On another thread I mentioned a few abilities I have developed over the years. On that thread it really wasn’t completely on topic, so I’ll make this thread for anyone who wishes to discuss it. I’d like to hear from anyone else who has learned to do any of these “mind over body” controls.

At will, I can dramatically increase or decease my heart rate and blood pressure.. I can stop bleeding in any area of my body, and I can nullify virtually any pain in any part of my body by mental concentration. Some of these things I can almost explain, some I just do. IMO, any person should be able to do all those things. The fact that so many “Eastern” devotees can do it, and the fact that I can do it, indicates to me that it is not only something everyone could probably do (with the proper training and/or incentive) but that it is a natural product of our (relatively) highly developed mentality as a species.

Some of these are sort of “tricks”. Some are a little more direct mental control. All are possible.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

Saying "anyone" can do it is sort of like saying anyone can be an Olympic athelete. While anyone can improve their brain's biophysical control relative to an untrained state, not eveyone can do as much as the very best.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Say, is there any way for a person like me to be able to do what you describe? I'd love to be able to do this myself.

- Maha Vailo

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When you get down to it, Science answers how. Religion answers why. - hippietrekx

Jack Schwarz has some "Tools for Self-discovery" on his site.

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Hmmmm…… I said “should be able to do…….”, I didn’t say, nor intend to mean, that everyone can do them as much as the very best. Lighten up a little.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

You can probably do some of those things fairly easily, and it might take a lot of work for some of the others. A lot of people say that they’d love to be able to play the guitar, but never will if they don’t practice. If you are interested, I can explain a few of the easier ones.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

Well, I am trying to lose weight...

(Hey, it's BAUT. We nitpick.)

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Ok, I’ll explain one of the things I have taught myself. This is one of the easiest to explain, but not necessarily the easiest to perform. It goes like this.

Lesson 1
I have a driveway covered in gravel of varying size from pea size to over an inch. That makes the surface very uneven for walking on. Much of the gravel consists of crushed rock, and therefore has a lot of sharp edges. Sometimes I don’t want to bother putting on my shoes, so the trick is to walk the length of the driveway barefoot without getting my feet bruised or cut.

The method is very simple, the execution is not so easy. Normally, the muscles in your feet are tensed up, especially if you are walking barefoot on uneven ground or sharp rocks. That makes the contact area of the bottom of your feet limited to the highest points of the surface below. What you have to do is totally relax all the muscles in both feet, and I mean totally. That allows your feet to conform to the shapes of the rocks you are walking on, thereby spreading out the pressure across the entire bottom of the foot.

There are two main requirements. First, you must concentrate totally on relaxing those muscles. You can’t let your body’s natural reactions tense them up. Without active control of relaxation, the muscles will tense up. You must concentrate on remaining calm and relaxed. Second, you must have complete faith that it will work. You have to trust yourself, and you have to trust that the procedure will actually work. If you lose faith, you will lose concentration, and it will probably hurt.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

I can raise my blood pressure and heart rate too. All I need to do is think about, well, never mind.

About the feet pain, here's something interesting that I discovered, that sort of goes along with it. When it's really cold outside, and my muscles get all tensed up, I feel cold. But if I take some deep breaths and don't tense my muscles, it doesn't feel as cold. I think this is probably due to the same reasons.

BTW, anyone can reduce their blood pressure by maybe 10 mm/hg (I mean systolic) by taking four or five deep, slow breaths. And you can raise it by maybe 10 mm/hg by talking...

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As above, so below

Changing heart rate and blood pressure separately, and without showing any external signs, is a little different. Doubling your heartbeat without any visible signs takes a little practice. Also, there other, more difficult conditions to overcome.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

With practice, I could get my feet not to take damage from my mother's very pointy driveway, too. It had nothing to do with mind over matter, however; it had to do with calluses.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I can raise my right eyebrow, or both eyebrows simultaneously,
simple as anything. but I cannot raise my left eyebrow alone.
I've tried over and over, without the slightest success.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"The other planets?
Well, they just happen to be there, but the point of rockets is to explore them!"
-- Kai Yeves

(Hey, it's BAUT. We nitpick.)



C,mon noclevername Is this reference about Head lice or body lice or indeed some animal infestation, try and be more specific in future.

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But you're sure the astronauts are lying; you just don't seem to know what they're lying about. jayutah

I can wiggle my left ear, but not my right so much. My left eyebrow is easier to raise than my right. I can wink my left eye better than my right. Curling my lip, Elvis style (but nowhere near Elvis cool) is much easier on my left than on my right.

I'm very much right handed.

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Spock Jenkins of the Vulcan Jenkins'.

Mentalavenger, interesting topic by you, (very unique): is it a sort of meditation, or just a mind and body control. because both things are difficult to control properly, it require great efforts. or it is just an American style of controlling mind and body.

Solved this one years ago (I think I was @ 12): All you have to do is hold your right eyebrow still with one hand, while you raise both eyebrows. By performing a task you've already neurologically mastered but
immobilizing one set of muscles, you will train the other. Give it a couple of months. You'll be casting left-handed glances with asperity in no time.

--I too can control my heartrate at will. I can also decide to "trust" that I won't step on anything painful, and walk the gravel as MA suggests (resulting in the relaxed state, which does make it less likely for me to feel the pain). I can change the skin temperature of my hands, as well.

I have yet to receive any remuneration for these fantastic abilities, which supports my theory that it sucks to be a superhero.

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Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
- Goethe

Jump in with both feet!
- Me, indulging my inner eight-year-old

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"Are you a mad-hatter that just types what he wishes, or have you actually any physics training?"
Occam's Ghost to Grant Hutchison.

Thank you.

This is something I taught myself, without any instruction. I’m not sure it could be called meditation. It is more like concentration and body awareness. Being able to focus on a specific area of the body, almost as if you take your mind and place it right there, is the key. Different effects require different controls, though. Some of the things I do take radically different approaches. The one thing they all have in common is concentration and hyper awareness of the body.

I was told by a doctor that my pain control might be self-hypnosis. I don’t know about that. All I know is that when I concentrate in a certain way on the source of the pain, I can make it melt away until it is no longer there.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I read somewhere that the brain itself is capable of blocking out pain and most pain relivers don't block out pain-instead they instruct the brain to do what it is already capable of doing anyway. The article suggested that we can train ourselves to do it- without taking a pill.

You may well be correct. When I block out pain, I am certain that I am merely interfering with the interpretation of the pain signals by the brain, as opposed to blocking the signals at their source.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

I have always noticed that when I have a strong physical pain, there seems to be two kinds of pain at the same time, and only one is "unbearable".

In my case, when I get hurt badly there is the physical pain, which "hurts", but doesn't seem to be intolerable, and another kind of pain, probably "emotional" I think, that is there to make sure that you interpret pain as something bad.
I tend to turn apathetic sometimes, and when I am like that it seems that pain is much more tolerable. It "hurts" as much physically, but there doesn't seem to be that second feeling that is there to make it intolerable or make you wish for it to stop. I suppose that somebody with a lot of self-control could exploit that, if it's not an odd trait I have.