Creating "Joy Theory" 2.0

I have no idea if the quote in this picture is true but it fit. Taken from here.

Joy theory synthesizes concepts of quantum physics, the idea of emotions having frequency common in new age spirituality, the concept of resonance used in various professional fields, bilateral stimulation which is the operating mechanism that makes EMDR work (one of the top 5 trauma therapies in the world), and visual meditation. I don't know if this theory will work but I plan on testing it with a couple clients and see how it goes. This will be a work in progress, I'm just throwing the idea out here for now to document my process of how I create a new psychological theory starting with explaining how this relates to quantum physics.

Quantum physics states that quantum particles (electrons, photons, atoms, etc.) are always in what is called wave-particle duality: At times they operate as a wave and at times they operate as a particle. I'll use a plasma globe to explain how that works.

Without touching the plasma globe the various plasma tentacles drift all around the sphere (all 3 dimensional waves are spherical) and the individual tentacles could be at any point in the sphere at any point in time. Although you can distinguish the energy tentacles in plasma globes, quantum particles would fill all parts of the sphere simultaneously in their wave form, a concept called superposition. Quantum particle's natural state is a spherical wave in superposition but that changes when the quantum particle is measured. This is how quantum physics describes it in a quick 49 second video.

The particle function of quantum particles, as described in the video, happens when a quantum particle is measured. Measurement collapses the entire wave into a single particle, kind of like the plasma globe being touched. This same concept is called "collapsing the wave function."

Taken from this website.

The mechanism that collapses the wave function is a controversial topic in quantum physics. Most quantum physicists right now believe that it is due to decoherence, a word meaning that the wave function collapsed due to coming into contact with something in the natural environment, such as photons of light. Another group of physicists believe that the collapse is due to human consciousness. Regardless of which it is, what matters right now is that the natural state of a quantum particle is a wave because all waves have frequency.

Higher frequencies have more compressed wavelengths meaning that they have more energy in less space and, therefore, have higher energy levels as a result. More energy means more power just like more wood on a fire means a bigger fire except that frequency is exponential, meaning that the higher the frequency is, the larger the difference between it and lower frequencies becomes. Here is a chart of the electromagnetic frequencies of visible light, with purple having the highest frequency and red the lowest.

From this site.

Spirituality takes the concept of electromagnetic waves and frequency and applies it to emotions with positive emotions having higher frequency and more energy than lower frequency negative emotions. This is where the disagreement between quantum physicists on what collapses a wave function becomes more important. Obviously not everyone believes in enlightenment, although most religions do including the big 5 (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism) although they call it different things: one calls it Moksha, the other enlightenment and Buddha hood, while the other three call it being a prophet. If the wave function collapses due to consciousness, that would have some pretty crucial implications.

The concept of emotions having frequency is pseudoscience but that doesn't make it necessarily incorrect and I'll explain why. Scientists have attempted to measure the frequency of emotions, but have not identified frequency related to it, which is what makes it pseudoscience. That being said the idea that emotions impact energy is easy to validate. Shame is less fun and less energizing than joy and people have less energy when depressed than when they're happy. This shift in energy is factual and is the shift in frequency that spirituality is referring to, or so I believe. The book Biogeometry Symbols by Dr. Ibrahim Karim, who has held many prestigious health-based positions worldwide and won on international award for his work on biogeometry, scientifically shows that even squiggly lines have frequency. If squiggly lines can have frequency, emotions can, and probably do, as well.

Another way to validate this concept is by understanding the impact of emotion on cells. We know that emotions impact cell health and the body: positive emotions impact the body in positive ways and negative ones impact the body in negative ways. Here is a summary of how positive emotions impact the body from the National Institute of Health. If the cells of the body respond to emotions, which are made up of quantum particles, which are most often in a wave state, then emotions have to have a frequency, or at least the changes emotions make in the body do. Even if emotions aren't frequencies in themselves, they 100% trigger it in the body. In fact, the word emotion means "energy in motion," which can be understood as the expansion and contraction of the body which would then result in a different atomic frequency. Emotions should have a frequency based on these ideas, even if it isn't currently measurable.

Now that we've established that emotions likely have frequencies, or at least cause frequency changes in the body, we will talk about resonance. A frequency can create something called resonance when it reaches the preferred frequency, or optimal frequency, of the system it is in. Complex systems can have many preferred frequencies. When resonance occurs, the amplitude or overall energy of the wave increases dramatically. The amount it increases is actually insane. Here is a 3 minute video on it.

For those that refuse to watch the video here are the most important concepts. The first is that there is a very small bell curve in which resonance is maxed, a concept called the peak of a resonance curve shown below.

Basic Bell Curve for Resonance

The peak resonance is the perfect amount of matched frequencies to enhance the resonance to its absolute maximum capacity and power for that frequency. There is a very narrow window for resonance to occur.

Advanced bell curve on peak resonance.

The video shows how dramatic resonance can be and here are pictures showing the impact of resonance.

The red dot is the current amplitude, or power, of the current resonant state. This red dot is not currently in the peak resonance bell curve, it is before or after the curve begins or ends, at one of its smallest points.

This is the impact of resonance at the peak of the resonance bell curve. The red dot became a red line and is WAY bigger!

The difference is enormous! It's almost like resonance makes 1+1=11

The body has multiple preferred frequency states depending on the organs or cells. Here is a study from Harvard showing the resonant frequency of the human body at 5-10 hertz. This study from Scientific Research: An Academic Publisher says that the liver has a frequency of 50-60 hertz. This article from Research Gate has this chart:

Now take the concept of organs having resonance and merge it with the idea that the body has multiple preferred frequencies (like those of our organs) but applied to preferred states of positive emotions. Telomeres, the part of DNA responsible for aging, shorten due to stress meaning that they age faster. This says to me that the body's preferred state is a lack of stress, or peace as shown in the emotional frequency diagram earlier. More positive emotional states are higher degrees of peace. As the body resonates at more positive emotional states it should have more power within it, which could account for the positive benefits in physical health seen from positive emotions. More energy = more power to change just like if a team of eleven horses can pull more than one horse can. If we can harness the emotional energy of a high frequency emotion through resonance with the body, then there is the potential for a large amount of emotional (or physical) change based on the principles of resonance. This is where visual meditation comes in.

The brain struggles deciphering between reality and imagination. This is an article on the idea by the University College London, one of the top 10 universities in the world. Professional athletes often use visual meditation to improve their physical performance. Here is a study published by Research Gate. If professional athletes use visual meditation to enhance physical performance, why not use it to become an expert on experiencing joy? Studies published by the National Library of Medicine show that visual meditations and love-kindness meditations make the brain produce higher frequency brain waves which corroborates the ideas of joy meditation and frequency. Additionally, meditation and guided imagery has been found to increase theta waves, responsible for memory, learning, and creativity, all helpful in creating new emotional patterns. Visualizing yourself being in a state of joy, or one of the lower options if necessary, could train your brain to feel joy, enhance your neural pathways making it easier to do in the future, and create harmonic resonance leading to more physical, emotional, and psychological energy.

Bilateral stimulation is done by stimulating alternating sides of the brain in a back and forth pattern which can be done by sight with watching a ball go back and forth across your horizontal axis, by sound by having sound alternate between left and right ear, or touch by tapping your thighs, knees, arms, toes, or any other part of your body as long as it's alternating. This helps the brain process through things although we don't exactly know why. Here is an article by the National Library of Medicine that goes over how bilateral stimulation is used to instill positive beliefs during EMDR, creating a shift towards positive emotions. I plan on incorporating bilateral stimulation as the visual meditations are done to aid in emotional processing. I've used bilateral stimulation throughout my career to help people shift from negative emotions to positive so I'm confident that bilateral stimulation's inclusion will only help aid positive emotional growth.

And so we've reached the end of the core idea behind Joy Theory. Now, it needs to be tested because I have no idea what it's going to look like in practice. Here are some of my ideas that I want to test:

1. Have a client visualize themselves feeling joyful while thinking about a negative experience or emotion that they are currently having. They imagine their troubles not bothering them and that they are feeling joyful in their life as it currently stands during the visual meditation.

   1. I think this may be the best starting option to test.

2. Have a client visualize themselves as joyful and have them sit in that feeling.

   1. Seems like the most straight forward option but possibly not as effective as option 1.

3. Walk a client through progressive emotional states starting from their lowest base emotion using this frequency chart to guide what the next emotion is to work on. Or, if someone can't imagine a high frequency state, use the chart to help a person imagine the highest possible current state and either build up to joy in the session or overtime.

   1. This might be used if people struggle with option 1 or 2.

   2. For people with aphantasia, option 2 may be best but focused on body sensations.

4. Work through these specific emotions just like in Peace Theory but with different visualizations.

5. Create an entirely different frequency chart based on emotion and test that.

   1. Sounds like a lot of work that I don't currently want to do.

6. Something else. I have no idea how to implement this beyond these ideas.

Joy Theory Version 3.0 is out!

Stay tuned for the official Joy Theory.

FYI: This version is 2.0 because I realized I had included some information that was scientifically incorrect/ not validated. That includes that emotions have measurable frequencies as well as two videos claiming to show that emotions impacted water crystal structure and plant growth. After learning those aspects were incorrect I nearly scrapped the entire theory. It was only when I took a second and thought about it that I realized that if emotions impact the cells of the body, then they must impact the quantum particles, and therefore must have a frequency due to quantum particles wave function, proving that the overall theory is not necessarily wrong despite having the classification of pseudoscience. The idea is bolstered by the research on the impact of positive emotions on physiology, making it relevant regardless of frequency or spiritual relevance.