Stream of Subconsciousness

The White Man’s Tongue Empathy IV In empathy there is a disruption, a branching of paths, a dissonance… An essential part of empathy is combining the feelings of similarity and difference. That’s where unpredictable things happen Westerners hold out our hands to engage with the world, to be shepherds of our environment, and to build a sustainable culture, but our fists are closed. We can’t see thi...

Epigenetics & Opportunity “You are the foods you consume AND the information that you digest.” — Tom Golway , chief technologist, Hewlett Packard Your genes are not the whole story. Changes in how your genes work—independent from the genes themselves—are passed on through generations. This is the field of epigenetics. The field is young. The discovery of inheritable traits that are not based on DN...

When the Hypnotic State is Normal “Psychedelics open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.” — Terence McKenna Hypnosis refers to the part-by-part exploration of states. Therapeutic hypnosis is a facilitated exploration for the purpose of learning. ... How can you discover a new concept in a realm constructed entirely of concepts that you already know? Everything you see you...

Empathy III This is the third in my series on empathy. Sympathy is an intellectual concept. It’s based on a contrast of values. It leads to an opinion first and a feeling second. Sympathy may or may not trigger a feeling. A person who has no feelings at all can still sympathize with others... What passes for intellectual empathy is not empathy at all, it’s simply a verbal means of communicating fe...

Sex and Emotion We control the conscious mind with our thoughts. The unconscious mind rewards us with instant attraction, repulsion, and gratification. The subconscious mind reacts with a complex brew of memories that bathes us in associations. Sex, like a small number of other activities, involves all of these. I don’t think we really communicate on these topics. We often refer to death and sex i...

Independent journalism is going to a subscription model. I’m moving this blog to a paid subscription model, charging $2.50/month... soon. The current blog will become the free mailing list. Free posts will be broadcast monthly. I’ll go off the Evergreen model so that all subscribers will receive the same up-to-date issue with each broadcast. COVID-19 Local hospitals are finally challenging governm...

Empathy II Emotional and intellectual intelligence are two aspects of a single human intelligence. They are not independent, but they can develop separately. Emotion emerges from the integration of all that you know. Emotion represents an integrated, visceral experience of what you think. Similarly, what your eyes perceive, and what you think about what you see are complementary aspects of the sam...

Imagination Psycho-somatic illness is: a form of insanity that bridges the separation between the mind and body. It’s an insanity where the delusion is expressed in the body but, if you try to think it away, the delusion inflames the mind... Solving a mind-body problem requires a mind-body change, not a change in just one or the other. If you want a change in your somatic situation you must work t...

“To know that you do not know is the best.” ― Lau Tzu We’re told the DMN is a collection of pathways that govern our self-image, our autobiographical memories, and our deeply ingrained beliefs: the seat of the “ego” in the brain. Maybe it’s true, except that there is no neurobiological explanation for our self-image, our autobiographical memories, and our deeply ingrained beliefs.... I'm always am...

We have many boundaries to what we see and feel. These boundaries are sensory, physical, and temporal. Boundaries of ideas, safety, and possibilities. You set boundaries in every dimension of which you’re aware, and aspects of experience that you once had but have now forgotten. This is an introduction to the guided visualization "There and Back Again," a separate, hypnotic visualization audio fil...

There are three programs to better health: my program, your program, and the program—if one exists—that the mind-body needs. There is a certain skill of intuiting this alliance before any treatment begins, and I would say success depends on whether these three programs are aligned from the start. “Don’t wish it were easier. Let it make you stronger.” — anonymous For a written, illustrated version...

This piece explains that psychotherapy is a government institution, which medical historians already know but which escapes most people. A psychotherapist's first obligation is her profession, which is subservient to government, and not to you. Therapy doesn't have to be this way. There is a client centered approach to mental health. It's called hypnotherapy and psychotherapy should aim to be more...

What Are Dreams? briefly explores dreams from neurological, somatic, therapeutic, and social perspectives. It's more important to recognize their multiplicity of purpose, than it is to focus exclusively on one. Dreams are a holistic phenomena. Approaching them from psychology is—like any one approach to a many-faceted phenomena—another story of three blind men and an elephant. You’ve to get to a h...

The keys to dream recall are gaining awareness of the dream while the dream is occurring, and applying a sufficiently quiet level of awareness so that your retrieval of the dream is not derailed by your thoughts. I want to focus on the second of these: learning to think quietly... If you'd like to learn more about dreams, visit mindstrengthbalance.com, where I sell books, offer free posts, and per...

This piece addresses the role of dreams in creating our reality. Dreams are the laboratory where we can match our thoughts and feelings with our perception of reality. In our dreams, our more fundamental mental functions express themselves. If you want to play a greater role in designing your life, you’ll have to develop skills that are above average. The fact that we’re talking about this means y...

I’m now a therapist; I make it my business to enable and explain the process of transformation. I might say I was always a therapist except that I was my only client. I can now see the psychedelic experience in everyday life in the form of manufactured reality and disordered thinking. On that basis, I’m qualified to describe psychedelics as a normal part of life. I know many people more experience...

When you take a psychedelic you are enlisting in a struggle that’s much larger than you can imagine. Depending on who you are and what you take you may find yourself well beyond anything you expect... You may be responding to an advertisement that says you’ll visit paradise but, once the ship leaves shore, where it goes is not up to you. You will be sent where you are needed... I’ve written a list...

Before moving into the practical territory of preparing for the use of a mind-expanding substance it would be worthwhile to consider what these substances do. I believe that they do just about anything. Psychedelics can reframe your concept of reality. They can do this to a greater or lesser extent. They can challenge or disable you, or they can do nothing at all. Their potential is largely determ...

It takes a lot of thinking to feel emotional about something. Even the simplest emotion, such as the startle reaction, requires knowing what you’re seeing... You don’t really remember any “thing,” you build memories on demand to represent experiences you’ve stored away in some coded form. You may think you remember a red car on a dirt road or a friend’s face on a summer evening, but you really don...

What would you say is the most fundamental question? Would it be the origin of the universe, or the meaning of life? What about, “Does God exist?” or “Is there other intelligent life in the universe?” I suggest there is a deeper question that underlies them all. I suggest the most fundamental question is, “How do we understand anything that we don’t already know?” Defining the realm of answers bri...

Meaningful visions require both a transcendent perspective and the addition of your own meaningful ingredient. You have to bring something to add to the pot. If you don’t the pot just offers you visions of the transcendent without any way for you to place yourself in it. A meaningful vision is one that comes back to us with impact. It has an energy, and we might even recognize a message. In my exp...

My approach to trance work grew from my interest in having new experiences and my questions about learning. From this outline you may see how our views compare. “No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”― Friedrich Nietzsche For a written, illustrated version or to subscribe to the blog, visit the mindstrengthbalance.com website. This is a public episode. If you'd like to...

Psychedelics are quickly becoming a new drug of promise, not for what psychedelics can do, but for what mental health practitioners want. People want various things. Certainly, some do want healing, and some want entertainment, but some also want liberation from the normality that psychology aims to restore. I support the renaissance in mind-altering drugs. They will help those people whose mental...

This is the last lecture in the course on brain frequencies in which I describe the importance of controlling your brain frequencies and how this affects your mind and health. Understanding frequencies is the key to self-awareness. Consciousness begins with rhythm. When you learn to manage your rhythms, you become more conscious. The brain frequencies course is free, prerecorded, and under 2 hours...

Everything I know about insight, intellect, psychology, and the brain’s structure has little effect on how humans act to change the world. We still act the same way, we just do different things... If I could change the patterns of my thoughts,I might change how I perceive the world. I don’t mean the kind of fluff that passes as “free will,” which I don’t much believe in, but rather how ideas come...