For the shamans, the experience we call ordinary everyday reality is a mass hallucination, or, to put it more politely, a shared dream.

Attention is quite naturally attracted to bright lights, shiny objects, and loud noises, but we may not realize that the common factor of all three is their energy intensity. Attention is attracted to any strong source of energy that stimulates any of our senses, even those subtle senses of which most people are unaware.

As a state, hypnosis is simply a condition of sustained focused attention, just like meditation. The major difference is that meditation is considered to be more spiritual and hypnosis to be more practical; meditation is used for clearing karma and reaching enlightenment, while hypnosis is used for stopping smoking and losing weight. The fact is,

As processes, both meditation and hypnosis are simply different techniques for doing the same thing—refocusing your attention toward more positive beliefs and expectations. As states, both are identical conditions of sustained focused attention. Any difference can be attributed to the object of focus. Since

Hypnosis used to be distinguished by the use of an assistant called a hypnotist who helped you into the focused state, but guided meditation has eliminated that distinction.

Many centuries ago Hawaiian spiritual masters came to the same conclusions reached by others in various times and places: that there is an aspect of consciousness which operates covertly and indirectly (the subconscious); that there is an aspect of consciousness which operates openly and directly (the conscious mind); and that there is an aspect of

Dreams are real experiences in another dimension, but like all real experiences they are the effects of belief structures or habit patterns. In that way they are like languages, which are based on structures and patterns. Even with the most flexible grammatical structure and abundant vocabulary, a language can only express what the mind that