Profile for Archmage Alex
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Archmage Alex |
| Member number | 40 |
| Title | Skip to My Lou |
| Postcount | 1629 |
| Homepage | http://www.alexvv.0catch.com |
| Registered | Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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| Dikiyoba Seeks to Flaunt the Meaningless Approbation of Dikiyoba's Fellows in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
Member # 40
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written Wednesday, December 19 2007 00:16
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 -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| The War on Christmas in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Thursday, December 13 2007 13:25
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Maybe we should change Santa's image to that of a fit, jolly man who keeps in shape by jogging from house to house, scaling it and climbing down the chimney to enjoy a snack a fresh fruit. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Mental training in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
Member # 40
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written Monday, December 3 2007 12:10
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To Alec, whose post I just read, the idea of any this having anything at all to do with the totally unrelated and none-of-your-business matter of my sexuality honestly hadn't even occurred to me until you suggested it. Personally, I think trying to use any of this for such a purpose would be totally ridiculous and recommend against it to anyone. If you are, by chance, interested in a greater understanding of my point of view, I recommend Joseph Nicolosi's "Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality" and would welcome any reference to the studies and data you base your point of view upon. I would like to re-emphasize that that particular matter is totally unrelated, and rather than have this descend into an argument of something that neither of us has much of a likelihood of changing the other's view on, I suggest we agree to disagree and move back the things thread was intended to be about. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Mental training in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Monday, December 3 2007 11:33
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For the sake of ef, my underlying goal is, and has always been, to develop my mind to its fullest potential. I'm fully open to changing my methods to whatever I find the most effective. That said, this whole thing obviously touches on some things that involve your own personal philosophies, some of which I do not necessarily agree with. However, discussion of this particular method I was looking into has helped me re-examine and clarify my perception of what exactly it would have accomplished should I have gotten it to work the way I had in mind. Which, it turns out, would basically have been that I would have deliberately developed a sort of abstractified obsessive compulsion to force myself to enter a meta-directed state of intense focus to accomplish things that require such a state. Which sounds rather less appealing that it first appeared. I do think I shall be looking into other options for the development of my mental capacities rather than continuing to pursue this particular process. However, to Kel, I do still think I could get it to work, and rather effectively. I was always aware that the actual process itself might be inherently meaningless (though there is enough support for spoken and written repetition that I doubt it would be totally useless), but that the point was that I could get it work because I believe it would work. Which is, indeed, very much a placebo effect. However, placebos can be extremely effective, if one believes they are effective. This is merely a deliberate application of that principle used in conjunction with other methods thought to have some effect. Moving on, Skepdic's article on hypnosis is now the third source on the subject to give a list of qualities of the highly hypnotizeable that fits me exactly, and think I may look into this a bit more and seek some professional opinions. Also, Kel, I'm very interested in what you are saying about yoga masters. From what I'd heard of it, I thought yoga was just a sort of exercise that involved a lot of bending and stretching. Could you refer me some resources on the matter? -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Mental training in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Sunday, December 2 2007 15:05
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quote:Which why what I do is attempt to think of something else with enough focus that I am not, in fact, thinking of the other thing any longer. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Mental training in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Sunday, December 2 2007 14:32
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quote:And it all may, in fact, have absolutely nothing to do with the unconscious. I have a tendency to use it as a catch-all term for all mental activity I am not directly focusing upon/aware of/deliberately controlling. Though I am interested in the "how" of all of it, the main thing is that I am going for is increasing my capacities for focus, control, and utilizing as much of the potential of the mind as possible. I don't really care to what extent this may or may not involve the "unconscious", however we are defining it, except for the utility of the techniques that claim to have something to do with the "unconscious/subconscious". The point of mentioning visualization was to point to it as a development of focus and control. Typing was merely an example. Muscle memory could technically be a possibility, as many things I do with what I was talking about often tend to involve physical movement/dexterity. However, it seems unlikely, given that the ratio of time spent actually keyboarding to looking-and-pecking is about 1:5,000. I haven't read much on muscle memory, but I'm guessing it doesn't develop after minuscule amounts of time, especially when conflicting methods are being used rather more often. There is also the fact that there is, for me at least, an extremely clear difference between when I am focusing on the typing and when I'm not. We could look at what Randomizer said. Whatever we are going to call it when you get so involved in your thoughts that you stop really registering what's going on around you and your "autopilot" takes over. This is happens to me a lot, with all sorts of things, and to a noticeable, sometimes dramatic, extent, I am consistently better, more efficient, more whatever (depending on what it is) when I am not paying attention. Also, I could point to the example of one time at work when I worked at the library. I was processing the books that people had put on hold and had shipped over that location, which involved typing in the number on the bar code of the book, writing the name that appeared on the computer on a slip of paper that we then put in the book with the name sticking out so it could be seen, and then shelving it alphabetically on the cart next to me. It was tedious, and I did it annoyingly often. One time my mind wandered and I came back to myself to find that I had processed 1/3 of the holds with no conscious memory of doing so. What I would really like to do is be able to do these sorts of things deliberately, but whatever part of mind it is that is in charge of that, generally only kicks in when I am not paying attention, which brings up the problems inherent in the whole "don't think about an elephant" sort of thing. Though I have been working on deliberately not thinking about things with some success. From the things I've read, my opinion of hypnosis is that it is a mechanically induced state of extreme concentration. The business of increased susceptibility to suggestion and whatnot being largely do the fact what you are focusing on so very intensely is doing exactly as Mr. hypnotist says. There is undeniable evidence of the extraordinary things people can while "hypnotized", and what I would like is to be able to summon that level of focus at will. The point of the technique this thread was made about is if I can train myself to follow my own instruction, whether it has anything to do with the "unconscious" or is merely a matter of an abstract association taken to an intense extreme, then I can begin instructing myself to further develop these capacities, similar to as I've done with sleep and dreaming, but accelerated, more focused, and with greater conscious control. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Mental training in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Sunday, December 2 2007 05:22
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To ef: I'd heard about negatives, like not using "not", but not the others. Fortunately, I have a tendency to use happy, positive words anyway, and I've been focusing on the "health and stability" and similar things more than the "damage and instability" sort of things. The tense one is interesting, and throws a bit of wrench into the phrasing I have above. Do you, or does anyone, know of any reliable sources they could refer me to to read up on these sorts of things? To Slarty: As for how I get into things, I've always had a tendency to spend far more time focused upon the inner working of my mind than on anything that was occurring externally. Over the course of my life, as I hear an interesting thing mentioned here or there, I start thinking about it, looking into it and exploring what I can find out about it within my own mind. As I think about these things, and ideas occur to me, I start exploring those too. As for what I can do, one thing I've been working on is my capacity to shift my state of consciousness at will. I originally got into this to help me get to sleep and have been having some success. Mainly, what I do is similar to relaxing your muscles and slowing and deepening your breathing, only you focus on relaxing your brain, and I also shift what I'm doing with my mind down a gear or three from the more active thought, such as things associated with beta waves, to things that require less intensive mental activity. There is also a more abstract and difficult to describe releasing and relaxing and allowing yourself to enter a more relaxed state. There is also what I described above about planting suggestions within my subconscious and having it work to develop them. Perhaps it does not work exactly like a "compiler" as Aran put it, and may lean more towards a focus upon developing mental capacities that I often keep semi-consciously in the back of my mind devoting the parts of mind that my conscious focus is not at that moment utilizing to work towards the directive. As an example, I read about Lucid Dreaming and wished to increase my frequency of such and of clearer, better remembered regular dreaming. I applied the above principle to this and within a few months I moved to where I am now, dreaming vivid dreams every night, for the majority of the night, with so high a level of coherency and involvement that I often begin using too many of the higher functions of my brain and shift up out of sleep. One of my favorites is my capacity to tap the capacities of the less conscious parts of my mind. For example, I decided that instead of the "look and peck" method, I was going to learn actual keyboarding and began a typing program. When learning things like typing you begin by consciously thinking of where your fingers are and recalling from memory which finger to place upon which key and then pressing it. As you practice, you begin to do this unconsciously, your fingers finding and pressing the keys while all you are consciously paying attention to what you are writing. Those of you who use keyboarding can check this right now and see the difference between when you are just thinking of the words and typing and when you think about the typing itself. The trick is to do this deliberately. To consciously surrender control of an action to the parts of mind that can do it far faster and better than you could ever consciously stop and recall from memory where each key you need to press is. The surrendering of conscious control to the less conscious yet remaining aware enough of it's functioning to direct what it is doing yet not so much as to become fully consciously aware of what it is doing and thus take conscious control, is a state I find very complex and difficult to achieve. Dramatically increasing my capacity to do this is one of the main things I plan to develop with the method this thread is about. Another thing is the extent to which I have developed my capacity for visualization (though I'm not sure we can call it that given that I include my other senses). I am able to focus upon a visualization with high enough a level of detail and clarity that I can see things almost as though actually watching them, taste tastes, and feel sensations. I plan to next work on the audio and then the olfactory. to SoT: I wouldn't use just sentence form instructions. While my hand is writing and my lips are speaking I would mentally be focusing upon the abstractions of the meanings of what I'm saying/writing. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Mental training in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
Member # 40
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written Saturday, December 1 2007 17:03
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quote:I meant that instructions that I give myself that would cause harm or instability are to be disregarded. I have no intention of mucking about with my body's natural processes in any way without, at least, a very great deal more knowledge of biology. [quote]There's too much force here. Imagine an artist, highly focused, yet completely relaxed, absorbed in the presence of what he's doing.[/quote]A good point. Though those of were only a couple of examples of the many methods I use, I should probably mix in a bit more of relaxed/accepting/surrendering methods than I have been, for the sake of balance. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Mental training in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Saturday, December 1 2007 15:46
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To Aran: I'm not necessarily talking about hypnosis (though I find it fascinating and will likely involve it or at least many of the principles it includes), but about the power of the human mind to control itself. As a couple of examples, we could take simple association and visualization and take them to an extreme. There is a visualization mental exercise that anyone can do. Close your eyes and envision a table in as great a level of detail as you can. Picture the grain of the wood (or whatever your table is made of) the color, the texture. Do this with as much focus for as long as you can until it's almost as though you are looking at it (or as close as you can get to that with whatever level of practice at visualization that you have). Imagine a lemon on the table, again in as much detail as possible, imagine you are picking it up, feel it's texture, the shape of it, see the color. Imagine that in your other hand you have a knife, (what color? what kind of handle? how long? serrated or not?) Cut the lemon in half, bring half of it up to your nose and smell it, squeeze it and feel the juice run down your hand, now take a bite. Many people can do this so clearly they could swear they actually have a lemony taste in their mouth. I'm so familiar with this exercise my mouth tastes a little sour right now, just writing about it. The human mind is easily capable of simulating sensory perception. Imagine that you take this particular mental exercise and do it so often, with such concentration, and so intensely develop your ability to visualize things, that when you do it you taste lemon as clearly as though you had actually just bitten into one. Just listening to some one verbally run though this exercise would be enough to make you taste lemon. Now we take this principle, slightly abstractify it, and apply it to what I've suggested. If I focus so hard, so intensely, on the principle that I will follow instructions I give myself, if I do all sorts of things for years and years to develop the mental functions used in doing that (like visualization is the function used to make you taste lemon in the example), if I spend hours of each day willing it to be so, commanding my mind to make it so, and various other methods, the idea that I will be able to instruct myself to taste lemon and the parts of my brain that say "you are tasting this particular taste" will be activated, does not seem so far-fetched to me. Of course, I plan to use it for rather more complex, abstract, and cerebral things than inducing the hallucination of a taste, but that would merely require I give instructions that activate the parts of the brain necessary for such things, rather than the "you are tasting this" parts. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Saturday, December 1 2007 15:29
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Quick response to ef while I form my longer response to Aran: I've been going with focusing on health. My subconscious and body know what's good for me better than I consciously do, and I've been instructing myself that health and stability are paramount and supersede anything other instruction. Particularly that anything that would cause damage or instability is to be utterly disregarded, as though never suggested. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Mental training in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Saturday, December 1 2007 13:59
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quote:All very true. To elaborate on "I decided I would like a second opinion" I was tempted to just continue on my own, but my better judgment convinced that this is too dangerous to do alone. This is only one of places I am asking for input and I plan to speak with at least one mental health professional. The thing is, the idea of deliberately planting ideas into my subconscious and having it work in the background to make them so occurred to me several years ago. The problem is that it worked. Now I can alter all manner of aspects of the operation of my mind and consciousness all but at will, and the need for adding structure and clearly defined boundaries to the whole process is getting rather pronounced. This technique is meant both to fill that need and take the process to the next level. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Mental training in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Saturday, December 1 2007 10:14
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So, I was reading about hypnosis and the interesting things one can do in a hypnotic state, and saw that apparently some people are more hypnotizable than others and wondered if less hypnotizable people could enter as much of a hypnotic state as they can and then be instructed to become more susceptible to hypnosis. However, looking into hypnosis would require either experimenting with self-hypnosis entirely on my own, which doesn't seem like the best idea to me, or locating a trained hypnotist interested in some experimenting, but they would likely charge me for their services. So, I wondered if self-reinforcing instruction could be used in other mental training techniques, like whatever you call those ones where you write something down over and over or say something out loud over and over. Given the things I can already do with my mind, I'm pretty sure that if I instruct myself to follow my own instructions I will be able to get the point where I can follow my own instruction as effectively as though in a hypnotic state. I thought, perhaps, something along the lines of "I will follow instructions I give myself when I write them in green while simultaneously speaking them aloud." Which is a relatively simple instruction, self-reinforcing, and extremely unlikely to occur accidentally, especially if I am watching out to make sure it doesn't. However, I decided I would like a second opinion. Can any of you think of an instruction, or a different way of phrasing it, that might be better or more effective? -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Gleep! in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Saturday, November 17 2007 11:40
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-------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Golden Slumbers in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Friday, November 16 2007 10:15
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quote:It does sometimes make getting to sleep and staying asleep a bit of a challenge but I'm getting better at deliberately causing myself to fall asleep. The real challenge is that while I'm dreaming, after a while, I often tend to start thinking too much in ways that cause my mind to slip into a state closer to consciousness and I wake up. So I often wake up in the middle of the night one or more times and then need to get to sleep again. But I'm working on that. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Golden Slumbers in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Thursday, November 15 2007 23:25
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I usually spend 7-8 hours in bed, but I often lose sleep from thinking too much and how long I'm actually asleep is difficult to say and varies from day to day. When laying in bed I have a tendency to do what is known as "deep daydreaming" which isn't far off from usual dreaming, which I do all night every night. I've also been working on developing the capacity to shift my state of consciousness at will. So the line between awake and asleep has gotten rather fuzzy. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Babelfish Contest in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Saturday, November 10 2007 11:49
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English->Russian->English Good to grant to the boards of the communication of the means of programming Spiderweb. Leave your sanity to the door. English->Russian->English Is good in order to give to the boards of the communication of middles to program Spiderweb. Transmit your sanity to the door. English->Portuguese->English The end is good for giving to the plates of the communication of middles to the Spiderweb program. Sanity to the door transmits its. English->Portuguese->English The extremity is good to give to the plates of the communication of middles to the program of Spiderweb. Sanity to the door transmits its. English->German->English The extremity is good to give to the plates of communication of middles to the program from mirror-image the Web to. Reason to the door transfers its. English->French->Portuguese->Spanish->French->Dutch-> French->Greek->French->German->English The end is that desirable, the plates of a report of middles to the program espelho imagem of the zone to give has A. the cause at the door it to be conveyed. English->Russian->English End the desirable, the plate of report middles to imagem espelho program of zone, is which necessary to give it has A reason on the door it, it is which necessary to transport. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Across the Universe? in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Thursday, November 8 2007 23:19
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But if we're living in lower gravity, do we necessarily need that bone mass? Why not end up as a bunch of gelatinous blobs? Couldn't we come up with technology to compensate? -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Original names in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Sunday, November 4 2007 22:57
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I was briefly ArchMAO Alex, and briefly A Hexagram Cel. Other than that, I have remained Archmage Alex. [ Sunday, November 04, 2007 22:58: Message edited by: Archmage Alex ] -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Which way does the water swirl? in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Friday, November 2 2007 23:12
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Am I the only one that loves the longer nights, the cold, and the snow? Autumn/Winter is the coolest! -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Spiderweb Chat-Room in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Thursday, November 1 2007 13:59
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I'm asleep right now! Zzzzzzzz Really though, I work at a bakery, so I go to bed by 6 P.M. and get up between 12 and 3 in the morning depending on what time I start that day. What time tomorrow are we proposing for the chat? Edit: Or we could pick 2 times 12 hours apart. [ Thursday, November 01, 2007 14:00: Message edited by: Archmage Alex ] -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Thursday, November 1 2007 12:17
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Speaking of legitimate, given that it is supposed to be slang, there is always the possibility that that Kel is, in some manner or another, actually causing people to associate his name with this. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Left or Right? in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Wednesday, October 31 2007 23:31
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At first clockwise, and couldn't figure out how to make her go anti-clockwise, but with Redstart's suggestion about the shadow, now I can make shadow switch directions at will, and if I lower the page so that's all I can see, when I raise it again she appears to be turning the direction I have chosen her shadow is turning. If I leave the full image up, most of the time it merely appears as if her shadow has switched direction and is turning the opposite direction she is. -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Wednesday, October 31 2007 23:15
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I wonder how Kel feels about the fact that now everyone on spidweb will be thinking about him during... -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Thoughts on Custom Titles. in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Monday, October 29 2007 10:08
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I love that my title comes with a catchy children's song. However, I do wonder at what bizarre twists of logic within Drakey's mind draw some sort of connection between Salmon and myself. Or am I misremembering Drakey's explanation that related-ish titles are due to his perception of some form of relation? -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
| Episode 4: Spiderweb Reloaded. Something like that anyway. in General | |
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Skip to My Lou
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written Sunday, September 23 2007 14:22
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A page listing who has appeared might be nice, I myself hopefully await my suggested possible appearance with bated breath. May the Munch-Monkeys of Tarterus run amok! -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |