Hypnosis, Meditation and Sensory Deprivation – (Six Incredibly Awesome Mind States You Can Experience)

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for! TV networks have interrupted their broadcast with a special report, international airports have closed down, politicians have stopped lying! (ok, the last bit isn’t true). That’s right! The final installment of my Incredibly Awesome Mind States series has arrived!

It’s delicious and nutritious and pretentious and a dozen other words ending in -ious that I just can’t think of right now. (ok, the third bit is true this time)

“But wait!” I hear you say! Isn’t this only the fourth installment? Aren’t there supposed to be six incredibly awesome mind states?

Oh yes! And you know how I resolve that paradox? No, it’s not magic – look, there’s nothing up my sleeves! I resolve the paradox like this: Today’s article contains not one, not two, not four, not five, not six… (etc. up to one hundred and thirty seven)… but, (you never would have guessed it), three incredibly awesome mind states!

I know, I know. I’m spoiling you. Up until now, I’ve been teasing you one by one. But now it’s time for the huge climax! Three incredibly awesome mind states in one post! Woohoo!

(okay, the real reason I packed the last three together is because they’re the ones I haven’t experienced yet – so I can’t say much about them. That’s why they fit in one article.)

Alright, enough teasing!

1. Hypnosis

Sure, today you can get hypnosis pre-packaged as an mp3, or you can do auto-hypnosis or whatever. But I’m talking about the old fashioned hypnosis, where you get up on stage and a hypnotist makes you do things.

I’d love to experience that!

What’s it like? I’ve read Richard Feynman’s account in his book “But Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman”. He says you keep going along with the hypnotist because you’re interested in what’s going to happen next. You feel slightly fogged out but otherwise aware of what’s going on. You keep telling yourself that you could disobey him but you won’t. Which is just another way of saying that you can’t. (Feynman’s words)

He also describes what it was like when he did finally decide to disobey an order by the hypnotist:

(…) at the end he said that after I came out of hypnosis, instead of returning to my seat directly, which was the natural way to go, I would walk all the way around the room and go to my seat from the back.
All through the demonstration I was vaguely aware of what was going on, and cooperating with the things the hypnotist said, but this time I decided, “Damn it, enough is enough! I’m gonna go straight to my seat.”
When it was time to get up and go off the stage, I started to walk straight to my seat. But then an annoying feeling came over me: I felt so uncomfortable that I couldn’t continue. I walked all the way around the hall.

Funky!

Say whatever you say, but I’d love to experience hypnosis!

2. Meditation

I’ve been vaguely interested in meditation for some time. But recently I had my interest really spiked. At my Toastmasters club, when we had our last session before summer break, two of the members said one of their favorite things to do over summer is meditation. I was also browsing self-improvement blogs, and apparently one of the most popular posts at PickTheBrain is called How to Meditate.

So I was like “Booyah! I gotta get me some o’ dat shizznit!”

People who tried it say it’s a really interesting state of mind. An incredibly awesome one, if you will

After you’ve practiced concentration and learned to focus on one thing at a time, you can proceed to the next stage: no thought at all. Achieving a silent mind is difficult, but when you attain it the experience is powerful. A technique I advise is viewing your thoughts as separate from your self. When a thought appears, make a conscious decision to throw it out of your mind. Over time you realize that you are capable of allowing or rejecting thoughts. Your real I is not a collection of thoughts, but something far deeper. This is the most significant realization of meditation – that you do not have to be a slave to your thoughts

Hell, yeah! That’s nuts enough for me to try! Plus, it apparently improves concentration, has great benefits for your health and makes you happier. But let’s face it, that’s not why I would do it . I just enjoy the really weird stuff that’s beyond anything ordinary people would ever imagine, let alone experience. (Dare to join me? Try lucid dreaming.)

3. Sensory deprivation

Now this is a funky one! It also comes in two main flavors.

Firstly, you could try shutting down all your senses. Some folks specialize in providing this. They have these “isolation tanks”, which are basically just baths with a lid. They’re neutrally buoyant and the water is at body temperature so that you don’t feel anything. Once you close the lid it’s completely dark in there. You can’t hear anything except your own breath and heartbeat when you’re in there. You can’t really taste much since you’re not eating anything, and you probably won’t smell anything there. So there’s your five senses taken care of!

Okay, now why would people do this? Here’s a list of reasons why I would do it:

1. It’s funky!
2. When you cut off all outside stimuli, after a while you start seeing and feeling weird stuff
3. Possible out-of-body experiences
4. It’s funky!

Yeah, I know, out-of-body experience is way out in the left field, together with telepathy and UFO sightings. Hey, I’d just like to experience it myself to see what it’s like! And all the other weird stuff you start feeling when your senses are shut down is supposed to be a lot of fun too! Without consuming any illegal substances! In fact, sensory deprivation is apparently good for your health, since some alternative medicine folks use it as therapy.

Partial sensory deprivation

In one experiment, scientists put people in a completely dark, soundproofed room. They left them there for 24 hours.

(no, I can’t remember how they arranged toilet needs in the pitch dark)

The subject would first lie down and just relax. Then, after some time, they would grow restless. With no sights and no sounds, they would soon start feeling really spooky. They would start walking around aimlessly, apparently because movement at least makes you realize you’re there.

I can’t remember where I read about this experiment so I can’t quote exactly, but one subject described it roughly like this:

I had been in there for what felt like one day. Then two days, then three. When you are all alone, only with your thoughts, time passes incredibly slowly. I kept hoping it would finally be over, but the time just went on and on. I began to think they had forgotten all about me and I would just die in there.
After what felt like a week, suddenly a ray of light appeared. An experimenter opened the door to take me out. They turned the lights down to almost nothing in the corridor, but it felt incredibly bright after the long darkness. I almost fell at the experimenter’s feet and thanked him for rescuing me.
When I went out afterwards, everything seemed so wonderful. I saw every mundane object in a completely new light. I admired the colors, the way light reflected off shiny surfaces, the depth and beauty of everything around me. When you spend 24 hours without any eyesight, you really learn to appreciate what you have.

Booyah!

About 80% of all sensory input our brain processes is from our eyes. It makes sense that when we take that away, all sorts of funky stuff happens!

One restaurant used this with great success. They serve their foods in a cellar, in complete darkness. The waiters are blind people – they don’t have trouble navigating in pitch dark.

With your eyesight shorted out, and all distractions left behind, even the simplest food tastes absolutely amazing. (that’s what their customers say). Plus, it helps that the foods are named like “blue from the sky”, so you have no idea what you’re ordering

I would definitely like to try that once. Wait, now that I think of it – I can just get together some friends and we can do this ourselves! One would prepare some food, and the others would eat it with a blindfold over their eyes. Then we could change the chef, so everybody gets to enjoy it!

Thanks for making me think of that!

Anyway, this was it! TV broadcasts can continue, airplanes can fly again.
Vlad finished writing incredibly awesome mind states, and the world will never been the same.
(yes, this is why I’m a blogger and not a poet.)