Why manifestation can work. Here’s the science behind it

If you can imagine what you want, do you believe the universe will eventually deliver it to you? Good, James R. Doty, MD., a neurosurgeon and founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford Universitybelieves in the power of manifestation. This is evident from the title of his recently published book: Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything. Manifestation is when you make your dreams and goals come true by first imagining them and believing that you can achieve them. But in the book, Doty wrote something that may sound discouraging at first: the universe doesn’t give a peep about you.

Now, Doty is not the official spokesperson for the universe. So what the Universe really thinks about you may be up for debate. But Doty’s point is that manifesting isn’t about waiting for some kind of being, force, or giant cream pie in the sky to give you what you want. In one conversation he emphasized to me, “Although manifestation is associated with woo woo and pseudoscience, there is science behind manifestation.” Doty added, “So many people give away their agency to external things they manufacture.” Instead, he said, “Faith can actually change things. The most powerful is the power you need to change things.”

He gave the example of “value tagging,” which allows your brain to better sort through all the things it sees every day. Think about how many things enter and swirl around in your brain every minute, hour, and day. There’s no way your brain can treat all of these things with the same value. For example, when you cross a street, your brain’s first priority is probably that you don’t know the names of everyone in the race. The bachelor, what the Kardashians wear or who still thinks the earth is flat. Instead, your brain should notice the big truck coming towards you.

That’s why your brain must have filters to determine what deserves your attention at any given moment. Your brain can actually label those things that are deemed worthy of your attention, while letting the less important things pass unnoticed. So if you tell the brain what you want – what you really, really want in the words of the Spice Girls – your brain can in turn label any information that is in any way related to that as valuable. This means that you consciously and unconsciously tag that information or assign it a higher value.

For example, suppose you’ve already imagined that you would one day become the greatest fruitcake baker in the world. Well, your brain might end up labeling everything that fits this view so it stands out more. So even at a very busy event where a funk band is playing, you’re more likely to notice a well-known lawyer briefly mentioning his passion for fruitcakes, or to catch wind of a conversation in which people are trying to figure out what to do. do with 14,325 bags of spare flour. These in turn could lead to, shall we say, very fruitful opportunities that others might have missed and later make realizing your vision seem like a piece of cake.

Doty described it as a bloodhound: when you know what you want, you and your senses can cut through the surrounding noise and find the right pieces. “We are who we are because of the sensory data we ingest,” he said. “We can only process about 50 to 100 things at a time. Value labeling is the ability to anchor your intentions in your subconscious and create the synchronicity that gives you the greatest chance of manifesting.”

Then there is the power of faith itself. The whole placebo effect shows that believing in something can change your physiology. So maybe believing in a vision for the future can help you work much harder, get you through the pain of overcoming obstacles, improve your senses and thinking, and generally turn you into a person who is more likely to is that he will make that vision a reality. Doty talked about how Tibetan monks have been able to modulate their feelings and how magnetic resonance imaging has shown changes in metabolism when people change their thinking.

Doty did warn that it may matter what you specifically pursue. Pursuing a self-centered vision that is all about you may not be the same as pursuing a vision that benefits many more people. He shared details about his own past, a past that began when he grew up in poverty. He then progressed to eventually becoming a neurosurgeon and then was part of the whole dot.com boom and bust in Silicon Valley in the late 1990s. “The story is that if you achieve success, it equals happiness,” Doty explains. “I used to have no self-awareness and knowledge. Before I lost millions in the dot.com bust, I had everything: a Ferrari, Porsche, BMW, flying around in private jets, and all my friends told me how great my life was. But he added: ‘I realized I was focused on the wrong things. It was about doing things that filled my ego, not about being subservient.”

After achieving these things, not getting the expected satisfaction, and losing many of these things, he realized that this was a false story. Instead of seeking external affirmation and validation, it was more important to serve and build meaningful relationships. “If it’s all about you, you won’t be happy,” he said.

Doty suggested that if your vision of the future is more altruistic and beneficial to others, you have a better chance of achieving it. He pointed out the various positive physiological effects of a more generous and positive approach to life, such as the release of oxytocin, activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, lowering blood pressure, strengthening the immune system and lower production of stress hormones. . All this can help you function optimally and thus, thing, thing, thing, better achieve what you want to achieve. “Looking at the world through a different lens can be quite powerful,” says Doty.

And when it’s not just about you, others can more easily come on board to help you realize your vision. Finally, if you say, “I want to be very rich and live in that nice apartment over there,” how many people will respond, “Okay, whatever you want, I’ll help you” to this vision? Compare that to saying, “This is how I want to make the world a better place,” a goal that yields much more, making it more likely that many more people will come to help you than help you.

Unless the Universe holds some sort of press conference or writes a memoir, ultimately no one will know exactly what the Universe wants and thinks of you. But if you are self-centered, you can be quite sure what others will ultimately think of you.