Brain Paint ACar

Several times a year I have what can only be described as an extraordinary nocturnal visionary type experience. In The Frontal Lobes Supercharge book I describe this phenomenon in great detail and my hypothesis as to the cause of the experience. I just had another such trip just moments ago, (8 AM March 12, 2000) and I will briefly describe it here, and what I believe is the cause.

When one begins to deliberately change thought and behavior so that consciousness moves from reptilian brain dead-end activity FORWARD into frontal lobes creative-limitless activity, it will eventually result in a "dam breaking" neural phenomenon known as "Popping Your Frontal Lobes". Although unpredictable, this can happen at anytime, but generally follows the change of particularly stuborn routine habits that keep one locked in typical fight or flight, negative reptile brain behaviors.

Given, I am constantly working through various trials and experiments in my own life. And it has been this past nine months that I have been wrestling with ownership of one totally engrossing project myself: restoration of a little British sports car. (See Adventures In Lotus Land ).

After months and hundreds of hours of often extremely puzzling and frustrating work on this car, including several VERY hair raising close calls on the road, I finally got the car in perfect working order. This Lotus car project eventually paid off in incomparable motoring delight- imagine flying down the highway at 60 MPH in your pajamas, going around mountain corners on rails. That's what it's like to drive this Lotus, a little racing car for the street.

It had its amazingly fun moments, but it was a very time consuming project and an area in which I came in knowing absolutely nothing about car repair and restoration of a vintage automobile. As a compulsive and intense Capricorn I threw myself 100% into the job at hand. Consequently it kept me away from my regularly delightful and stress-free occupation of making music. From November till the end of February I played nary a song on my guitar. The Lotus Elan had hi-jacked all of my other frontal lobes creativity.

And, not the least, this car restoration also gobbled up what little money I had stashed in my bank account. (Well, if you're going to do something, one ought to do it right!) So, although I had a fast and pretty little car in the car port, the practical and sensible part of my brain finally won out (after several hundred miles of unimaginable glee on back roads) over the semi-sensual/automotive part of my brain: I decided to sell the car.

This was in no way an easy decision, and I have had many second thoughts. But for me at this time, better to pay my taxes when they are due and to have a few acorns stashed away then to be flinging around town a fancy fiberglass and instantaneously destructable 100 mph go-cart. (And, I can always get another one...)

In neurological terms, since purchase and rebuilding of the Lotus I have had my amygdala clicked backwards far more than I like. For the past nine months I have been dealing with a very difficult endeavor that kept me locked in reptile brain circuits, fighting and cursing with this car project as I faced one unfamiliar task after another. As much as I like to keep that amygdala clicked forward, inevitably, car mechanics for me was like flying a rocket to Mars, and may have been One Step Beyond The Outer Limits.

When the decision was made, and when the car was actually confirmed sold only a day ago, I at last began attending to creative endeavors such as Playing Music Again (inarguably my personal area of expertise) and it was an enormous release/relief. No more slaving over a greasy and hot engine. A few bucks stashed away in the emergency fund once again. My amygdala clicked forward- no launched is a better word.

WHEW!!

And, it is exactly at these kinds of life shifting moments when a Frontal Lobes !POP! happens. This is one of those rare peak moments when you connect with the universe in some way, so far beyond the ordinary that you can only stand there with your jaw hanging open and go "!!!!!!"

The experience itself varies greatly from one individual to the next, but it's something like a train rushing through your head, pleasurably so at the speed of light. Some people have out of body experiences, some people see "God", and some people feel like they are flying naked through the clouds. It may happen while you are waiting at the corner bus station, or while sitting at your computer, or while washing your feet in the bathtub. Sometimes it happens while you are in bed asleep and you are suddenly launched into another dimension- out of sleep entirely. Your body may be in bed, your head on a pillow- but this is no "dream". That's what happened to me about an hour ago-

The frontal lobes !POP! I just had found me on a roof looking at the darkened sky. I, and others with me, remarked at extremely vivid rainbow images of flowers that suddenly appeared above us. The stars became living flourescent roses, carnations, and daisys that pulsated with life. As if responding to our attention, the entire sky suddenly erupted with a cosmic fireworks display. The stars exploded with intensely beautiful exuberation, so much so that the light shone and shot through our bodies and it did not matter whether our eyes were open or covered by our arms and hands. The lights then further transformed and danced into multifaceted spinning wheels and discs that blazed completely from one horizon to the other. This was all completely amazing. !!!!!!

This all occurred in a state more intensely real that the one I am experiencing right now typing at my computer. Whether this phenomenon of frontal lobes "dream" was an internal brain experience, or mind completely outside of the brain/body I can't say. What I can say is that I do in fact have this kind of experience several times a year, and others have reported the same or similar kind of experience. Every time it happens at night, I get out of bed, totally stunned and blown away.

My observation is that it follows the release of neuroenergy trapped in negative reptile brain circuits which moves forward into frontal lobes circuits (and perhaps then further out) after sufficient changes in associated behaviors.

In other words, you change something and the previously bound energy in your brain is released like a giant rubber band. Now, that is fun.