Why Robot?

When I was young, I wanted to be a robot and almost succeeded. I didn't become a robot to just hide my emotions, I became a robot to hide the other human frailty--making mistakes. In an uninformed mimicry of Mr. Data from Star Trek, I threw the baby out with the bathwater as I rejected emotions and tried to hide my irrationality. Emotions are not inherently bad, and neither are mistakes. The mistakes and their corollary negative emotions are but signals to the mind that encourage a course adjustment. Denying their existence is like unplugging the warning lights on a vehicle, stupid and dangerous.

In a more appropriate balance of emotion and intellect, these facets of my mind become tools to an end directed by conscience and good will. They are not to be disregarded or destroyed simply because they are unpleasant.

I wrote a related article a while back on pain as a messenger: Don't Kill the Messenger.

Ideomotor Signaling

An interesting way to talk to the subconscious mind is through ideomotor signaling. Ask the subject a question, and watch the body language. You can ask the subject to move her hands or fingers in different ways for "yes," "no," "maybe," or "no answer." You can use a Chevreul pendulum, which is simply holding a 12 inch string with a small weight over a cross in which the axes represent "yes" and "no" and diagonals are "maybe" and "no answer." According to clinical research, about 70% of subjects easily produce the subconscious movements needed for ideomotor questioning to work. They are usually surprised by the answers produced, not feeling like they consciously own the answers. This approach to psychotherapy unveils the subconscious much more quickly than free association. Ouija boards also work the same way. Furthermore, issues can be resolved without the subject even having to know the content of the repression. The therapist can simply ask if the subconscious can solve the particular hidden issue being discussed.

Understanding the powerful, reality-tunnel shaping nature of unseen mental forces, I am enthusiastic about exploring this way of communicating with those forces. Unfortunately, I can't get consistent results with the Chevreul pendulum yet. In trying to calibrate a "yes," the pendulum keeps shifting axes or go in circles. I seem to have strong resistance to self-hypnosis. The only time I'm really autosuggestible is in hypnogogia.

For more on hypnosis and ideomotor signaling, check out Experiencing Hypnosis (PDF) by Milton H. Erickson, M.D. and Ernest L. Rossi, Ph.D.

Channeling the Guru

I'm starting a new experiment in channeling an entity from another dimension that might be my Full-Potential Self. I call him the guru. He tells me to do things, and I record it onto mp3. This page will be the regularly updated archive of channelings. (Warning, there's some cussing.)

1. Make 40 mistakes daily (2006-05-29)

Optical Illusions

I was reading Mind Hacks the other day and found some cool links. The book itself was a bit of a disappointment as it had mainly your garden variety mental and optical illusions and didn't really get into mind reprogramming as I thought it would. But I did learn the name to a weird effect I've been noticing as a computer geek. I call it the scroll-effect because I get it while I smooth scroll down a browser and the scrolling stops abruptly, causing the text to appear to float downward as my eyes are erroneously anticipating further movement. They call it the waterfall effect. Anyway, Akiyoshi Kitaoka has a really cool site with great optical illusions.

Food for Thoughts

This has been my experience. "Our" thoughts do create reality, but we are only conscious of about 10% of "our" thoughts. We are mostly unconscious, and therefore, the reality we find ourselves in (the reality we create) seems to be given to us from the outside. Outside and inside are so intertwined that they aren't really two separate things as we perceive them to be.

These are wild claims that I can't prove to you. Hell, I haven't even proven them to myself, but I'm catching glimpses of all this. I've been recording my dreams daily and notice all the patterns I mentioned above in the dream world. Furthermore, I'm starting to see them active in waking life more and more as I become more conscious.

People spend multiple lifetimes trying to become aware, and even so, most fail. Why? Because certain thoughts are extremely powerful, living creatures, much like virii that infect and perpetuate themselves. They're very hard to get rid of or see through. When we're infected, we think we think them. In fact, they're just playing our minds like a flute. Some of these thoughts include things like concepts of God, objectivity, and religious dogma. Watch a recent convert to any religion to see the virulent and virus-like effect of these so-called "memes."

Contrary to popular belief, we are not on top of the food chain. In our stage of evolution, our minds are mostly food for thoughts. Unlike in the Matrix, where electronic computers are eating our brains, in reality, holographic quantum computers are eating our brains. Dr. Vernon Woolf calls them holodynes, Richard Dawkins calls them memes, and Dr. Bruce Lipton simply calls them by their old name: subconscious thoughts.

Science and Meditation

More and more scientists are confirming the age-old belief that meditation improves brain function and your overall life:

• Take a deep breath; meditation may boost brain size and increase mental performance, according to new research
• The Links Between the Dalai Lama and Neuroscience
  

Some experienced practitioners are complaining that "science" is lagging far behind ancient wisdom. "Duh" is right, but remember that the scientist's work on the job is not necessarily her belief. Most of these scientists doing meditation-neuroscience research are already well aware of the significance of meditation and spiritual practices in everyday life. In fact, some of them are risking their necks and their paychecks trying to validate their beliefs. Grants don't come easy for people trying to show the masses that we don't need to buy more shit from corporations and that war and hate are actually bad for living things.

Let's give it up to these folks for trying to bring enlightenment, albeit in a roundabout manner, to the stubborn and the brainwashed. For example, check out Dr. Vernon Woolf, the quantum physicist who scientifically formalized a method to travel across hypersace and talk to your own Buddha nature. (He calls it something else, of course: the "Full Potential Self.")

Great Pirates

I love the Internet. So many viewpoints! Sometimes I feel I'm drifting dangerously far away from consensus reality as I wade through the huge amounts of information and perspectives I find online.

For example, I love Buckminster Fuller's interpretation of imperialism. In his story about the Great Pirates, he shows how nation-states are but the stooges for the sea-faring merchants that used them as tool makers and land bases:
Fleming Funch's summary
History Education Critique

History is complex and multifaceted. The history we learn in school is just a one-sided justification for the powers that be. But today we have the Internet, and the pirates are becoming afraid:



Information Awareness Office Wikipedia entry