All Quiet in the Head
A nagging millstone, or the "still, small voice"? A mild electro-therapy to the brain is said to quiet the internal cacophony and permit its subjects to learn new tasks with greater ease. It sounds like a way to get catapulted right into The Zone. The author reports that the effect lasted for about three days, and that she missed it like crazy when it wore off. If the device were commercially available, she'd "wear one at all times and have two in my backpack ready in case something happened to the first one." But she wonders whether we would be better or worse people without the nagging doubts that we so often hear in our minds.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
This may be beneficial for some I guess, as the chemical treatment works for others. Yet the focused state of mind the young lady describes sounds suspiciously like the state many people achieve through meditation. Or through the force of will to practice quieting the internal noises and focus on the task(s) at hand, to the exclusion of all else.
Whatever excites your stator I suppose.
This one made me think of one of my favorite Peter Gabriel tunes.
Yes, she said it felt very much like what she could achieve briefly via yoga, but she found it very difficult using that technique to stay in the state; it was easily interrupted by the first jarring sensory impression she got when she finished. The electrical impulse induced the same state more easily and in a more lasting form.
I've always had a reluctance to rely on much of anything external to myself, --exception to the reliance rule would be Walkin' Boss-- but undoubtedly this method of quieting the inner cacophony will surely be beneficial to some. Although, I can't help but wonder, what price dependency?
Disclaimer: I'll grant that my years spent under the influence of lots of really spiffy prescribed medication with a capital M, left me with a strong aversion towards diddling with the brain through external means.
Yessirreee, soaring through the Kuiper belt while not being able to remember what happened five minutes ago, much less anything in the way of details from those years hits me a little funny.
Like so many former smokers seem have vendettas towards smoking... I probably should not comment on this topic any further given my personal experiences/demons.
What if you could take a very specific vacation only from the stuff that makes it painful to be you: the sneering inner monologue that insists you’re not capable enough or smart enough or pretty enough or whatever hideous narrative rides you. Now that would be a vacation. You’d still be you, but you’d be able to navigate the world without the emotional baggage that now drags on your every decision. Can you imagine what that would feel like?
Yes, I can, because I only have that voice a small percentage of the time -- generally when I really deserve it. It's a very useful voice on those occasions, because it holds me to account.
I do know a few people (all of them women) who are perfectly capable human beings except that they are dogged by these kinds of nagging doubts. It's a feature of their consciousness they could do without.
However, I know far more men (and some women as well) who are overflowing with self-esteem that is disconnected from their actual accomplishments or capabilities. Humility, rather than a superabundance of self-criticism, is what seems most to be lacking.
I said I would not comment on this topic further, then, minding my own business cruising the web while supper burns on the grill, I come across this!
Great googly moogly!
One last observation:
"Can you imagine what that would feel like?
Yes, I can, because I only have that voice a small percentage of the time -- generally when I really deserve it. It's a very useful voice on those occasions, because it holds me to account."
A good song, at least IMHO, that covers the voices matter.
The author mostly seems to feel that her "still, small voice" is a useless hamperer, but she does raise the question whether it would be a good idea to do without it. I should think a psychopath has a very quiet head.
Worrisome. Consider a model in which the current causes subtle damage that makes us drop back to "single user" mode. They are putting DC current through a brain that doesn't operate using electrical current in any household sense; sort of like hitting the side of the computer to make it behave. I think we multi-task for good reason.
I think we would all find this enormously beneficial and want to continue - until the subtler side-effects of what we were missing became apparent.
Our bio-cultural inheritance is not everything and should be resisted at times. But the amount of guilt, anger, violence, passivity, denial, and reasonableness may be as good a current balance as is survivable.
Good critiques all.
You've got to wonder about placebo effects for something like this- I'd like to see the study results rather than relying on one participants take. Particularly so as she admits having issues with her inner voices (apparently more than what I perceive as normal- but I only have mine to go on). Certainly, it seems like something that could be addictive (note her desire to have one after the study, and to carry one all the time- with spares no less).
I don't know- I seem to find it easy enough to focus on a task and exclude everything else. I just don't seem to always pick the right task at the right time...
Just ask my wife.
Joking aside, I've always been exceptionally good at picking up the basics of something very quickly, but becoming expert eludes me in most things. One wonders of the ability of this to actually make one better, or just not horrible due to internal self sabotage.
The author linked to a website that gave instructions for how to build a homemade device of this type. On his to-do list is to make the controls remote and give them to a friend to operate out of his sight, so he can test whether what he feels has a strong element of autosuggestion or placebo.
..."make the controls remote and give them to a friend to operate out of his sight"...
One of the voices in my head is pestering me to ask you if I mentioned how this made me think of my favorite Peter Gabriel song?
=;^}
</AllSeriousnessAside>
I find the idea of hurting a monkey so horrifying that I hasten to note that the current evidently is too faint to be felt on the skin -- or else it wouldn't do this guy any good to let the controls be operated out of his sight.
I love Peter Gabriel, but that song depresses me.
"I love Peter Gabriel, but that song depresses me."
Whoops! Duly noted and my apology is extended to you Tex.
FWIW, When I first started working for BACC, I had as one of my assigned accounts, a certain research facility on the NIH campus in Washington, D.C. On my first visit to the facility, a researcher just had to show me their on going primate research...
Sans sharing the details of that show, let me simply say that my next meeting with my supervisor was one involving a heated negotiation to result in an account swap with another BACC employee.
From that visit and subsequent wrangle over account assignments arose a tale that is now mythical in the IT industry. And that tale concludes with the following advisement: Always mount a scratch monkey.
Now I'm what is often called a good old boy. One raised in the outdoors, living and working on a farm, fishing, hunting and cleaning my kill for food. Even so, after that show, I discovered my limits.
P.S. Regardless of the authoritive descriptions of the origin of the phrase, what really happened was the researcher swore that rebooting a PDP-11 mini-computer, which was required to load the calibration routines to calibrate an AD11-K (analog to digital converter interface in the computer... this is way back when, say early 1982), was not responsible for the howling of primates heard in a room next door.
After completing the calibration, was when the offer to see the research came about.
one of the hallmarks of charismatic leaders, "sane" and "insane" is the absolute belief in themselves. This looks like a serviceable device to emulate that state. Combine this with the long established methods of De-humanizing the opposition,and a disturbing trend evolves. Has anyone here read "Ordinary Men"?
raven, spot on. Lack of even a 1% doubt, an even theoretical possibility that one is wrong, is a mark of psychosis. We are now using the neuro term "anosognosia" for the lack of insight in psychotic disorders.
Post a Comment