A real-life death-defying tale... and some unrelated cool photos!

In my cathartic deluge last post, I left out the part about something else that happened on January 30, (the day Michael Shermer came to Town Hall). It concerns a woman around my age, who used to seem rather straight-laced, worked at a bank, and who briefly knew Dr. Hypno before a bizarre downward spiral took her to life on the streets.

` Because of his problem-solving and reframing brilliance, and his blunt honesty, she prefers to consult DH for advice when she is in a serious jam. Though she doesn't always take this advice, partly due to poor impulse control and planning ability, she did take to heart what to do if her psycho ex-boyfriend ever tried to come back and kill her:

` Puncture an artery/lung by stabbing him under the arm with a screwdriver.

Cloudy solar eclipse Oct 23, 2014 through a filter from a welding mask.

Not related, but ominous-looking nonetheless!

As I was thinking about what I'd do at Town Hall with some friends that evening, her homicidal ex found her campsite and attacked her with a ball peen hammer. She held her hands up in self-defense and slashed his face with a razor knife, while he swung the hammer at her arms, breaking both of them.

` He then cracked her skull with the hammer, causing her to lose her balance. He pulled off her pants and raped her, all the while choking her and beating her face in.

` Luckily, her screwdriver was just within reach of her broken arm, and by sheer force of will she was able to stab him under the arm. With the screwdriver jammed to the hilt in his chest cavity, he ran off, spluttering and gurgling. On the unlikelihood of his survival, the police told her, "Good."

Although she needed some intensive medical care, including a hole drilled into her skull, she is now recovering -- on the streets. (She did return to Dr. Hypno for some thanks, company, advice, and hospitality.) She continues to be ebullient, talkative, and optimistic as ever, and now knows the power of her own survival drive.

I had taken a photo of her last winter, on my previous phone, which was stolen. I remember becoming overwhelmed by her personality and high energy -- and that was after she had walked miles in the cold with her knee bandaged from a necrotic insect bite.

` I figured I'd try getting a photo on my new phone, and when she came by briefly on January 16, I got a candid shot of both of us, having a laugh -- alas it didn't come out so well.
` I include it anyway because it could well have been the last time I would have a chance to see her. Thank goodness she's a regular Indestructible Bastardess -- this is not even the first time she's had to fight for her life, nor the first time I thought she might be dead. And she's still finding more to laugh about.

Though she may not seem like someone to look up to, I do find her determination and strength to be inspirational. On top of that, any time that I think my life is bad, and that my ex is psycho... well, I have to ask myself, compared to what?

` Honestly, I have nothing to whine about. I'm fine. Stop worrying about me so much.

Now, before I go, I'd like to point out that there are some more photos up on Flickr, and I shall continue uploading more. Next up will be the photos that I was able to back up from my previous phone, which got stolen last July.

` But first... here are a few I've taken after The Amazing Meeting last year:

Grateful to still be alive and thinking -- and skepticalof 'gaslighting' abuse!

If it weren't for my interest in science and the skeptical movement, plus a need for recovering from so many traumas, I wouldn't have also gotten into psychology, cognitive reframing, denominalization, hypnosis, meditation, psychedelic research, or gaslighting, nor would I have discovered my role as a narcissistic source.
` Without my taste for critical thinking and unlocking the mind, I wouldn't have been able to overcome most of my trauma-related impairments, see my way out of a trap I didn't even know I was in, as well as discover more delusions of the world that aren't even talked about in the skeptical community.

Last week, I went to Michael Shermer's lecture at Town Hall concerning the subject of his latest book, The Moral Arc. It got me thinking about the information I was processing from the night before, a realization about my ex -- who I'll call "X" from now on.
` Basically, I had just realized that X's acting as though nothing was wrong was all part of his trying to make me doubt my grasp of reality, and that's why I can't stand him when he's being really nice.
` After telling me that I was crazy, "killing" him slowly, and that I had been hypnotized into being some sort of 'attack robot', and that I shouldn't talk to other people about it because they don't know what's "really going on", etc. he has continued pretending as though everything is fine.
` Wait -- what!?

It's not just that he won't acknowledge the extreme damage he's done to my sanity and health, but that he acts as though it never happened. I haven't been the same since the significance of this fact hit me so hard that I was physically recoiling as though I was being beaten.
` In those moments, when I told a friend about what was going through my head, my voice came from so close to my spleen that I could barely even spit out words over the grunts of involuntary rhythmic recoiling.
` My voice was so guttural that I imagine I sounded like one of the hypnotized victims in Bob Larson's exorcism games. "What kind of sick person does this to someone?" I kept growling. "Oh my GOD!! OH my GOD!!! WHAT!??!!"

As Shermer was going on about how reason has helped us to overcome senseless brutality, slavery, ignorance, fear, prejudice, superstition, etc., I thought about how it could be that people started out that way to begin with. I realized it was because everyone acted as though it was normal.
` That is the most insidious part, yet finally I can appreciate it. When no one bats an eye, it seems as though everything is being done the right way, and that you're crazy for saying otherwise. Of course, people today are not generally near the pinnacle of morality -- there is probably quite a ways to go. And how is it that this goes so unnoticed?
` Because we act as though nothing is wrong. To take an extreme example, how is it that parents can allow a tumor on their daughter's head to grow to the size of a soccer ball until she dies in agonizing pain? Because, to that family, it's just normal to believe this is all part of God's plan.
` It's not just abuse and neglect that is the problem, but the mentality that this is the way things should be. And to someone who has been severely damaged by this, acting as though they have not been harmed only hurts them on a deeper level -- or kills them in some cases.

This is why so many false beliefs are dangerous. Even if you don't believe the BS that supports some sort of abuse, but are are surrounded by people who do, and who act like it's normal, that alone is damaging to you:

Controversy and yet more adventures in Hypno-Land

Though I've written many more emails to people (besides poor Geo), they don't have much to do with mad science, warping minds, or pictures of my back side, and thus would be out of place on this blog. Facebook, on the other hand, has some material I could use, although being a social media spot, it comes in bits and pieces.
` That can only mean one thing -- I must put some time into editing posts for this blog. Not only that, but getting onto the internet so that I can do research and check facts. I did none of that for my last post, Adventures in Hypno-Land which was an email I wrote almost a year ago.
` Though I've learned a lot since then, I'm still going to need to learn more in order to continue writing about hypnosis, and pretty much anything else that interests me.

As for this post, this is actually late in coming because my first draft got deleted. So, I shall do what I can to put forth even less effort than my last attempt -- by using Facebook material that I saved on WordPad from the last time I connected my computer to the internet.

I have noticed that hypnosis is one of those little-understood topics on which people in the skeptical community have a wide range of opinions, and occasionally I wind up with pieces of this on Facebook.
` Some skeptics are stage hypnotists while others have told me that stage hypnotism is nothing but fakery. Some are hypnotherapists, and some, like the California Skeptics, kicked a hypnotherapist off their Facebook page for not "admitting" that he's a fraud.

As for me, I have an unusual angle on hypnosis in that I've experienced a lot of it, have been dramatically changed by some of it, although have studied a lot more practical methodology than the actual science involved.
` At the bare minimum, hypnosis involves establishing contact with someone, a first suggestion, penetrating through the critical faculties, and producing phenomena that the subject commonly feels are involuntarily.
` It could involve what is informally called "trance", or could be done during what looks like a normal conversation.

Case in point, my podcasting co-host "Dr. Hypno" was once at a bar where he met someone who thought that hypnotherapy was interesting. This guy wanted to quit smoking but didn't think that he could be hypnotized.
` After a hypnotic conversation that started with "I don't think I can hypnotize you, so lets just talk about it", the guy went out for a smoke and couldn't even get the cigarette to his face. He started laughing and said "no way, what the f!"
` He was so shocked that he was afraid to talk to Dr. Hypno ever again. Such is the curse of that level of effectiveness.

Indeed, Dr. Hypno is one of those people who can walk up to a complete stranger on the sidewalk and hypnotize them in seconds without using the word 'hypnosis' or 'trance'. Just as quickly, he can stick a person's hand to a table using conversational hypnosis.
` Unsettlingly, he has even installed an instant induction shortcut on me, and then hypnotized me to forget what this shortcut is. As far as I know, he didn't use it until six months later, and when he did, I could only see multi-colored stars when he activated it.
` It still worked last summer at a workshop by Rintu Basu, before Dr. Hypno handed me off to another hypnotist for further phenomena, some of which worked and some which did not.

You may think it's tremendously creepazoidal to know that some mysterious hypnotic 'induction switch' has been installed in your own psyche. I agree, and would add that my mind contains several other post-hypnotic suggestions, just waiting to be unleashed at the right time. All I can do is to warn others not to trigger them.

Even more creepazoidally, I used to know a hypnotist who would orgasm in response to anyone snapping their fingers. Why she chose such a non-specific cue for a bedroom-related suggestion, I'll never know, but I've seen what it does to her first hand, in public, and found it to be hilarious.

Let's just say, after this incident, she was sent a YouTube link to the Addams Family theme song in appreciation.

This same hypnotist has also been to a lot of hypnosis seminars that were recorded, and thus appears on many training DVDs. One of them is a stage hypnosis course, and when the teacher snaps his fingers and makes an off-color joke, you can hear a burst of laughter from her.
` Later, in a segment when she is sitting up on stage, he snaps his fingers several times and you can see the look of terror on her face as she squirms in her chair and tries to play it cool. I rolled with laughter at this, thinking about how nobody else there had a clue about what was happening.

I am no expert in hypnosis, but I am acquainted with hypnotists who test whether the books match the street. It's an evolving art form and every year they discard more obsolete models, such as the trance model, and the conscious/unconscious model.
` And, I would argue, that although psychology-oriented academics who are not specialized in hypnosis may know a lot about it, they are also not experts. So, imagine my surprise when I ran into two of these on Facebook, both of which are prominent in Skepticdom.

Adventures in Hypno-Land

I actually began this piece last winter, when my ex was still claiming that I had been hypnotized to physically attack him and then forget afterward. That, he said, would explain why I had no idea what he was talking about.
` I asked several people, including hypnotists, and even Jamy Ian Swiss, whether or not this made any sense. They helped me to trust my own judgment and see that he was just trying to make me think that I was crazy. (See: gaslighting.)

Just after finishing this piece in early May, I witnessed my very own podcasting co-host, "Dr. Hypno" actually hypnotize one of his clients on our way out of the grocery store. She told me that she had been smoking since age 11 and had stopped after one session with him.
` Since the tar was finally leaving her lungs, she had developed bronchitis. Although she was recovering, she said she had wanted a suggestion to help her breathe freely again. Once we were in the parking lot, he did a handshake induction and made the appropriate suggestions as her husband and I watched in awe.
` She was astonished and elated at how she could suddenly breathe better -- apparently, even your lung functioning has a great deal to do with suggestible involuntary responses, as with asthma.

I confess that pieces of this article started out as a blog post last winter, yet I had neither the brain functioning or internet access to make into a proper article with lots of info and references aside from my own notes, knowledge, and personal experiences.
` So, I decided it would be best to adapt into an email for the edification of, yes, Mr. George Hrab -- a process which I have mentioned in this post.

As it would take a great deal of work to adapt it into a blog post, I'm going to leave it fairly much as-is. So, now you get to see the 'missing link' between my occasional (and relatively short) "normal" fan emails to Geo and the others I've already posted on this blog:

Here's to a better year, and better neural and muscular hypertrophy!

If you've been reading my posts about the past few years of my life, you'll know that things have turned unbelievably bad after I thought I was in the clear. Though it's been rough without such things as internet access and a central place to put all my belongings, I'm sure I can make things better in 2015.
` I haven't written about hypnosis as I said I would because I've decided to devote my computer time to edit and upload all my photos from my camera since The Amazing Meeting 2014 in July -- just to get it off my mind and onto the internet for all to see!

And speaking of photos, I would like to mention that I've been highly annoyed by the preview frame on the YouTube video of Brian Dunning's talk at TAM 2012, called Your Brain Sucks -- it's me turned around! Here's a photo that my friend Greg Dorais took of this moment:
` Not only was my hair unflatteringly damaged and frizzy, but my ass was completely flat, thanks to an untreated injury from sixteen years previously. I didn't know it at the time, but my glutes were the size of a lemon and a lime, thus impeding my ability to walk properly and sit up straight.
` Thanks to Dr. Hypno, who was a personal trainer for 15 years, I've been doing physical rehab for about two years now. At TAM 2014, I wanted to get an 'after' photo, wearing the same clothes, but forgot to in all the brain-draining excitement.
` So, I took one shortly after returning from TAM, upon moving some of my belongings into a temporary home. Not only were my glutes almost normal-sized (they're even bigger now!), but my hair was laying flat against my head like it's supposed to!

As for Brian Dunning, he may not look so great since he's been in prison. Although he's done a heck of a lot of good to help people be aware of scams and tricks of the mind, he was recently found guilty of wire fraud from before his Skeptoid days.
` While this development doesn't exactly impress me, I'll bet the True Believers^TM have been having a field day. I could Google that, since I'm connected to the internet, but would rather write about how I uploaded my photos:

In order to get them up on Flickr, I had to put them into proper sequential order by checking my camera, and then edit the ones I hadn't gotten to yet -- mostly shrinking the size 50% so they aren't blurry. (Taking smaller photos results in smaller blurry pictures, so that idea is out.)
` Why hadn't I done this before? Besides the insanity of my life, this has been difficult because my photo editing computer stopped working and I couldn't figure out how to quickly edit photos without Microsoft Photo Editor.

That's a really big deal because if the new way to edit takes 6x the amount of time as the old way, then one hour of photo editing becomes an unacceptable six hours. I managed to speed up my method with Microsoft Paint, although cropping photos was more time-consuming, so I mostly didn't bother.
` As for adjusting the color, I either skipped it or used GIMP, so there are some photos on Flickr that are too dark. Nevertheless, I managed to complete the task within three days. Happily, although I discovered that my payment to Flickr Pro didn't go through, I now have a terabyte of space with just a free Flickr account anyway. Hooray! It even takes videos longer than 90 seconds!

Getting through the editing process should also be easier now that I've stopped taking one photo for every day that it's sunny outside. Originally, this was to show people that it doesn't rain "all the time" as is stereotypical around Seattle -- on the contrary, we have a 'dry season' every summer, and all the grass dies at least by August.
` Since proving that it's sunny a lot around here is not my job, I stopped that practice in September, and have barely taken any photos since then -- at least with my camera. As for my iPhone, I cannot download my photos and videos onto my laptop, so I'm still puzzling over what to do with them besides upload them all to Facebook -- that is the next step!
` Whatever the solution, I'd better not dawdle -- I lost my chance with my last iPhone when it was stolen by a crackhead! Who I have a photo of. On my new iPhone. Sigh.

While I don't have my iPhone photos from TAM up on Flickr, at least my camera ones are -- check it out! I even got a video in the Monkey Room with Penn and Teller!

Now that I can finally stop stressing about my camera photos, it's easier to focus on writing and podcasting, which I'll probably be doing more of now that I can escape the ridiculous abuse I've been going through.
` Can you imagine? The Spoony Show? For real? Me!?! A podcast host? Believe it!!

For now, I'm still letting Dr. Hypno borrow my car, as his own vehicle is still not starting for whatever mysterious reason: He recently paid a mechanic $200 to fix it, but the guy had an aneurysm before he could start, and his chances of fully recovering are not good.

I can't make this stuff up, it just keeps coming.

Whatever this flip of the calendar throws at me, I shall work hard to write and podcast amazingly, and yes, continue to gain muscle mass and reprogram the firing of my motor neurons until I can walk at least 99% correctly.
` What's more, I'm even planning to go back to college to study neuroscience, because BRAAAINS! It should be much easier to do homework without crazy roommates to antagonize me daily, steal food from me, and keep me awake all night.
` Now that the life of a narcissistic abuser no longer depends on me, I can finally think about what I want in life, and I've decided that I want to do my own neuroscience research on perception, consciousness, and voluntary versus involuntary impulses. I've decided it really is that fascinating.

Wish me luck!

Yelp is a scam, if you didn't know. And other tales from my hectic life...

I keep forgetting to mention this, but remember that commercial I said I did for Dr. Hypno? It turned out really nice, but it was not ever posted online because it was done through the scam known as Yelp. I didn't even think to check it out beforehand since other hypnotists that compete with Dr. Hypno have Yelp pages with very professional-looking video ads.
` Problem is, when Dr. Hypno tried it for his own practice, it was fairly worthless besides making a commercial with an independent company -- and he will still have to pay that company $500 just to use it.
` Besides not putting the video up, nor good reviews he's had from clients, Yelp charged him $18 per click on his ad -- and it mysteriously got 11 clicks on the first day. He tried to contact the people in charge of Yelp, and was subsequently blocked from accessing the very page he had paid for.

Psychedelics ≠ Intoxicants: A cultural commentary

I said I wouldn't do this again, but a certain skeptical entertainer, which I have finally revealed as George Hrab, has inspired me to write about psychedelics once more -- here's the backstory, if you are interested/concerned for my mental health.
` The crux of it is, I feel an urge to speak up when people espouse false information or condescending attitudes about things I have an understanding and appreciation of -- especially when the point of their podcast is to help dispel myths and propaganda, and otherwise have a geeky good time.

After answering a listener question about the psychedelic brew ayahuasca in Episode 385, I was tempted to write Geo another email, but instead thought it would be better as a more generalized piece on my blog.
` Granted, if I had my own podcast up and running, I would already have a much more interesting public platform at which to direct people when they make dismissive or misinformed comments about topics that I think are important. That'll be the next step for me. For now, I'll do what I can here.

I also want to mention that I have not had much Internet access while writing this text file, so it isn't full of links to sources, which I would prefer it to be -- even moreso than my previous four articles on the subject.
` If you think I'm wrong about something, go ahead and check it for yourself -- it's the skeptical way, right? Besides, I loves me some comments, so fire away if you think I'm wrong, or have any other thoughts!
` Also, I would like to point out that my use of the pronoun 'you', as opposed to 'one' is meant to help connect what I'm writing with 'your imagination'. Although I've included descriptions of psychedelic states before, this is meant to be the most 'vivid', if that makes sense.

So, here's the text file from my laptop, cutted and pasteded for your enjoyment:

Why do some intelligent, critical thinking-type people still dismiss psychedelic drugs as not important to neuroscience, psychotherapy, history, art, religion, and/or even as an experience to be had?
` It's abundantly clear (as I hope I've shown already) that they are, but why is it that some skeptical types are keenly interested in this stuff, while others think very lowly of it?

It's not just because psychedelics are classified as a Schedule I drug, it's because of the myths about them that are meant to justify their illegality. What's the worst myth of them all? That they're somehow more damaging than the most damaging drug in the world -- alcohol. After all, alcohol is legal, so how could it be worse than LSD? Or marijuana, for that matter...
` Because everyone knows that alcohol is a powerful inebriant, they might assume that psychedelics will just make you lose awareness/control of yourself in a similar way. It is the familiarity, legality and social acceptance of alcohol which actually works against the public understanding of psychedelics.

This realization came sharply into focus while listening to Geo's podcast when he called ayahuasca and mushrooms "intoxicants", a word which implies toxicity and a loss of control of one's faculties or behavior. He has said in the past that he doesn't want to experience intoxication and has an "irrational sense" of almost-superiority because of this.
` Apparently, this attitude is very ingrained in his identity, as is his grouping of various "drugs" together in the category of "intoxicants". Some people, though they might use alcohol or marijuana, may say that they aren't the "type of person" to take "hard drugs" like "heroin or LSD", as though those are somehow equivalent.
` Laughably misguided as this is, some of these people are fairly rigid in this part of their identity, and I've seen a few react quite emotionally upon hearing facts to the contrary. It is then ironic that a good dose of LSD is known to reveal the core awareness that lies beneath such cognitive dissonance -- but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Although Geo has expressed some strong opinions about "drugs" based on his impressions of them, he has said that he knows very little about them, and that he's not the one to ask about this subject. I've met quite a few people who fit this description, so perhaps it shouldn't be surprising to them to learn that psychedelics are a bit more complicated than mere "intoxicants":

Their primary effect is quite different from alcohol, almost the opposite, in fact -- although still very different from the primary effects of the "intoxicants" known as caffeine and nicotine. No, it's not the hallucinations which make psychedelics unique:

It's important to note that there are three main classes of hallucinogens: Deliriants, dissociatives, and psychedelics. The first two tend to cause more confusion and delusions of unreality, but the third lends itself more to reflection and meditation:
` The word 'psychedelic' means 'mind expanding' or 'mind manifesting', and those who study and/or have experienced these effects do not use this term in an ironic fashion.

Psychedelics like ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms, LSD and mescaline are known to increase self-awareness to such a shocking degree that they can be used to hurl people out of their addictions and traumas.
` It is common for people to change their personalities based on what they learn about themselves in the space of a few hours' trip. (Especially when in the proper set and setting.)

So far, these drugs are not known to cause brain damage, despite their incredibly strong effects: Unlike stimulants, opiates, and the rest, which bring about familiar states of consciousness, psychedelics change the quality of consciousness itself.

Hence, the impossibility of describing this to people who can't imagine what a "different" quality of consciousness would be like. Different in what way?

Far from causing extreme incoherence or speediness, the overall effect (under proper conditions) is generally an increase in sobriety, lucidity, sensory awareness, self-awareness, and being 'present' in the moment.
` Whereas caffeine gives one a narrowness of focus and possibly the jitters, psychedelics are very 'clean'. They allow one's very consciousness to perceive much more than it normally can, literally broadening what is possible to experience.
` According to actual psychedelics researchers and experienced trippers alike, you start to notice things you never noticed before, and can feel the "space" in your mind expand as though it was a physical space:

At a "Level 2" or so, it expands to the point of opening up into a sort of 'virtual reality headspace' that you cannot normally access. It actually feels like a parallel physical space that surrounds you, yet is clearly separate from your perception of the actual world.
` Only when the fetters are lifted can you be made aware that they were even there, and you realize that you have lived your entire life up to that point being held firmly in place, with your face up against a tiny window of perception.

Now that you are free to turn your head (or, change perspectives in your head) for the first time in your life, you are astonished to find that surrounding you is an entire universe that has been there all along but that you have never even suspected was there. How does it all fit into your brain?
` Closing your eyes to "look around" in this space, you may blanch at ornate fractal landscapes filling your mind's eye to infinity in all directions at once. You can even have an 'inner body' which may be distorted with an indeterminate number of appendages that you can both feel and move independently of your actual body.

It's as though you can experience two different 'dimensions' existing in the same space, and can choose which one to give your attention: The world of sensory perception of what's around you (which may be distorted/augmented), or the one in which you appear to be some kind of alien, melding with surreal landscapes that you can see in multiple directions at once.
` As I mentioned in my last post, as you get higher, the more this inner reality takes hold, and in some cases it can actually obscure sensory data. Still, this does not necessarily mean that the person experiencing this suddenly believes that the inner world is "really happening".

Geo asked how much stranger this would be than "a dream or a thought where you can rid yourself of outer influence". I'm not sure what he meant by "outer influence", but this is not exactly an isolation tank trip, or a lucid dream.
` This is exploring another 'reality' in your head, and manipulating what you find therein, to your advantage. This is a tool kit: