Evolve Your Brain The Science of Changing Your Mind

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 “Evolving Your Brain isn’t just a book; it is an opportunity for
anyone who is serious about becoming more and having more to
learn exactly how to do it from the inside out.”
—John Assaraf, author of The Street Kids Guide to Having It All and
founder of Onecoach

“Approachable, accessible, and empowering, Joe Dispenza helps

make sense of this wacky world we call reality.”
—Betsy Chasse, writer/director/producer of What the Bleep Do We
Know!?
 EVOLVE
your
BRAIN

The Science of Changing Your Mind

JOE DISPENZA, D.C.

Health Communications Inc.

Deerfield Beach, Florida

www.hcibooks.com
The content of this book is published for educational and informational purposes only. The
content of this book should not be used for the diagnosis or treatment of any condition or
disease. The case histories presented are provided for illustrative purposes only. No express
or implied guarantee of results is made. If you are currently being treated by a physician or
other healthcare practitioner for any condition or disease, consult with that provider prior
to changing or modifying any treatment program.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

is available through the Library of Congress.

© 2007 Joe Dispenza, D.C.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-0765-2 (paperback)
ISBN-10: 0-7573-0765-5 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-9779-0 (e-book)
ISBN-10: 0-7573-9779-4 (e-book)

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written
permission of the publisher.

HCI, its logos and marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc.
Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
3201 S.W. 15th Street
Deerfield Beach, FL 33442-8190

R-10-08

Cover design by Larissa Hise Henoch

Interior book design and formatting by Lawna Patterson Oldfield
Interior illustrations by Larissa Hise Henoch
FOR JACE, GIANNA, AND SHENARA
 CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FOREWORD BY AMIT GOSWAMI, PH.D

CHAPTER ONE: Beginnings

CHAPTER TWO: On the Back of a Giant

CHAPTER THREE: Neurons and the Nervous System: Traveling the

Original Information Superhighway

CHAPTER FOUR: Our Three Brains and More

CHAPTER FIVE: Wired by Nature, Changeable by Nurture

CHAPTER SIX: Neuroplasticity: How Knowledge and Experience

Change and Evolve the Brain

CHAPTER SEVEN: Putting Knowledge and Experience into Practice

CHAPTER EIGHT: The Chemistry of Survival

CHAPTER NINE: The Chemistry of Emotional Addiction

CHAPTER TEN: Taking Control: The Frontal Lobe in Thought and in

Action

CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Art and Science of Mental Rehearsal

CHAPTER TWELVE: Evolving Your Being

Epilogue: A Quantum Change

Notes

Index
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

C reation is such an interesting phenomenon. The process is

riddled with a landscape of peaks and valleys with
indeterminate views. There are moments when we feel truly
inspired and uplifted, because we have made some progress in
climbing to a new level to see a better view. In the next moment,
when we see that there are bigger obstacles to overcome, we
wonder if we even made a difference and if our efforts were really
worth it. Like the birthing process, creation comes with labor pains,
complications, nausea, fatigue, sleepless nights, and even woeful
moments of thinking about the future. Questions lurk about our
personal abilities, what we know, what we don’t know, who our
critics are, who we are doing this for anyway, and why. I have had
such moments in writing this book.
And yet, it is almost natural that we fret with such encumbrances,
because somewhere inside us, we know that the only terrain we are
overcoming is our limited view of ourselves. It’s a process, and most
certainly, there are speed bumps along the way. I must say that this
book has been a great and wonderful teacher for me. I am different
today because I continued on in spite of the many reasons to stop. I
understand better now why I wrote this book. My sole purpose and
hopeful intentions were to contribute toward helping people change
their lives. If this book makes a difference in even one person’s life,
then the whole process was worth it. Evolve Your Brain was not
written primarily for the scientist, the researcher, or the academic,
but for the average person who wants to understand that science
supports our ability to change, and that we, as human beings, have
great potential.
I certainly do not know everything there is to know about the
brain. What I have come to learn, to experience, to research, and to
personally conclude are only doorways to greater understandings.
Some might say to me, why didn’t you discuss this topic or that
topic in the book? Simply, I have chosen to keep this body of work
about the science of changing our mind and what implications this
has for our health and our well-being. There are many more subjects
I could have discussed about energy, mind, quantum physics, and
our greater abilities that would make this book too broad to be
useful. My epilogue suggests greater applications.
I do want to acknowledge several people who have supported,
influenced, and inspired me to complete the book. First, I want to
thank my publishers at HCI, Peter Vegso and Tom Sand, who
believed in me. A special thank you to my editor, Michele
Matrisciani. I also want to express my appreciation to Carol
Rosenberg for being such a thorough managing editor and to Dawn
Von Strolley Grove and Lawna Patterson Oldfield for their
production expertise.
To Tere Stouffer, my copy editor, who helped me with
perspective. Also, to Sara Steinberg, my content/copy editor, who
taught me about the tortoise and the hare and who showed such
caring and love … I am grateful. To Gary Brozek, your contribution
to my work is truly appreciated. My graphic artist Larissa Hise
Henoch showed her true talent in this book.
I also want to give my acknowledgments to my staff for keeping
up with my pace. Thanks to Bill Harrell, D.C., Jackie Hobbs, Diane
Baker, Patty Kerr, Charlie Davidson, and Brenda Surerus. Your
sincerity is invaluable to me. Special gratitude is given to Gabrielle
Sagona for her assistance, encouragement, and fabulous energy.
Thank you for everything. To Joanne Twining, Ph.D., I am expanded
by your skills, your knowledge, and your patience. To Will Arntz,
James Capezio, and Rebecca Capezio for their important feedback
with the manuscript. To Marjorie Layden, Henry Schimberg, Linda
Evans, Anne Marie Bennstrom, Ken Weiss, Betsy Chasse, and Gordon
J. Grobelny, D.C., for true encouragement and support. My immense
appreciation goes to Paul Burns, J.D., D.C., who helped me in
innumerable ways.
 I also want to give thanks to JZ Knight for giving her life to help
humanity. To Ramtha, who inspired me to write this book and from
whom I have learned enough to think about for a hundred lifetimes.
To the students at RSE, who live their lives with a passion for
adventure and a love of God. I am always inspired by their
dedication to the great work.
My gratitude to Amit Goswami, Ph.D., for his brilliant intellectual
mind, true compassion, and willingness to be an individual. You are
a maverick. Thank you as well to Nick Pappas, M.D., Margie Pappas,
R.N., M.S., and John Kucharczyk, Ph.D., who played an important
role in informing me about the brain, mind, and body.
I want to personally thank John and Katina Dispenza and my
mother, Fran Dispenza, for having strong shoulders to lean on. And
finally, a profound thank you should be written across the sky to my
lovely lady Roberta Brittingham, for naturally being and living
everything that I have tried to explain in this book. I am always
inspired by your humility and greatness.
 FOREWORD

S ince you are holding this book in your hand, you may already
be aware of the paradigm shift that is going on in science. In
the old paradigm, your consciousness—you—is regarded as an
epiphenomenon of your brain. In the new paradigm, your
consciousness is the ground of being and your brain is the
epiphenomenon. Feel better? Then you are ready to reap the benefit
of this book.
If consciousness is the primary ground and brain is secondary,
then it is natural to ask how to use the brain in an optimal fashion
to fulfill the purpose of consciousness and its evolution. The new
paradigm research has been going on for a while, but this is the first
book that addresses this question and brilliantly guides you toward
that end. Truly, Dr. Joe Dispenza has written a user’s manual par
excellence for the brain, from the new primacy-of-consciousness
perspective.
Dr. Dispenza, not being a quantum physicist, does keep the
primacy of consciousness implicit, not explicit, until the very end of
the book. Because it requires quantum physics to see the primacy of
consciousness explicitly, it may be useful for you, dear reader, to
receive a little background information from a quantum physicist;
hence, this foreword.
To go back to the beginning of the new paradigm revolution,
quantum physics has a fundamental interpretational problem. It
depicts objects not as determined “things,” but as waves of
possibility. How do these possibilities become actual “things” of our
experience when we observe or “measure” them? If you think that
our brain—being the site of us, or our consciousness—has the
capacity to change possibility into actuality, think again. According
to quantum physics, the brain itself consists of quantum possibilities
before we measure it, before we observe with it. If we, our
consciousness, were a brain product, we would be possibilities as
well, and our “coupling” with the object would change neither the
object nor us (our brain) from possibility to actuality. Face it!
Possibility coupled to possibility only makes a bigger possibility.
The paradox only thickens if you think of yourself dualistically—
you as a nonmaterial dual entity, not bound by quantum laws and
separate from your brain. But if you are nonmaterial, then how do
you interact with your brain, with which you have not a thing in
common? This is dualism, a philosophy intractable as science.
There is a third way of thinking, and this one leads to a paradigm
shift. Your consciousness is the primary fabric of reality, and matter
(including the brain and the object you are observing) exists within
this fabric as quantum possibilities. Your observation consists of
choosing from the possibilities the one facet that becomes the
actuality of your experience. Physicists call this process the collapse
of the quantum possibility wave.
Once you recognize that your consciousness is not your brain but
transcends it, once you recognize that you have the power to choose
among possibilities, you are ready to act on Joe Dispenza’s ideas
and suggestions. It will help additionally to know that the “you”
that chooses is a cosmic you, a state of consciousness available to
you in non-ordinary situations. You reach such states when you
have a creative insight. In those times, you are ready to make
changes in your brain circuits. Dr. Dispenza shows you how.
There is another reason that I think Dr. Joe Dispenza’s book is a
welcome addition to the growing literature of the new paradigm of
science: he emphasizes the importance of paying attention to
emotions. You may already have heard the phrase emotional
intelligence. What does that mean? First of all, it means that you
don’t have to fall prey to your emotions. You do because you are
attached to them; or as Joe Dispenza would say, “You are attached
to the brain circuits connected with the emotions.”
There is a story that when Albert Einstein was leaving Nazi
Germany for America, his wife became very concerned that she had
to leave behind so much furniture and other household items. “I am
attached to them,” she complained to a friend. To this, Einstein
joked, “But my dear, they are not attached to you.”
This is the thing. Emotions are not attached to you; because you
are not your brain, you don’t have to identify with your existing
brain circuits.
With regard to the concept of emotional intelligence, some writers
are a little confused. They talk about emotional intelligence and
how you can develop it, but they also insist that you are nothing but
the brain. The problem in thinking that way is that the brain is
already set up in a hierarchical relationship with the emotions.
Emotional intelligence is possible only if you can change this
existing hierarchy, only if you are not part of that hierarchy. Joe
Dispenza recognizes the primacy of you, your consciousness, over
your brain, and by doing so, he gives you some useful advice about
emotional intelligence, about how to change your existing brain
circuits and hierarchies.
Gandhi’s wife was once asked by a journalist how Gandhi could
accomplish so much. “Simple,” said the wife. “Gandhi is congruent
in regards to his speech, thought, and action.”
All of us want to be good accomplishers; we want to fulfill the
meaning and purpose of our lives. The crucial challenge is how to
achieve synchrony between speech, thought, and action. Put
another way, the challenge is to integrate thought and emotion. I
believe that the evolution of consciousness demands this from us
right now. Recognizing this, Joe Dispenza has provided
indispensable knowledge on how you can integrate your feelings
and thinking.
I met Dr. Joe for the first time at a What the Bleep Do We Know!?
conference. This movie, as you may know, is about a young woman
who is struggling to change her emotional behavior. In a scene of
catharsis (played beautifully by actress Marlee Matlin), the woman
looks at her image in a mirror and says, “I hate you.” In that
moment she frees herself to choose among quantum possibilities of
change. She goes on to transform her brain circuits, creating a new
state of being and a new life.
You can change your brain circuits, too. You have that power of
quantum choice. We have always had the tools to do this, but only
now have we become aware of how to use them. Dr. Joe Dispenza’s
book, Evolve Your Brain, will help you use your power to choose and
to change. Read this book, use its ideas in your life, and realize your
potential.
—Amit Goswami, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics, University of Oregon,
and author of The Self-Aware Universe
 CHAPTER ONE

BEGINNINGS

But strange that I was not told

That the brain can hold
In a tiny ivory cell
God’s heaven or hell.
—OSCAR WILDE

I invite you to have a single thought, any thought. Whether your

thought was related to a feeling of anger, sadness, inspiration,
joy, or even sexual arousal, you changed your body. You
changed you. All thoughts, whether they be “I can’t,” “I can,” “I’m
not good enough,” or “I love you,” have the same measurable
effects. As you sit casually reading this page, not lifting a single
finger, bear in mind that your body is undergoing a host of dynamic
changes. Triggered by your most recent thought, did you know that
suddenly, your pancreas and your adrenal glands are already busy
secreting a few new hormones? Like a sudden lightning storm,
different areas of your brain just surged with increased electrical
current, releasing a mob of neurochemicals that are too numerous to
name. Your spleen and your thymus gland sent out a mass e-mail to
your immune system to make a few modifications. Several different
gastric juices started flowing. Your liver began processing enzymes
that were not present moments before. Your heart rate fluctuated,
your lungs altered their stroke volume, and blood flow to the
capillaries in your hands and feet changed. All from just thinking
one thought. You are that powerful.