Answer: Of course, exactly.

Question: Dr. Mitchell, as a pioneer who has explored the mysteries of both the cosmos and human consciousness, what do you believe is the most significant challenge existing that impedes the mission of the true explorer?

Answer: Bruce, the true explorer, I believe, explores because he or she is trying to find new information that helps resolve the issue of “who am I and how do I fit in the greater scheme of things.” And so we explore to ultimately know ourselves. But the greatest hindrance is the unwillingness to look beyond our current, myopic belief system to think that everything must fit within the narrow framework of Newtonian based understanding that we currently possess and which governs how a majority of individuals perceive reality.

We have to be very open and willing to explore and change our mind about what we believe if we are to become the consummate explorers of the myriad quantum and macroscopic worlds that interweave to form the ephemeral fabric that we call reality.

Question: Where can we start to make these changes?

Answer: There is only one place to start, and that is with “Self”. With the willingness to ask questions 
- to be amazed and awed by nature and its intrinsic beauty; where form and structure owe their very existence to subtle processes that emanate within quantum states and manifest as objects that are interpreted and perceived by an awareness that is limited by our physical senses and governed by the dogma of consensus reality. In essence, Bruce, we must be willing to look at new phenomena that don’t quite fit within the framework of our traditional and arcane belief systems.

Question: It has often been said that the greatest journey is the journey within. What techniques have you found to be the most efficacious for facilitating the passage into the unchartered waters of non-ordinary states of consciousness?

Answer: The most ancient of techniques is that of meditation - of learning to quiet and focus the 
mind and there are many techniques of meditation that serve many specific purposes. Some of the more modern techniques that had their evolutionary roots in meditation consist of hypnotherapy and guided imagery. These techniques, when properly applied by skilled practitioners and therapists, facilitate therapeutic objectives by rapidly and safely accessing levels of consciousness that need to be explored in order to identify and resolve latent issues and conflicts that ordinarily do not manifest in the Beta, or fully conscious state of awareness.

Hypnosis, in particular, is a highly valuable primary and adjunctive modality that helps individuals to expand their personal “window of reality” and thus develop and enhance perceptive, behavioural and cognitive abilities. Hypnosis, when facilitated by properly trained individuals, can expeditiously get individuals to feel and experience states that one might have difficulty achieving alone and without a significant amount of practice.
 

Answer: The traditional dictionary definition of consciousness is the ability to be aware of our own awareness. It is being aware of ourselves. Actually, 
I define consciousness more deeply than that inasmuch as I interpret it as a ‘state specific’ phenomena.

There are actually many different states of consciousness. At the high end of it is what we call the ability to be self-reflective – being aware of our existence. Then there is simply self-awareness; being aware that we are, for example, different than a table or chair or from other people. There is also a more primitive level of awareness which lower forms of life, such as plants, seem to possess, in which they are undifferentiated with the environment itself. They react to events happening to others of their species remotely, as if they were connected by a subtle energy field. I call this third state ‘simple awareness’. And the real question that comes from that type of thinking is since awareness does not seem to be a property of complexity, but of a basic attribute of nature itself, then how far down the chain of complexity does this thing we call ‘awareness’ proceed, or can you find it in some form? And that is a very significant enigma we have not yet solved.

Question: Dr. Mitchell, what evidence exists that consciousness is predominantly a holographic construct?

Answer: I believe there is certainly holographic processing going on. I am not sure, however, that consciousness could be defined solely in that way. But certainly, holographic constructs are important to the process. The most significant development that 
I am aware of is that every physical object has associated with a natural quantum hologram that appears to carry the information within the holographic matrix. This appears to be the way nature carries and propogates the information non-locally. It is based upon a quantum correlation that was discovered in physics definitively about 1982. But what this quantum hologram shows is that all physical objects possess this attribute, which is non-local in origin, and that the quantum hologram carries discernable and encrypted information about the object. This is such a relatively new discovery that all the details of it are not yet fully understood. 

But it is clearly associated with how nature, and, more particularly, how defined organisms perceive and disseminate non-local information. So it is quite vital to what we think of as consciousness.

Question: Do we actually create and sculpt our own reality or are we simply reacting in response to the physical stimuli that appear before us?

Answer: The answer is both. We do respond to the physical stimuli and the internal stimuli that comes in from the outside to influence us. And so we create our reality in one way by reacting to that stimuli. But there is a more direct manner in that the way we think, the way we behave, the way we project our ourselves and utilize our energy and our intentionality does indeed interact with nature itself and influence the course of the environment around us.