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A review by unladylike
Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind by Joe Dispenza
4.0
I put off actually reviewing this powerful (but problematic) book for the past 5 months, and I still feel like I'll need to re-read it and process some of Dispenza's other material before having a settled stance on it. I'm going to just copypasta my personal notes into this review space below, but first I'll give my two strongest competing feelings about it.
1. Overall, I was highly fascinated and affected by the main recommendations and potential for radical life change. I even put the book on pause at one point and wrote by hand (which is very difficult for me with my essential tremors, so I avoid even writing my own name when possible) a bullet point list of characteristics I'd like "Mabel 4.0" to embody. (4.0 because I'll be going into my fourth decade of life in the spring of next year.)
2. Red flags have flown in my mind since I first started learning about Joe Dispenza and the cult-like following he has gained, where millionaires pay absurd amounts of money in order to see him in person and basically be healed like he's a charismatic Pentecostal preacher. He doesn't get into that in this book though. Instead, my inner skeptic became alert by his big personal testimony: At age 23, he had his own successful chiropractic practice, I think in San Diego (one of the most expensive cities to live in); he's a straight, white, cis man who also, by that point in life, had a daily hour-long meditation routine and regularly competed in triathlons (which tend to only be accessible to those with huge, disposable incomes). He only mentions racial disparity once in the whole book, and only to make the point that white people's brains have learned to instinctively respond with a greater sense of fear when seeing a Black man [than when facing a white person). Dispenza completely fails to address his own incredible number of privileges that intersect to allow him to reshape his brain and body through will power.
Those are two of the big take-aways that I hold with tension. Now here are my notes:
I’m amused that key parts of the brain are named after an almond, a seahorse, and a pinecone.
Oh, and it’s a myth that the pineal gland is above the eyes like a “third eye” - it’s actually toward the rear base of the skull! WTF?
The cortical sensory map of the genitals contains more sense receptors than the chest, abdomen, back, shoulders, and arms put together. Significantly more somatosensory receptors in our lips than on our legs, which makes total sense - I use my lips or cheek to feel for air escaping a bike tube, but I frequently bang up my shin and get cut without noticing until much later.
It is the amygdala - the first brain - that allows your body to react to avoid a car accident before you are consciously aware of the danger.
Recent study of a blind man who could detect emotional facial expressions of fear vs happiness vs anger (57% vs 50% of control group, which, meh) suggests that we gauge these primal expressions that tell us vital info for survival using the amygdala rather than anything in the much newer neocortex.
Throughout, the phrase “Neurons that fire together wire together” is the key maxim or at least a sort of mnemonic device. (What’s a good mnemonic device to help me remember how to spell mnemonic?)
Semantic plus experiential knowledge is the key to really knowing something.
Engaging all the senses and having a Person, Place, Time, and Thing = stronger memory. Recall [book:Seeing Is Believing: Experience Jesus Through Imaginative Prayer|287993] and the many guides who encourage vivid imagining of smells, tastes, etc. The tongue and lips have the most sensitive nerves or receptors, (followed by the hands I think). People have been trained to see via their tongue and are capable of reacting and catching a ball (rolled across a table, so I imagine hearing was also involved, but I don’t think he mentions it when talking about this study).
The assertion that we become addicted to our emotions and who we are, the thoughts and behaviors we’ve exhibited, is intriguing. Even the negative emotions, and the particular reactions to particular situations. I keep thinking of Astra playing out scenes of rage, pettiness, and abusive control as a way of behaving they inherited from their parents, and experienced countless times to reinforce it as the go-to behavior, and in some sense, the chemicals released from those outbursts made them feel good, or like themself.
Look for details about the study he mentions with two groups of people doing the same exercises for a number of days, but one of the groups is in a nice, chill state of mind and the other is emotionally distressed over that time period. Allegedly the exercises did almost no good to the angry or disturbed group compared to the physiological and chemical benefits it gave the happy group. Is this an isolated study? Is it repeatable? What were the sample sizes and how did they determine those mind-states? It’s kind of scary and further depressing to think that forcing oneself to exercise while pissed off, heart-broken, etc. doesn’t do as much good as I would have thought.
(not sure if this was from the book - I think it was on someone’s Feeld profile actually lol) There is no moral “good” or “evil” - there is generosity and pettiness. Consciously make a habit of choosing generosity more!
The frontal lobe/prefrontal cortex is THE biggest gift we have developed evolutionarily that other animals lack (in terms of ratio of frontal lobe to the rest of the brain it’s vastly more in humans). It is essentially our driver or steering wheel, but it doesn’t light up from doing the same things we always do. It is key for learning new things and exploring new actions. To break an addiction, we can use our will and direct the frontal lobe to engage in something outside our primary comfort zone. Yay!
1. Overall, I was highly fascinated and affected by the main recommendations and potential for radical life change. I even put the book on pause at one point and wrote by hand (which is very difficult for me with my essential tremors, so I avoid even writing my own name when possible) a bullet point list of characteristics I'd like "Mabel 4.0" to embody. (4.0 because I'll be going into my fourth decade of life in the spring of next year.)
2. Red flags have flown in my mind since I first started learning about Joe Dispenza and the cult-like following he has gained, where millionaires pay absurd amounts of money in order to see him in person and basically be healed like he's a charismatic Pentecostal preacher. He doesn't get into that in this book though. Instead, my inner skeptic became alert by his big personal testimony: At age 23, he had his own successful chiropractic practice, I think in San Diego (one of the most expensive cities to live in); he's a straight, white, cis man who also, by that point in life, had a daily hour-long meditation routine and regularly competed in triathlons (which tend to only be accessible to those with huge, disposable incomes). He only mentions racial disparity once in the whole book, and only to make the point that white people's brains have learned to instinctively respond with a greater sense of fear when seeing a Black man [than when facing a white person). Dispenza completely fails to address his own incredible number of privileges that intersect to allow him to reshape his brain and body through will power.
Those are two of the big take-aways that I hold with tension. Now here are my notes:
I’m amused that key parts of the brain are named after an almond, a seahorse, and a pinecone.
Oh, and it’s a myth that the pineal gland is above the eyes like a “third eye” - it’s actually toward the rear base of the skull! WTF?
The cortical sensory map of the genitals contains more sense receptors than the chest, abdomen, back, shoulders, and arms put together. Significantly more somatosensory receptors in our lips than on our legs, which makes total sense - I use my lips or cheek to feel for air escaping a bike tube, but I frequently bang up my shin and get cut without noticing until much later.
It is the amygdala - the first brain - that allows your body to react to avoid a car accident before you are consciously aware of the danger.
Recent study of a blind man who could detect emotional facial expressions of fear vs happiness vs anger (57% vs 50% of control group, which, meh) suggests that we gauge these primal expressions that tell us vital info for survival using the amygdala rather than anything in the much newer neocortex.
Throughout, the phrase “Neurons that fire together wire together” is the key maxim or at least a sort of mnemonic device. (What’s a good mnemonic device to help me remember how to spell mnemonic?)
Semantic plus experiential knowledge is the key to really knowing something.
Engaging all the senses and having a Person, Place, Time, and Thing = stronger memory. Recall [book:Seeing Is Believing: Experience Jesus Through Imaginative Prayer|287993] and the many guides who encourage vivid imagining of smells, tastes, etc. The tongue and lips have the most sensitive nerves or receptors, (followed by the hands I think). People have been trained to see via their tongue and are capable of reacting and catching a ball (rolled across a table, so I imagine hearing was also involved, but I don’t think he mentions it when talking about this study).
The assertion that we become addicted to our emotions and who we are, the thoughts and behaviors we’ve exhibited, is intriguing. Even the negative emotions, and the particular reactions to particular situations. I keep thinking of Astra playing out scenes of rage, pettiness, and abusive control as a way of behaving they inherited from their parents, and experienced countless times to reinforce it as the go-to behavior, and in some sense, the chemicals released from those outbursts made them feel good, or like themself.
Look for details about the study he mentions with two groups of people doing the same exercises for a number of days, but one of the groups is in a nice, chill state of mind and the other is emotionally distressed over that time period. Allegedly the exercises did almost no good to the angry or disturbed group compared to the physiological and chemical benefits it gave the happy group. Is this an isolated study? Is it repeatable? What were the sample sizes and how did they determine those mind-states? It’s kind of scary and further depressing to think that forcing oneself to exercise while pissed off, heart-broken, etc. doesn’t do as much good as I would have thought.
(not sure if this was from the book - I think it was on someone’s Feeld profile actually lol) There is no moral “good” or “evil” - there is generosity and pettiness. Consciously make a habit of choosing generosity more!
The frontal lobe/prefrontal cortex is THE biggest gift we have developed evolutionarily that other animals lack (in terms of ratio of frontal lobe to the rest of the brain it’s vastly more in humans). It is essentially our driver or steering wheel, but it doesn’t light up from doing the same things we always do. It is key for learning new things and exploring new actions. To break an addiction, we can use our will and direct the frontal lobe to engage in something outside our primary comfort zone. Yay!