Is there a part of our brain that is in touch with other dimensions of reality, beyond what can be perceived by our physical senses?
This question has often crossed my mind because of numerous instances of individuals able to do things that no ordinary person can do. I myself have done some of these extraordinary, almost miraculous things.
I am not talking here about psychics or clairvoyants with extraordinary powers, but of ordinary people who may not be able to repeat those extraordinary feats.
For example, there are people who can go out of their physical bodies, visit distant places and describe them as if they were really there. And there are instances when these “astral” travelers were seen by other people. What enables them to do this?
Also, there are instances when a person is able to tell accurately what is going to happen, either moments before they happen or several weeks earlier. Often, such predictions of future events are seen in dreams while they are asleep.
We have often heard of cases where individuals have seen dead relatives (say, grandparents) they had never met before, and described them accurately. They died before such individuals were even born.
There are also individuals called mediums or channels who can see and talk with various spirits from different dimensions—from elemental creatures to spirit guides and angelic beings.
Why can some do these and others cannot? Are their neurons or brain cells differently wired, compared to most individuals?
Altered state
Neuroscientists or brain specialists do not yet have answers to such questions. So, they deny such abilities exist. But one theory that seems to make sense to me is that some people are able to either spontaneously or deliberately go into an altered state of consciousness to enter such seemingly impossible modes of perception.
I have observed that faith healers who perform psychic surgery or those who walk on fire or have themselves crucified are in an altered state of consciousness, which makes them immune to bodily pain and other normal biological processes.
One need not even be aware that he or she is in such an altered state to be able to perform extraordinary things with their mind. For example, the world famous Isaraeli psychic, Uri Geller, who became famous for his ability to bend metallic spoons through telekinesis (i.e. without physical effort) told me when I met him in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1994 that when he is bending a spoon, he does not go into a trance or meditate or fast or do anything different. He simply does it by telling the spoon to bend, and it bends.
But neuroscientist Dr. Adrija Puharich of Stanford Research Institute (now called SRI International) wrote in a book that when Uri Geller was bending a spoon, under the watchful eyes of scientists at SRI, his brain was registering the delta wave, which ranges from almost zero to four cycles per second. He should be asleep but he was fully awake. So one can be in an altered state without knowing it.
I think the same thing happens to our faith healers while they are performing psychic surgery. They are not aware they are in a trance or in an altered state of consciousness.
I observed, for example, a very well-known faith healer in Baguio City who was even chewing gum while performing psychic operation on a foreign patient lying on the table in front of him, completely oblivious to the fact he was being filmed by a French TV crew. I had to motion to him to throw the gum in his mouth, which he did. He did not appear at all to be in a trance or altered state of consciousness.
Perhaps in the future, as neuroscientists continue to probe the mysteries of the human brain and its tremendous capabilities, we may be able to get answers to these questions and understand better how our brains are able to access knowledge not available under ordinary states of consciousness.
The next Inner Mind Development seminar is on Sept. 3-4, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Call 810-7245 or 0998-9886292; e-mail jaimetlicauco@yahoo.com.