Personal Mind Control Experiments
The first of my personal mind control experiments that I remember,
was when I was ten-years-old. I don't recall the exact circumstances,
but it started with my feeling very bad about something that
had happened. At some point, it occurred to me that other bad
things had happened to me, but that they didn't bother me nearly
so much, since they were in the past. Some of these other incidents
may have even seemed more funny than painful after some time
had gone by.
This lead to the realization that I could imagine seeing my
present situation as though a year had gone by. I tried this,
thinking about what had just happened as though I was recalling
it from this future time. The pain I was feeling was almost immediately
gone now that this was merely a "memory" of something
that had happened, rather than something that was happening now.
I had invented a simple technique that I used more than once
during childhood.
Some of you will recognize this as what later came to be called
neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP. In the more advanced techniques
of NLP, you change the color of these past images to black and
white in your mind, or mentally put the scene in a frame and
hang it on a wall. These are ways to re-code the memory, to take
the emotional content away.
How to Turn Off the Mind
As a teenager I had insomnia at times. It was clear that it
was my mind keeping me awake. A thousand thoughts were running
through it. What could I do to fall asleep?
One evening I was watching television, and I fell asleep.
When I woke up, I realized that often the TV kept me awake. Why
did it also put me to sleep at times like this? The answer was
obvious: I had been watching a boring program.
The next idea was logical. If television could put me to sleep
or keep me awake depending on the content, why wouldn't it be
the same with thoughts? I could try it easily enough. I always
liked these kind of mind control experiments. Unfortunately,
I discovered that it is not easy to think boring thoughts. When
I tried, my thoughts morphed into something that was more interesting
every time. And of course, we are easily fascinated by our own
thoughts, especially when young.
I watched the process, and realized that as this "stream
of consciousness" that kept me awake may have contained
many different thoughts and images, but it was a "stream."
That was the key. In other words, it flowed predictably from
one thought to another, with some logical associations as the
"stream bed" that it followed. What if there was no
consistent "flow?"
That is when I tried my "random thought sleep experiment."
I allowed no image or idea to take on a life of its own, or a
logical course in my mind. If I started to think about tomorrow's
plans, I would immediately think of something unrelated. If an
image of a tree was in my mind, pens or cups would have to start
growing from it, rather than leaves. The idea was that no logical
thoughts nor images in action were to be allowed. Purely random
and meaningless images and thoughts were the aim.
This technique was difficult at first, but when I used it,
I fell asleep in ten minutes instead of the usual hour or two.
I was effectively "turning off" my mind, by giving
it nothing to work with. Interestingly, I soon was able to fall
asleep more easily even without going through this routine. Maybe
I had trained my unconscious mind to accept that when I went
to bed it was time for sleep.
Other Personal Mind Control Experiments
I have always been a believer in self-experimentation. It
is a good way to research those things which cannot be addressed
as directly by science. For example, you can certainly tell if
something you do makes you feel more confident or happier, but
science has to work from outside personal experience and trust
people to report accurately what they feel (not the most objective
measures, perhaps). What experiments can you try on yourself?
Here are two.
* Talk about yourself in the third person (use your name rather
than "I") to see if you are more objective about who
you are. For your control, first write a description of yourself
and answer ten questions about yourself (you can make these about
almost any aspect). When you are speaking or writing about yourself
in the third person, do you have new insights? Do you answer
the ten questions differently?
* Watch your pupils in a mirror, and you'll see that they
get larger as you think about something exciting and pleasurable.
How do we use this to learn something new? Make a list of scenarios,
and rate how desirable each one is. Then imagine them while watching
your pupil size as a proxy for your immediate subconscious feelings,
to see if it coincides with your conscious ratings. In other
words, are you really as excited by what you think you are, or
are there some surprises here?
Currently, the personal mind control experiments that are
most fascinating to me have to do with the altering of our conscious
identity through the use of metaphors. I'll have more on that
in future issues of the Brainpower Newsletter (you can subscribe
on the home page), and on my website, Metaphorology.com.
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