It's All In Your Head, Dear
Our unconscious controls most of our physical functions. This is fortunate; if left to our conscious mind, there are some days we'd probably forget to breathe. And our hearts would stop beating when we went to sleep.
The unconscious is vastly intelligent, controlling virtually billions of simultaneous processes in our body. It's not very good with words, instead it uses images and sensations for communication with consciousness and hormones, nerve impulses and neuropeptides for communication down to cellular levels. The pictures we make in our heads cause it to react in various ways, as if they were real. It's said the unconscious doesn't really know the difference between something we vividly imagine and something we are experiencing. Imagine, if you will, slicing a nice bright yellow lemon with a sharp knife, the tangy smell of citrus hits your nose and you bring a half to your mouth and bite into it, feel the tactile tearing of the lemon with your teeth and most likely your mouth has already started to water.
People are sending images to their unconscious all the time, although they aren't very selective about it. As various thoughts enter their minds through the day they spark images, which spark other thoughts and other images and these barrage the poor unconscious with pictures of situations to worry about, fear, get depressed over. And the pictures sent are experienced by the body as if they were happening physically. Naturally optimistic people are streaming images of how things are going to work out, things they are excited about; pessimists paint different pictures. Medical science has been very slow to realize the tremendous impact of this image stream and try to treat negative conditions by dampening or normalizing the overall neurology. But they are slowly coming around and gradually shaking off the incredibly stupid model of Descarte of the mind and body as two seperate things.
What do you think the most effective, most researched western medication is across the widest variety of conditions? I'll give you a hint, it's not antibiotics or vaccines. It's the placebo. In every modern medical study on the effectiveness of a pharmaceutical it has to be pitted against a placebo. And placebos have an effectiveness in these studies between 40-75% or higher. On every condition. In fact, many of the pharmaceuticals perform in about the same range as the placebo. These little anomalies, like the anomalies in science, hold the key to a whole new paradigm of medicine.
But, like Rodney Dangerfield, they get no respect; because it's obviously not the medicine, it's "just" the mind creating these effects isn't it? How could that be valid? Amazing how much can be dismissed if it doesn't correspond to our worldview. Wrapped in the authority of white coats and the external esteem we have of the medical establishment, a simple sugar pill carries a big punch. It makes me wonder about whether the same "voices of authority" giving someone 6 months to live aren't self fulfilling prophecies.
OK, I got a little off topic and this post is already too long. So I won't talk about what I set out to introduce, which is a nifty little technique for harnessing this power of imagery and using it in a conscious way to affect a specific condition. I'll try to post that in a follow-up. It's time for for some chinese.
Recommended reading :-)
The unconscious is vastly intelligent, controlling virtually billions of simultaneous processes in our body. It's not very good with words, instead it uses images and sensations for communication with consciousness and hormones, nerve impulses and neuropeptides for communication down to cellular levels. The pictures we make in our heads cause it to react in various ways, as if they were real. It's said the unconscious doesn't really know the difference between something we vividly imagine and something we are experiencing. Imagine, if you will, slicing a nice bright yellow lemon with a sharp knife, the tangy smell of citrus hits your nose and you bring a half to your mouth and bite into it, feel the tactile tearing of the lemon with your teeth and most likely your mouth has already started to water.
People are sending images to their unconscious all the time, although they aren't very selective about it. As various thoughts enter their minds through the day they spark images, which spark other thoughts and other images and these barrage the poor unconscious with pictures of situations to worry about, fear, get depressed over. And the pictures sent are experienced by the body as if they were happening physically. Naturally optimistic people are streaming images of how things are going to work out, things they are excited about; pessimists paint different pictures. Medical science has been very slow to realize the tremendous impact of this image stream and try to treat negative conditions by dampening or normalizing the overall neurology. But they are slowly coming around and gradually shaking off the incredibly stupid model of Descarte of the mind and body as two seperate things.What do you think the most effective, most researched western medication is across the widest variety of conditions? I'll give you a hint, it's not antibiotics or vaccines. It's the placebo. In every modern medical study on the effectiveness of a pharmaceutical it has to be pitted against a placebo. And placebos have an effectiveness in these studies between 40-75% or higher. On every condition. In fact, many of the pharmaceuticals perform in about the same range as the placebo. These little anomalies, like the anomalies in science, hold the key to a whole new paradigm of medicine.
But, like Rodney Dangerfield, they get no respect; because it's obviously not the medicine, it's "just" the mind creating these effects isn't it? How could that be valid? Amazing how much can be dismissed if it doesn't correspond to our worldview. Wrapped in the authority of white coats and the external esteem we have of the medical establishment, a simple sugar pill carries a big punch. It makes me wonder about whether the same "voices of authority" giving someone 6 months to live aren't self fulfilling prophecies.
OK, I got a little off topic and this post is already too long. So I won't talk about what I set out to introduce, which is a nifty little technique for harnessing this power of imagery and using it in a conscious way to affect a specific condition. I'll try to post that in a follow-up. It's time for for some chinese.
Recommended reading :-)
Interesting about the effectiveness of the placebo. I know many times I've heard, or even said " I don't have time to be sick". And seldom get forced to lose time to that. Yet I've known many to hit retirement age and have all the time in the world, choose to do nothing with it and fall over dead. That brain has GOT to keep busy, (on something besides self diagnostics).
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