There was a time I was haunted by demons in the night. It usually occurred somewhere between 1 and 4 am. These were not the kinds of demons that possessed Regan in The Exorcist nor were they the kind that populated the Paranormal Activity movies. Or maybe they were. Regardless, one night I finally realized that I was manifesting them.
The timeframe for this was the early 2000s. Shortly after our daughter was born she had colic and it was my job to sit in the rocker in her room and rock her back to sleep. Many times we both ended up sleeping in the rocker but on the nights I could not sleep, they came. They would always manifest with just a small thought at first, typically a negative one, which would rapidly grow to an incredibly frightening nightmare – it would always be something like getting fired, losing someone to death or having them have a serious illness, going bankrupt, having massive rejection in some manner, and so forth. This would just further the insomnia and I would be up the rest of the night and now also scared to death that bad things were inevitable.
I will clarify that I never saw any ghostly manifestations of anything. But the horrifying outcomes in my mind were enough to shake me for days and sometimes weeks to come. Such is the power of the subconscious mind.
Your subconscious mind is in its most suggestive state shortly before falling asleep, shortly after waking up or in that middle of the night barely awake timeframe. It was during this time that I was planting small seeds of doubt and insecurity that within minutes they grown to horrifying visions of failure and despair.
“Think good and good follows. Think evil and evil follows. You are what you think all day long,” Joseph Murphy in The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (51).
Do you know that your subconscious is so powerful that it can make you sick? But it also has power to heal you (Murphy 52). I remember I once spent a year at a job that I did not like. Good people worked there but I just did not like the job. During that 365 days, I was sick repeatedly – chronically stomach sick, over and over again. After I left that job the chronic stomach illness went away. I remember that year though, consciously telling myself (and anybody else that would listen) how I did not like going to work. My subconscious was listening and was manifesting a physical situation that allowed me to justifiably stay home and avoid work.
I do not want to take this down the path of the late-night faith healers as I think the vast majority of them are scam artists, however if someone truly has faith, the research is clear, often our bodies will heal themselves if we believe that they can be healed. Its called the Placebo Effect. The Placebo Effect occurs when an individual is given some sort of medicine and told it will heal their ailment but really all they are getting are sugar pills. They don’t know this of course. And despite what I just said about the faith healers a lot of their business model, I believe, is based on the placebo effect. People put so much faith into their “healing powers,” they actually end up healing themselves. You can do the same thing all on your own (and also keep your money in your wallet).
They even see this in medical school, when medical students begin to read about all the various diseases many of them actually start to think they have those diseases. Again, that is our subconscious mind at work.
Even if you’re not buying any of this, its foolish to believe in something that will hurt or harm you as it is not the thing believed in that hurts or harms you, but the belief or thought in your mind that creates the result (Murphy 68) – just like I was creating my nightly visitations. Whatever you pray for in faith you shall receive (Murphy 68). Murphy calls this scientific prayer. It is a form of therapy where you consciously choose a certain idea, mental picture or plan that you desire to experience. Then you convey this idea or mental image to your subconscious by feeling the reality of the state assumed (Murphy 68). Remain faithful in your mental attitude and your prayer or meditation will be answered.
- Anything that leads the patient to honestly believe in the method or process makes healing more likely (Murphy 70).
- Any method that causes you to move from fear and worry to faith and expectancy will result in healing (Murphy 70).
- For a effective healing of the body it is best to align both the conscious and subconscious mind to a state of fully accepting faith (Murphy 72). But Murphy notes this is not essential. Your subconscious can continue to manifest a conscious thought you had at one point, even while outwardly you may not continue to believe it. Ever had a situation where you initially thought about something and how cool it would be to achieve it and you even visualized a little bit, then you dismissed it consciously – but then, later on you achieved it. That is your subconscious at work. It doesn’t have to work so hard if you can align your conscious and subconscious though.
For healing and good health try this affirmation: “Every cell, nerve, tissue, and organ is now being made whole, pure and perfect. My whole body is being restored to health and harmony,” (Murphy 75). Say this a few times before going to bed, then release your conscious mind from it and let your subconscious go to work – having faith that you will be healed and your body will be restored. We know that our bodies are constantly renewing themselves so like any good architect do yourself a favor and visualize the new type of “structure” that you want (Murphy 83). Techniques to use with these incantations are:
- Visualization: see the result in your minds eye as if it were alive today. Just like the architect has a picture in his or her mind of the completed building (Murphy 83). I’ve learned both Murphy and I use this visualization technique prior to speaking before an audience. I picture the entire room, it seats filled with men and women who are eager to hear what I have to say. I can even visualize hecklers and naysayers, and then I visualize handling them like an aikido master, turning their negative energy into a positive force in the room. I envision laughing with the audience and having a good time.
- Mental-Movie Method: being an only child I am really good at this one. Without siblings I would often spend hours and hours by myself, envisioning these amazing worlds and seeing myself as the hero of my stories. Some people call this “fake it till you make it.” Act as though you are and you will be (Murphy 84).
- The Baudoin Technique: Charles Baudoin was a psychotherapist and professor at the Rousseau Institute in France. He discovered that the best way to impress the subconscious mind was to enter into a drowsy or sleepy state and convey an idea in a quiet, passive and receptive way by condensing the idea to a brief phrase, repeated over and over as a lullaby (Murphy 85-86). This is similar to the incantation technique Anthony Robbins uses. However, Robbins whips up his attendees into a frenzy and has them repeat the incantation and adds a power move (I was having a hard time getting a lot out of this experience at the Date with Destiny seminar, as the power move for the guy in front of me was some complicated martial arts sequence so I was just trying not to get hit). For some people it might help to get into “a peak state,” as Robbins puts it, for others, like me, it actually helps to have a quiet suggestion (or incantation) before I go to sleep and a running mental movie when I’m awake. My wife still uses her incantations and says them during her workout. My mind wanders when I try to do that, so it’s easier for me to wait until my mind is at rest and not chasing every shiny thing it sees.
- The Sleeping Technique: before reading this section I was pretty sure this is how I got through college. I think it was called studying by osmosis. The technique (Murphy 86-87) is very similar to the Baudoin technique where you enter into a relaxed state and quietly say an incantation over and over such as “I am completely free of this habit; harmony and peace of mind reign supreme.” Or in my case with my Aerodynamics class, “oooommmm, Force equals Mass times Acceleration. . . oooommmm…”
- The Thank You Technique: this one is about gratitude. It is repeating every night and morning for several weeks “thank you for my (health), (wealth), (happiness)” whatever (Murphy 88). If you’re a believer in a religion, you can add “thank you God,” (in whatever form you envision). Many people do this with their evening or even morning prayers.
- The Affirmative Method: to affirm is to state that it is so (Murphy 90). This method is very specific and focused. It’s much longer than the typical incantation and is similar in nature to the Evangelical prayers I’ve heard some of my friends use: “Father, we just ask that you bring Betty Sue to health, that you bless her doctors and steady their hands, and that her body is now transforming at this very moment. . . “
- The Argumentative Method: this method gets back to our Saturday night faith healer. You essentially convince yourself that your sickness is due to false beliefs, groundless fears and negative patterns lodged in your subconscious mind. And then you convince yourself (or another who is suffering) that your mind re-creates the body constantly, and it knows how to heal itself and is doing so now as you speak (Murphy 90-91).
And if one of these methods does not work, heck, try them all, what have you got to lose?
So how did I eventually exorcise my demons? Whenever the initial thought occurred I would refocus on something else, anything else. Often times I would do a little time traveling and think back to be particularly event in my past or a fun time period in my life. I would replay that time period in my mind and if that movie ended I would jump to another one. It usually didn’t take too long and I was right back asleep – the demons fled, vanquished for yet another night.
Murphy, Joseph, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. New York: Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.
