Well is just like a really complex game of checkers. I know if i've lost a game or won within the first few moves. But i dont need to think about that cause i've never lost a game since i was about six

I did a little scouting today while at college and dug this up. Actualy i took it off the shelf but same thing :P
This adds support to the subconcious been a relatively tamper proof system as it is unreachable through hypnosis which is not a sleep for anyone who doesn't know much about hypnosis other then some old guy waving a golden pocket watch infront of you and saying "you're getting sleepy... very very sleepy...". Its not sleeping its like a deep state of relaxation which 10% of people are extreamly resistant to it, as in it simply isn't going to work. I fall into this catagory as i find it difficult to block out outside distractions so a fixed concentration on some pendulum infront of me and listening to a guys voice to me ends up been "god this guys secritary is a noisy woman she types so damn loudly".
So really it would be key to find if the 10% of people who are insusceptible to hypnosis also have common DeJa Vu and if the 15% that are highly susceptible to hypnosis have no or highly infrequent DeJa Vu's.

What book is that hypnosis quote from? I wasnt aware that hypnosis was real. I will discuss this issue more when i can adequately bring myself up to date on this subject.

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They call 'em fingers, but i've never seen em fing..... oh there they go!! otto

It was from a british psychology journal. Hypnosis has been real since Franz Anton Mesmer (mesmerised ring any bells?), self hypnosis is used as a non-drug pain releath for birthing mothers and works in most cases. They believe if they hold their husbands hand for instance they wont feel the pain and they wont... if it fails the husband has a broken hand

Mesmer died in 1815 at the age of 81, i'd reccomend watching some of Derren Browns shows as he uses hypnotism techniques along with psychological ones to do some very impressive things and i've even seen him do it live. If you want to read on hypnotism i'd surgest reading up on Hilgard's results (he was the one that surgested the 'hidden observor').
In one episode he hypnotised a young man and told him he couldn't hear anything unless he had his hand on the young mans shoulder. He removed his hand and then asked the young man to raise a finger, it took some time and then the young man slowly raised one of his fingers. In which Hilgard was shocked, he then put his hand on the young mans shoulder and asked him what made him raise his finger and the young man said he become extreamly bored being deaf, and was thinking over a problem when suddenly he felt his finger rise. Hilgard then asked to talk to the part 'who had listened to me before and made your finger rise' and found out it knew everything but when the man came out of hypnosis he didn't and apparently wasn't lying.
As i said about 10% of people are immune and 15% highly susceptible.

Also their is a memory type called a 'flashbulb memorie' in which your brain will remember the exact details of a specific period of time. Where was you when JFK was shot? Princess Diana's death? September 11th? or most recently the Beslan hostage situation just a few weeks back?
As time passes these memorys also fade but remain more persistant then others lasting for possibly a life time. Its even known that people still recolected hearing about the titanic sinking in the early 1990's. The memorys usually are more photographic then others and persist a lot longer and in greater detail but these memorys are unlikely to be changed the information just isn't recalled but left unchanged unlike normal memorys which can be altered over time.

One small question...

How do you "objectively" prove that a person has been hypnotised?

How do you "objectively" prove that the person isn't just "humoring" the hypnotist??

(Actually, that's 2 questions.)

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Well, oddly enough, a new study came out (very) recently:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996385

Essentially, it does involve the error-detection system physically. But as this system relies upon the individual's understanding of the world and not on an objective ground state, it would be very easy to alter a person's memory, conclusions, or recall of events: telling them it happened this way instead of that way would go right past any objections their conscious mind would have.

Additionally, there is no guarantee that memory recovered from this state is in any way more accurate: the person prompted in this state pays no attention to the error checking that says "That's a fuzzy memory, don't make up details, I can't see that or don't recall that detail" and instead coughs up whatever it has, and supplies whatever it doesn't, unfiltered.

It's like dealing with a filter capable of clogging and an unrestricted flow. Sure, the latter may be more forthcoming than the former, but you also get a lot of crap.

Its actualy kind of simple i'll give you the quote how...
I find they can put it in better words then, it does stuff to your brain pattern.

Actually, you should look at the report I posted: it used MRI to determine activity rather than EEG.

One of the key info in both seems to be from John Gruzelier the UK psychologist in which the Psycholohy Review magazines article is from.





The first image is of a healthy brain and the second is of a brain with increased activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus.

The Amygdala is a part of the emotional system, The hippocampus is the spacial awareness part of the brain. Both parts of the brain corrispond to the findings of hypnotism as one, the person loses a sense of space and concentrates on one thing (the mesmerising object), the amygdala is also related with memory specificly in the emotional part and is also connected with the hypothalamus and the hippocampus and the cingulate gyrus.
The Hypothalamus's only part of relevance here is its controle over emotion aswell as sleep.
The cingulate gyrus and anterior cingulate gyrus are the same thing, anterior just means towards the front of the body. So all the studys of the brain show an increase in activity in the limbic system all of this is due to the bombardment of brain activity which it gets under hypnosis... this is probably the area of the error detection system as it is 'below' conciousness as its part of our animal instinct brain. As the lymbic system allows us to stay upright, emotions including our survival instinct, etc... it makes sense that the libic system is the error detection system but until the brain activity can be narrowed down to specific area's or when more specific readings of the brain are taken we can't be 100% sure it is there but the guess is an extreamly safe one of it been in the libic system as it is common to all of us in similar construct but the outer 'higher' brain can be different and brain activity can differ largely simply by the hands you use.
Im left handed (naturaly) so i have increased brain activity in the right, while most people are right handed so have increased brain activity in the left lobe.
72% of people are strongly right handed, 22% mixed (like myself now) and 5% strongly left handed. I grew to use both hands through 3 years of being forced to write right handed as a child... but i refused and i still write left handed.

I'd like to see the normal EEG or MRI of the 10% of people who are unsusceptable to hypnosis also their handedness to see if there is a less susceptable person type as far as i can tell they dont check any of this. If anyone does have any info on this could they pass it my way.

I've only had one "serious" occurance of deja-vu. As it was happening, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. This lasted maybe 2-3 seconds, and then everything suddenly returned to normal. Very weird feeling... :-?

I had also heard that quite a number of years ago. Oddly enough, though, not too long afterwards, I had a dream in which I was clearly reading text off of a piece of paper.

It's been a long time since then, so I can't recall everything on it, but I do remember the word "captain" was there, and the sheet itself was a type of form.

I can't confidently remember any other occurances of this, though.

I've had a number of dreams in which I try to read. My recollection is that I can read by focusing on one word at a time, but all the other words are a blur until I move to the next one. And even then the sentences make no sense.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I remember being told that it depended on what sleep state your in. Im an extreamly deep sleeper and have been punched and kicked and not woken up and when im sleeping like this i normaly have more vivid dreams using things from my memory. I remembe one from a couple of days ago i was half remembering half dreaming of easter sunday lunch. The specific thing i remember most is a mention of the cat's (from red dwarf) getting ready time rivaling the time it takes my mum... A 24 hour period IIRC

I see no reason at all why you shouldn't be able to read in your dreams as i've had day dreams in which i've been writing a story and i can even tell you the title cause i decided to write it and its called "The Princess has a slave". In dreams i often see writing but one instance i do remember was a dream of been in a library but i could only see the names on the spines of books i'd actualy read.


Ironic, You've actualy described the process of sight. Focus on a point on a wall and try and read something thats about 2 meters away from the point no matter how hard you try you can't actualy read it.
The eye has its main receptors in the middle which is the optic cluster IIRC as it gets thurther out there are less receptors and the reason the most of your brain is devoted to eye sight is actualy because you imagine what's around you. Its based on memory and what light does reach your eye from that point this is why you can't actualy read whats not hitting your optic cluster and you cant imagine good enough.

But as far as im aware nothing stops you from dream reading but i have heard people see it backwards, upside down... all sorts but i guess it depends on your brain and the level of sleep your in.

I know that when I dream My brain goes into problem solving mode. If I have a complex Program that I have been debugging I find that I dream about the code at night. I don't remember solving specific issues but the next day I have the solutions to most if not all of the code errors I have been working on. The weird thing is when I am dreaming about the program I clearly remember seeing the code and understanding it but never actually reading it. I also have a weird kind of buzzing feeling while in this dream it almost makes me sick at times. I refer to it as a herd of buffalo running through my head. When I get this particularly badly I find I am very drained in the morning.

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Just because something is improbable Doesnt mean its impossible.

Ok in this case i would think that perhaps since you are looking at books in your dream you have never read your brain cant fill in the details of what should be in them. However im still stuck on the hypnosis thing. You say that it works but doesnt at the same time. By this i mean that you are able to bring up memories otherwise lost but they are corrupted by a lack of details at which point your brain fills in the missing parts by making up stuff. Doesnt that mean you dont really remember, not even your subconsious. And if so then i remember awhile back but not sure where to quote from something about how you said that your subconsious never forgets, yet if hypnosis is real and the what you have said has been observed about it is correct then your subconsious isnt remembering everthing but filling in the gaps with stuff that might make sense but not true. This is all very confusing to me.

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They call 'em fingers, but i've never seen em fing..... oh there they go!! otto

Hypnosis as far as i know is like a deep meditation your not fully asleep or awake. As for the brain making things up im unsure, the 'hidden observer' takes information from all the other brain functions while its still seperated but the other brain functions dont seem to be able to recieve it as they are too distracted. The information could possibly be from what gets recieved as its a typical function of our conscious brain to make things up. One easy example is a cooking show which is always on when i get in, the chefs on it always make something up they haven't made before, technicaly they dont know if it will work but from what they do know they patch it together and it always seems to work out well.
One typical thing under hypnosis i've seen is if a memory of something traumatic or what makes them angry etc, is brought up the person will get very upset and start crying or if their angry start shouting and screaming, they get raised blood pressure more adrenalin running through them. which is triggured by our lymbic system which is our animal instinct brain which often does need to be monitored buy our error checking system and then our higher 'concious' brain can often over ride.

I find the actual workings of our brain will be a long time coming before we discover them. Also bringing evolution into this we are the only unique species on the whole planet, If your thinking of saying but something about aposable thumbs then im not talking about that. We are the only species who doesn't go for the stronger healthy mate, our natural instincts are to mate and reproduce and when we can terminate a pregnancy, give up the child, use contraception and even fall inlove with people fully knowing they are incapable of having children.
One common thing to humans is being an individual which gives us the clothes we wear and fashion etc, but i have a group of friends that are all goths, dress the same all look similar. I personaly like singing in private infront of people i wont do it and no matter how hard i try i cant link it to anything of an animal instinct.
Thurthermore can anyone put any reason to posting anonymously on an astronomy message board comes into our animal instincts?

Not sure where to start. You seem to be talking about several things at once, which is ok but yet again im a bit confused. About the evolution thing, I think its our abillity to overcome nature better then most life on earth that allows us to pick mates that arent stronger or healthier then others. And on the same note, in our society physical strength isnt as important as intelligence. But, we arent the only species that behave this way. Not to get to graphic but there are monkeys who have casual sex when afraid. They dont pick mates according to strength or health just whom ever is near by. Yes we can terminate pregnancies but this isnt really an issue in this discussion since it is only an example of our being able to use tools, and giving up children for adoption is just part of our society. In some animal communities mothers will reject their babies which then have to find another mother who will accept them, and in other communities raising babies is done by all the female of that group regaurdless of which mother had which baby. I have no idea what you mean by:

Infact im not sure where you are coming from with the animal instinct references in answering my post at all. but thats ok.

As for the part of your post that deals with hypnosis you havent really answered my post.

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They call 'em fingers, but i've never seen em fing..... oh there they go!! otto

The first paragraph was addressed to your post the second was addressed to the process of humanity.

When hypnotised recalled memories are still subject to the concious as far as im aware. Our subconcious (error checking system) still gets its information from the other parts of the brain but it also gets flooded with a mass of other information of which it has to filter out. Imagination is an act of conciousness (as far as we know) and the making things up could simply be the error checking system not been able to decide whats right and whats wrong.

As far as i know in the people more resiliant to hypnosis (but not the highly resiliant ones) if they are given an instruction they will slowly manage is as their is a minor information swap between the other brain systems. The more resiliant the more quickly they manage it until there is a tail off in the highly resiliant people where they'll just feel like they didn't have a coffee that morning. The highly receptive people won't be able to do anything.

My wife offered an explanation of Deja Vu that I found interesting but odd. She is a telemetry nurse, and she heard this offered as a possibility at work (not school) -

"Electrical impulses in the heart are monitored by parts of the brain and other systems. Sometimes the impulse produce an "echo" that returns to the brain and is interpreted as the past happening now. Since these are autonomic functions bleeding into you conciseness, you brain overlays them on to the signals coming in from you senses. You have the feeling the past is happen now. "

My wife is a very spiritual person and didn't like the "magic" of deva vu being written off with science. I remember it because my wife believed it, but really did like it much.

On another tangent, I lucid dream, so I am able to read while dreaming. I find it odd that other people cannot.

I can only read content of familiar things - The date on newspapers, the name of the paper, weather page and stocks I can read at whim in a dream. Mostly likely because they all look generally the same from day to day in real life.

I can even read favorite books which is really odd - I fall asleep reading an old favorite and "continue to read it" in my dream. Memory seems to offer details that otherwise wouldn't be there.

I can also read "dream things" like a note explaining an event in the dream. It appears that there a lot of creative content missing from my dreams!

I don't seem to have deja vu very much.

Solphe

My son, aged 8, asked me today

"This might sound a bit odd, Dad, but does the world really exist as we see it?"

He's a philosophical little chap.

"No, son," I said, "in reality it would look very vague and ghost-like. You see, it's 99% empty space. The only reason we can see it as we see it is because our brains have evolved to create a picture out of what we do see to give us a sense of security."

he seemed happy with this.

It occurred to me that the Copenhagen Principle wasn't far behind.

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You cannot create a truth by believing in a falsehood.

GOOD GOD MAN!

give that kid a book that explains quantem physics, he'll be building lasers by the time he's 10

i used to ask philosophical questions but i just got told to watch tv, i found a set of channels that sparked my interest like Sci-Fi and Discovery... who could have guessed i'd be reading up on QM and string thoery

Don't like to blow my own trumpet, but my boy built a working printing machine when he was 5..ok, the working part was a toy printing picture which he stuck on the end of a stick..but it all looked good.

Plus an oven to bake bread when he was 5...the heat source was the lounge radiator!

And he's just built a robot which moves one arm up and down..it's attached to one of the wheels of an old battery toy railway engine.

And it works!

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You cannot create a truth by believing in a falsehood.

Well whats he been up to recently, you said them where when he was 5. I'd watch him cause if he can build robots he might be making one to do his homework when he reaches highschool.

My recent works involved a combustion gun, using a 2 litre coke bottle a flit from a lighter and some deodorant. To my supprise the bottle didnt melt but my full weight can't be put on my foot... must remember to aim first
Also im making a form of coil gun which im not going to divuldge the workings as of yet as i still need to fix some of the workings like the liquidation of the nail, i personaly think it would have done some damage if the capacitors didn't all overload and melt along with the projectile and the coil getting me banned from working on it in this house, so i have 2 more years before there will be a post made on that so i guess i should draw the design to it as its all in memory as the actual design is in one lump. Anyway must dash and good luck with the child Richard... enjoy it while he's not in his teens cause trust me we're hell at that age just ask the hole in my wall