This week’s guest is Norman Katz, aka Dr. Blue – a lifelong practitioner of hypnotherapy and the impresario of 3SidedWhole, nine acres of magical weirdness in the desert outside Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’ve known Dr. Blue for nearly a decade and he’s deeply enriched my life over the years with his amazing stories, empowering mind hacks, and community of soulful southwestern weirdos. In this episode, he regales us with stories of psychological research into UFOs, past lives, fractals, and flow states; the history of hypnosis, his study under hypnotherapy pioneer Milton Erickson, the psychophysiology of laughter yoga, and – more broadly – the importance, and the surprising ease, of choosing the trance you want to be in…Dr. Blue’s Website:http://www.normankatzphd.com/curricula-vitae.html3SidedWhole Website:http://www.3sidedwhole.com/“We were doing LSD as the patient and the therapist simultaneously…it was quite interesting.”“There still is no study that verifies that hypnosis is a particular brain state or neurological constellation. Hypnosis is not a brain state. It turns out to be a skill and an aptitude that’s based on combining attention, and fantasy, and a predilection for dissociation.”“Our perception of reality is at least half constructed by what we expect, what we imagine, and what we pretend. In fact, it’s really hard to teach people new things, because most of the time they’re trying to match new things to their old models.”“It was the only lecture I’ve ever seen where 300 psychotherapists stood up afterward an gave him a standing ovation. And his theory was, bascially, individual psychotherapy is not only ineffective, it’s wrong, and it disconnects people from their community. He said, the biggest mistake in Western Civilization was when Descartes said, ‘Cognito ergo sum,’ ‘I think, therefore I am.’ And what he should have said was, ‘Convivo ergo sum.’ ‘I celebrate in community, therefore I am.’”“At any point in time, ask yourself this question: ‘If I had been hypnotized to be doing what I’m doing right now and having this experience, what would I have been told?’”“Erickson used to tell his students, ‘Pretend, and pretend you’re not pretending.’”“In the West, most people breathe too much.”“I had a formal psychology training at Harvard. Most of that turned out to be nonsense. Learn to unlearn. Learn to forget. Learn to be innocent. Let yourself continue to reinvent yourself and discover who you are, because you are more than any of us think you are.”Support this show on Patreon to join the book club and for secret episodes:https://patreon.com/michaelgarfieldIntro Music: “Undefeatable Optimism Gets Up From K.O.” by Michael Garfieldhttps://michaelgarfield.bandcamp.com/album/love-scenes-field-recordingsOutro Theme Music: “God Detector” by Evan “Skytree” Snyder (feat. Michael Garfield)https://skytree.bandcamp.com/track/god-detector-ft-michael-garfieldAppendix: 51 blackbelt hypnosis skills, a partial list of course (the master skill is to perceive a coherent reality in one frame ignoring the 27 other timelines)instant time travel, to past, present and future. multiple timeline realities possible like in string theory in quantum physicshumor, ability to tell self joke and beginning laughing, and see humor and paradox in all situationsincreased creativity as needed, transcend functional fixedness, and create new uses for objects, tools, situations ability to reframe anythingability to create synthesis to create positive action altered states of consciousnessability to make pain disappearability to increase pleasure to ecstatic levelsability to shift mood instantly ability to tap into higher consciousness, both neurologically and to source (the universe)ability to become WISE without thinking (i.e. go into no trance trance in which wisdom flows)abilities to see life as movie within movie within movies and change the storiesability to profoundly relax and melt, both physically and mentallyto be comfortable both inside and outs