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Does Your Imagination Make or Break You?

In the March 17, 2006 Toronto Star, Janice Mawhinney writes "Can you learn to be a happier person by repeatedly visualizing two tiny parts of your brain and imagining yourself tweaking them?

Colorado teacher and musician Neil Slade says you can.

Slade has developed brain exercises, described on http://www.neilslade.com, aimed at lifting your spirits and calming your fears. The website has become something of an underground sensation, attracting an average of 750,000 hits a month through word of mouth alone."

I recommend his website and newsletter. It's far out and fascinating. We are just beginning to understand the power of imagination. The 21st Century may turn out to be the first Century of peace, possible through knowledge of the human brain.

As Neil Slade points out, the brain has three basic sections: the neo-cortex or frontal lobes, the limbic or middle section, and the reptile or primitive brain. Our "fight or flight" responses live in the reptile brain, nurturing, cooperative responses in the limbic portion, and conscious functions in the neo-cortex.

Two amygdalae, each about the size and shape of an almond, are located on either side of the head, between the eye and ear, about an inch in. Studies have shown the amygdalae have a part to play in everything from memory storage to anxiety.

Neil Slade offers exercises in imagination to click your amygdalae forward whenever you feel angry or fearful.

Instant calm.

It has worked for thousands of his fans. Cognitive psychologists have used similar techniques. Several agree that changing thoughts changes lives.

In fact, William James wrote almost a century ago, "The greatest discovery of our age has been that we, by changing the inner aspects of our thinking, can change the outer aspect of our lives."

Slade says that clicking the amygdalae forward actually changes pathways in the brain.

Dr. Robert Anthony's research with patients has shown repeatedly that changing daily thoughts changes peoples' lives due to the natural law of attraction.

Changing thoughts to change lives involves imagination and repetition to imprint the subconscious areas of the brain.

Works like advertising, and it's not done overnight with a simple affirmation. A bit of self-hypnosis is involved.

Imagination is so powerful it precedes everything. It makes or breaks our lives.

Einstein imagined riding a beam of light at the speed of light out into the universe. He added a few numbers and came up with E=Mc2.

I imagined a castle outside my bedroom window that hovered over the driveway, but I got in trouble for "day-dreaming". I became a sneaky imaginer, if you can imagine that.

Hypnosis is pure imagination and imagination is stronger than will. As a young college student messing around, I hypnotized my roommate. I told her she could not pick up her pack of cigarettes. Sure enough, no matter how hard she tried, she could not pick it up. That scared me. I didn't mess with hypnosis after that .I respected it.

We all hypnotize ourselves without knowing it through repetition of our thoughts about ourselves. We imagine that we are too fat, too skinny, too short, too tall, too dumb, too shy, or not enough something to ever be what we think we should be.

That's how our imagination breaks us. People who raise us don't tell us that we are wonderful, unlimited creatures without flaws because they feel flawed themselves and can not separate discipline from character negation.

Knowing how our imagination can break us, in the same vein, we can use it to make us healthy and wealthy. Really wealthy.

Try it.

Dream a little dream on me.

Copyright 2006 Cole's Poetic License