[jdiddy]

I wanted to start a thread to discuss *techniques* for changing your physical body. The last thread on this topic devolved from an interesting discussion how to do it into a discussion about whether or not this is possible. I know from personal experience that it is, and have no interest in debating this further with people who disagree--I'm only interested in a constructive discussion about *how to do it more effectively*. If you don't agree that this is possible please just ignore this thread.

As I explained in my original post which unfortunately ended up taking the thread off-topic, I have used shamanic techniques to great effect to change my physical body. I have used these techniques to heal cuts, kill infections, heal bruises (and possibly broken bones, it's hard to be sure of the severity when you use these techniques to heal them), regrow lost hair, and bodybuild. I'm certainly extremely interested in knowing what other people have been able to do with these techniques as well.

The philosophy behind shamanism is that the waking world is a dream, just the same as a dream you have while you're sleeping. Being able to change and manipulate the world around you is, at its core, simply a matter of realizing that you have the ability to change it. The key here, as in most traditions that teach some form of intention/manifestation, is the concept of "as within, so without". Meaning that the world is as you think it is.

For me, this means establishing some form of continuity between what I'm perceiving as the present, what I remember as the past, and what I want to be the future. Obviously the past and future don't technically exist right now except as a memory or an idea, so if you can change those memories and ideas to be consistent with the way you want reality to be, you end up changing the present moment.

Let me give an example I've used, not healing this time. When I was younger I used to be into bodybuilding, and I've worked out pretty regularly ever since. Not hard-core or anything, but enough to maintain the level of health I want, and fit into my clothes decently. When I started comprehending the techniques of changing my reality and molding it to what I want it to be, I adopted a slightly different approach. I started actively changing my memories of the past, "remembering" myself doing more reps, lifting heavier weights, and going to the gym more often. When I was at the gym, I would envision myself being more muscular, which allowed me to push out more reps. In a short time I was able to get the body I wanted while going to the gym less, simply by going more in my "memory".

This type of phenomen is extremely well documented, it's well accepted that doing exercises mentally is *almost* as effective as doing them physically. You build muscle, get stronger, and become more coordinaated just as if you were actually doing it. What I realized that if I was able to implant the memory of having done the exercise it would be just as effective in changing my body.

The part that gets tricky, for me at least, is trying to comprehend how this works. It almost seems like I'm constructing an alternative reality in the past, and getting myself to accept that alternative reality without question almost feels like I'm tricking my concious mind--it resists it, to some extent. It takes concious effort, and all the thought control ability that I have, to force myself to accept the alternative reality instead of the one I've already experienced. My best guess about how this works, as of right now, is that I have to spend more time mentally in the alternative reality than I spent in the physical reality observing what I want to change. For example, if I slam my finger in a car door, the longer I spend dwelling on the pain and what just happened, the longer it will take to heal. If I *immediately* recognize that I need to construct an alternate version of what just happened, and run thru it in my mind several times, then the alternate version becomes more real than what just physically happened, I forget about the pain, and pretty quickly forget that it ever happened.

So that is the core of my technique in a nutshell. It's taken me a long time to train myself to have the level of thought control where I'm cognizant of what I'm observing and thinking about, and am able to derail that train of thought and replace it with the reality that I really want. It's like editing a video of my life as it happens, the trick is to force yourself to forget about the clips that you don't want to have happen.