Becoming Supernatural: How Common People are Doing the Uncommon

Chapter 1 begins with an anecdote about Anna, a psychotherapist. When she receives news that her husband has died by suicide, the “the hormones of stress [overtake] her” (2), triggering a downward spiral of negative physical and mental health complications. She develops neuritis, an inflammation of the peripheral nervous system that paralyzes her from the waist down, in addition to a bacterial infection and eventually esophageal cancer. Overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, and depression in addition to her ill health, Anna eventually attends one of Dr. Dispenza’s meditation retreats and resolves to heal herself through meditation. Through consistent efforts to change her unconscious habits and thought patterns, she begins to see dramatic improvements in her physical health.

Dispenza recounts Anna’s story to explain how stress and living in “survival mode” has a profound negative impact on the physical body. When a person perceives a stressful or threatening situation, the sympathetic nervous system takes over and diverts the body’s resources toward reacting to and dealing with the threat. Organisms can deal with this stress response in the short-term, but humans often live in a chronic state of stress by ruminating on their problems, reliving past events, and forecasting future worst-case scenarios. Emotions, Dispenza explains, are “chemical consequences of past experiences” (3); when a strong emotion causes a chemical change in the body, the brain pays attention to the event that caused it and stores the outer experience as a memory. The memory of an event can become imprinted in the brain, and subsequently, the emotion of the experience can become stuck in the body. Thus, when a person experiences a traumatic event, they can become biologically stuck in the past. Anna, in reliving the tragedy of her husband’s death, repeatedly created the stress response and the negative emotions associated with it. Through regularly practicing meditation, she was able to transcend these negative patterns—a transformation that Dispenza calls “becoming supernatural.”

Becoming supernatural encompasses more than fixing physical health—it also includes gaining a greater awareness of oneself. Dispenza goes on to tell a personal anecdote describing his own meditation. He had a profound experience where he viewed his past, present, and future selves simultaneously, and his attention was brought to his pineal gland. This experience granted him the understanding that time was not linear as he understood it, but that “everything is happening in an eternal present moment” with infinite possibilities (17). In another meditation, he experienced what he interprets as a partial incarnation of himself.

Dispenza claims that mastering the concept of the present moment—“the eternal now” (27)—is key to becoming supernatural. Not thinking about the past or the future is the basis of this idea, but Chapter 2 aims to provide a deeper understanding that challenges traditional ideas about time, reality, and the physical body.

He begins with a neuroscientific understanding of how the brain functions by explaining that the “mind is the brain in action” and that a different “mind” is activated for every specific task (27), meaning that specific groups of neurons fire together. Learning or having new experiences causes neurons to form synaptic connections, and these synaptic connections form larger neurological networks, leaving a biological imprint in the brain. Experiences also create emotions, which leave even stronger imprints and form long-term memories that maintain the connections between neurons. When a person has a thought or recalls a memory, this triggers a biochemical reaction and the brain releases chemicals, creating emotions that correspond to the thought or memory. That feeling in turn generates more corresponding thoughts, creating a loop.

This thinking-feeling loop produces an electromagnetic field around the physical body. Dispenza describes emotions as “energy in motion” (33), with different emotions creating different frequencies; positive, creative emotions produce higher frequencies than emotions of stress. Therefore, people can change their lives by changing their energy and thus changing the electromagnetic field they produce. Directing one’s energy into the past by placing attention on familiar emotions or memories, or into the predictable future by thinking about future tasks and obligations, leaves little energy left to create an experience in the present moment. Dispenza challenges the reader to change where they put their energy and attention, investing it in the unknown—in a potential new experience in the future—rather than the known.

He goes on to explore epigenetics, which is the study of how external factors can alter the expression of genes. In this case, Dispenza argues, the expression of a person’s genes can also be affected by their “internal” environment—their emotions. The internal chemistry generated by emotions, he posits, can up-regulate or down-regulate certain genes. Thus, by changing their emotions, a person can change the expression of their genes, as this sends a new chemical signal to their DNA. Long-term stress down-regulates the healthy expression of genes and can lead to disease, and the body can become chemically addicted to these stress hormones and negative emotions. Thus, a person can become addicted to the very things causing them problems, and it becomes difficult to think in new ways. Being in the present moment involves taking attention off the material world, including the factors that are causing stress, and weakening one’s attachments to it.

He then goes on to explain brain waves. During waking hours, most people are in beta-frequency waves. Alpha brainwaves correspond to a relaxed, almost trance-like state. Theta brainwaves are associated with the stage just before sleep and the deep stages of meditation. Delta brainwaves are the lowest and slowest brainwaves, associated with deep sleep and dreaming. Switching from high-range beta into alpha and then theta during meditation is challenging for many people, but doing so is how a person can disconnect from their body, environment, and time and connect to the present moment.

Meditation is about recognizing when thoughts start to stray to memories or future worries and bringing the mind back to the present moment. Persevering at this allows a person to step into the unknown, taking their energy and power back. Being in this “generous” present moment builds a person’s energy field and gives them more energy to create the future they want.

Once a person disconnects from the physical reality, they enter the quantum field, which Dispenza defines as “the realm of infinite possibility” beyond the senses (61), an invisible field of energy and information that governs all laws of nature and where nothing physical or material exists. However, the quantum field is not empty—it is filled with frequency. This space of invisible energy is where all possibilities exist.

Dispenza then describes how scientists discovered the quantum universe. Researchers found that atoms are made up of a nucleus surrounded by a large field that contains electrons. This field is so large that it appears to be empty space but is made up of energetic frequencies. The electrons “exist simultaneously in an infinite number of possibilities or probabilities” (63), moving and behaving in a completely unpredictable fashion. The field of energy collapses into an electron only when an observer focuses attention on it. When the observer looks away, it disappears back into energy. Thus, Dispenza posits, physical matter cannot exist until it is observed.

To connect this concept back to mind: if a person continues their usual thought patterns, they collapse the infinite fields of energy into habitual patterns of information. By contrast, if a person is able to take their attention off of the physical, material world and place it only on the present moment, they can enter the quantum field where all possibilities exist, and they can create new experiences and possibilities in their lives.

Slipping into this state creates measurable changes in the brain. Thinking is no longer “compartmentalized” and the brain functions more coherently—when a person connects to the unified field as an awareness, brain and biology become more whole. When brain waves are incoherent, by contrast, the brain sends mixed and erratic electrochemical signals that make it function inefficiently. Another change is the brainwaves move into slower frequencies—alpha and theta—which make the brain connect with the autonomic nervous system to promote healing in the body.

Once a person has tuned into the present moment through meditation, where all possibilities and potentials exist, those potentials are turned into reality with clear intention (getting clear and specific about one’s desired outcome) and elevated emotion (tapping into positive emotions one anticipates feeling when their intention manifests: joy, excitement, gratitude, awe, love). Elevated emotions contribute to the body’s energy field, whereas stress emotions such as fear and anger take from it. The electromagnetic signal sent out as a result of clear intention and elevated emotions draws in potentials and experiences that are an energetic match.

Since all possibilities exist in the unified field, the meditation practice involves becoming aware of what already exists and bringing it to life with attention and intention (75). Dispenza asserts that, with regular practice, one can tune into this potential more easily and more frequently. He provides the example of his son Jace, who practiced this consistently and created a new job for himself using his clear intention and elevated emotions.

Dispenza offers the reader the same exercise he offered to his son, which prompts them to get clear about their intention by writing down exactly what they want to manifest and identifying the emotions that would come with that experience. He then ends the chapter with instructions for the meditation practice.