I have extensive experience with altered states, including sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, psychosis (sleep deprivation induced) and all kinds of different substance induced altered states. I've come to realise that all these things I thought were wishful thinking like the idea that we are all united as opposed to separate, and that our beliefs (in reality its more complex than that, its the logic we use to formulate the beliefs and our subconscious is the one in the drivers seat) control reality, its actually true. New agers aren't very convincing because I think most of them haven't actually seen it, they just believe it on a theoretical level and if you look at lucid dreaming, theoretical knowledge and real knowledge are two completely different things. Real knowledge is the kind of knowledge the subconscious processes, theoretical knowledge is only useful as a stepping stone. For example when I first started lucid dreaming, I knew I was dreaming so I should be able to do anything. In theory thats self evident. But I didn't really know I could, so as a result I was still bound by the idea of gravity, I had to go through doors rather than just pass through walls etc. It was when I became lucid in mid air during a non lucid dream that I learned to fly, because its hard to doubt you can do something when you're in the middle of doing it.
Anyhow, I don't feel like getting into the details, but I have this understanding now, I just don't know what to do with it. The placebo effect for instance, I should be able to solve this drowsiness issue I have with it, but the issue I have is I don't KNOW I can do it. In lucid dreams, if I have even a shred of doubt that I might not be able to fly, then I can't get off the ground. Interestingly, I can override that by jumping off buildings because then I have to fly. But with flying in dreams, theres this intuitive knowing that I have, I feel it in my stomach, I know I can do it. In my experience thats the key to having the subconscious work with you rather than against you. The subconscious seems to operate in a way that it never violates your belief system. Like in lucid dreams if I try to make something materialise in my hand but it doesn't work, I go off and do something else then after I'd forgotten all about it, I realise I have the object in my hand. My subconscious had to wait until my awareness was elsewhere to make the change happen. So its like it can't or won't do anything thats not 100% aligned with our belief system. Its as if my conscious attention, combined with my beliefs imposes rules on the subconscious, so it has to wait for my attention to be elsewhere to make the change happen. This is a problem in my case because I can't take my awareness off this health issue because it interferes with my daily life. I'm a chemist (well I just got the degree recently, too drowsy to start working though), with a passion for pharmacology so the idea of being able to control my neurochemistry and physiology with my beliefs fascinates me. I theoretically know this is possible, but I just need to make that first leap and observe it in action so I gain a true knowing.
Anyone know any good tricks for overriding these self limiting beliefs? I have some pieces of the puzzle myself, I'll share them with anyone who wants to know, but I'm a bit drowsy now so I'll leave it at that for now.
