Paradoxical Intention

    Two years ago I read this book called "Man's Search for Meaning", a book half about Viktor E. Frankl's struggle in a German concentration camp, and half about the therapeutic technique called, LOGOTHERAPY. This is probably one of the greatest therapeutic ideas since Freud, because Dr. Frankl uses one's sense of humor and logic to fight one's fears and tribulation. There is one process he brings up that has set me spinning on a Lazy Susan.
    Paradoxical Intention.

Brain Doors: Gateways to Possiblilies

    Surgeons have found oak doors in patients brains while... Just kidding, the doors of which I speak are merely figurative.

Associations... THE WARNING LABEL

    I have told you about most all attributes of the "Associationator". These next tips will save your favourite things by redirecting the subconscious.

#1. Never make an association with a relationship to a favourite song. Everyone picks that perfect song, for the perfect couple, nothing is perfect. I had a relationship that I though would last forever (nothing is perfect), and I had made an association with the song "With Your Love", by Jefferson Starship. Well, as you have probably guessed, it didn't last past a month. Every time I would listen to the song, I would become depressed. Please, if you want to have your favourite song ruined, go ahead and make the association, otherwise utilize this to your own good.

#2. If you are going to have a serious argument, take it elsewhere. Try to avoid parts of the house you are fond with. An argument is negative to the subconscious leaving an imprint of the argument, topic, location, mood, etc. If you are planning on an argument, take it into the bathroom (nobody is overly fond of their bathrooms), take it outside, or if you are at work ask to leave the sales floor, office, construction area, etc. This will protect you from, essentially, hating your job.

I could not think of a third warning, so if you have negative associations comment and let me know what "goes down" in you head. It will really help my research.

Issues With My Subconscious.

    I've always been slightly OCD. It wasn't until recently, when I identified my compulsive behaviors, that they were "enhanced". Here is a detailed explanation of what goes on in my psyche.

Baby Mozart = Man Mozart

    Now, we have all seen the commercials about "Baby Mozart," babies who learn at an exponential rate because of listening to classical music. It appears ridiculous. But alas, I had hope in this theory, so I did a little self test (no, I am not a baby), involving being able to focus whilst doing simple cognitive work.
    This was around the time I was doing summer school at 0530 'til 1200. One day, I would listen to my classical music compilation; the next day, simple lyrical music. I had then noticed that the lyrical music affected my focus, thereon affecting my test scores. Classical music, on the other hand, improved my focus and test scores. I'm not saying that the classical music on it's own helped my scores, I'm saying non-lyrical music helped my scores.
    Now, to segway into what I'm getting at. Have you ever wondered why, when you pay no attention around you that you can still hear your name in a crowd? Or when you walk down the street, that your eyes fix on all the faces? Well, that is the subconscious' job, to do minor focusing. The subconscious, pre-installed with facial recognition, with voice recognition, and with word recognition, allows us to do everyday stuff without fully paying attention. What does this have to do with lyrical music? When focusing on one thing (i.e., school, books, art), the subconscious still focuses on outside stuff. When you listen to lyrical music while focusing on this task, the word and/or voice recognition is listening to your music and reminding you, "Hey, the guitar solo is coming up," or "Hey, I really think Lance Bass sounds gay in this song." So, as you are focusing on this task, your subconscious is nagging at you to listen to the music. Now back to the classical music. When listening to the non-lyrical/classical music, my subconscious had nothing to hone onto, improving my focus and concentration. Therefore non-lyrical/classical is today's "Ritalin."

The High Post...

-----BE WARY-----

<This post contains actual events in which drugs were used. The drugs used were 100% legal, 100% harmful, and yes, my mom knows about the events and experiences that occurred.> 

------READERS ATTENTION IS ADVISED-----

Associations Part II: Emotional Memory

    When I started working out, I was given some tips by a friend, one of which intrigued me. He said, "Pick a selection of music that you will only listen to while working out." I asked him why, and he said, "I don't know why, but if you listen to the music while not working out, it will mess with your brain." I got to thinking, I have had that kind of experience before. I was going on this long bike trip and all I listened to was Iron Maiden, well a few days after the trip I was listening to Iron Maiden and I had sudden flush of the emotion I felt while biking and the urge to bike. It wore off when I listen to them three days in a row, but I surprised me that my brain had made the association between the music, my emotion while listening to the music, and the urge to bike. Have you ever heard a song that you hadn't heard in a while and you have the sudden remembrance of the location in which you originally heard the song and my emotion. I first had that experience when I listened to "Kiss from a Rose" by Seal, and I remembered being in Tennessee in my families old beat up minivan and it was on the radio. The rush of memory was overwhelming , but I loved the feeling!
    Here is another way the brain makes emotional associations (which I lightly touched upon in my last "Association" post), where a negative experience ties in emotionally with a surrounding. We've all had the arguments where they left an imprint in your psyche, where your brain takes a little snapshot of the emotion, the location, and the person arguing with. This is probably the worst ability the subconscious uses, because of the imprint it leaves on people and places.

Deaf Individuls... A continuing study...

    Have you ever wondered what a deaf child thinks? If he or she has no language lesson, what goes on in his or her head? Well, think about this, as you are reading this do you hear your voice in your head with your accent or dialect? Helen Keller is probably one the best example of this. I have always had this very comedic thought: if Helen Keller learned how to communicate in her early teens, what were her thoughts before then? Fnkvjnckjfdnvdkfj? No. I happened read her autobiography and she talked about how she would think in emotions and memories, and it wasn't until her first language lesson when she obtained reason. Moving onward...
     Have you ever had an angry thought toward someone? You would possibly think, "I really hate John Doe!" Well a deaf person, with no language lessons, would recall the feeling of anger or rage, with the thought of John Doe. So your thoughts are just the brain recalling emotion and memories and piecing it together to create a final thought. So the next time you feel something toward someone, think of how it works in your head, you will better understand yourself as well as others.

Muscle ≠ Brain power (Developing theory)

     We know that football players are stereotypically "not the brightest bulbs" but I have reason to believe that it is not a stereotype. I noticed there was a correlation between the ability to build muscle and the brain capacity. You know the stereotypical "yes coach, no coach," and how they are portrayed in movies as knowledgeless drones. Well, I have encountered many a jock in the YMCA, where I work, with the airhead look on their face (I read faces like Dr. Seuss's books). I can't necessarily explain what I see in those intriguing faces but they obviously have the hamster on the wheel. Have you ever wondered why all the built athletes happen to be airheads? Coincidence? I think not! I'm not done yet. I have a friend who's sibling has down syndrome, and they would wrestle all the time (big redneck family), and his brother would always win. I have heard many other similar stories. There are many other types of disabilities that enhance one sense to make up for the other sense's absence. Think of blind people, they have exceptionally great hearing, deaf people have great vision, paraplegic have strong arms. The brain tries to even things out as much as possible, so if the left arm is missing, the right arm compensates for the left's absence by strengthening the right. It is the same between body and brain. Why are all nerds/geeks stereotypically scrawny? Why are all jock stereotypically buff? If you have anything to add to this developing theory, please comment, I could use the feedback.

Hypnotism? I think yes!

    Being the mentalist I am, I immediately thought to hypnotism. No not the "you are getting sleepy" stunt, but a complex system that involves practice, study, and concentration.The brain is like a computer: the conscious, outer brain- the firewall, and the inner subconscious (the lizard brain)- the hard drive. The only way for hypnotism to work is to get to the subconscious by hacking the the conscious part of the brain. One way to do that is by surprise. Surprise leaves a split second gap where the conscious brain tries to make sense of what happened, leaving the subconscious brain open for command. What do I mean by "command?" Well, when you are surprised the subconscious has no controller, so if you call out, "SLEEP" the subconscious in a sense say, "Ok!" You are then under the command of your victim, friend, audience member, etc. I receive a lot of questions in response to this theory, "Can you make me do stuff naughty?" No, I can't the subconscious has the same morals as your conscious brain. Unless you were a harlot, then yes... But I wouldn't do it anyways.
The Surprise...
    To surprise someone, you have to interrupt a normal everyday thing like a handshake, or lighting a cigarette. For a handshake you can do two things:
1. While shaking his/her hand jolt the arm as not to hurt but to shock and then call out the command ASAP.
2. When he/she reaches to shake your hand quickly lift his/her hand and speak softly and get their focus on his/her hand and slowly talk them down to a sleep mode.
There are also several different ones that sometimes take hours to do. The one I told you is for a quick hypnotism.

Monkey/infant see, monkey/infant do...

     A few days ago, I noticed these two infants, Zack- 24 months, and another toddler around the same age, and they were screaming at each other. One was screaming and the other would repeat the scream, same pitch and length. Zack would do that with every other kid that would scream in his general direction. Of course the older the toddler the less they would scream back. Then I noticed when a parent would do something the child would emulate it. One time, a parent took a noodle and slapped it on the water (which is a big no no), I then told the parent that slapping the noodle was not allowed. Sure enough, a few minutes later the son picked up the noodle and smacked it on the water. The parent was all severe, "That man said don't slap the noodle!!" Excuse me ma'am, under the law of "Monkey See- Monkey Do", you have yourself to blame. And it is true, toddlers are no better than monkeys: they rarely walk on two feet, they speak very little words (and I'm not talking about the chimps from Planet of the Apes), and they smell real bad, kind of like regurgitated Cheerios (with stomach acid) and defecation. So parents, be good examples to your kids, because monkey/infant see, monkey/infant do...

Associations... Plain and Simple...

     Have you ever wondered why after an arguement or incident, that the environment (that the mishap happened in) doesn't fell the same? Well, the human brain makes thousands upon thousands of associations everyday, that's how we remember names and faces. We see someone, we learn their name, the brain says,"Ok, this name with this face."
     In high school when I had to get off of Adderall, for the Navy, my focus and concentration went out the door. Then I (more or less) figured out about the association making in the brain, so I used that to my advantage. So I would meet someone and say there name was Chris, well they just happened to be Christian so I would think, "Chris- Christian, clean shaven, neat hair, A CHURCH GOER." So everytime I would run into him I would recall that information, "He looks innocent (like unto a Christian), well groomed... Chris!" Sometimes it's not that easy... Especially for girls, more specifically teen girls. Teens are easy to psychoanalyze. First off, relationships are life and death, so you can tell whether they are happy or HORRIBLY CRUSHED. Secondly, puberty... 'nough said. So in essence, all teen girls are pretty much the same.

Back to the topic at hand.

     Ok, so I taught my friend Parley, how to use the preinstalled Associationator!!! So, my name for instance, Lucas, you can think Luke, Luke Skywalker, "Luke, I am your father!" Yeah yeah, I've heard it. So if you would learn my name and say to me, "Luke, I am your father!" I may look annoyed, but I won't tell you to shut up. Right then and there, your brain has made an association with Star Wars and my name. So when you see my face, your brain will recall "Star Wars" not Luke or Lucas, because it is simpler information that the brain can handle.

     Now use this information to your advantage! I am giving to you because I have suffered from the worst case of forgetfullness and terrible memory called ADHD...

Attractive People... Just a theory...

We've all dated one. The one you thought was for you. The most beautifulist one (yeah yeah not a word). But I have made some breakthrough observations about attractive women.
Attractive women may be perfect... on the outside, but they are commonly sexually, physically or emotionally abused. Attractive women are usually "preyed" upon by sexual addicts. I say preyed because when lions are looking for food, they think of their prey as an item not an actual thing. Men (not all of them) look at women as items. This causes them to be self conscious about their looks or what people think of them, thinking they are, "not good enough." Through all this abuse, they go into another relationship expecting the same from their last relationship but find it may be out of their "norm."
Now this is just an observation...

Eric... oh Eric...

Have you ever met a person where they are so stinkin' smart, they have no social skills? Meet Eric. 5' 7", 160 lbs, extremely smart but he doesn't think before he talks... I work at the Haselwood YMCA, as a life guard (Eric as well). We have these cool waterproof vacuums that clean up sand, dirt, rocks, vomit, Code Brown (fecal matter). Sami, my co-worker, and I were about to put the vacuum in the pool, and Eric whips out the crazy statistics like, "It's a 1 out of 1 THOUSANDTH probability that the vacuum shorts out... I'll warn the swimmers..." So he proceeds to tell the swimmers, who were elderly, that if they climb out of the pool, not to touch the poles or else they will ground themselves and get electrocuted. Sami and I were furious, the horror on the old peoples faces were terrible. I said to Eric, "Dude, you didn't have to say that!"
"Well, I was just warning them just in case." he replied.
Five people leave the pool, "Eric, look what you did."
"I was just saying!" he quickly replied.
Eric is the type of person that if something could go wrong, it will. Also if you tell Eric what to do or pass on a message telling him what to do, he automatically argues.
"Hey, Lauren said to be sure to roam, so you look like your guarding."
"Oh I was, I was just taking a break."
"For 15 minutes?!"
Every rotation around the pool is 15 minutes, so we don't fall asleep or become lethargic. Eric, did you mother ever teach you the word "OK"?
Love,
      Lucas Davis