Energy and Information: The Stuff of Our Reality

em>As I sit down to write this morning, I am struck by the gap that exists between what I have to communicate and the language that I have available to me. I feel as though I am creating a whole new language as I go, imbuing familiar words with new intent and subtle shifts in meaning in order to communicate effectively. Each time I have returned to this blog and simply stared at the screen I felt the familiar pangs of a dream where I have something urgent to tell someone but can't seem to speak it or be heard. So here goes nothing! I can't even hope to come close to the mark unless I dive right in!!

Energy and information. It is absolutely everywhere. Sitting here at my computer, I am bombarded by waves and signals. Some are for my wireless network, television and radio signals are flowing through my space and light fills the room with chameleon photons - are they waves or particles? Still other waves of information are the sound waves carrying the jazz music encoded on my CD and flowing out of the speakers on my stereo and to my ears. Miraculously, even though the sounds that reach my ears are simply vibrations, I can differentiate between the sound of pleasant jazz and the less melodic snores of my dog, who is comfortably ensconced under my desk. Waves, carrying both energy and information, picked up by the receiver that is my ear and interpreted into separate and yet co-mingled experiences by a flurry of neuronal discharges in the cortex of my brain.

Sight works in much the same fashion. Our eyes and optic nerves are the receivers for waves filled with energy and information. Once received, that information sets off a cascade of neuronal impulses whose energy seems to be electrical and chemical and my visual reality is created. Seems hard to fathom, doesn't it? And yet, these are widely accepted facts about how these sensory systems work. What is less often discussed is the troubling notion that there is in fact no way to prove the existence of an outside world since our entire interpretation of the world "out there" is based on this flurry of cortical activity once information is passed from receiver to brain. In the words of Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets, "You are not in the world, the world is in you."

The five senses seem to have a common thread in that they move through a set of receivers to become a series of impulses within the brain that can then be used to create experience. We have come to accept that we operate within a framework of these 5 senses. It is yet another lens of our familiar worldview and has imbued a familiar assumption with the status of "truth". What if, in fact, we are multi-sensory beyond these 5? What are the implications to how we live, how we define ourselves?

Esoteric and metaphysical traditions having been offering these possibilities up to us for some time now. And like much of what is available in our current worldview, these concepts are often laden with notions of energy and information that is judged as good or bad, that is the domain of special experts such as mystics, intutitives or healers who seek to create a balance that speaks of some form of normal. Far too often, they rely on their interpretation of what they perceive to be their client's energy and information to be - ignoring the client's personal experience.

Although I have had many interesting experiences in this realm because of my curiosity, I am not at all satisfied with esoteric and metaphysical explanations. I have never found what I was seeking, which was something that held more potential and possibility than I could find within a traditional medical framework. I found plenty that evoked even more questions and that amazed me and yet there seemed to be lots of rules, notions of expertise and initiation along with a hearty doses of good energy vs. bad energy. Blinded by a familiar worldview, the current interpretation of much of this fascinating information is limited by the very same handicap that I believe limits the possibility for medicine. These fields may seem to be very attractive alternatives and even quite far off the traditional path for some, but they continue to operate within same restrictions, making them less of a leap than many would think.

If we begin to consider this information through the lens of autopoiesis, there is much more scope available for consideration. Rather than consider energy and information, whether it appears on an MRI or as an alteration in aura or restriction in chi, as good vs. bad and attempt to fit it into a scale of normal, we can open up other possibilities. One possibility is that it is intelligent and is being constructed or co-created by observer and observed. Now that may need a moment to let your intellect process, but think about it for a minute. The person having an experience is creating it from the information flowing through receivers/senses to the brain which in turn is creating an experience based on the composite of this information. The observer, is, in turn, having their own experience constructed in a similar manner. My experience isn't the clients and vice versa and yet we are sharing something simultaneously.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my fascination with the concept of the observer at this point. We know from quantum physics that the observer phenomenon is very potent. It is the element that seems to evoke a specific outcome from a range of possibilities. For example, the classic experiment to determine whether light was in fact a particle or a wave was highly influenced by the expectation of the hypothesis and observer. If it was expected to be a wave and measured as such, then the photons, or packets of energy and information that make up light, would behave as though they were waves. If they were expected to be particles, they behaved like particles. Without going into tremendous detail, as there are numerous places to read about this phenomenon, the photons existed as packages of energy and information that held a wide range of possibilities and participated with the observer and their intention to create a result. You are in not the world, the world is in you. We have incredible influence in the creation of our experiences and by extension, our world.

I am absolutely fascinated by how our expectations as clients and practitioners shape our reality, translating to our perceived results. There has been much written about the concept of intention in the past 5 years. Wayne Dyer opened the subject wide with his best seller, The Power of Intention. The popularity of The Secret is another indicator that society is ready for another way to consider what we attract and create in our life. How might that apply to medicine?

/>Radical thought? Maybe yes, maybe no. We know that energy and information exists everywhere, including in the very atoms that vibrate in a frequency that we can recognize as a table or an ultrasound wave...and yes, as our physical body too. We are not exempt. Tissue, fluid, neurotransmitters, hormones, DNA could all be broken down to their composite atomic components too. As we work with the macro aspect of our bodies, the ligament, the bone, the hormone etc, what else is occurring at the micro level? How does our interaction, expectations and intention begin to influence the very molecules that make us up? Worth some consideration, don't you think?

What about other receivers? Bruce Lipton has gathered some very compelling evidence that cells have receptors on the exterior of their membrane. His research concluded that they are clearly attuned to some signal in their external environment. A signal that is unique, a signal that is "Self". Read his book, The Biology of Belief, for more information.

What other systems do we have to process energy and information through? Our brain may be quite attuned to the 5 senses but we have other systems that process information very effectively within the body itself. Candice Pert shares her discovery of the many neurotransmitter pathways that exist in the body which store and process energy and information in her book, Molecules of Emotion. There is a very strong link in my mind between her discoveries and the concept of chi and meridians in acupuncture.

What about our facial system? Fascia, the 3 dimensional web-like milky coating that flows over and through our muscles, organs, blood vessels, nerves and in fact, into every single cell has been postulated to be a vast network of micro-tubules that flow throughout our entire body. Within the tubules, energy and information is carried in various forms including thermal, mechanical and electromagnetic (John Barnes, Healing Ancient Wounds). Anyone who has experienced work or training with respect to the fascial system will likely have had an experience where energy and information begins to move rapidly in the body, giving rise to sensations and, quite often, old memories.

The body is but one interface for this type of energy and information to be released into flow. Another is Quantum TLC(TM) (see Louise LeBrun, Phoenix Rising as well as Gwen McCauley, The Alchemy of Energy). The point is less about how energy and information is stored and accessed, but about the fact that it exists. This is an element blatantly absent from our current models but one I suspect any clinician, and certainly every human, has experienced but may not have had the language to describe. Limiting our explorations of energy medicine by placing them within the context of our familiar worldview also dimishes their potency and potential.

I've been in the rehabilitation medical field for 15 years and I can feel the palpable restlessness among many of my colleagues who quietly seek out ways to explore, evolve and then often struggle when it comes to integrating what has become meaningful for them personally into their existing models when working with others. Some end up leaving and embracing more alternative approaches because they have been unable to bridge the gap. Many times they discover that they have jumped from the frying pan into the fire as the "box" looks different but it still has some limitations. Others keep their thoughts and opinions pretty close to their chests in the hope that they will continue to fit into the collective. Clients are seeking, too. They recognize that something is missing and growing numbers of them are looking for alternatives. I believe the collective is shifting and its time we began to explore the range of potential and possibility that so many scientific pioneers have opened up for us. This is not new science by the way. Much of it has been around for 70+ years. Don't we all deserve an open exploration. In the past, curiosity has been a punishable offence, I don't believe that is the case any longer if we are to grow and evolve.