Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,116

so much that you might even forget to eat. Stuff like that.”

Taylor half-smiled at the thought of all the paintings she had done upstairs. “Interesting.”

“Basically, flow happens when we slip from our System 2 brain processing—which is the newer part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex which is all about planning and future stuff and trying to get things to work consciously, to System 1 where it’s automatic. You know, like when you first learn to drive a car, and everything is so hard. But then, after a while it starts to just become automatic. Like that. So, when we’re in System 2, we’re having to consciously think about each step in the process, and it’s a real struggle. But after a while, if we know how to do it, we can relax and stop thinking about it, and we slip from System 2 into System 1, which is basically the same thing as going from Beta brain waves down into Alpha and Theta brain waves, which is like when we sleep.

“That’s the subconscious level, and it shuts off that prefrontal cortex that keeps telling us we’re doing it wrong and what’s everybody else going to think. Stuff like that. And then they talked about the four kinds of flow that are brought on by the chemicals in our brains—dopamine, endorphins, adrenaline, and oxytocin. Oh, man, oxytocin flow is so cool. So, oxytocin is the bonding and love chemical. It’s what gets produced when we connect with someone else. Oxytocin flow is when we’re doing something together with other people that puts us into flow at the same time. Like worship service or a concert or a sporting event. Even like this, when we’re just talking and hanging out. We bond because of the oxytocin, but we can also go into flow state from it. It’s how I feel when I’m helping someone, talking with them to help. It’s going out to do stuff with LJ and really feeling connected and like time just stands still. It’s like you guys when you sing together.”

Somehow, Taylor hadn’t been prepared for that particular bomb, and it jolted her enough to join the conversation verbally. “That’s really cool.” She sincerely hoped that Yoli didn’t know anything about Paige’s party. If she asked, Taylor had no real desire to talk about any of that. Nonetheless, Yoli didn’t even slow down.

“Then this afternoon, we went to one about patterns of thought, and how we have been conditioned to believe that we only think in a linear fashion. Like cause-and-effect, A-goes-to-B. But that’s not the only way the brain can think. It’s just the way the conscious brain, System 2, thinks. It’s when we’re trying to think things through and we use our logic system. That’s great and all, but until today, I never really understood the dreams thing.”

“Dreams thing?” Taylor asked.

“Yeah, you know. I’ve told you about that, about how I dream things about myself or other people.”

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember.”

“Well, I always thought I was just weird, because really? Where did that come from? But what I found out today is that there are other mental thought patterns—like lateral thinking. So linear is straight ahead, lateral is like your peripheral vision. You see, understand, and think to the sides of what you’re doing or seeing not just what’s right in front of you. It widens your mental perception and what you’re able to understand and put together. So like if you’re doing math, and all of a sudden, you understand that one-fourth and one-quarter and 25-percent are all saying the same thing. You get something on a whole new level. And then…” Yoli nearly swooned with the excitement. “There’s something called quantum thinking.”

“Okay?”

“Quantum is when you put things together even if you don’t really know how you’re doing it. You think with something other than consciousness. It’s kind of like flow, but deeper than that. So, like Steve Jobs creating computing systems that have never been tried or done before, or Elon Musk who thinks so far outside the box, there is no box anywhere around. Quantum thinking is more like thinking on the subconscious level, where you access something like the collective consciousness, so you know, you just don’t know how you know. And the thing I kept thinking all while they were talking, it’s exactly how I felt when I first started understanding God. That there was just… more. More I could suddenly see. More I could suddenly perceive. It’s