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Originally Posted by jdiddy  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. |
Firstly I should say this is not an attempt to discredit or disparage your ideas, or shamanism. I'm replying solely because you said you want to try to comprehend how this works. I'm going to do my best to just present some information for your consideration.
The phenomenon is documented, and the documentation does actually go into the details of the changes involved. The most often cited research I've seen is that by G.H. Yue. In
one particular study he and his colleagues measured various physiological changes and found that the improved strength could be attributed to an increase in cortical output signal, and
not to an increase in muscle mass.
In other words, the mental work resulted in neural changes, and those neural changes made it possible to get more out of the same muscle. Combined with physical exercise this would undoubtedly be much more effective than either alone (and there's a huge amount of anecdotal evidence that mental preparation improves results in physical activity, in many sports).