Here is the full transcript of Keta Kokhtashvili’s talk titled “Psychology Behind Manifestation” at TEDxLCCUniversity 2021 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Normalcy of Daydreaming
When was the last time you daydreamed? Was it last night before going to sleep? Or like right now, during listening to previous speeches? Well, the thing is that it’s a normal thing. We all do daydream about our goals all the time, and it’s interesting what you were thinking about.
Was it something about having a partner who would unconditionally love you? It could be anything, like your favorite scene from Fifty Shades of Grey, owning a successful business, losing weight, pulling off the hottest Halloween look. The thing is that those goals and dreams sometimes sound a little shallow or simple. But the thing is that behind those goals, there are different desires.
For example, wanting to be recognized, knowing that we belong somewhere, and that we are wanted by someone, feeling that out there, there is someone who is part of us. So this is very important for us and our mental health. Who we are is also part of what we want.
Visualizing Your Dreams
So what do you want? We can do a simple exercise. I want you to imagine that one thing you want the most out of everything, okay? And now, let’s visualize it. You can close your eyes, just be in the moment, be whoever you want to be, wherever you desire to be.
Feel the moment. Use all of your senses, feel it, taste it, touch it, hear it. Repeat the scene in your mind. That is the only thing that you care about. No drawbacks, no limiting views. Repeat the scene again. Okay, come back now. That was good, right? Yeah, well congratulations, you just started manifesting your dream.
What is Manifestation?
How many of you know what manifestation is?
You can raise your hand. I can barely see you guys, but yeah, quite a few of you. Well manifestation is the process of achieving that personal goal, primarily by thinking about outcome, which has to be positive, and also there are certain rules and frameworks that we have to follow.
Now I’m not here to tell you that you need to start manifesting, because you are already doing this, trust me, I’m just here to suggest that if you improve your manifestation methods, you might make tremendous positive changes to your life. Well if you have never heard of manifestation before, it’s real. I’m not coming off with it.
There are a number of best-selling books written about it, dozens of supporting groups with thousands of members, and there are videos, blogs, articles, and TikToks. Oh my goodness, a lot of TikToks all over the internet. And so many people claim that manifestation works for them. However, it’s not a scientific conception.
The Psychological Explanation of Manifestation
And if you have already heard about this, you might know that it is explained by law of attraction, so those universal laws and energies. And to be honest, I don’t have anything against this approach. The thing is that we don’t know a lot about what is happening up there in universal consciousness. What we know is what is happening right here in our minds.
So if you’re being skeptical right now, great, that’s perfect for me. Because today I’m going to explain manifestation psychologically. At first I was skeptical too. I was introduced by my friends to manifestation, and it felt like I was participating in a cult ritual.
So this girl was trying to manifest a guy to attack the message. This is what we did. We turned the lights off, then we sit in a circle, put music on, and then we wrote the same sentence 100 times. Very scientific, I know.
Well I do think that we have to take that risk, take our phones, and text the person we want to talk to, but hey, we can just sit in a circle and repeat the same sentence over and over. It’s not creepy at all. Well, the thing is that that’s not manifestation, and that’s the reason I’m standing right here, right now. So let’s do it.
Let’s break that stereotype and create a scientific base for this conception. A couple of months ago I started my investigation to confirm the theory that manifestation was a psychological process. So first, obviously, I visited my psychology professors, and I’m not going to talk about this a lot.
The Biological Psychology Behind Manifestation
What I want to concentrate on is what my biological psychology lecturer told me. He really put everything in one sentence and clarified. It was exactly what I wanted to hear. So basically what he said is that by thinking and visualizing our goal, we’re producing action or behavior, which then leads to that particular accomplishment.
Sounds logical, right? So we can formulate this. First we have action, first we have thought, then we have action, and finally, accomplishment. And we’re going to come back to this. But first, let’s continue to build up actual scientific baseline for this.
So let’s see if this formula could be proven by experimentation. Fortunately for us, manifestation is actually proven by mere measurement effect. So mere measurement effect supports the hypothesis that just plainly asking ourselves if we’re going to do something, we’re increasing the chances that we will actually do it. And there are so many experiments supporting this.
The Mere Measurement Effect
We don’t have time to go through all of them, so let me tell you about one, which is my favorite. In this study, where overweight adults participated, we had a control group, which filled a questionnaire about random stuff like food preferences, and we had an experimental group, which filled the questionnaire about their participation in physical activity. Guess what? Results indicated that filling a questionnaire has a significant positive impact on subsequent participation in physical activity.
So people who did more physical activity were the people who filled the questionnaire about physical activity. And that’s amazing, isn’t it? So now imagine, what if you do the same thing? What if you ask yourself questions, and then visualize it, and manifest it, and keep bringing it up? Can you imagine how much effect you can have on your behavior?
So I think at this point, we accomplished the fact that manifestation can help us achieve our goals. And it’s a pretty scientific conception, supported by mere measurement ethic. And we also have a formula, that, action, accomplishment. Great. But this formula does not always work, does it?
The Problem with Manifestation
Do you always do your homework once you start thinking about your assignments? That action? I don’t think so, don’t get me wrong. Do you always get the job that you applied for? Action accomplishment? No, you don’t. So where’s the problem? I hate to break it to you, but it’s not manifestation, it’s you.
The thing is that sometimes we are doing whole thinking and visualizing things wrong. So let me introduce you to main ingredients for successful manifestation. The first thing would be being aware of your thinking process. Now, there is a difference between just mindlessly daydreaming and manifesting on purpose.
What do we do when we daydream? We make those fake scenarios to trick our brains to release all those happy neurotransmitters, which is good for forming goals. But in manifestation, we have to be aware of the fact that we are imagining this thing on purpose. We have to be very specific, repeat the scene, and be very intense, like we did in the exercise. Simple.
The Frequency of Manifestation
Second thing would be frequency. Now think of manifestation as a mental push. You need to have enough of it to go from one side, thought, to another side, reality. So you need to keep bringing it up for extended amount of time and remind that unconscious mind that you have this goal to accomplish.
Third thing is a positive attitude. Now remember, according to law of attraction, positive energy attracts positive and negative energy attracts negative. So if you are not allowed to think about what a failure you are and then start manifesting being successful, think of the beach, drinking cocktails, looking all gorgeous, because those two are contradictory to each other, can you imagine how much you are confusing your poor brains?
The thing is that we need to have this attitude at first. A lot of hard work is not paying off sometimes because our minds are wired to think negatively. So what a beautiful day it is to change that. Remember positive attitude is a choice.
The Importance of Action in Manifestation
Another thing would be importance of action. Let’s say you are manifesting to get a girlfriend or boyfriend and you stay in your dorm room 24-7 gaming. Yeah, well, it’s not going to happen. No, no way. You have to put actual action into that. Some girl or guy will not accidentally knock on your room and like immediately fall in love with you.
That’s not going to happen. Especially if your room smells like a rotted pizza emptied into laundry, that’s big no. So, remember importance of action. But trust me, once you start manifesting, it infects your entire body. Your conscious mind is so familiar with this idea that there is less resistance, which means that there’s going to be less procrastination. Just trust yourself and trust the process.
The last thing I want to talk about is staying realistic. Because sometimes our goals are too big for where we are right now. So why don’t we just break those goals into smaller pieces and start manifesting small first. And yeah, it’s going to be big time until you go into your main goal.
Going for Small Goals First
But hey, if you want immediate results, you can just go for small. We know that small is faster. The thing is that me standing here is definitely a result of manifestation. And you sitting over there could also be a result of manifestation. We have all those thoughts, ideas, dreams in our heads and then we turn it into reality in a materialistic world and that’s fascinating.
Sometimes we give up. Sometimes we don’t trust our own brains because it failed us in the past. We were so close to achieving our goals and everything collapsed. Being there, that horrible, terrifying feeling. But it’s okay.
It’s okay to fail because we need guidelines to know how to get where we want. And guess what? Our brains did not came with instructions manuals and neither did our life. So here I am standing here giving you one of the guidelines called manifestation so that next time you don’t have excuse to give up.
The Scientific Basis of Manifestation
You already know that it has a scientific base, it’s a psychological process. You know all the main rules and mechanisms it work with. You also know that you will probably not remember most of this by end of this day. That’s fine. That’s fine. The main point is that you remember that one thing you want the most.
Today before going to sleep, repeat the same. Tomorrow when you wake up, do the same thing. Make it a habit until you see how your stats turn into action. Don’t let that fade away and remember your goals deserve to be accomplished. Thank you.