Hynotism?
Offline Anyone know if hypnotism is real?
and if so what are the limits?
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Offline Well done Luminom for abandoning christianity. But the idea is that one should still hold on to perspective, sanity, common sense, and the ability to communicate. After all, you don't want to end up like Saddam Hussein, do you?
Any of them!
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
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Offline I believe with the advent of acid
Thank-you, Luminon. Your sig has lifted a veil.
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Offline Quote:I believe with the advent of acid
Thank-you, Luminon. Your sig has lifted a veil.
And it's a quote, it must be posted whole, I'm not some damn censor, though I'd like to emphasize the latter part of text, which maybe shows, why people are afraid of new things. It's not a propagation of drugs, in my opinion, the drugs are like crawling somewhere by window, where people should go by a front doors.
And I really like these quotes in such a genre of music.
For example:
"...Life is a problem to be solved, it's a conundrum - it's not what it appears to be - there are doors - there are locks and keys - there are levels..."
Consider it as a cultural edification, otherwise you could stay unaware of an important and truly freethinking part of our culture. You think your thinking is free? It's free from religion. But a freedom from something is not a true freedom, you're still affected by that you're 'free' from. True freedom is to be free for something.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
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Offline Depends on what you mean. Hypnosis is a clinical state - that means that its effects on the brain can be identified, monitored and measured. It is used also in conjunction with clinical treatments since its effects are predictable and therefore usable therapeutically.
Most people however tend to think of hypnosis in terms of "mind control" which has no clinical basis whatsoever. The stage act type hypnotism which represents the first most of us learn about the subject is actually a technique that depends on quite a few factors applying, few of which have anything to do with actual hypnotism at all. When you ask about "limits" I assume you mean limits to the behaviour that can be exhibited by a "hypnotised person" under this false idea of hypnosis. In that case the only limit seems to be the willingness of the "hypnotised person" to go along with the notion suggested to them. And there are a host of psychiatric conditions that apply which decide the extent to which a person will act out of character.
Hypnosis is NOT a "clinical state", nor is it an "altered state of consciousness." Functional MRI scans of hypnotized people show that they are fully conscious, and their brain functions are exactly the same as those of a conscious person following oral instructions.
Hypnosis is a social phenomenon brought on by the desire to conform, to meet the expectations of the hypnotist, and by the cultural myth associated with hypnosis. If a person has false ideas about hypnosis, or think that it will have some effect on them, they will be much more prone to suggestion. Hypnosis is thus a sort of social placebo, whereby gullible people expect the effects that the hypnotist suggests, and therefore force themselves to believe that it is actually happening.
The techniques of a hypnotist are very much geared towards making people believe that he has some sort of control over them. Hypnotists often begin by telling their subjects to look upward at an arbitrary angle. Then, as their eyes begin to tire from straining to look upwards, he tells them "your eyes are burning, and your eyelids are beginning to feel heavy", when of course they would, because the person has been looking upwards for some time. In the last hypnotist event I went to, the hypnotist told his subjects that they would hear the illusory sound of applause, brought on by his hypnosis. He then silently motioned to the audience to applaud, and he duped the hypnotized people into believing they were hallucinating the sound of applause. They were then much more willing to go along with his suggestions, and believe they were feeling other illusory stimuli.
Hypnosis is really just the art of lying to gullible people, and persuading them to see, hear, feel, smell and do what you say.
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Offline Is this anything like a religious trance ?? The Zombies are coming.
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Offline I beg to differ, theotherguy, and I see that you don't really read posts you contradict.
You sum up very well the duplicity and gullibility which are a feature of the stage-act presentation of hypnotism, just as I said. You seem not to realise however that this is not a correct use of the term, which does indeed exist both as a clinical description of induced relaxation in brain activity and which is clinically employed in various therapeutic techniques. The showman version is a travesty of this, and owes much more to the long discredited notion of mesmerism than it does to hypnosis.
This was the point I was making, and which in your eagerness to make a similar point you have completely failed to notice.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
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Depends on what you mean. Hypnosis is a clinical state - that means that its effects on the brain can be identified, monitored and measured. It is used also in conjunction with clinical treatments since its effects are predictable and therefore usable therapeutically.
Most people however tend to think of hypnosis in terms of "mind control" which has no clinical basis whatsoever. The stage act type hypnotism which represents the first most of us learn about the subject is actually a technique that depends on quite a few factors applying, few of which have anything to do with actual hypnotism at all. When you ask about "limits" I assume you mean limits to the behaviour that can be exhibited by a "hypnotised person" under this false idea of hypnosis. In that case the only limit seems to be the willingness of the "hypnotised person" to go along with the notion suggested to them. And there are a host of psychiatric conditions that apply which decide the extent to which a person will act out of character.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
As I had learned here, hypnosis can be even a normal relaxation. (with alpha waves in brain if I remember)
As I learned at home, a relaxed state can make accessible parts of consciousness and memory, which shouldn't even be there according to our current official scientific knowledge.
The mind control is a bit different, I think. I've read a biography of a person tortured by communistic regime of a false accusation, and this torture consisted of denying a sleep, walking in circles all the day in bast slippers, and so on. There was literally written, that after two days without a sleep natural blocades falls and a person is able to do say or do anything, or confess to a crimes never committed, though this confession will mean a death penalty. It is much more efficient and safe than use of drugs, this is why such techniques were copied from Soviet Union by Americans. Such practices were already perfected in the end of WW2, and they're useful even today, for example:
Saddam Hussein was killed in first days of Iraq invasion. The man found in a shelter and arrested as Saddam, was in fact, one of his doubles. But public opinion demanded Saddam's blood and Bush wanted a paperweight to his office, (the skull) so this unfortunate double was worked on. His original personality was broken and he was completely convinced, that he is Saddam Hussein. Then he was hanged and the world could breathe freely again. Until that dreadful, fearsome mr. Ahmadinejad showed up, but that's another story.
I'd have a remark to that 2 day sleepless period, I think it's not enough. I have friends who were partying practically without sleep for 3-4 days. They were quite wasted afterwards, no doubt about that, but they didn't lose their own will, except of a will to stay sober.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Luminon, there's this thing called 'evidence', and people like me really want to have this 'evidence' stuff presented alongside a claim that is being made like this one.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Luminom's delusional contribution is a perfect example however of the confusion that reigns with regard to the definition of "hypnotism". The torture techniques that he alludes to have nothing to do with hypnotism, and probably even less to do with controlling another's mind. They are disorientation techniques employed to destroy the victim's mind, not control it.
His departure into a fictional account of the arrest of Saddam simply shows how tenuous a hold some people have in any case on the workings of their own mind. He (like many religious people in fact) has chosen to give equal or more weight to unfounded supposition as he does to reasonably adduced fact. These are people for whom reality is something that interferes with, rather than governs, their self-perception. Stage hypnotists love them as subjects. Religious communities love them as potential recruits. Personally I find them a pain in the proverbial butt and evidence, unfortunately, that rationality will always be fighting an uphill battle.
As long as religion maintains such a grip on society there is no such thing as non-malignant delusion.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
If you'd spend a day in my skin, you would see I'm more rational than you would think. We are rational with facts which are presented to us, I just have more facts to be rational with. Of course I have a lot of independent, interpersonal confirmations, from people I know, as well as from many of the anonymous. When something works for me, it also works for other people.
Theists don't like me much more than you, I'm completely uncompatible with religion, impossible to convert. I abandoned a christianity for the same reasons as people here, I just did it very early, so I didn't lose a lot of my time. Seeing others' mistakes is too easy to have any great honor in it, and I see theirs. But I'm trying to be constructive. It's easy to divide people, but this place (world) is not an arena of faiths and philosophies, where God or evolutionary process will choose a winner. It is a place where we must live together in peace and be all winners.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
No, Luminon. NO.
If this is the kind of information your 'source' is giving you, I assure you - YOU CANNOT TRUST THEM!
Luminon, the people you know that are telling you this stuff? They're lying to you.
And anonymous sources are never to be considered reliable. If they're anonymous, how the fuck are you supposed to examine their credibility? How are you supposed to check their work?
Get a grip, man. Sure, this stuff is fun for me to laugh at... but, I admit, I'm a little worried for you.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Of course I have a lot of independent, interpersonal confirmations, from people I know, as well as from many of the anonymous
They're anonymous to me, not to my parents, I simply have no need to register a name of every man or woman who came here for several last years to get a help with own problems, or called here. I had tried it as well, so I know what they're getting, and one thing I know for sure, they're satisfied, they pay for a time they received, and they recommend it to their friends or relatives.
I surely have a reserves on which I work to improve, like getting in a better physical condition, getting better paid, partying more often, getting a new gal, these are things I have to take care of. As for the great questions, life, universe, and so on, and smaller questions, these are being answered more than I'd ever need, earlier than I even asked them.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.