further, I believe are not always consciously aware of the infinite steps that our intentions manifest themselves into tangible results/ changes that we can empirically observe (the basis of Science).
Sometimes, -we do grasp this chain of causation consciously- the terms “karma” or “serependity”, but most of the time it is not grasped by our finite minds on what were the exact cause & effects that occured in that result.
Furthermore, I suspect even one of the so-called seven spirtual laws by D.Chopra of “unattachment to your goals” is just you letting your subconscious mind operate on it while you are not conscious of it anymore. Seemingly “magic” occurs then when it you one day realize it came about. I think our unconscious mind processes these desires and manipulates Reality through direct action.
Seemingly, the interconnectedness of our subconsciousn mind with Reality is the source of this illusion of by-passing action.
March 28th, 2005 at 11:07 pm
Argh, somehow I posted this to the previous article instead of this one:
Very fascinating stuff. I had been curious to hear about this since one of your Dexterity article alluded to this.
“So I’ll keep it gentle for starters.”
I’m real curious about the more hardcore stuff you think might freak others out.
March 28th, 2005 at 11:59 pm
Sure your are changing things when you change your beliefs, but you are changing them in your mind. Believing that you’ll win the lottery won’t make you actually win it. However, believing you’ll make more money will make you take the (subconscious) steps needed to make more money.
Mind is a powerful force when exercised upon itself.
However, please leave quantum mechanics out of this: the Heisenberg principle only applies at quantum dimensions.
March 29th, 2005 at 6:09 am
Can you do anything useful while lucid dreaming? I used to do this all the time. I’d be having a dream, and I’d notice, for example, I was in one of my high-school classrooms, with one of my college professors, and mabey there was a jungle’s worth of foliage in there or something crazy like that, and I’d think to myself “wait, these things don’t go together, this isn’t reality, this must be a dream.” And just about as soon as I was trying to see if I could throw lightning bolts of my fists, I’d wake up. That moment of realization happens with practically every dream I have, but I never get very far into creating my own images before I wake up. So the question is, is this useful for anything? Since my body is getting sleep, but my mind is concious, can I use that time do anything interesting? Mabey read a book I’ve read 10 years ago and want to read again. Can I tap into old memories buried down there in my subconsious? Or is it just a fun place to fly and throw lightnig bolts around?
On a bit of a different note: If you’re changing your thoughts, and all you get from it is really cool dreams, it doesn’t seem to me like that’s changing reality. To change reality would be to will my mouse to move across the mouse pad like x-woman Jean Grey. Perhaps instead of changing reality, you mean to just change the way you perceive reality. This is far more reasonable. It feels more like what Wayne Dyer describes in the Power of Intention. I don’t think you so much change reality, as you change your perception of it. I don’t think a person “magically” creates (or intends) new opportunities, or brings new people into their lives. Its just that they’re more receptive to the the multitude of option availible to them, and the people they stumble across over the course of the day. And in this state of heightened receptivity, they’re more likely to find something or someone useful. The earth doesn’t move around the sun any differently, reality didn’t present you more options, you were just more perceptive of all that it was already offering.
March 29th, 2005 at 6:49 am
During one of his seminars many years ago, Tony Robbins told about a couple that decided to win the lottery. They put themselves into a state of total belief that they were going to win and even told their friends and family that they had already won. Tony actually thought this was going too far and even discouraged them from doing this — he didn’t think it would work. But they went ahead with it anyway, and they did win the lottery. And then they did it again and won the lottery again. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, there was another couple that won 3 lotteries using this technique, each with a progressively higher jackpot.
So who knows? Is this just a coincidence due to the sheer numbers of people who eventually win a big lottery? Or does belief have an impact? Again, I don’t know where the line is really drawn.
March 29th, 2005 at 7:01 am
Lucid dreaming can be used for problem solving, but my skills at doing so are fairly limited, even though I’ve been doing it off and on since 1994.
Reading is difficult in a lucid dream because the words will change on the page as you read them. I’ve never read a sentence in my dreams and had it come out the same way twice.
You can also do things like say, “Show me the solution to this problem” and get some interesting results. My wife once said in one of her dreams, “I want to speak to the person in charge of this dream,” and that led her to a very unusual behind-the-scenes look at her dream world.
It’s also easy to become distracted by all the fun stuff you can do in a lucid dream. Flying backwards is fun, as is martial arts (although I always feel like I’m punching through water).
March 29th, 2005 at 7:02 am
My point wasn’t to argue whether or not an objective reality exists but rather to challenge people to see what happens for themselves when they let go of that belief for a while. If you believe in an objective reality, no one can convince you otherwise as long as you remain within that paradigm. But if you’re curious, you can see for yourself what happens when you abandon that belief for a while; you can always go back to it.
March 29th, 2005 at 8:26 am
Now, if that lottery winning bit is true, I would be convinced. The chances are extremely low for that to happen by chance.
It would be an actual PROOF for all this. If it’s true.
Because I did NLP and hypnosis about 1 year (out of curiosity) and I haven’t seen one single effect that wasn’t entirely in the person’s head. Yes, it’s very good for them and for the Instructor who makes good $$$, but I did not see anything verifiable by a third party. ANYTHING.
Now being skeptical is not good for me (just as being an atheist) but I find it hard to give up Science and take on Faith.
Although I should. I live inside my head anyway and there is no such thing as objective reality for any of us. Maybe it exists independently but it doesn’t matter ‘cuse nobody ever saw it…
March 29th, 2005 at 10:37 am
I wish I had a source for the lottery winning story. It was something I heard at a Tony Robbins’ seminar in 1998 (and probably in 1996 as well). So I can’t verify whether or not it’s true because I never got the names of the winners — I just remember it was a married couple. Someone on the forums at http://www.anthonyrobbins.com could probably track it down though.
Instead of thinking of this as a question of science vs. faith, I see it more as exploration. It’s a matter of choice whether or not you wish to explore other areas of consciousness. It doesn’t require a leap of faith because once you learn how to condition new beliefs, you’re always free to change them back. It’s like moving to a new city for a while — you get a chance to explore it and experience it, but you’re always free to move back “home” if you don’t like it. And even though “home” may be your favorite place, you can learn and grow a great deal by living elsewhere for a while.
March 29th, 2005 at 10:53 am
What a great post! I found your blog a few weeks ago, I really liked it, but never expected to read anything like this here. Now I like it even more.
March 29th, 2005 at 2:09 pm
I would just like to say up front that I have always valued Steve’s insight on a wide range of topics. I originally read a few articles he posted on gamedev.net. This led me to dexterity.com which in turn led me to his blog. Over the years I have found Steve to have an incredible amount of insight. I also greatly admire Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, due to his rather humorous insight. I find it very interesting that on a subject such as this, there appears to be a convergence of the belief systems of these 2 men.
In the final chapter of “The Dilbert Future” Scott Adams begins the chapter off by stating that other than the few comics appearing in the chapter, he wasn’t going to be making any jokes. He then goes on to explain some alternate theories of the universe and some theories on human conciousness. He then explains how he has used affirmations in his life to attain some of his unrealistic goals. I am sure most people have a library somewhere near them where this book can be found. Check this chapter out, or you could buy the whole book, it’s worth the price.
Let me say Steve, thanks for your blog and thanks for making me stop and think once in a while. When Scott Adams wrote on this subject, the only reason I took it seriously was because he literally had nothing to gain by discussing it and seemed very sincere. You, on the other hand, have everything to lose by posting on such a subject. You have a possibility of lost revenues on speaking engagements or lost opportunities to write because some people will think you are crazy. I admire your courage and believe you have posted this in the belief that you may help others. I greatly appreciate your efforts.
March 29th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
nice post. curious warning about aliens… care to elaborate?
March 29th, 2005 at 4:50 pm
I’m a skeptic. If I believed I could fly with every fiber of my being and jumped off a tall building, I think I’d injure myself. I happen to believe objective reality exists regardless of my beliefs. But I find your posts thought provoking.
That said, my beliefs direct my behaviors and it changes my circumstances.
March 29th, 2005 at 4:53 pm
Very interesting post. Thanks for interacting with your readers
It would seem important to me when discerning the limits of this rabbit hole to challenge gravity. You could do it alone so that no one can observe it, and you could do it on a very small scale so that you would not be hurt but enough so you know it is real. Maybe six inches or so.
If it turns out that the rabbit hole does not apply to physical events, then that would help us to have a better foundation for further discussion. If you don’t care to discuss it, it still would help to refine your thinking.
March 29th, 2005 at 5:36 pm
I enjoyed lots of the posts on your blog Steve and did not enjoy lots of them too. I am sticking around to see how you really make this work and create business out of it. As they say “market for something to believe in is infinite” much greater than shareware games so I’d say great pick!
Couple of things that I object though… I object to use of word “belief”, I’ll come to that later but for definition sake this is what that word means to me: “Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something”
You are saying that just thinking about something, changing your beliefs, you are able to make things “swing” your way or they mysteriously appear in your life. LIke your reference about learning about NLP and meeting different type of people. My argument is that you simply changed your focus. Those things were always around you but in the same way when you watch a subject under the microscope you do not see anything else but the part of it you focus on, in this case you simply moved your focus to something else and it appeared out of nowhere… There is nothing mysterious about that. You simply decided to pay attention to different things around you. You changed the focus of your microscope.
You also say that you can switch your beliefs and that way interact with the different kind of people that have same beliefs. I think that beliefs have nothing to do with that. Subject matter knowledge does. For example, I read lot of religious texts and I can interact very nicely with Christians, Muslims, Jehovah witnesses etc. I do not believe but I have no problems interacting. I can interact because of my knowledge and not my beliefs.
Another thing that I object to is saying that simply focusing and envisioning things will make things swing your way. It will not. Only your ACTION will make things swing your way. Be it buying that lottery ticket or starting that new business. Envisioning alone is worthless without action. As Anthony Robins says in one of his seminars if it was that way we would all be thin, rich and have fulfilling life. I think we agree on that.
My point is that only our actions NOW change your feature and our past… I like the book on “now” by Eckhart Tolle The Power Of Now. It goes on very deep end on some things and it is really out-there for others, but it has its value nonetheless…
I am not going to even touch on telepathy and other things… Some other time
March 29th, 2005 at 6:53 pm
Given the paradigm I described, there is no way for anyone to prove the possibility of something that lies outside your belief system from the outside in. So if I were to challenge my belief in gravity and succeed, you’d never be able to see the proof, as it would conflict with your belief system. If there exist people who can defy gravity, they’d always be invisible/nonexistent to you.
In the documentary What the Bleep Do We Know?, there was a segment about the Native Americans being unable to see the arriving clipper ships on the horizon. The ships were “visible,” but the natives literally could not see them, supposedly because they did not believe such things existed.
This is something I experienced as well. When I started relaxing my beliefs about what was impossible, almost immediately those new possibilities became manifest. And while I’m familiar with the concept of focus and the reticular activating system (like buying a new car and then seeing it everywhere), the effect went way beyond my ability to explain it as merely a matter of shifting focus to something that was already there that I just didn’t notice previously.
March 29th, 2005 at 7:09 pm
> In the documentary What the Bleep Do We Know?, there was a
> segment about the Native Americans being unable to see the
> arriving clipper ships on the horizon. The ships were “visible,”
> but the natives literally could not see them, supposedly because
> they did not believe such things existed.
So how did Westerners ever come to be able to see things like aeroplanes, rockets and computers for the first time, since before they were introduced we did not believe such things existed?
March 29th, 2005 at 7:26 pm
> So if I were to challenge my belief
> in gravity and succeed, you’d never be able to see the proof, as
> it would conflict with your belief system. If there exist people
> who can defy gravity, they’d always be invisible/nonexistent to
> you.
Set up a test whereby an object is placed on the ground and a person who claims they can fly is invited to move the object to a different position. You then invite a third person to announce the location of the object with no knowledge that it was supposedly moved by flight.
March 30th, 2005 at 7:31 am
To be able to see what does not exist in your reality (such as a rocket or a plane), you must first believe it’s possible. Our beliefs gradually shift over time. A walking robot believed to be impossible 100 years ago walks around today. Today some people believe androids are impossible; when enough people believe in the possibility though, they’ll have the potential to manifest.
From what I understand of this, there would be no way to set up any kind of cross-belief experiment if the results would serve to convince someone of what they believe to be impossible, no matter how clever you try to get. If you don’t believe it, there’s no way to see it. You’ll only see it when you believe it. Asking for proof in something in which you don’t believe is like asking the ground for crops before you’ve planted seeds.
Belief isn’t binary; there are degrees of belief. The more strongly you believe something, the greater its power to manifest.
I currently don’t know anyone who believes they can fly or that they can defy gravity.
March 30th, 2005 at 7:53 am
But if you believe that there is no way to prove something that is outside of other’s person belief system didn’t you just believe yourself into it? Because by nature of that theory you just have to believe strongly don’t you?
I still think it is just matter of focus. Million things are around us but we do not see them because we are not paying attention to them. It is simple as that.
“When multiple possible explanations exist for one observation, the simplest is most likely to be correct.”
On the “What the Bleep Do We Know” take a look at alternate view:
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic10-01-04.html
Thank you Steve for entertaining different points of view.
March 30th, 2005 at 8:11 am
The Native Americans and the clipper ships is a nice example of this proposed theory. But surely this couldn’t have been documented. Lots of times we don’t know how many people were on those ships or exactly where they landed. How could we possibly know what a few individuals, speaking a different language, think they did or didn’t see, and when they did or didn’t see it?
I’ve not seen the film, but surely that example was used as an illustration and not a statement of fact. That would blow the film’s credibilty a great deal for me.
March 30th, 2005 at 8:57 am
But if you believe that there is no way to prove something that is outside of other’s person belief system didn’t you just believe yourself into it? Because by nature of that theory you just have to believe strongly don’t you?
Yes.
March 30th, 2005 at 12:40 pm
Steve,
Your posts are usually excellent, but you are a little loopy with this one. You can’t possibly be saying you create physical reality with your thoughts? Are you saying thoughts occur first then the reality appear? What about phenomenon you never encountered before? Do you actually not see or experience it? Take your example of Lucid Dreaming. As a kid I experienced an awareness while dreaming that I could control the direction of the dream. I did not know it was possible beforehand and never heard of lucid dreaming before. So to me the reality occurred first and I accepted it.
I think there is one “physical” reality but we only perceive a very, very small part of it though our sensory organs. This ”personal” reality is further filtered by our brain. By changing our thoughts we change our filter, which changes our “personal” reality. To suggest our thoughts can change the underlying physical reality is going too far
March 30th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
You can certainly encounter what you do not know is possible. But I don’t think you can encounter what you believe to be impossible. Have you ever experienced anything you actually believed impossible at the time it happened?
March 30th, 2005 at 2:09 pm
Ahh - there’s the rub - there is very little that I believe that is truly impossible. (There are lots of highly improbable things out there though). I do believe telepathy and telekinesis are impossible. Those phenomenons have never been proven to exist in controlled experiments. That said, if someone happened to come up to me and read my mind consistently and repeatedly then I certainly would be willing to start believing. The thing is why would my belief or non-belief affect someone else’s ability to read my mind? If the other person believes he can read my mind, according to you, it should be enough?
I have an open mind but show me the proof and then I will start believing. I do agree that changing your thoughts can be a powerful factor in changing your “personal” reality, but I strongly disagree that thoughts alone will win lotteries or affect other physical phenomenon.
March 30th, 2005 at 2:45 pm
Dave, your experience of that “other person” is limited to the confines of your own reality. Everything you experience in your life is confined within your reality, including any “controlled experiments” you’ve heard of. The proof of telepathy cannot enter your reality, not through science or otherwise. You will never find proof of it “out there.”
However, within the reality of someone who does believe in telepathy, it exists right along with sufficient proof of its existence. But the idea of “proof” is a fallacy anyway. We’re not proving anything — we’re just creating it.
See today’s blog entry for more on this.
March 30th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
Steve, convince your camera of perceptual reality and post a picture of your bent spoon.
March 30th, 2005 at 4:32 pm
http://images.dpchallenge.com/images_challenge/99/21807.jpg
Like I can’t bend a spoon with my hands?
March 30th, 2005 at 4:37 pm
What do you think he’s been doing?
March 30th, 2005 at 5:12 pm
What are you guys talking about? There is no spoon!
March 31st, 2005 at 10:56 am
Are We Real?
April 1st, 2005 at 10:10 am
Actually, there’s another precedent for the “clipper ships” example as explained earlier. It concerns the existence of UFOs or flying saucers. While I can’t convince anyone of their existence, if you look at medievel art, hieroglyphics, and some mayan art, it is rather obvious that a number of people had seen UFOs throughout history. I would also venture a guess that most people did not believe in such things. However, after Kenneth Arnold reported seeing a formation of 9 of these flying saucers, people suddenly started seeing them everywhere. Was it mass hysteria, or is it possible that the sighting of these objects by a reputable air-rescue pilot allowed people to believe such a thing was possible, therefore allowing people to see them? I guess we won’t know for sure until little green men land and force their reality to interact with ours.
May 9th, 2005 at 9:01 am
Steve,
I know lucid dreaming and astral travel exist. I have been lucid myself, and I know a few people who have been astral and wouldn’t lie to me about, although I have never done it myself. I am also a qigong practitioner, and can feel the energy in my body when I practice and sometimes when I am not practicing.
Tony Robbins in Personal Power II tells the listener look around the room and count blue (I believe) things. Then he asks the listener how many green things there were. The listener of course does not know, and this illustrates that you see what you focus on. The effects of consciousness on the world have been validated ironically enough by science through the PEAR project ( http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/ ). There is a degree of influence over the world through consciousness. However, are you sure that this change in reality is not merely the effect of focus through a change in beliefs?
Thanks for the fantastic site Steve. We appreciate your efforts.