The key ideas

Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon

Joe Dispenza, 2017

What happens when hundreds of people meditate for hours in one room while instruments record their brains and hearts? Joe Dispenza takes you inside his advanced workshops: the generous present, blessing the energy centers, heart coherence and movies of the future. You will learn the practice itself step by step and see where the book shows measurements and where it shows the author's belief.

Who it is for

For anyone who has tried meditation and wants to know what Dispenza actually does at his workshops. And for anyone drawn to his practice who still wants to tell measurements apart from bold theories.

If you can't get beyond your stress, your problems and your pain, you can't create a new future where they no longer exist.

The woman stuck in one day

Anna's husband took his own life, and from that day her life began to fall apart. Again and again, hundreds of times a day, her mind went back to that scene. Her body lived as if the disaster were happening right now. One morning she woke up and could not move her legs. The doctors found neuritis, an inflammation of the nerves: her immune system was attacking her own nerve tissue. We will find out how it all ended in the last chapter.

Joe Dispenza tells this story at the start of Becoming Supernatural, published in 2017. The book grew out of the advanced workshops he has run since 2012. There, hundreds of people meditate for hours while his team records their brains and hearts. The book is about what, in the author's view, happens when an ordinary person steps beyond their familiar self.

The author's main idea is a bold one. As long as your attention is taken up by the past and a familiar future, you keep living the same life over and over. But if you learn to disappear from that story for a while and step into the present, you can, Dispenza says, tune in to a completely different future and even change your body.

A word on status right away. The book sets real measurements and meditation practices side by side with explanations science does not support: about the quantum field, the pineal gland as an antenna, healings. We will mark which is which. You will get the author's practice step by step and a clear sense of what in it you can test for yourself.

No body, no one, no thing, nowhere, no time

Dispenza notices that people spend most of the day somewhere else. Either they replay the past, or they rehearse a future that is really a copy of the past: the same meetings, the same worries, the same evening. There is almost no present in a day like that.

For the author, the present is special. He calls it the generous present. In his view, only the present has room for possibilities that have never existed before. To get there, for a while you have to forget the five things you usually lean on: your body, the people around you, things, place and time. Becoming no body, no one, no thing, nowhere, in no time: that is how he describes the goal of meditation.

This sounds strange until you remember how you lose track of time doing something you love. The author means the same thing, only on purpose and for longer. The body is used to being in charge, so at first it pushes back: your nose itches, tomorrow's errands pop up, you want to check your phone.

Dispenza's advice is simple. Every time your attention drifts to a familiar thought, gently bring it back to the present. That return is the training. The longer you can stay in the moment without your usual story about yourself, the less, in the author's view, your body runs you.

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About the author

Joe Dispenza is an American chiropractor, lecturer and author of books on the brain, meditation and change. He runs workshops around the world.

All books by this author: Joe Dispenza

Terms from the book

  • melatonin
  • Cerebrospinal fluid
  • Heart rate variability
  • Neuritis: Inflammation of a nerve. In Anna's story, as the author tells it, her immune system was attacking her own nerve tissue.
  • Generous present: An image from the book, not a scientific term: the moment that, in the author's view, holds room for possibilities that have not happened yet.
  • Fehmi: Les Fehmi was an American psychologist who studied attention and biofeedback for many years and created the practice called open focus.
  • Open focus: Les Fehmi's attention practice: instead of narrowing in on an object, you sense the space around and inside your body.
  • Electroencephalogram: A recording of the brain's electrical activity through sensors on the scalp, known as an EEG.
  • Alpha rhythm: Electrical waves in the brain at about 8 to 12 cycles per second, typical of calm wakefulness.
  • Quantum field: For Dispenza, an image of a field of all possibilities that a person “tunes in” to. This is the author's model: physics does not use the term in that sense.
  • Chakras: Energy centers of the body in Indian spiritual traditions. Anatomy has no such concept.
  • Energy center: A concept from the book: one of eight points along the body and above the head that the author links to nerve plexuses and glands.
  • Nerve plexus: A knot where nerves meet and intertwine, such as the solar plexus in the upper belly.
  • HeartMath: The HeartMath Institute is an American nonprofit founded in 1991 that studies heart rhythm, stress and emotions.
  • Coherence: Heart coherence is a HeartMath term: a smooth, gently wave-like heart rhythm pattern that appears with calm, positive feelings.
  • Mind Movie: A short personal video of pictures, captions and music about the future you want, which the author suggests watching every day.
  • Pineal gland: Also called the epiphysis: a tiny gland deep in the brain that produces melatonin.
  • Calcite: A mineral, one of the forms of calcium carbonate. Tiny crystals of it are found in the human pineal gland.
  • Transcendental Meditation: A meditation technique based on repeating a mantra, spread by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Its followers ran experiments with group meditation.

All terms

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