Meeting God Through Science (Review of Dr Joe Dispenza's Retreat)
Feb 25, 2026
These notes were taken during the discourses and presentations of Dr. Joe Dispenza at his week long retreat entitled Alchemica, and summarises my personal experience and understanding of his work.
I had already been familiar with Dr. Joe’s work for some time through friends as well as through his online presence. Even following his work remotely can have dramatically healing, consciousness-raising and abundance-producing effects. Yet I felt a clear pull to experience the work in its full immersion and to step into the live, seven-day retreat environment and allowing the process to unfold without interruption.
Just to be clear, I regard Dr. Joe as a genius and a game changer, bringing the potential for sweeping change and positive transformation to the fields of science, medicine and spirituality.
I am aware of both the similarities and differences with my own work and while I may not utilize the same way of creating a transformational milue or languaging, I am in deepest respect of what Dr. Joe is creating in the field of human potential for positive change. I am also quite impressed in regards to the similarities of his work to some of the methodologies and results we see happening in Tantra.
My Initial Impression at The Advanced Week Long Retreat
For someone coming to one of Dr. Joe’s live retreats for the first time, the milieu, daily routine and schedule can be shocking and challenging. This is not a gentle wellness retreat. It is intense, disciplined, and at times deeply uncomfortable. However, the positive results from the work far outweigh the difficulties, something that becomes increasingly apparent as the days unfold.
From the very beginning, Dr. Joe appears to enjoy shocking preconceived ideas about how a meditative atmosphere should be. Loud, rock-style music is played before and after many of the processes that take place. The meeting space is called “the monastery,” yet it looks nothing like what one might imagine. People wear their shoes inside. The room is dark, with black walls, low lighting, rows of chairs, a large stage, with five enormous screens behind it. A long panel of technicians and equipment lines the back wall, handling sound, filming, and live scientific data displays.
The room is kept quite cool, making it necessary to wear warm clothing and bring a blanket and yoga mat. During longer laying down parts of meditations, participants lie down on the floor between the chairs. The logistics are finely tuned due to the scale of the event, with over two thousand participants from many countries. Chairs are colour-coded, and people rotate seating positions each day, ensuring that everyone eventually sits directly in front of Dr. Joe. Vast cafeterias provide meals three times a day with tea and snacks available continuously in the lobby of the venue. The retreat takes place at a sprawling resort in Cancún, Mexico, situated on a long beach, allowing for walking meditations at sunrise or sunset and brief immersions in the ocean during short breaks.
Joe Dispenza & His Work
Joe Dispenza opens the retreat by speaking directly to the process of transformation. He explains that if new information comes in, new synapses are created in the brain. If you study the subject again, these synapses are strengthened. If you share the information, they are strengthened even further and begin to form emotions. Finally, through direct experience, they are reinforced to the point where the body itself becomes the embodiment of this knowledge.
He states that science shows that by the end of seven days of meditation in a group of people, the body itself will begin living in a new way. There is substantial evidence that profound physical and psychological transformation can take place in just seven days. An emerging consciousness begins to take place that alters one’s habitual way of being.
Dr. Joe Dispenza's work describes this as a massive process of deconstruction and reconstruction. The brain, he says, functions as an anticipation machine, programmed by the past. Most people live in a loss of free will, governed by habitual programs. When these programs begin to dissolve, people enter present moment awareness. This, he emphasizes, is the only place from which real change and spiritual growth can occur.
He is very clear that this process will be uncomfortable. The body has been conditioned for so long that transformation can feel threatening. He describes this as a genetic death of the old self, during which new software is launched in the brain. The nervous system resists change because it is addicted to familiar emotional states, particularly stress.
According to Dr. Joe, living in stress is living in survival. Stress hormones instruct the body to pay attention to danger, pulling it out of balance. When stress becomes a habit, it becomes addictive, and people unconsciously create stress in their lives in order to reproduce the same chemistry. He asks a simple but profound question: if thoughts can make us sick, is it possible that thoughts can also make us well?
Life Changing Transmissions From Dr Joe
He speaks extensively about healing. People reverse health conditions, sometimes in ways that surprise even him. He recounts cases where individuals reported that their pain decreased, their sleep improved, yet medical scans initially showed no change. They continued anyway. They decided to show up for themselves, never missing a day, practicing the meditations daily, sometimes for months or even a year, until their bodies changed how they thought and felt and true healing thus became possible.
He often repeats that you are never too old to do this work and never too sick to do it. He speaks of spontaneous remissions, of people who arrived blind and left able to see, people who could hear again, and even someone who grew back a colon that had been partially removed through surgery. He emphasizes that the body has an innate capacity to regenerate itself when given the right internal environment.
Dr. Joe stresses that belief is not enough. Many people felt fear, disbelief, or exhaustion and wanted to stop. Yet they continued anyway. They overcame their disbelief by doing the work regardless of how they felt. These people, he says, remove thought limitations not only for themselves but for the collective. Health and wellness become infectious, dissolving self-limiting beliefs also in others.
Another core teaching is the role of the heart. He explains that when attention is placed on the heart, the body moves from fight or flight into coherence. In this state, the heart reveals itself as the creative center. The heart begins emitting a new magnetic field, the person’s appearance changes, and buried emotions rise to the surface to be released back to source. When the heart opens, life patterns change, and trauma begins to heal.
The Core Practices & Joe's Meditations
All of the meditation practices in this retreat are guided throughout by Dr. Joe, either live or as downloadable recordings. The music for the meditations is created by musicians working closely with him, and it plays a significant role in guiding the nervous system through different states of awareness. The days are structured around repeated cycles of meditation, discourse, and integration, often beginning very early in the morning and continuing into the evening.
Types of Meditation Used
Dr. Joe works with four types of meditation throughout the week:
- Seated
- Standing
- Walking
- Laying down
Each posture serves a specific function in retraining the nervous system and teaching the body how to sustain new states of being, both in stillness and in movement.
Heart Resonance and Entering Coherence
Many meditations begin with heart resonance. Participants are instructed to place attention on the heart, which has been scientifically measured to move the body from fight or flight into coherence. In this state, the heart reveals itself as the regenerative center. As coherence builds, the heart begins emitting a new magnetic field, which then entrains the brain into more ordered and harmonious patterns.
As the heart opens, emotions buried deep within the body come to the surface. People often experience an emotional upgrade tears, or a profound sense of love and gratitude. When the heart opens, life patterns change.
Breathing Up the Energy Centers
A central practice repeated daily is breathing up the energy centers. Participants are guided to draw the breath up from the perineum, locking the first energy center, then continuing to “suck” the breath upward through the second and third energy centers, locking each center in sequence. The breath is drawn up the spine until the cerebral spinal fluid reaches the pineal gland, where the breath is held and the gland is gently stimulated.
After holding the breath, participants slowly exhale and release the locks in the energy centers. This process is repeated many times and is often accompanied by arching the back to assist the spinal fluid in reaching the pineal gland. This in-and-up movement of energy creates arousal, coherence, and elevated brainwave states.
Entering the Present Moment and Letting Go of Identity
Following the breathwork, participants are guided to enter the present moment, letting go of self, identity, body, environment, and time. Dr. Joe repeatedly instructs participants to become no one, no thing, no time. This is described as the doorway into the quantum field, the void, or pure consciousness.
In this space, the inner world becomes more real than the outer programmed world. The body begins to respond differently, collecting a greater level of life potential. Many people report a loss of awareness of time, which Dr. Joe explains as being right at the door of transformation.
Entering the Quantum Field and Tuning into Nothingness
Once identity dissolves, attention is placed on the nothingness, the void space that exists beyond the material world. Dr. Joe explains that this void is pure consciousness, that it permeates the entire universe, and that all potential exists within it. When attention is sustained in this space, different compartments of the brain are activated, and the body moves into a state of wholeness.
Participants often experience tears of joy, ecstasy, bliss, and profound peace. Brainwave patterns shift into alpha, theta, and gamma states. The nervous system releases chemicals associated with healing, regeneration, and love.
Laying Down and Deep Relaxation
Many meditations conclude with a long laying-down phase, where participants rest on the floor between the chairs. In this state of deep relaxation, the body integrates the changes that have occurred. Dr. Joe often explains that during this phase, the body begins living in a new way, as new neurological and biological patterns stabilize.
Walking Meditation
Walking meditation is used as a way to practice being the future self. Participants enter a trance-like state, standing with eyes closed followed by walking slowly with eyes open. The intention is to rehearse how one would walk, move, and behave if already transformed. Dr. Joe emphasizes that we do not pray to transform, we get up and walk as if we are already transformed.
This teaching is deeply aligned with a wonderful meditation I learned from Osho many years ago called ‘The Great Law of Magic’ where we live the result and the cause follows.
Blessing the Energy Centers
Another core practice is the Blessing of the Energy Centers Meditation. Participants focus on each energy center one by one, first sensing it, then progressively drawing energy from the lower centers into the higher ones. This continues until all energy centers, including the eighth center above the head, are sensed simultaneously. From there, attention expands into the field of light around the body, creating the chemistry and biology necessary for healing.
Dr. Joe explains that by blessing the energy centers, the body can change not only by healing disease, but also by improving overall health, even in those who are already healthy.
Long Duration and Repetition
What defines the retreat most strongly is duration. Meditations are not brief. Some sessions last several hours, including a five-hour pineal gland meditation beginning at 4:00am. Dr. Joe repeatedly emphasizes that twenty minutes will not cut it. The body must be trained “like an animal”, staying with discomfort, fatigue, and resistance until it learns to let go of the past.
As people continue showing up, day after day, the nervous system releases its addiction to stress, the heart opens more easily, and coherence becomes a lived state rather than a temporary experience.
The Science Layer
Throughout the retreat, Dr. Joe repeatedly emphasizes that science shows the body itself will begin living in a new way after seven days of sustained meditation in a group. He states that there is so much evidence that human transformation can take place in just seven days. An emerging consciousness occurs that directly affects both biology and psychology.
A central idea presented is that the brain is an anticipation machine, programmed by the past. Most people live in a loss of free will, governed by subconscious programs and emotional memories stored in the body. When meditation interrupts this cycle, massive deconstruction and reconstruction processes begin to occur in the brain and nervous system. New neural networks are formed, and new software is launched in the brain.
Brainwave States
Dr. Joe frequently refers to brainwave states. Beta brainwaves dominate normal waking consciousness and are associated with stress, analysis, and survival. As people meditate, brainwaves slow into alpha, then theta, a light sleep or hypnotic state that is highly suggestible to new information. When sustained long enough, some participants enter gamma states, which are associated with wholeness, unity, ecstasy, and profound healing. Theta is described as the doorway into gamma.
He explains that the quantum field permeates the entire universe, and that we normally perceive only a very small percentage of reality. Between atoms exists an infinite amount of energy and information — this void space is the quantum field. When attention is taken off the physical body, environment, and time, and placed into this void, the nervous system begins collecting a greater level of life potential.
Dr. Joe describes the pineal gland as a critical transducer in this process. The pineal gland contains piezoelectric crystals, which generate electrical charge when mechanical pressure is applied. Through specific breathing techniques — drawing the breath up the spine and compressing the cerebral spinal fluid against the pineal gland — these crystals are stimulated, activating the gland as a radio receiver capable of picking up higher frequencies of information from the field.
He explains the biochemical cascade associated with this activation: tryptophan transforms into serotonin, serotonin into melatonin, and melatonin into other powerful metabolites, including benzodiazepines and DMT. These chemicals are naturally produced by the body and are associated with mystical states, inner visions, ecstasy, and expanded awareness. He emphasizes that these are not imagined states but measurable biochemical events.
Coherence Healing
Dr. Joe introduces Coherence Healing as one of the most extraordinary aspects of the work. He says openly that he has seen things he couldn’t believe himself through this process, blind people who could see, deaf people who could hear, stage 4 cancer being healed, and that these cases have been verified through medical scans and scientific testing.
Coherence Healing sessions take place in large groups and can also be done at a distance. Participants are placed in groups of six, with one person laying down in the center and the others positioned around them. Before entering the room, everyone lines up outside with a hand on the heart center, entering the space in silence. The intention, Dr. Joe explains, is to leave the self behind and to become nobody, no thing, no time, and to tune into a coherent heart and brain state.
He explains that when heart and brain have the same energy, the same frequency, information relevant for healing becomes available. The heart generates its own opiates, and when people open their hearts and forget about themselves, the body moves into a state of love, wholeness, and order. Many times, he says, the one giving healing is healed.
I experienced an extraordinary field of heightened energy during the Coherence Healing. I felt and experienced higher dimensional energies supporting the healing process, giving the impression that when we open ourselves to source, mysterious help becomes available, nurturing us to align with source and with our original template for love and wholeness.
Our Electromagnetic Field
Dr. Joe references early scientific studies from the 1940s that showed every living organism has an electromagnetic field around it. Each egg, reptile, bird, fish, had an invisible field in the same shape as the egg itself. When humans were studied, particularly women who were ovulating, a distinct energetic field was observed. Further research suggested that the body responds to the pattern in the field, rather than the field responding to the body. If the field can be changed, the destiny of the body can be altered.
He emphasizes that the slowest frequency is matter, and that everything exists in the field first before it appears in physical form. Information outlives matter. The hologram of each person exists in the dimension of light, and by changing the program in the subtle dimension, the dense physical reality can change.
During Coherence Healing, participants are instructed to rub their hands together, then slowly pull them apart into a separated namaste, feeling the energy between the palms. They then lift their hands toward the person receiving healing, synchronizing their energy with the group. Dr. Joe emphasizes becoming one heart and one mind, allowing the healing to happen rather than trying to make it happen.
Scientific data presented by Dr. Hemel H. Patel and the Inner Science research team shows that during these healing sessions, heart rate increases in the person offering healing, and that after the retreat, biological markers continue to improve. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) data shows dramatic changes, with stress being reduced and regulation increasing. In large groups, HRV synchronizes across participants, demonstrating what scientists describe as non-local communication in the field.
The Pineal Gland & Long-Form Meditation
A major focus of the retreat is the pineal gland, and Dr. Joe devotes extensive time to explaining both its anatomy and its role in mystical and transformative experiences. He explains that the pineal gland anatomically mirrors the clitoris, even mirroring how it is connected to the labia. Within the pineal gland are piezo-electric crystals which, when stimulated, activate minute hairs that generate a bio-electric current in and around the gland.
This current, he explains, activates a kind of radio receiver in the pineal gland, opening it to gamma energy and universal consciousness. Normally, people remain tuned only to very limited frequencies, but when the pineal is activated, the rational brain relaxes and the nervous system becomes receptive to a much wider range of information and frequencies.
Dr. Joe explains the biochemical sequence that accompanies this process where tryptophan transforms into serotonin, serotonin into melatonin, and melatonin into other powerful metabolites, including benzodiazepines and DMT. These compounds are produced naturally by the body and are associated with mystical states, inner visions, ecstatic experiences, and a profound sense of connection to source. He emphasizes that this is not imagination, but a biological and chemical process that can be measured.
The Movement of Energy
Central to activating the pineal gland is the practice of moving energy in and up the body. This is done by consciously breathing from the perineum, locking the lower energy centers, and drawing the breath up the spine so that the cerebral spinal fluid is directed toward the pineal gland. Arching the back helps this fluid reach the gland, where it gently taps on the crystals, creating mechanical stress that generates electricity. Dr. Joe describes this as “knocking on the door of the mystical.”
As energy continues to move upward, arousal is created from within rather than from the outer environment. This inner arousal leads to gamma brainwave states, inner ecstasy, and bliss. The hypothalamus translates the frequencies being received into chemistry, and the pituitary gland distributes this information throughout the body, changing hormones, emotions, and overall functioning. In high gamma states, cells require more water and begin producing more light, resulting in what Dr. Joe calls a biological upgrade.
During the meditation, participants are guided through multiple phases: awakening the pineal gland, visualising being inside it, sending signals into different dimensions, and sustaining awareness of the experience for long periods of time. Rapid breathing is used to create arousal, followed by breath holds that compress the spinal fluid against the pineal gland. Participants then sit upright to activate the crystals, gaze into a kaleidoscope of geometric patterns, and later lay down to drift into deep states of surrender and integration.
One thing that astonished me greatly is an experiment which revealed that simply by showing certain coherent brain patterns and saying the names of drugs which are manufactured in the brain during elevated states of consciousness, even in people who have no understanding of these scientific terms, their bodies will begin producing these drugs, leading to expanded consciousness and positive physical changes.
Integration: Returning to Ordinary Life
As the retreat draws to a close, Dr. Joe repeatedly emphasizes that the real work begins when you walk back into your life. He says clearly: “I want you to walk back into your life thinking and feeling differently.” This is not about what happens inside the retreat container, but about whether participants can hold their transformation when they return to familiar environments, relationships, and responsibilities.
He reminds everyone that change means being greater than your thoughts, going beyond time, beyond the environment, and feeling differently. If people return to the same emotional reactions, the same habits, and the same identities, the body will simply revert to its old chemistry. The nervous system will default back into survival, stress, and familiar emotional states unless consciously regulated.
Dr. Joe openly acknowledges that sliding back is part of the process. He shares that even he still falls into old patterns at times. The difference, he says, is that he notices it sooner, picks himself up, and shows up again for the meditation. “Don’t default when you go back into your life,” he tells participants. If you do, don’t blame others — simply begin again.
A recurring theme is that the body must be trained like an animal. When emotions from the past arise, people are instructed to lower the volume on those emotions, open the heart, and focus on order instead of chaos. The challenge is not to suppress emotions, but to stay present long enough for the body to release its addiction to stress.
Dr. Joe stresses that meditation in the morning informs the entire day. If a person can remain in the present moment for an extended period of time, it changes how the whole day unfolds. He explains that oxytocin levels can rise dramatically through heart coherence, and that sustained elevated emotional states allow the nervous system to reorganize itself.
Participants are reminded that the soul’s journey is toward wholeness, and that people come to the retreat for many reasons, but in truth, they are coming to remember who they are beyond survival and separation. The work is to continue choosing this heightened state, again and again, in ordinary life.
Final Reflection: What I Took With Me
As the seven-day retreat came to an end, I was left with a strong sense that this was just the beginning. Again and again, Dr. Joe emphasized that this work is not about a single event, a single healing, or a single mystical experience, but about who you become. “You are creating your own reality,” he says. What you think, how you feel, and how you behave shapes your future, moment by moment.
What stayed with me most deeply is the understanding that the body already knows. Nothing needs to be added, only allowed to unfold. The body has an innate capacity to regenerate itself when given the right internal atmosphere. Time and again, Dr. Joe repeated that you are never too old to do this work and never too sick to do it. The nervous system, when regulated, becomes an inner pharmacy capable of producing everything necessary for healing and joy.
Another confirmation of my own experience in regards to healing is that living in stress is living in a continuous fight or flight survival mode. Stress hormones train the body to anticipate danger and remain out of balance. When stress becomes a habit, it becomes addictive. Breaking that addiction requires sustained presence, elevated positive emotion, and the willingness to go beyond discomfort. Yet on the other side of that discomfort is coherence, a state in which the heart opens and the body begins living in a new way.
I also took with me the understanding that change is about entering the present moment so fully that the past loses its grip. When attention is removed from time, identity, and environment, a doorway opens into what Dr. Joe calls the quantum field, the void, pure consciousness. From there, synchronicities appear, and opportunities unfold and limitless abundance becomes possible.
I saw again and again that health and wellness become infectious. When people heal, they remove limitations not only for themselves but for the collective. Collective coherence dissolves self-limiting beliefs, allowing others to believe that change is possible for them as well. The emerging consciousness created by thousands of people meditating together has effects that reach far beyond the individual.
One of the most important take-aways from this Retreat is the proof that Science and Spirituality are actually two faces of the same coin. The very exciting revelations about the Pineal Gland and DMT release which gives rise to highly Mystical States validates my years of research and experiences in the field of Tantra and Meditation. I envision a world where science and the mystical hold hands and dance together. Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work is opening the door for this merger to happen, easily and naturally.
The seven-day retreat is over. And yet, it feels very much like this is just the beginning.
My Personal Experiences
During one of the meditations I met God. This may sound very cliche, but it is simply the truth. Through DMT release from the pineal gland, I found myself journeying to the very deepest center of creation, riding on waves of inner ecstasy. There was the soundless sound Om and as I dissapeared into this, there was an intelligence pulsating within the Om. This intelligence revealed to me that it is both the alpha and the omega. It is continuously alive and inherant in each and every life form. It is simultaneously vast and yet exists in the smallest atom. It is the ultimate creation principle. In these moments of communion with God, I know in each and every cell of my body that just as I am a part of God so it is that Godliness is within me and ultimately, I am God.
I also had an inner experience during the meditation on day 4. In the meditation before lunch I ‘saw’ within my body that there is a strand of DNA that got activated which is not normally switched on in humans beings. It is there as a potential but is not normally used. This is a strand which invites telepathy as an integral part of communication systems in the body and between other life forms. It links us directly to source.
My Experience during The Coherence Healing
As the special music came on and the whole room of 2,200 people entered into meditative silence, I became aware of other dimensional beings entering the space. They were a luminous bluish colour and they floated rather than walked. The entire space felt liquid rather than material. It felt as if we were all in an oceanic field of unlimited possibilities. Hundreds of these brings floated down and positioned themselves, ready for the healing to begin.
One of the beings entered inside my body from the crown chakra. It informed me it would be healing through me, using my body as a conduit in order to make the link to the material plane. I noticed that in some other cases, the beings were not entering inside the human healers but only positioning themselves behind them. I asked the one who had entered me why this was and it informed me this was because the host was not ready to take the other dimensional being inside of themselves due to impurities in their system.
The being who was inhabiting me appeared to have a sense of humour. It said something along the lines of: “Oh, it is very pleasant and easy to inhabit your body! I may like to choose you as my pet!
Through the eyes of the being, I witnessed the illnesses in people like small blips within an oceanic field of energy coherence. As I watched, these blips were removed and sent back to source, in a process something like weeding a garden.
I asked the being how such healing will help in the long run if the people receiving it would then go back into their lives and continue intoxicating, poisoning and desecrating their bodies all over again? The being informed me that they had been exposed to coherence and would thus lose the desire to pollute themselves.
Once the ‘weeding of the garden’ was done, all of the beings simultaneously ascended upwards, floating back to their domain. I was left in a state of inner peace, feeling blessed by this mass visitation of healing, higher vibrational energies.”
