Overview of "reality" from a transpersonal viewpoint

1. How Consciousness Works
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle
- Many realities exist simultaneously until the act
of observation “selects” the reality then
experienced
- Our focus selects the reality we perceive, and
other “realities” fade
Double-slit Experiment
- waves versus particles
http://www.whatthebleep.com/download/
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2. How the Past Affects the Present
• How we define our past, or our definitions of
our experiences
– Leads to continued reactions to
experience
– Can lead to missing new ways of
responding
– Strengthens the neural nets
– Keeps us locked into habitual ways of
behaving

3. How Consciousness Works
• Emotions as addictions
– Neural Nets
• Neurons that fire together, wire together
• Hormones, neurotransmitters released in a
specific
chemical cocktail
- Becoming the observer of our emotions
Breaks the neural connections
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
Tapping on acupuncture points to break disconnect the
emotions from the stimuli
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4. Constructed Reality
Boeree
• “The perceiver does not construct reality itself;
rather the perceiver constructs an
understanding of reality.”
• Social reality is constructed by our culture
– Common cultural traditions
• We use words to construct our interpretation
of reality
– The constructs can take on a life of their own

5. Memes
• Meme (as opposed to gene) that is “inherited”
in a society (Boeree).
• Cultural beliefs that are passed onto the next
generation
– “Celibacy is to be valued”
– “Obey your elders”
– “This is how you do it”

6. Constructing Our Reality
Words as symbols
– Language creates “boundaries” to our
consciousness
– Definitions of our words create the reality we
construct
– We use words to describe which create
boundaries through dichotomous thinking
• Up/down; in/out; me/not me (you)
• Creates preferences
• Creates separation that is an illusion
“The map is not the territory”

7. Hope
What The Bleep
Do We
Know?!?!?!?
What is Reality?
Do we create our own
O Holy Night (song) reality?

8. Transpersonal
• Instruments of measurement not yet
discovered can impede our knowledge
• Designing appropriate research design
protocols to measure the effectiveness of
subtle energy changes need to be
reconsidered (acupuncture effectiveness)
• Kirlian photography measures energy
signature or corona discharge
– High voltage field interacting with an object
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