Tired of all the naysayers in the comments...

[kyletainer]

I'm getting really tired of all the naysayers in the comments, so I thought I'd share a link to an interesting little article that should help people understand the true power of the human mind. It's an article on multiple personality disorder. It discusses multiple case studies where patients with MPD exhibit physical changes when switching personalities. Multiples gain and lose allergies, scars, and even medical conditions like diabetes and epilepsy when switching personalities. Injuries disappear and reappear when switching personalities. And it's all the result of the power of the subconscious mind. Hypnosis simply seeks to apply some control and choice to what the subconscious mind does, it doesn't cause the subconscious to do anything that it doesn't already do to people all over the world every single day.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/36533449@N02/3550534660

I put this in the success stories section as I figured this might be of help to anyone looking for a little reassurance. If it's deemed inappropriate I apologize. Also, I'm not a psychiatrist of any kind, nor am I comparing hypnosis to mental disorders, simply sharing some information that I feel may be pertinent to the topic and may not be very widely known.

[OxyFemboi]

kyletainer wrote
I'm getting really tired of all the naysayers in the comments, so I thought I'd share a link to an interesting little article that should help people understand the true power of the human mind. It's an article on multiple personality disorder. It discusses multiple case studies where patients with MPD exhibit physical changes when switching personalities. Multiples gain and lose allergies, scars, and even medical conditions like diabetes and epilepsy when switching personalities. Injuries disappear and reappear when switching personalities. And it's all the result of the power of the subconscious mind. Hypnosis simply seeks to apply some control and choice to what the subconscious mind does, it doesn't cause the subconscious to do anything that it doesn't already do to people all over the world every single day.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/36533449@N02/3550534660

I put this in the success stories section as I figured this might be of help to anyone looking for a little reassurance. If it's deemed inappropriate I apologize. Also, I'm not a psychiatrist of any kind, nor am I comparing hypnosis to mental disorders, simply sharing some information that I feel may be pertinent to the topic and may not be very widely known.

Thanks. Your article is more relevant than you know. Some of us -- EMG, JackDrago, and me/us (OxyFemboi ... for more info, see the Multiple Personalities thread in Success Stories), among other hypnotists -- have written hypnosis files that allow you to develop another persona/alter ego/personality. In other words, we've written files that allow you to have hypnotically induced multiple personality disorder/dissociative identity disorder. The alters vary from normal (basic male or female alter) to specialized (a jock alter to take care of the body's exercise needs) to custom files which may not have been posted (a werewolf alter, for example).

[kyletainer]

Further reading for those that are interested, I would recommend "The body electric" by Robert O. Becker. It's largely about the effects of electromagnetism upon living things, but it sheds some light on some otherwise obscure scientific discoveries. I think this might be helpful as I keep seeing people make claims that "there is no scientific evidence for ..." Well during the course of the research used in the book Becker developed a tool that allowed him to detect the flow of Chi through the human body, this allowed him to map the Chi pathways, and ultimately identify the physical structure within the body responsible for Chi. This provides scientific evidence in support of what eastern mystics, and martial artists, have known and said for two thousand years. So just because you haven't read the peer reviewed report on the topic, is not proof that there is no scientific evidence in support of an idea, and even if there is no peer reviewed report, that proves nothing more than the fact that no one has written one yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_Electric_(book)

[sleepyjosh]

Actually, what you write gets to the heart of the issue. If there is no peer review, there is no science. Saying something is “scientific” has a specific meaning, and it is not simply that someone used a bunch of technology or instruments to investigate a phenomenon. One of the key elements that makes an experiment “scientific” is its reproducibility If I conduct an experiment and get a certain result, that's fun. If you conduct the same experiment using the model I document, then it becomes interesting. If many people follow the model and attain the results, then it's Science. Hence the necessity for peer review; without it, the results of any investigation can be accidental (perhaps due to an uncontrolled factor the investigator wasn't even aware of) or outright falsified.

[kyletainer]

Actually, what you write gets to the heart of the issue. If there is no peer review, there is no science. Saying something is “scientific” has a specific meaning, and it is not simply that someone used a bunch of technology or instruments to investigate a phenomenon. One of the key elements that makes an experiment “scientific” is its reproducibility If I conduct an experiment and get a certain result, that's fun. If you conduct the same experiment using the model I document, then it becomes interesting. If many people follow the model and attain the results, then it's Science. Hence the necessity for peer review; without it, the results of any investigation can be accidental (perhaps due to an uncontrolled factor the investigator wasn't even aware of) or outright falsified.

Yes this is all true, but the point I was trying to make is that the lack of peer review and reproduction of an experiment is not proof that an experiment can't be reproduced, but that no one has done it yet. And when something gets stigmatized the way things like hypnosis and psychic abilities/phenomena have been, people don't exactly line up to try and reproduce other people's experiments. And being scientific means following the scientific method, which means that you conduct your experiment in a regimental manner that can be reproduced, the peer review just confirms the results. Now the problem with experiments dealing with hypnosis, and other such mental disciplines, is that results often depend greatly upon the belief levels of the participants in the experiment. A person who is a steadfast believer that hypnosis doesn't work will not experience the same sort of results as a person who is more open minded about it, and a person who heartily believes in the effectiveness of hypnosis will experience even better results still. And that is where sample size becomes important. Working with the human mind isn't like playing with a chemistry set. You combine dimethyl chloride with sodium phosphate, and you will get the same result every single time, but you hypnotize one person and their result will be different from the results of hypnotizing anyone else, but when you look at a large sample size you will be able to see commonalities in effects or lack there of. The question of hypnosis isn't whether or not it can be effective, there's ample evidence that it can be, the question is how to make it effective for everyone, even the hardcore non-believers. When the necessary techniques to do that are found and propagated among practitioners, you'll see your peer reviewed, reproducible results. In the mean time, I would suggest reading "Super Learning" by Sheila Ostrander & Lynn Schroeder. While the book deals mostly with techniques for improving your memory and the speed with which you can learn and master new skills, it does also delve into the less well understood abilities of the human mind and discusses a number of topics including: psychic abilities, autogenics, and bio rapport, and it includes documentation of a number of people performing feats that most people assume/believe to be impossible. But more importantly than documenting the feats themselves, the process necessary to be able to perform the feats is discussed and examined. So I'll reiterate my point: just because it hasn't been confirmed by peer review yet is not proof that it isn't real, it's only means that further study is needed.

[soulfiremage]

Look up Michael Levin and Bioelectricity if your interested in this phenomen too.

https://now.tufts.edu/news-releases/bio ... -infection

This guy has flatworms growing heads where tails were and vice versa with this.

I'm interested because I've done healing work since I was about 7, can feel it pretty solidly and had a decent success rate - often without belief/placebo (as far as I can ascertain). However, I lack interest in being a new ager/mystic/religious about it and am keen on finding science, real science behind it. In this subject, I hold out some hope that actually it's related to bioelectricity because if I can get it proven, it can be taught and improved upon massively. Whereas I'm just guessing, feeling and trying stuff out!

[kyletainer]

Look up Michael Levin and Bioelectricity if your interested in this phenomen too.

https://now.tufts.edu/news-releases/bio ... -infection

This guy has flatworms growing heads where tails were and vice versa with this.

I'm interested because I've done healing work since I was about 7, can feel it pretty solidly and had a decent success rate - often without belief/placebo (as far as I can ascertain). However, I lack interest in being a new ager/mystic/religious about it and am keen on finding science, real science behind it. In this subject, I hold out some hope that actually it's related to bioelectricity because if I can get it proven, it can be taught and improved upon massively. Whereas I'm just guessing, feeling and trying stuff out!

It Probably is related to bioelectricity. In the book I referenced earlier, The Body Electric, Robert Becker examines a number of ways in which the human body, and all life in general, is affected by electricity and magnetism. He was able to detect and map the chi pathways of the body and identified the physical structure in the body that they correspond to, the epineural sheath. Like you I've been something of a natural healer my whole life, and I have a strong affinity for energetic healing techniques. In 2005 I attended the Denver school of massage therapy, and I was especially talented with the modalities of acupressure and cranial sacral. When I'm doing acupressure I can actually feel the acupressure points and I can feel it when they balance. Now back to the main point I was after, one of the textbooks used for both the acupressure and the reflexology classes is a book called "Staying healthy with the seasons" and it discusses the changes our bodies go through with the change of the seasons and how we have to change our behaviors accordingly. All of which, both my massage school textbook and Dr. Becker's work, indicates that we are susceptible to the influence of electromagnetic fields present in our environment, and since our nervous system is essentially an organic electrical circuit, it is logical to reason that we emit our own electromagnetic fields, thus allowing for things like energetic healing and various psychic abilities. The trick will be figuring out how to teach these things to everyone instead of them being limited to only the gifted few with a natural affinity. The problem is that like hypnosis, and psychic abilities/phenomena, energetic healing and even physical massage and other so called "alternative medicines" have been stigmatized to such a degree that it's rare to find people who are willing to take an objective scientific look at them. And so it's up to people like us to muddle along through the new age mysticism and pseudoscience nonsense until we can produce results that are significant enough to warrant further investigation in a serious manner from people who would otherwise write it all off as "a bunch of hoodoo nonsense" and be done with it.

[Stacie5959]

the point I was trying to make is that the lack of peer review and reproduction of an experiment is not proof that an experiment can't be reproduced

this is a fallacy

so anything you say after then means nothing

just sayin'

[kzarin]

Explain?

[OxyFemboi]

kyletainre wrote
the point I was trying to make is that the lack of peer review and reproduction of an experiment is not proof that an experiment can't be reproduced

stacie99 wrote
this is a fallacy

so anything you say after then means nothing

just sayin'

kzari wrote
Explain?

According to the rules of Logic, if the premise (the first part of an if-then statement) -- the point I was trying to make is that the lack of peer review and reproduction of an experiment is not proof that an experiment can't be reproduced is what Stacie is asserting is false -- is false, the conclusions drawn from that statement cannot be trusted. You can derive true statements from a false premise or the conclusion can be false. In either case, the assigned truth value is "true". The only time a statement of the form A --> B [A implies B] is false when A is True and B is False.

Stacie is saying that Kyletainer started with a false premise. Therefore, any conclusions drawn from that false starting point is suspect. It's a very easy way to dismiss conclusions with which you disagree.

Stacie needs to produce evidence that Kyletainer's beginning premise is false. A statement such as Stacie made without supporting facts is also suspect.

[kyletainer]

the point I was trying to make is that the lack of peer review and reproduction of an experiment is not proof that an experiment can't be reproduced

this is a fallacy

so anything you say after then means nothing

just sayin'

You are the one operating from a fallacious viewpoint. If one person conducts an experiment in a controversial field, like hypnosis, and publishes his findings but then no one chooses to attempt and reproduce his experiment, this does not disprove the original person's findings, nor does it prove that his experiment is not reproducible, it merely proves that no one else has chosen to perform an experiment in the original person's chosen field of investigation. The human body, much less the mind, is an extremely complex thing and does not always behave as expected. That's why biochemistry and pharmacology are such difficult fields to master and why there are so many active lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies. A chemical compound that behaves in a predictable way in laboratory settings does not always continue to behave that way when introduced into the human body. That same chemical compound will also behave in different, sometimes radically so, ways in different humans, that's why a prescription drug that is perfectly harmless for most people, can be extremely lethal for others. Now that's with the human body, which as a general rule does still adhere to the predictable behaviors of organic chemistry, the mind however is far more complex and much less predictable as even when one uses the same subject one may receive differing results depending upon a number of uncontrollable variables within the human condition. Now back to the physical, in the book I referenced to support my statement, which you deem fallacious, Dr. Becker documents a case of a child who lost the tip of one of his fingers in an accident, and as the result of a minor error in the emergency room instead of suturing the end of the remaining portion of the finger closed, as is standard procedure, the finger was merely cleaned and bandaged. When the child was checked to see the condition of his wound at a later date the error was discovered, as was the fact that the child's finger was regrowing the missing piece. The end result was that the child now has a whole finger with almost no scarring, and Dr. Becker and others who wish to research the possibility of instigating the regenerative abilities of the body have more data to work with. But you in your statement, would insist that since no one is willing to take a small child and chop off a finger tip and then wait to see what happens, the previous documented case of it happening is false and does not happen. So, I state again, just because no one has chosen to reproduce another person's work, is not proof that that work can not be reproduced, nor is it proof that the work is not scientific or that it is in anyway invalid, it simply means that no one has chosen to reproduce the work. In order to disprove something, you must attempt to reproduce it and publish the documentation on your results, you can not simply state that it is false without first attempting to reproduce the results.

[kyletainer]

Since the gallery isn't working on here, I've been posting the pictures of my own personal results with hypnosis on Tumblr. Here's the link: https://mortallyburningcoffee.tumblr.co ... eally-does