Recently I was chatting on one of the forums I frequent about my favourite gig. Lots of discussions resulted about the great bands and venues that I’d experienced, but one time in particular stuck in my mind. Some of the following is taken from the forum post.
It was at V Festival (97 or 98), Chelmsford. Sunday night, all of the bands had finished and we were heading back to the tents when the heavens opened. Looking for shelter we noticed one event was still on - the Hari Krishna tent.
We headed in to find that it was heaving - and the Krishna band were in full effect, punks, indies and popsters all pogoing together to the hypnotic chant of “krishna, krishna!”. We joined in and danced away as the band gradually upped the rhythm and took the crowd with them, who were going mental by this point. Even the band got caught up in it because they started stage diving in to the crowd - a sight to behold.
Eventually the music and chanting reached a crescendo and it was bedlam. The band stopped and the crowd kept on chanting for a good ten minutes as people slowly headed off back to their tents. We could still hear chanting from every direction by the time we had dried off and got in to our sleeping bags.
I’ve been to V many times since and never seen a Krishna tent. I wonder why this experience in particular sticks in my mind. After all it wasn’t like we were seeing a legendary band - no Radiohead or U2 on the stage, and i’m not inclined that way religiously…yet the experience sticks in my mind and recalling it brings lots of positive feelings and emotions to me.
Now this is the cool thing about humans. It may also be true for other species but I don’t have any proof or desire to find such proof. Our memories are multidimensional and store much more than sounds and pictures. If you recall an experience vividly enough your unconscious mind will access data recalled by all of your senses - Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic, Olifactory and Gustatory data can be returned to your present state. Now this is very handy if you are aware of it, because you can change how you feel simply by accessing experiences where you felt the way you want to feel. I suspect a quick demo is needed.
Think about tarmac or something else you have no particular feelings for. Good.
Now recall a time where you felt safe, warm, content and happy. Even if you only felt it for a second your mind can find that experience, and bathe in that moment. Notice how you feel, can you see what you saw, notice what you heard and, if it’s appropriate, smelt and tasted? All of that information is available to you, and the more you focus on the moment, the more you will experience those good feelings.
Now for those of you not in a trance I’d like to point out that the same thing happens if you focus on a bad experience.
And welcome back to the more advanced trancers. We missed you. Now here’s the thing - to take Gillian McKeith’s slogan and modify it a little, if what you think about from the past affects how you feel right now, YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT! And who said time travel isn’t possible?
My point? Ok well if how you feel right now is affected by what is on your mind, can you appreciate the impact on your state of mind if you drag around bad experiences and blame them for your failings? That’s right - you will be regularly travelling back to bad places and times in your life and feeling how you felt over and over again. Which isn’t a nice place to be.
So why bother? You don’t have to because, and here’s the kicker - your mind doesn’t know the difference between a real past experience and a vividly imagined one! Wow, how cool is that? Because it means that you can modify your memory, change or delete experiences that affect you right now.
And even cooler, it doesn’t need any new skills. If you can picture your front door in your mind, and change its colour, for fun, then you have all of the tools you need to revisit limiting memories and change their impact on you. For example…
- Have a memory of someone shouting at you?? Replay the memory but this time give that person Mickey Mouse’s voice, notice how the feeling changes. Keep doing this until the memory has no feeling attached.
- Had a particularly bad experience? Try stepping out of your body and watching the experience on a cinema screen. Turn the image black and white, add comedy music, keep playing with it until the whole memory seems funny. Your mind will struggle to return to the old memory because you’ve overwritten the old meaning with something more pleasant.
Now some people might say that it’s wrong to edit your memories… and to them I ask whether they think that their memory is right - we all experience things according to our own structures and realities - no-one directly experiences reality, just an interpretation of it. And if this is true, then why not tweak your interpretation of reality to make you more like the person you want to be?
So, returning to my original story. Other people were with me that night. Each one may have a different memory of the event. Some may not even recall it because it didn’t have the same impact. Others might recall it as silly and pointless, and others may be quick to point out that at no point did anyone stage dive. Who knows the truth and, does it matter?
