Visualization & Manifestation: Truth or BS?

In today's video, we're diving into the often-discussed yet sometimes misunderstood concepts of manifestation and visualization. We'll explore the intricacies of effective visualization techniques, shedding light on a topic that happens to be both my least and most favorite.

Join us as we dissect the art of visualization, aiming to bridge the gap between mere daydreaming and purposeful manifestation. The goal is to provide a clearer understanding of how to harness the power of visualization effectively.

▼ Timestamps ▼
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00:10 - The power of visualization is kind of BS
01:41 - Quantum mysticism
04:24 - Interpretations of manifesting the universe
06:07 - An unbelievable study on visualization
08:25 - The Placebo and Nocebo Effect
10:15 - Visualization fosters resilience
12:37 - Visualization and Imagination
16:15 - The basics of visualization
19:10 - Recommended viewing materials
19:37 - Dr. K’s opinion on visualization
24:25 - We need to be scientifically humble
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#healthygamergg #visualization #manifestation

[Bauldi]

It feels more like a personal mental confidence booster. Like you'd do the thing better by just thinking you can than you can't

[Polyphemus]

Dr K!
About five years ago, I attended a support group that was led by a man who'd studied religions, philosophy, psychology...a very intelligent and eloquent man. He also led a beginner's meditation group, which I sucked up like a sponge. Then. He was transferred to another organization. Gone. I still meditate, and sometimes use visualization, just to see myself getting off my posterior, and catching a bus.
Oh yeah - I'm 75 years old, and inactive. All of my family and friends are gone. I'm pretty much in a constant state of grief and depression, now.

Losing Dr Relph was in line with one of my own strongly held cynical 'beliefs' - "Whenever the Universe sees how much I enjoy something, it stops producing it."

Finding your YouTube videos is influencing a new belief: "Yeah, true, but it might just replace it with something useful, when you're not looking." You're my new bestie now. I spend much more time bingeing your vids than doing anything else. SO much better for my outlook than the 'true crime and real horror' vids I got hooked on during Covid.

Thank you! You're helping me find my way back.

[Roaming]

'Visualizing myself as a failure;' I've never viewed it that way. Thank you so much for helping me change perspective for the better!

[reverendsteveii]

Dr K: *studies techniques that are literally as old as the concept of civilization*

Western medicine: "Oh you're into that trendy new-age stuff huh?"

[michelleheegaard]

Im totally on the same page. Im a skeptic when it comes to these things but man... the amount of stuff (including food) that I've "manifested". Like I have had SO many experiences of thinking things like: "I could really use some bananas right now". And a few hours later, I find a bunch of bananas that someone dropped on the road outside. It's not like finding bananas where I live is a regular occurrence. This has happened with all kinds of furniture as well. It sounds like a joke but it really isn't. And this has happened A LOT by now. In the last 6 months, it has happened at least 7 times ... a few weird coincidences I can explain away but this often? I don't know... it's very specific stuff that is showing up as well. Things that I have never (or very rarely) seen dropped outside before or since.
Another example: a few months back I was going through a REALLY hard time. Like truly the darkest phase of my life. I prayed to God/the universe for a sign. Just anything to help me keep going. And I literally found a pillow in the trash the next day with the words "Everything will be alright" written across it... it's been on my couch since and it was right. So, yeah... I believe there's some weird connectivity stuff going on, even if the logical part of my brain is fighting against it.

[humanbeing]

I’ll be completely honest, speaking as someone not in medicine, visualization sounds like self inflicted priming. For those unaware priming is the effect of being psychologically primed can make you act in line with that priming. Example being that when prompted with words that are related to aging (retirement, senior citizens, gray hair, etc.) participants ended up walking slower down the hallways outside the test room as opposed to the control. Another example from my psych text book was that Asian women did better on an academic test when asked to identify their ethnicity before the test as opposed to their gender. This is due to the positive and negative connotations of those groups in relation to academic environments. Visualization simply accomplishes the same task on a specific individual level as opposed to a general identity level.

The manifestation stuff sounds like confirmation bias honestly. In the airplane example one of two scenarios was going to happen. The plane takes off on time or it doesn’t. In either scenario a claim can be made that one of the parties manifested the outcome. Either you manifested that the plane would take off on time and so it does or your wife manifested a delay and so it was. Neither outcome would have disproven your view so in effect all you’ve done is reinforce a narrative about the world. Not saying that that narrative can’t help you or that you’re actively harming yourself but you’re essentially playing slots against the universe and every success you get you claim to be evidence your system works.

A purely scientific explanation for this would be that visualization/priming provides an outlook/identity/confidence that allows you to manifest in your actions and mentality a world view that is resistant to negative feedback and receptive to positive feedback. On top of this you can use confirmation bias to amplify this by focusing on each success as a reinforcement of this outlook. The outlook provides a cushion from negative feedback that might stall forward momentum and acts as a foundation to start from when you have nothing else. But I don’t see any supernatural explanation being necessary to ascribe agency to the void, it’s just the way to look at the world that will on average yield the most success.

[hansonel]

As someone who went down the rabbit hole of "The Secret" and "What the Bleep Do We Know?" about 15 years ago I noticed my life became better in almost every way after visualizing what I wanted my life to be like. After about 5 years of doing that I had (almost) the kind of life I wanted. Obviously taking action towards what I was visualizing was the secret ingredient but it primed me mentally to take those actions more frequently and weather challenges much easier than before.

A lot of manifesting and The Law of Attraction is complete BS but intriquingly some of it isn't....

[inner]

you’re actually really so real bro thank you for existing

[BritsyElyse]

A success story:
Just the other day, I was listening to a band I love. With a casual mind, I said, "I wonder what it would be like to meet the lead singer."
On Saturday I went out of town for a party and that same singer ended up HOSTING the party! I got a selfie with him, and it was his birthday. It was very cool.

[mystickarax]

You helped out me to realize that I was using day dreaming instead of visualization and I was "focusing" on so many things that my new myself were looking more likely a wish list, thanks!

[WarriorPocky]

Dr. K, please don't ever delete this video. You showed to us your vulnerable side, sharing what is on your mind even at risk of backlash and people using it against you. You bringing out the second half of the video and talking about your own beliefs has been very refreshing. More importantly, I think you have set a very good example in how to think for one's self, and I thank you for enabling the masses in this way.

I am a science person myself, and at the same time am quite spiritual and had similar "mystical coincidence, " especially after I have dabbled in psychedelics. After a high dose of shrooms and experiencing "ego death", I did experience not having a self, but the self being everything and nothing, in all planes of time and dimension beyond my understanding. I was the person in the past, an animal in the future, a humble rock somewhere; I was time and existence. But there is no singular "I", just that it is.

I recall this experience and am somewhat able to evoke this while sober, especially when meditating. I have become quite familiar with this experience that it naturally happens when I am just going about my day. I am under the impression that this is what highly experienced meditators/yogics achieve. It shaped how I viewed the world, in all my limitations of my senses and logic; how I interacted and affected the world outside and inside of myself, and what the self might even truly mean.

I remain to be open minded about all these things, and the possibility that this understanding is false and is merely a product of human's drive to create stories so that they may explain what the unknown is, falling into biases such as this.

I can't thank you enough for the content you share with us.

[flavioeiras]

Probably your best video so far. I saw a humble and human side of Dr K that I've never seen before. Not dumbing down the scientific approach just to look appealing to the modern-age mystic bulshit, but bringing both high quality scientific data available (recognizing the intrinsic limitations of the marvelous scientific method) plus your personal experience (risking a bad look from your hard-core scientific audience). Thank you, this video moved me.

[dasshrs]

Think of success not as a measure of money, and relationships you have, but as a measure of experience and knowledge. That can build an insane buffer from negative experiences. Even if you lose your job, your experience and knowledge stay with you you can find another one -> you just need time.

[roslynluyt]

I'm studying my masters at the moment. I've been surrounded by science of the natural world for so long, yet I cannot deny the things that have happened to me and to those around me just with visualisation, meditation, prayer and focusing on what we want. A great example of this...

One day on my way to work as I was leaving I had a distinct feeling to pray for protection. That day I had a near miss car accident and instead of being crushed by cars behind me and in front of me, one guy hit our car gently from behind and the people in front of us missed each other by millimetres. On the way back home, the rest of the sky was clear blue and in the horizon, there was a rainbow in the exact width of the highway. I can't explain the way I felt other than I felt seen and known by something way bigger than what we can possibly fathom. The world is definitely connected and we are connected to it in more ways than you think.

[papercliprain]

One thing that I have done like this is that I had loads of projects and stuff I wanted to get done that I had accumulated in my head for years, and one day a couple months ago I wrote down every single one of them on paper. It was like three pages. It was all smaller goals, like instead of “clean the garage” it was broken down into “get rid of the stack of cardboard boxes in the corner” and “throw the old mower away”. I brained dumped the list, got more ideas over the next hour while I did stuff and kept adding to it. I then flipped the list over and forgot about it for months, and did not look at it once. The other day I found it while cleaning, and I went through and had accomplished 90 percent of what I wrote down, and some of this stuff I wanted to do for years. So I want to experiment more with writing down micro goals, just letting my mind crap out on paper and seeing what that does.

[tonynattawat]

I wholeheartedly believe in the power of visualization. While some people might view it as overconfidence to think that I can achieve whatever I want, I personally believe I'm mad enough to embrace failure and rise repeatedly until I reach my goal. I visualize myself falling and getting up all the time; thus, when it actually happens, getting back up feels as natural as any other routine in my life.

[stevk_-]

The most important takeaway for me about all of the manifestation and visualization talk is to generally keep a positive mindset throughout life*, which means instead of keeping negative thoughts replace them with constructive thoughts instead. A way of doing that is by reminding yourself that you are capable of doing things, even if that is one step at a time. A way through which you can achieve things is to set goals, believe you can achieve them and then work towards them, and whenever you feel pressure you need to remember that preparation can take most of that pressure away. This is partly where visualization can come into play. See yourself doing the presentation that you fear for instance and use this a preparation beforehand.

[maxgomez]

As a professional dancer, visualization is key for us. We use it to imagine ourselves executing the choreography correctly, because details start to fade as you become more physically tired when performing. We visualize ourselves on stage in front of an audience to work on our nerves. I've experienced situations where I was dancing, and it felt like déjà vu because I had already "lived" that situation, and the nerves were more manageable. I've worked with people who like to imagine themselves winning (if it's a competititon) but I personally don't believe that's as powerful, because like you said, if what you're trying to change is outside of you, it most likely won't do anything. (Perhaps motivate you to achieve that success but that's it)

[slamabalkis]

Thank you so much for still mentioning the not so scientific part of the spiritual side of the story. I really find it so hard to be a 100% reliant on just what science says, for some reason it makes me feel awful, even when I try hard to convince myself that it’s the only rational way to live life. I always end up feeling like I am off-track .. like something is missing.. like there must be something else larger than life.. !!

[SJrad]

it's so facinating that the placebo/nocebo effect is a thing. its like magical or something. i wish there was more research into the mechanisms of why it works.