An Introduction to Reality Shifts Most of us have noticed things missing from places where we're certain we last saw them. Lost socks, missing keys, wallets, and tools often seem to have a mind of their own... disappearing from the places we know we put them and sometimes reappearing unexpectedly. Mechanics are so familiar with this phenomenon that they refer to "gremlins" who must be responsible for moving their tools around. We also notice synchronicities and coincidences in our lives... times when the events happening around us seem orchestrated to bring together ideas, people, and situations. Take a moment now to consider the possibility that your thoughts and feelings are responsible for creating your experience of reality... that the very way you observe the universe is affecting what you are observing. Just as the most fundamental building blocks of matter and energy are non-locally connected across time and space so that they change their spin simultaneously when they are observed, so too can we notice such "spooky action at a distance" when we make wishes or prayers that come true. Albert Einstein used the expression “spooky action at a distance” to convey his doubt that quantum non-locality could exist. Quantum non-locality was experimentally proven in the 1980’s in Paris in a series of experiments conducted by Alain Aspect and his colleagues. These experiments measured the polarization of two twin photons... one photon being “up” and the other “down” as they traveled in different directions. Aspect’s experiments dealt with beams of correlated photons (pairs of one up and one down photon), and these experiments showed that as the angle of measurement changed for measuring the first group of photons, the statistical probability of the second group of photons going through the filter at a different angle was changed. Physicists seeking to prove that the world operates locally (a measurement taken in one place cannot have a remote effect) conducted an experiment in the early 1970’s in Berkeley, California. John Clauser, Michael Horne, Abner Shimony and Richard Holt were surprised to find that quantum particles DO change their polarization across distances of space. This experiment was especially significant, because the experimenters set out to prove locality, and were unable to do so. The connection between “spooky action at a distance” and wishes and prayers is that everything in this universe is made up of quantum material at its very core. You and I and everything else that exists consist of particles that have twin particles located elsewhere. When changes occur within us, twin particles elsewhere are simultaneously affected. Since quantum particles appear as “particles” at the point in time and space where they are observed... the very act of observation in one place (wishing or hoping or praying) brings about change elsewhere. Reality shift experiences have been almost universally ignored or denied until now, when the subject can finally be raised in a non-stigmatizing way with the explanation that these changes are not in violation of the laws of physics, but are a natural part of the way we interact with the world.

Why Reality Shifts Physics is a science, and as such, it's answers will be ever-changing. We can find eternal answers in spiritual teachings by enlightened men and women who have understood the basic truths about the nature of reality. In other words, we may think we finally know what's going on according to the latest discoveries in science, yet each new discovery is just a step on a path of ever-greater understanding. Wise spiritual teachers have long known that reality shifts with our thoughts and feelings. All matter has a quantum nature Quantum mechanics does not merely apply to the realm of the very small. Physicists working on finding the theory of everything (TOE) are currently working to unify quantum physics with relativity... so that one theory can explain the physical behavior of everything from the tiniest subatomic particles to the biggest celestial bodies. As physicist David Greene writes from the perspective of a physicist on the front-lines of the TOE quest in his book, The Elegant Universe, "The strategy of beginning with a theoretical description that is classical and then subsequently including the features of quantum mechanics has been extremely fruitful for years. It underlies, for example, the standard model of quantum physics. But it is possible, and there is growing evidence that it is likely, that this method is too conservative for dealing with theories that are as far-reaching as string theory and M-theory. The reason is that once we realize that the universe is governed by quantum mechanical principles, our theories really should be quantum mechanical from the start. We have successfully gotten away with starting from a classical perspective until now because we have not been probing the universe at a deep enough level for this coarse approach to mislead us. But with the depth of string/M-theory, we may well have come to the end of the line for this battle-tested strategy." These physics pioneers on the cutting edge of finding the TOE believe that our universe most likely consists of many more than the three spatial dimensions we are familiar with... and that many more dimensions lie hidden all around and inside us, curled up. Quantum behavior changes our assumptions about reality Our old assumptions about the true nature of reality don't work in the realm of the very small ("quantum")... so that means they need to be replaced with better assumptions. Experiments in quantum physics have proven that assumptions of locality, causality, objectivity, and material monism (only matter matters) are incorrect. Better assumptions at the quantum level are: Non-locality Probability Interconnectivity Mind and Matter are inseparable What is really happening at the quantum level? There are four leading quantum theories, all of which work equally well at predicting the behavior of quantum particles. Whichever interpretation you prefer, remember that it describes quantum particles as behaving non-locally according to probabilities... and every time an observer makes any measurement, that observation changes the world. Copenhagen Interpretation The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics was first described and presented by Niels Bohr in Italy in 1927. Bohr suggested that quantum particles exist as waves which might be anywhere until the wave function is collapsed. As long as nobody looks, each quantum particle is equally distributed in a series of overlapping probability waves, in a superposition of states. Many Worlds Interpretation In the 1950's, Hugh Everett III proposed that every possibility inherent in each wave function is real, and that ALL of them occur. Possibilities become actualities with each measurement that is made, and infinite slightly different realities come into existence as each quantum event is observed. All possibilities are equally real. Transactional Interpretation John Cramer's transactional interpretation of quantum physics suggests that "handshakes" take place between quantum particles in different points in time and space. In Cramer's interpretation, a particle here and now on Earth instantaneously communicates with particles light-years away in time and space, as one particle sends an "offer" wave and another responds with a "confirmation" wave. Holographic Interpretation Physicist David Bohm and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram proposed that the universe may be like a giant hologram, containing both matter and consciousness as a single field. This model suggests that the objective world "out there" is a vast ocean of waves and frequencies which appears solid to us only because our brains convert that enfolded hologram into an unfolded sense of material we can perceive with our senses.

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