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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (33094)	3/23/1999 12:52:00 PM
From: nihil	Respond to of 108807

"Bees that soar for bloom, high as the highest peaks of Furness Fells will murmur [contentently?] by the hour in foxglove bells. In truth, the prison unto which we doom ourselves [intentional?] no prison is .... QFM Wordsworth [brackets mine ..] I don't think "consciousness" is a concrete absolutely definable state. Most of us, healthy, ordinary people would claim to be conscious most of the time, but we spend about a third of our time asleep when we are only partially conscious. I have occasionally noticed in my sleep that I have experienced pain which later, when I was awake, was so intense that it was intolerable (apparently a continuation of the same "attack"), yet I remembered dreams that "explained" the pain in terms of the symbolism of the dream I remembered experiencing. You must have noticed infants sleeping fitfully (suffering?) who burst into tears on awakening. The transitions from sleep to waking can sometimes can be disorienting because of the change in self-perception. Have you ever tried to sneak up on a cat or dog asleep? Try it if want to spook your animal. Its hard to do (and even harder who someone who smells strange to the dog). I am convinced that a dog "knows" quite well his pack (human family) -- I know he feels pain and knows how to avoid it -- recognizes danger (falling off a wall) -- in fact has a battery of conscious survival skills -- some learned by experience. (My dog won't stick his nose in the electric fan a second time -- even a different brand -- even one turned off). But still, as the saying goes, "It's hard to teach an old dog the calculus of variations." I know that some people ("alien hand syndrome") have little or no control of parts of their bodies that others routinely have. Others can train parts of their bodies to do wonderful and amazing things that others cannot consciously do. Check out experts in yoga or sleight of hand artists. Lift your hand from the keyboard right now! The power of suggestion (other people's control of oneself) can make people do remarkable things. You can put your hand back now. Let me tell a true story. In the Marines our company had an important examination -- part of which was our ability to march in step and make various movements of close order drill. We had two "shitbirds" who trailed along and could not under any threat or reward march in step. We were under orders to field every member. With the captain's permission I hypnotized these guys and gave them post-hypnotic suggestions that they would march perfectly --- and they did. I did not suggest that they cancel this suggestion when they were through with it. One continued to march well, and another reverted slowly to his birdiness. Any amateur hypnotist can tell you astounding stories (sometimes even true)of what he can make a subject do. My favorite was making a (Marine) weakling do one-armed pushups, with the reward of talking to his girl-friend on the phone. To save money, of course, I merely suggested that he was talking to her on the phone. There was another advantage of my skill. No officer would look at me very long. He feared I'd tell him to run around the grinder and flap his arms like a duck. (And I would have -- without his pants). From such experience as this, I am convinced that (many? all?) persons (and other animals) can be manipulated (trained) into extraordinary performance. I'd love to see such methods of self-induction and suggestion used experimentally on really bad people instead of executing them or scaring them to death. Volunteers would do fine.