55 pages • 1 hour read
Joe DispenzaBecoming Supernatural: How Common People are Doing the Uncommon
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 11-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “Space-Time and Time-Space”
In this chapter, Dispenza contrasts Newtonian physics and quantum physics to explore two different models of reality: space-time and time-space.
According to astrophysicists, there is an infinite amount of space in the known universe. Newtonian physics (or classical mechanics) is based on “[t]he measurement of the time it takes an object to move through space” (220)—in other words, its foundation is known and predictable outcomes based on an object’s physical properties, including force, acceleration, direction, speed, etc. are apparent. In the “space-time” model, humans experience time as they move through space and experience three-dimensional reality through the senses. Dispenza posits that the space-time model of reality creates separation between an individual and their desires.
Time-space, by contrast, is the nonphysical quantum world, made of unknowns, possibilities, energy, and the “multiverse” (as opposed to the “uni-verse” people inhabit). While the universe contains an infinite amount of space, the multiverse contains an infinite amount of time.
Dispenza argues that people are “enslaved” to the material dimension because they define themselves by their experiences in the material world, placing their focus more on matter and less on energy. He reviews that stress draws from the electromagnetic field around the body. This makes an individual feel more like matter and less like energy, and thus the outer world feels more real than one’s inner world. The more an individual lives in stress, the more they are “matter trying to affect matter” and the more they experience separation from the future they want (225). In the external world, humans experience time as linear, with past, present, and future occupying separate moments. This experience of time as linear causes people to experience more lack, because they experience separation from what they are trying to create. By contrast, in the quantum, time is eternal and non-linear. Thus, in this space, one can experience many dimensional realities.
Connecting to the quantum realm, as Dispenza reviews from Chapters 2 and 3, requires going beyond the physical body and the material world to become pure consciousness, to become “no body, no one, no thing, no where, and in no time” (228). He cites research that shows that taking attention off the material world and instead opening one’s focus causes the brain to work more coherently, causing people to feel more whole. The heart also becomes more rhythmic and coherent, and the autonomic nervous system becomes activated to restore order in the body.
Dispenza returns to the model of the atom presented earlier, contrasting the classical model and the quantum model. Electrons, he explains, exist as an invisible cloud of energy surrounding an atom, and the act of observation is what collapses the electron from potential energy and possibility into known, observable matter.
To go from space-time to time-space, Dispenza explains, one needs to cross a bridge or a threshold from matter to energy. The speed of light is what converts matter into energy, proven by Einstein’s theory of special relativity. He explores Alain Aspect’s “Bell test” experiments, which showed “that there is a unifying field of information existing beyond three-dimensional space and time that connects all matter” (239). Connecting to this unifying field through meditation will cause an individual to feel less separation and more oneness and unity with everything and everyone.
In becoming pure consciousness and connecting to this unified field, Dispenza talks about a “loving intelligence” that is personal and universal and can restore order and balance in the physical body—its nature is to organize matter in a more coherent way. Once an individual reaches this state of wholeness and oneness, they perceive less separation between themselves and their dreams and can theoretically manifest and create anything. Remaining aware of the unified field can invite unknowns into one’s life in the form of serendipity, opportunities, coincidences, and luck. Dispenza ends the chapter with another meditation practice that aims to help the reader connect to this unified field.
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Pineal Gland”
In this chapter, Dispenza explains the function of the pineal gland. He first explains four states of consciousness: wakefulness, during which an individual is awake and conscious; sleep, a state of unconsciousness during which the body is repairing and restoring; dreaming—an altered state when the body is still but the mind is engaged; and what he calls “transcendental” moments of consciousness, which can alter the way an individual looks at the world. He then explores the function of melatonin, the “dreaming neurotransmitter.” When it gets dark, the pineal gland transmutes serotonin into melatonin through a process called methylation. Melatonin slows down the brain waves from beta to alpha and makes an individual tired and less analytical. As the body falls asleep, the brain waves move to theta and then to delta, inducing dreams and restorative sleep.
There is an inverse relationship between adrenal hormones and melatonin—when cortisol increases in the body, melatonin decreases. Thus, the body cannot rest in a hypervigilant state and the body’s homeostasis is disturbed. If an individual lowers their cortisol levels, overcoming their body’s addiction to stress chemicals, levels of melatonin will increase. In addition to its role in promoting restorative sleep, melatonin has a host of other benefits, including improving carbohydrate metabolism and helping with depression.
Dispenza refers to the pineal gland as an “alchemist”; it transmutes melatonin into powerful neurotransmitters such as benzodiazepines (chemicals that induce relaxation in the body), pinolines (powerful antioxidants), and other chemicals that can induce profound experiences during meditation. The pineal gland also works in tandem with the pituitary gland, which produces oxytocin and vasopressin.
Activating the pineal gland allows an individual to have high-energy, mystical experiences, access higher levels of information, and move from space-time to time-space. This leads to an elevated level of awareness as well as elevated emotions. The brain stores these experiences as long-term memories which, to review from Chapter 2, lead to changes in one’s internal state and habitual ways of being.
At the end of the chapter, Dispenza shares a meditation practice designed to help the reader tune into higher dimensions and activate their pineal gland to induce an intense internal experience.
Chapters 11-12 Analysis
These two chapters of Becoming Supernatural are dense with scientific information and terminology, but the practices and examples presented throughout the previous chapters have presumably prepared the reader to understand the topics discussed in this section. Joe Dispenza shares this more complicated information about quantum physics and the biological functions of the pineal gland in the last half of the book rather than frontload the reader with scientific explanations early on; this makes the information less overwhelming and ensures the reader is properly primed by the tangible examples and glimpses into these topics provided in the previous chapters, thus aiding reader understanding and engagement.
The theme explored perhaps most prevalently in this section is Quantum Physics and Consciousness. Chapter 11 goes into great detail about the quantum realm, contrasting it with the physical, material realm humans inhabit. By covering Newtonian/classical mechanics, based on known and predictable outcomes, and contrasting it with the immaterial quantum realm, dealing with uncertainty and possibility, the reader is urged to reconsider conventional notions of reality, expanding their definition to include realms beyond what human senses can perceive. Dispenza navigates the tension between the obscure, abstract nature of the quantum realm and the objective, empirical tone his book aims to cultivate by citing famous scientists and their experiments and theories, including Einstein’s theory of relativity, and Alain Aspect’s Bell test experiments. Giving words to the abstract quantum realm, which exists beyond human comprehension and senses, is an elusive endeavor, but Dispenza illuminates the strides that human sciences have made toward understanding it.
Building further on this theme, after exploring the current scientific understanding of the quantum field, Dispenza discusses how to connect to it and why this is key to becoming supernatural. This theme is thus inextricably linked with The Importance of Meditation and Mindfulness; the only way to access this realm of infinite possibility is to go beyond one’s attachments to the physical, material world and to become pure consciousness. To become pure consciousness means to exist only as an awareness—disconnecting from one’s physical body, personality, possessions, relationships, and position in time and space. Dispenza posits here that in the process of disconnecting from the self, one can connect to a higher, unifying intelligence and thus access infinite possibility. Dispenza reiterates that this requires connecting to the eternal present moment through meditation, intention, and elevated emotions.
Chapter 12 explores The Importance of Meditation and Mindfulness in more depth by explaining some of the biological processes behind mystical experiences. Dispenza devotes an entire chapter to the pineal gland, which in some spiritual traditions is considered a gateway between the physical and material worlds; its production of melatonin and thus its connection to dreaming and to light-dark cycles has led to its spiritual associations. Dispenza also explores other cultural associations of the pineal gland through symbology, drawing comparisons to the ancient Egyptian symbol the Eye of Horus, and the Fibonacci sequence, a pattern also known as the golden spiral that appears nearly everywhere in nature. Thus, Dispenza explores the role of the pineal gland through both a biological and spiritual/cultural lens, giving empirical backing to ancient spiritual ideas about the body and its connection to a higher intelligence.
In some of the case studies and stories presented in previous chapters, Dispenza alludes to profound mystical and supernatural experiences that include vibrant imagery and intense, elevated emotions. He now explains that this is largely the function of the pineal gland transducing melatonin into neurotransmitters that induce these intense experiences, including a powerful phosphorescent chemical that increases energy in the nervous system. These experiences are extremely lucid and realistic, and as previous chapters have explained, the brain cannot tell the difference between a real, external experience and an imagined, internal experience. Thus, these experiences and the elevated emotions associated with them are stored in the brain as long-term experiences, thus reconditioning the body and leading to changes in internal state. This is indicative of The Power of the Mind Over the Body. Intentionally inducing these high-energy experiences by activating the pineal gland to produce melatonin through meditation has a host of positive health benefits and causes one’s biology to function in a more coherent fashion.
