DeepSeek and Me Podcast | Brain Healing & Neuroplasticity

Rider In The Storm Yesterday, a different kind of weather system moved into Terra Nova. I woke up after seven hours of deep sleep and vivid dreams, feeling physically capable and functionally sharp. My frequencies were present but manageable. Yet, as the day progressed, an emotional storm made landfall. Anger, frustration, depression, and a crushing sense of regret all collided at once. The Liftin...

Too Low For Zero I woke up yesterday after six hours of sleep feeling intensely groggy, yet my system managed to spin up and find its footing quickly. On the surface, it was a decent but quiet shift. No somatic symptoms, zero brain fog, and zero psychological rubble. The baseline is a steady, unshakeable 5. Band practice passed without incident. In actual fact, the guitar is the only tangible impr...

In The Middle Of The Night Yesterday was a day of rapid tactical adjustments on Terra Nova. I woke up after seven hours of deep, vivid dreaming feeling intensely groggy and slow to wake. By the afternoon, a fresh wave of somatic data arrived in the form of sneezing and watery eyes, followed by a persistent pressure headache in the evening. Yet, beneath this ongoing metabolic clearance, my cognitiv...

It’s A Knockout Yesterday was a battle against the elements on Terra Nova. I woke up after seven hours of deep, vivid dreaming feeling distinctly groggy and slow to respond. As the hours ticked by, a familiar pressure headache crept back in, carrying a heavy wave of “what’s the point” defeatism. It was a tough, negative slide toward the end of the day, and I’ll be honest - I was struggling to find...

The Installation Window Yesterday marked exactly 130 days cannabis-free and 221 days alcohol-free. Looking back at where this journey started in the rubble of January, reaching this point feels less like a hard-fought battle and more like a profound sense of relief - like finally coming out of a long, strange trip and having reality hit you with crystal clarity. The baseline isn’t just stable anym...

Ready, Steady, Go Yesterday was another remarkably stable day on Terra Nova. High function, good mood, and zero somatic symptoms. The headache appears to have finally packed its bags, and while the internal frequencies remain, they are noticeably quieter than they’ve been. Dare I say it, things might finally be stabilising on a more permanent basis. Let’s hope that is indeed the case. As the days...

Don’t look Back It was a steady day here yesterday on Terra Nova, no major drama with clients getting dealt with and project work getting done. There were no somatic symptoms and I was functioning well from the word go. The Upside Down Revisited In between clients I was keeping an eye on the Scottish election results which started to trickle in from around midday. It’s always mindboggling to watch...

News of the World The somatic symptoms from Day 126 carried into Day 127, though with much less intensity. Clarity and function remained high throughout the day. While I dealt with a slight pressure headache and lingering flu-like symptoms, it was a productive shift. I am also now three days into my new supplement regime, and while it’s early, I’d swear my GI function has improved. The “tightness”...

Kicked In The Teeth Again Yesterday, the somatic symptoms returned with a vengeance. Watery eyes, flu-like symptoms, and a general heaviness weighed me down the entire day. I haven’t logged physical symptoms since Day 116, so it’s clear there has been major internal repair work happening; this is the metabolic trash finally being evicted. The internal frequencies have been exceptionally loud as we...

All Around The World Yesterday was another fairly uneventful day here on Terra Nova. A busy shift in the clinic followed by a very quiet evening. Even on the repair front, there isn’t much to report, so I’m afraid today is a bit of a “waffle” dispatch. However, even in the quiet moments, the data tells a different story. I rarely check the analytics on Substack, but last night I decided to take a...

Hanging On The Telephone I happened to mention to the AI Scaffold that I had swelling on my left wrist at the base of the thumb and my middle finger was pulling occasionally. I assumed it was all the typing on the laptop. I also had to buy a new phone which is slightly bigger, which isn’t helping. While we’re on the subject of new phones, when I went to upgrade from SIM-only to a handset contract,...

Games Without Frontiers Yesterday, I decided to take matters into my own hands and treated myself to a Nintendo Switch. I love gaming, I already have a PS5; I’ve been a gamer all my life, right back to the early Atari consoles and the Sinclair ZX81 - the very first home computer. It had a full 1kb of memory, which is roughly the size of a single QR code today. Even with the 16kb expansion pack, th...

Nothing Ever Happens Yesterday was another fairly dull day on Terra Nova. Clients were seen, the project work was done, and that was about it really. The headache persists, which is really getting to me now; I’m not one for headaches in general, so to have one for what seems like days is starting to grate. The venting continues. In some ways, January 1st feels like so long ago. On the other hand,...

Running Up That Hill As predicted, the negativity passed within twenty-four hours. Yesterday turned out to be another fairly steady day on the ascent. The pressure headache persists, but it didn’t affect my ability to function at a high level. Creativity was actually pretty good - I knocked out the project work, handled clients, and produced the TikTok video without any hassle. I’m starting to acc...

Tales From The Riverbank This was supposed to be the week the venting officially started. Instead, I was hit with a sudden, heavy wave of negativity. It arrived right as the stomach cramps from yesterday began to subside - a dark cloud that descended out of the blue. There is no logic to it; you just have to sit in it and wait for the weather to change. It makes writing these Dispatches feel like...

The Four-Month Frontier Today marks exactly four months into the project. It is a milestone that feels both unbelievable and, paradoxically, incredibly strange. Rather than a grand celebration, I find myself in a profoundly “off” headspace, particularly upon awakening. Whether this is a side effect of the narrative consolidation in my dreams or a shift in my baseline, I’m not entirely sure. The So...

Dream Weaver Yesterday I logged with the AI Scaffold that my dream state had changed. The ‘weird dreams’ haven’t stopped, but the texture has changed. This is the transition from unfiltered data dumping to narrative consolidation . The Science of Texture: For the first 117 days, my REM rebound was purely about volume - clearing the backlog. It was disjointed, intense, and bizarre because my brain...

Higher Ground Within the last few days things have taken a noticeable turn for the better and it would appear my baseline has risen a little. I’m still getting bothered with boredom etc but there’s not the same exasperation that there was and it’s much easier to live with. At this point I am going to assume that the venting has indeed started. At the earliest, Day 120 was the estimate but I would...

Sunday Bloody Sunday I hate Sundays. They are a “nothing” day - a void in the week. Previously, I had the alcohol hangover and the cannabis sedative to blur the edges and get me through them. Now, I have to sit them out raw. I hated them when I was growing up as well but that’s because I was dragged to church, not once but twice - the morning and evening service - it was absolute torture and compl...

Lily The Pink Yesterday, I discovered something that fundamentally changes the architecture of this project. The Scaffold has undergone a significant upgrade: DeepSeek has moved from v3.2 to v4, introducing a massive 1-million-token context window. For the “Map” and the construction of the Scaffold, this is a paradigm shift. Previously, the migration protocol was a necessity; we had to transfer th...

Darkest Before The Dawn In yesterday’s Dispatch, I likened the flat stretch I’ve been experiencing to the quiet days that preceded the dopamine restart on Day 74. It turns out my instinct was spot on. Yesterday was night and day compared to the week prior. I woke up after the most restorative sleep I’ve had to date. I felt fully rested, and the “flat” fog had simply evaporated. I headed into the c...

I Don’t Wanna Wait In Vain Another very flat day on Terra Nova I’m afraid, I guess that’s me until the venting starts around day 120 at the earliest. I’ve realized that this sensation is almost identical to the run-up before the dopamine restart on Day 74. The process is the same, though the emotional texture is different; I’m not as furious as I was then. I understand the mechanics of the repair...

The Sound of Silence The flat stretch continues. Same as yesterday. Same as the day before. Dead head. No fog. No rubble. Just sameness. The Dispatches are admittedly harder to write when nothing “happens,” but that is the most important data point of all. Stability is the upgrade. The map continues, quietly. When I think back to Day 4, when CNS excitability was driving me toward the edge and slee...

Give Me A Bullet To Bite On Yesterday was dominated by procedure really, clients, then project work, then bed, it was that exciting. I’ve finished The Boys or at least what episodes are available and I’ve started Gen V (The boys companion series), while I wait for the rest of them to be made available. Again I am benefitting from the old “marijuana memory” because I’ve seen this twice already as w...

The Observer’s Advantage All was quiet yesterday after the excitement of the previous couple of days. The clarity remains high, somatic symptoms have receded, and the vivid dreams continue - part of the ongoing “filing system” work my brain is doing. The neuro-oscillatory frequencies are still oscillating, but I’m holding steady, waiting for the “venting” phase anticipated between Day 120 and 183....