Into the Void

I attended a reiki share at a church in a nearby town. The fellow who ran it, I’ll call him “Paul,” told a story about a religious leader who visited from India. This leader sat in one of the chairs in the church, and Paul always told the story.

To a reiki practitioner, the chair seemed to have retained some of the religious leader’s energy. I like to call it “the God-Realized Chair.”

Plastics… and other unusual explanations for the obesity epidemic

Weather.com just noticed years of research suggesting that some plastics contain estrogen-like chemicals which can leech out into the contents. Welcome to the REAL world.

If estrogen-like compounds really do leech into your soda, not only could it make you fat, it could also cause breast cancer, precocious puberty and even a class of birth defects known in developmental biology and teratology as Mullerian duct anomalies. The latter are defects in the reproductive organs that can lead to sterility or intersex states.

Until it is disproved, it might be a good idea to avoid drinking acidic substances from plastic bottles. Look for your favorites in glass bottles, and if you can’t find them write to the company. Switch to filtered tap water while you wait for an answer.

The Bipolar Planet has made it to the 21st century. Social Networking is all the rage, and though The Bipolar Planet has provided a private email list for over ten years and a web page for 15 years as of May 2009, I’ve resisted wandering. Ok, here we go… Become a fan at the official Bipolar Planet Facebook page.

If you haven’t read Kay Redfield Jamison’s “Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament” run out and get a copy. She is a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins and is bipolar herself.

“I believe that curiosity, wonder and passion are defining qualities of imaginative minds and great teachers; that restlessness and discontent are vital things; and that intense experience and suffering instruct us in ways that less intense emotions can never do. I believe, in short, that we are equally beholden to heart and mind, and that those who have particularly passionate temperaments and questioning minds leave the world a different place for their having been there. It is important to value intellect and discipline, of course, but it is also important to recognize the power of irrationality, enthusiasm and vast energy. Intensity has its costs, of course — in pain, in hastily and poorly reckoned plans, in impetuousness — but it has its advantages as well.”
Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, Author and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University
in “The Benefits of Restlessness and Jagged Edges”
NPR Morning Edition, June 6, 2005

There is a video of a speech she did about Exhuberance on YouTube that was quite inspiring. She wrote a great book about the love of life called Exuberance: The Passion for Life
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A few nights ago I was looking into self-hypnosis and hypnosis. Sure, I’ve had many self-hypnosis tapes and CDs over the years. Not that I’m immune to suggestion, but most of them just don’t work. Often there are glaring errors. The facilitator says the stereotypical “sleep, sleeeeeeep” so much that it is comical. The facilitator tells you what not to do, which is practically guaranteed to make you think of actually doing it.

Don’t think of an elephant.

While researching self-hypnosis, I went off on a tangent and learned about some less well-known techniques.

Ideomotor Signaling is based on the concept of a split brain. The seminal book on the topic of a split brain, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes, is a must-read for anyone curious about the importance of left brain to right brain interactions. I suspect his theory was sparked by research into surgery that split the corpus collosum to prevent seizures in folks with epilepsy. The surgery had a number of interesting side effects, including what I’ll describe in the next paragraph. There are some excellent materials on split brain experiments on the Nobel Prize web site, and even a game. We love games.

The theory is that since the left half of the brain controls speech, the right half of the brain has to use other means of communication. To access information that isn’t available to the speaking side of the bicameral mind all you have to do is tell the right brain to signal its answers, perhaps by a finger tap. If Ideomotor Signalling is the force behind dowsing, magic pendulums, and ouija boards, a lot of mystics are fooling themselves.

Whether ideomotor signaling really works or not remains to be seen. According to Quackwatch, Ideomotor Action, is a well-known phenomenon that occurs so deep in the subconscious that the person experiencing it is totally unaware that their action is volitional. Often the movements are attributed to some supernatural force. Hence the spirits “talk” using the Hellboy Talking Board Ouija.

In more complex variants of ideomotor action, a person may be completely unaware that they’ve lost their objectivity. You see what you want to see and ignore the rest. This is the major flaw in religion, especially with regard to absolute morality. It is also a major flaw in the scientific method.

Essentially “Ideomotor Communication” is a modern phrase for the old concept of unconscious behavior.

Can ideomotor action be used to access information that we wish to hide from ourselves? It seems rather dangerous. We erect walls in our memories for a reason.

Continuing to surf the idea that we might want to hide information from ourselves, I came across Robert Anton Wilson’s concept of the fnord.

A fnord is a word marks any fact that the powers-that-be wish us, the great unwashed, to ignore or trivialize. After reporting an Inconvenient Truth, print the word “fnord.” Children were conditioned to feel extreme anxiety when confronted with a fnord. For the rest of their lives they will avoid sensitive issues by forgetting not only the fnords, but also the news item that preceded it. Politics, environmental issues, economics, all can be hidden in plain sight.

Of course this led to Steve Jackson’s fnord generator. Try it out.

A related concept is that of apophenia. Apophenia is the tendency to find meaning in noise. This is how we see constellations in the stars, faces on Mars, and Kaziklu Bey’s visage grinning evilly from a slice of cinnamon toast.

This would make a good premise for a game.

Apophenia is the human mind’s ability to see connections and patterns out of random noise, so I figured it would be a good title for a game in which I’m trying to make both the appearance and the rules as random as possible.

Each game is generated by a seed title, covering the appearance, soundscape, and behavior of the player, an NPC, and a swarm. You control the player with only the mouse, potentially leading, pushing, or controlling it. Each game ends when either the player or the NPC shrink into nothingness. If you have trouble understanding the symbolic value of each game, a “pretentious mode” is provided to explain the concept behind each variation.
– Noyb, author of the computer game “Apophenia.”

The Apophenia game can be downloaded from Noyb’s web page.

“I believe that curiosity, wonder and passion are defining qualities of imaginative minds and great teachers; that restlessness and discontent are vital things; and that intense experience and suffering instruct us in ways that less intense emotions can never do. I believe, in short, that we are equally beholden to heart and mind, and that those who have particularly passionate temperaments and questioning minds leave the world a different place for their having been there. It is important to value intellect and discipline, of course, but it is also important to recognize the power of irrationality, enthusiasm and vast energy. Intensity has its costs, of course — in pain, in hastily and poorly reckoned plans, in impetuousness — but it has its advantages as well.”
Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, Author and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University
in “The Benefits of Restlessness and Jagged Edges”
NPR Morning Edition, June 6, 2005

Besides being a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at prestigious Johns Hopkins University and the author of many excellent books, Kay Redfield Jamison has bipolar disorder. Unlike the bipolars today, Dr. Jamison continued her studies and has enjoyed a successful career. I believe that her success is due to her bipolar disorder, not in spite of it. We could all walk away from this with something.

Well, we are losing ground. There are a number of groups that are fighting for more humane treatment of mental patients, except that by “humane” they mean “treating the poor benighted bastards whether they want it or not.”

Although there are are indeed patients who are unaware of their illnesses, it is unacceptable to treat all of the mentally ill that way. It opens the door to unimaginable abuses. By the way, anognosia is also found in stroke victims with damage to the frontal lobes. And on a more chilling note, some psychiatric treatments induce anosognosia.

NAMI is once again at the forefront in this growing threat.

Anosognosia Keeps Patients From Realizing They’re Ill
A growing body of evidence points to the fact that for many people with serious mental illness, lack of insight is a medically based condition.
About half of the people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may not be getting the treatment they need because of a brain deficit that renders them unable to perceive that they are ill, according to one expert.
Xavier Amador, Ph.D.: “People will come up with illogical and even bizarre explanations for symptoms and life circumstances stemming from their illness.”
Anosognosia, meaning “unawareness of illness,” is a syndrome commonly seen in people with serious mental illness and some neurological disorders, according to Xavier Amador, Ph.D., who spoke at the 2001 convention of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Washington, D.C., in July.
People with this syndrome do not believe they are ill despite evidence to the contrary, said Amador, who is director of psychology at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and professor of psychology in the department of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Treatment Advocacy Center
“The Treatment Advocacy Center has been the catalyst for many positive changes in our laws and a shift in our perception of the importance of intervention. Their unique advocacy is restoring the important balance between individual freedom and caring coercion.”

Legislation
These issues of “involuntary commitment” and “assisted outpatient treatment,” are labeled in academia as “controversial”, a concept interpreted by many as too difficult for the average person to understand. Without the support of scientific research, we all felt until now, intimidated and afraid to be rendered guilty of tampering with everyone’s civil rights. To continue protecting their civil rights only allows our loved ones to remain psychotic, addicted to substances, wandering the streets of the USA, wasting their lives in jails and using, over and over again, most of the economic resources available to treat ALL mentally ill persons. We cannot forget that, not too long ago, freeing the slaves and fighting for an end to discrimination were also considered “controversial” subjects.

Bill mandates treatment for mentally ill (phillyBurbs.com)
Others, though, contend there is little evidence the court orders are effective, and the laws deflect attention from deeper problems plaguing the mental health system, such as a lack of funding for expanded treatment and support services.
Patient advocates fear that law could be abused by applying it whenever a patient disagrees with a doctor’s recommendations. A 2005 state law allows for psychiatric advanced directives specifying treatment preferences when a person’s decision-making is impaired, patient advocates added.
“I believe that the bill has grown out of a sincere desire to help people with mental illness,” said Joseph Rogers, president of the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, if it became law, it would have the exact opposite effect.”

Be afraid. Be VERY Afraid. If you disagree with your caregivers, they can pull out the anosognosia label to get you out of the way.

Byron Katie Newsletter: June 2008

The following quote is exactly what I have been going on about, the need to have an objective observer, one who pushes the ego out of the way and takes a good long look at who we are. The first step to healing is to know what has to be healed.

Byron Katie’s “The Work” is an interesting tool for examining how much misery we cause ourselves by forgetting that what is, is.

Stop by The Work web page to read and listen to the freebies.

I want to go to one of the 5-day events.

“To question that things might not be as they seem can shake the very foundation of habitual clinging. This questioning spirit is the starting point for self-reflection. Could it be that this tightly-knit sense of self is not what it seems? Do we really need to hold everything together, and can we? Is there life beyond self-importance? These kinds of questions open the door to investigating the cause of our suffering.

“The actual practice of self-reflection requires us to step back, examine our experience, and not succumb to the momentum of habitual mind. This allows us to look without judgment at whatever arises, and this goes directly against the grain of our self-importance.

“Self-reflection is the common thread that runs through all traditions and lineages of Buddhist practice. It also takes us beyond the boundaries of formal practice. We can bring the questioning spirit of self-reflection to any situation, at any time. Self-reflection is an attitude, an approach, and a practice. In nutshell, it is a way to make practice come alive for us personally.”

– Aryadeva, Buddhist teacher.

I often sit out in my car at lunchtime and read. The book I’m reading here is (still) Clarissa Pinkola Estés “Women Who Run With the Wolves.” Dr. Estés covers many psychological topics from the anthropological or mythological perspective. If she isn’t a Jungian, she’s missing a great opportunity.

At home I’m reading “Spritual Emergency” edited by Stanislav Grof and Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” I would rather be home, but not because the books are any better. I ran out of an asthma med because my GP got strange about refilling drugs from a Canadian pharmacy. I did so much albuterol last night that I am still shaking.

I am so devoid of dopamine that my concern over my breathing is little more than an intellectual exercise. Y’all know the feeling?

The quote is about creativity, spirit, the river beneath the river. Many topics in the book refer to cycles or to seasons. I wonder as I sit in the sunshine whether I take psych meds to suppress the seasons of my soul.

In archetypical lore there is the idea that if one prepares a special psychic place, then the being, the creative force, the soul source, will hear of it, sense its way to it, and inhabit that place. Whether this force is summoned by the biblical “go forth and prepare a place for the soul” or, as in the film Field of Dreams, in which a farmer hears a voice urging him to build a baseball diamond for the spirits of players past, “If you build it, they will come,” preparing a fitting place induces the great creative force to advance.
Once that great underground river finds its estuaries and branches in our psyches, our creative lives fill and empty, rise and fall in seasons just like a wild river. These cycles cause things to be made, fed, fall back, and die away, all in their right time, and over and over again.
– Clarissa Pinkola Estés in “Women Who Run With the Wolves.”

Thought for the day:

“Actually, it seems to me the life of a middle aged male is a race between hair falling out of its own accord and getting ripped out over stress and irritation. Women have it harder—they have to rip it all out.”
– John Walker, founder of Autodesk in The Hacker’s Diet, Electronic Edition, 1993.