If you can envision what you want, do you believe that the Universe will eventually deliver it you? Well, James R. Doty, M.D., a neurosurgeon and founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, does believe in the power of manifestation. That’s evidenced by the title of his recently released book, Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything. Manifestation is when your make your dreams and goals come true by first picturing them and believing that you can achieve them. But in the book, Doty did write something that at first may sound discouraging: the Universe doesn’t give a bleep about you.
Now, Doty is not the official spokesperson for the Universe. So, what the Universe actually thinks about you may be up for debate. But Doty’s point is that manifesting is not about waiting around for some kind of being or force to grant you what you want. In a conversation, he emphasized to me, “While manifestation has been associated with woo woo and pseudoscience, there is science behind manifestation.” Doty added, “So many people give away their self agency to external things that they manufacture.” Instead, he said, “Belief can actually change things. The most powerful is the power that you need to change things.”
He gave the example of “value tagging,” which allows your brain to better sort through all the stuff it sees every day. Think about how much stuff enters and swirls around your brain every minute, hour and day. There’s no way that your brain can treat all of this stuff with equal value. For example, when you are crossing a street, your brain’s first priority probably is not knowing the names of all the contestants in The Bachelor, what the Kardashians are wearing or who still still thinks the Earth is flat. Instead, your brain should kind of notice that big truck that’s bearing down on you.
Therefore, your brain has to have filters in place to determine what deserves your attention at a given time. Your brain can in effect tag those things deemed worthy of your awareness while letting the less important things flow by unnoticed. So, if you tell the brain what you want—what you really, really want in the words of the Spice Girls—your brain may in turn subsequently tag as valuable any information that is related in any way. This means consciously and subconsciously tagging or assigning a higher value to that information.
Say, for example, you’ve already envisioned yourself being the greatest fruitcake baker in the world someday. Well, your brain could end up tagging anything that matches this vision so that it will be more noticeable. So, even at a very busy event where a funk band is playing, you still may be more likely to notice that a well-known lawyer briefly mentioned his passion for fruitcakes or catch wind of a conversation where people are trying to figure out what to do with 14,325 bags of spare flour. These in turn could lead to, shall we say, very fruitfully opportunities that others could have missed and later on making it seem like realizing your vision was a piece of cake.
Doty described it being like a blood hound, how if you know what you want, you and your senses can cut through the surrounding noise and find the right pieces. “We are who we are because of the sensory data that we get in,” he said. “We are only able to process about 50 to 100 things at a time. Value tagging is the ability to embed your intentions into your subconscious and create the synchronicity that then allow you to have greatest likelihood of manifesting something.”
Then there’s the power of belief itself. The whole placebo effect shows that believing in something can change your physiology. So maybe believing in a vision for the future can help you work that much harder, get you through the pain of surmounting obstacles, improve your senses and thinking and in general change you into a person who is more likely to accomplish that vision. Doty talked about how Tibetan monks have been able to modulate their feelings and how magnetic resonance imaging has shown changes in metabolism when people change their thinking.
Doty did warn that it can matter what specifically you may be pursuing. Going after a self-centered vision that’s all about you may not be the same as pursuing one that benefits many more people. He related details of his own past, one that began with him growing up without a whole lot materially. He then progressed to becoming a neurosurgeon and eventually becoming part of the whole late 1990s dot.com boom and bust in Silicon Valley. “The narrative is that if you attain success, that is equated with happiness,” Doty explained. “Previously, I had no self awareness and knowledge. Before losing millions in dot.com crisis, I had everything, a Ferrari, Porsche, BMW, flying around in private jets, all my friends telling me how great my life was.” He added, though, “I realized that I was focused on the wrong things. It was about doing things that padded my ego and not about being of service.”
He eventually realized that this was a false narrative. Rather than seek external affirmation and validation, it was more important to be of service and establish meaningful relationships. “If it is all about you, you won’t be happy,” he said.
Doty suggested that if your future vision is more altruistic, more beneficial for others, then you may have better chances of achieving it. He pointed out all of the positive physiologic effects of taking a more generous and giving approach to life such as the release of oxytocin, activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, lowering of blood pressure, the boosting of the immune system, and lower production of stress hormones. All of these can help you function more optimally and thus, ding, ding, ding, better achieve what you want to achieve. “When you look at the world through a different lens, it can be quite powerful,” Doty said.
Plus, when it’s not just all about you, others can more readily get on board to help you achieve your vision. After all, if you say, “I want to be really rich and live in that nice condo over there,” how many people will respond, “OK, whatever you want, you’ll help?” Contrast that with you saying, “Here’s how I want to improve the world.” The latter will probably get a lot more takers to then help you.
In the end, unless the Universe has some type of press conference or writes a memoir, no one will know exactly what the Universe wants and thinks of you. But if you are self-centered, you can be pretty darn sure about what others will eventually think of you.
