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Turn Your Dreams into Reality Every Day, by Gini Graham Scot, PhD

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Turn Your Dreams Into Reality is all about knowing what you want, making sure it is a realistic goal, and then imagining what you need to make those dreams real. I have also called this the GWYW—the "get what you want" approach to life. It's a way to think about coming up with realistic goals and deciding what you need to do to make them happen, while being ready to revise those goals and create new ones in response to changing conditions. While you can work out the steps to achievement using just your reason, you can be even more effective if you draw on your intuition, so you imagine possibilities, decide on priorities, and then imagine what you need to do to achieve them.

I was inspired to write Turn Your Dreams because I have been employing this approach to life since my early 20s, after I went to a workshop that involved learning about visualization. It was led by a woman who was an artist and teacher, and she stressed the need for us to tap into our power of intuition to see what we wanted to do. This workshop was the first time I had tried to use my imagination in this way, and I found this ability to be a very powerful tool that continued to guide me throughout the rest of my life—and led me to write a series of books on using these techniques.

In the first exercise, which opened the door to using the intuition and visualization, she asked us to visualize and experience the energy of the earth rising up into our bodies, while the energy of the air came down into us through our heads. Then, we visualized that this energy would meet in our heart, stomach, or torso (I forget which now), and we could direct this energy out to achieve a goal.

In my case, I had just started to write, so I decide to direct this energy out through my hands to whatever I was writing, which was then on a typewriter, and I imagined being able to use that energy to being able to write quickly and effectively. Later, when I went to the typewriter to write, I used that visualization, and I found I could write my assignment much more quickly and confidently than usual. Though I don't remember now what I was writing, I do remember very clearly that after that day I began to use this approach for all sorts of things I wanted to do, from doing homework and writing for clients to imagining applying for and getting hired for a job I wanted.

Around this time, a friend working with hypnosis "hypnotized" me by taking me down to the basement of Macy's toy department, where I could see all kinds of new games and toys that were still prototypes and had not yet been produced in reality. But they seemed very real, like one could buy them off the shelf and play them. I found the experience very much like my use of visualization and the imagination. Though my friend called the journey to Macy's toy department "hypnosis," for me it was experientially the same thing as what I had already been doing—getting very relaxed so I could readily access my powers of visualization and intuition, though perhaps what I saw in my imagination was a little more vivid. After that, I began designing games by using this visualization of going to Macy's. I also began attending all sorts of workshops on visualization, hypnosis, and shamanism; soon, I no longer needed to go to Macy's toy department or anywhere else for my imagination to work. I didn't even need to close my eyes, though getting relaxed in a quiet place and closing my eyes certainly helped me focus on what I was seeing. Rather, I just began to be able to access my imagination and intuition and apply what I saw in my mind immediately to anything I wanted to do.

Since I am a writer, I started putting this approach into my first book on the subject, Mind Power: Picture Your Way to Success in Business, which was published in 1987. Today, when New Age teachings are everywhere, these notions about using the intuition and imagination seem quite ordinary. But in 1987, the book was initially rejected as being too weird. Eventually, one editor decided to champion it and the book was published, which led to a follow-up book in 1994, The Empowered Mind: How to Harness the Creative Force within You. Years later, after the rights for these books were returned to me, about two-thirds of the combined content was republished in 2009 as Want It, See It, Get It! Visualize Your Way to Success. However, the emphasis in these earlier books was on using these techniques in business, so Turn Your Dreams Into Reality is designed to apply these time-tested techniques to everyday life. Besides work and business, you can use them in your personal life, such as in having better relationships, losing weight, improving your skills in sports, whatever you want to do. You can use them to help you decide what to do next after you experience any kind of negative situation, so you turn that negative into a positive.

Meanwhile, I've been applying these techniques in my own life for all sorts of things. For example, I used them to find and get the house I wanted again and again. When I moved to San Francisco in the 1980s, I imagined living in Presidio Heights, and soon found a place on the main commercial street there, Sacramento. After the landlord decided to do some renovations, I imagined my next place nearby, since I planned to go to law school at San Francisco State. After that, while I was deciding between staying in San Francisco and Santa Monica, I went to a workshop where we were to visualize where we wanted to be next, and I imagined myself living in a house by the water, and within a few days, I found a house near the ocean in San Francisco. At first it seemed it was already rented and I was all set to move to LA. But then the prospective renter dropped out, the property manager called, and I got the house. So I felt strongly I should stay in San Francisco, and I did. Later, about 20 years ago, I used this approach to get my house in Oakland, and after I had to move due to the mortgage meltdown; my visualizations led me to a flat in San Francisco near the ocean. Then, a year ago, after I felt ready to move again (due to rent increases in the crazy San Francisco market) I used visualization to target exactly where I wanted to be—near downtown in a small house in Lafayette, a city about half-way between Oakland and Walnut Creek, about 25 minutes from San Francisco. Within a week, I found the house and rented it—the only house I looked at because I clearly saw where I wanted to go.

Likewise, I have used these techniques to write over fifty books, write about fifteen scripts, connect with the director and co-producer of my first feature script to be filmed, and find a major distributor. These techniques have also helped me in making choices about who to work with or not work with, and how to turn any bad experience into a success story. One good example is a recent client interaction I had; he seemed, by all appearances, to be a wealthy businessman in a private practice, but in reality was struggling to pay his mortgage to keep up the facade. So for me, as a writer, the positive transformation was to use this experience to come up with ideas for a series of new books on workshops on how appearances can be deceiving, dealing with impossible clients, and how to turn negative experiences into gold.

In short, for over 40 years, I have made these GWYW techniques a part of my life, because they have worked so well again and again. And now for the first time, Turn Your Dreams Into Reality is designed to help others apply these techniques on a daily basis in both their personal and work life. All you have to do is imagine what you want, assess that it is a realistic goal that is possible to achieve, and imagine what you need to do that is realistically possible to make it happen for you. Finally, go get it. Make it happen, and it will.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2015. All rights reserved.

Is it possible for anyone to develop psychic abilities like telekinesis? (To learn how to move objects with one's mind, like bending spoons, etc.?) Or are some people just born with that innate ability? If anyone can learn to do it, what would be the best way to go about doing so?

- Jonathan

Dreamchaser:

Jonathan, I believe we can teach our minds anything. We only use a small portion of our brains, after all, and there is SO much that is left untapped.

There have been many studies done on telekinesis. I believe it just requires a higher state of consciousness. To reach this state of consciousness, the first step is probably deep meditation. So if you really want to learn, I suggest you meditate for 15 to 30 minutes and get very centered. Then take the next 30 minutes to try to move something very small. Picture yourself building a tunnel of sorts between your mind and the object you want to move. Focus solely on the object.

Anything outside of this tunnel will not be visible to you. Imagine something coming out of your head, like hands or a rake or whatever you want to use. Then imagine those hands or rake or whatever pulling the object you are trying to move towards you. It will probably take you at least two to three weeks to actually move something for the first time, so do not give up.

Also, remember this is not a life and death matter, or something really serious. This is very much like playing a game with yourself. If you try too hard, you will get frustrated, and we don't want that! Also, do not give up. Continue to try even when you don't see results. Do NOT think when it does not happen immediately that you cannot do it. You have to have an "I can do it" attitude.

As far as spoon bending, I have heard that you must hold the spoon in your hands and meditate on it. Rub the spoon lightly with your fingers, trying to become part of the spoon. Imagine the spoon's atoms mixing with the atoms in your fingers so that you can't tell the difference between your fingers and the spoon. You may feel the spoon actually heat up in your hands. That is normal. Once you get to that point, then you can imagine the spoon melting like it is liquid. At that point, it should be bending.

The most important thing I am hearing for you is a question: WHY do you want to learn this? Are you going to be responsible with your newfound ability, or are you going to use it at parties to impress people, or to earn money in a carnival-like setting? You have to understand that when you are dealing with extraordinary abilities like this, you have an obligation to be extraordinarily moral and honest. If you use a gift or a learned ability for anything other than good, love and light, you will face harsh consequences either in this life or the next.

I wish you success with your goal!

*****

Astrea:

Probably the most famous story of telekinesis from our own times can be found in the Stephen King book Carrie. In that novel, a high school girl who is bullied by her classmates loses control over her very scary telekinetic power, and kills most of the people at the prom. While it's an exciting story, that's all it is - a STORY. Human beings are no longer designed to have the kind of energy it takes to move things with nothing more than mind power.

From time to time, some people DO get bursts of energy that SEEM TO move inanimate objects. The ability to CONTROL telekinesis is something that has been studied for a long time in some of the bigger parapsychology institutes, but with very little success. For the last century, all over the world various studies have tried to pin down what happens in our personal electrical fields to cause things to move "on their own." To my knowledge, no one has been able to prove this power really exists, much less master it.

Some people have an energy field that stops watches, so that they can't wear them, or runs the battery down in their car, so they constantly have to buy new ones. This condition is something innate - it isn't something that can be learned. These people are either born with this condition or it develops spontaneously, often as a result of a near death experience. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who was able to develop this ability on their own or with the help of experts. This is either something that human beings no longer have in our repertoire, or never had in the first place.

In the days of Atlantis, before recorded time, it's said that people were able to move mountains with the power of their minds. I've never known anyone who could consciously do something like that, however.

If you want to be able to present the ILLUSION that you can move something or change something with the power of your mind, take a course in stage magic. You can learn to fool people into believing that you're doing amazing things in a very short time. Visit your local magic shop or find a good book by one of the great illusionists who did this for a living. I believe Yuri Geller has several books that may be out of print, so look in your library under "Magicians" or "Stage Magic" for that information.

Yuri is the guy who bends spoons "with his mind" on talk shows. Magicians and Illusionists have been doing things like that for thousands of years, which might be where you got the idea it could really be done by plain old human beings.