Josh e-mailed me the following question:

What techniques or thought trails did you follow to help put up that “translator” between yourself and your mind… because to hear you think it there are 3 entities we possess our minds, our bodies, and our subconscious. You found a way to put up a translator between the three. That is my largest desire with my mental development, as I’ve been attempting to accomplish for a couple years now, to no avail. Sure I interpret it, and get messages I can manipulate to make sense, but to hear you say it, you have conversation with yourself Kind of jealous in that respect.

Thanks in advance for any insight and thoughts you can share.

I got interested in speaking to my subconscious after I read chapter 10 from Robert Peterson’s book, Out of Body Experiences: How to Have Them and What to Expect. Read the chapter if you haven’t. It recounts how Peterson came into contact with his “inner voice”, which is the same thing I use (I just call it my “subconscious”).

I started the same way Peterson did… just asking myself random questions, and listening for the answer. At first it doesn’t feel like anything special is going on. I can remember feeling frustrated with the supposed “answers” I was receiving. They weren’t clear, they were too short, too quick, and it felt like 90% of the time I wasn’t even getting a response. When I felt I had actually gotten a response, a lot of times it was incorrect. Very frustrating.

I kept at it. Asking myself questions, and listening. After about a month, things started to improve slightly. Slowly, over time, it began to personify. This took a while… perhaps 6 or 8 months.

The key, in my opinion, is to tell which thoughts are yours, and which thoughts are from your subconscious. This isn’t something that can be taught - it’s something you have to monitor the inside of your own head, and get a feel for it. Thoughts, ideas, pictures, emotions, associations, etc, are bouncing around in your head constantly. Before I communicated with my subconscious, I really wasn’t aware of how much shit goes through my head at any given moment. Now, I can see most thoughts and emotions pretty clearly. When something new arises, I am aware of it, and see it clearly for what it is.

That sort of mental identification is pretty tricky at first. If you are to look inside the mind of any normal person, there is so much shit going through it. Even “stupid” people have extremely fast minds, jumping from one topic to another, with a flood of memories, emotions, ideas, etc.  We can take control of this process, and become aware of it.

One fun exercise is to just sit and think. Sit and think for 20 minutes, about whatever you want to think about. Switch topics whenever you want. Just float around and think, with no rules on what you can’t think about.

After the 20 minutes, go back and try to remember every topic you thought about. Every thought that went through your mind. Every memory that triggered a new line of thinking. For example, if I try this, I might remember thinking about a girl I’m interested in. But I’ll also remember thinking about how my cats spill water in the kitchen all the time. How did I jump from a girl to my cats spilling water? How did my mind make that jump? At first you might not be able to answer that question. But with practice, I can see that I was thinking about the girl, then I was thinking about my past girlfriend, then I thought about the time my past girlfriend cooked me a meal, then I thought about seeing my roommate cook a meal with his girlfriend, then I thought about the kitchen, then I thought about my cats spilling water on the kitchen floor. This sort of jumping around happens in an instant, and it can be very hard to get a hold of because it’s so quick.

Track it down. Notice when you recall a memory. Notice when you jump from one topic to another. You don’t have to stop yourself - just NOTICE it. Be aware of it.

When you ask yourself a question, your mind will start all these acrobatics. It will start pulling up a memory, playing a video, digesting an emotion, flickering an idea… all at once. I know I tell people to get their mind to shut up, but you can also try the opposite. Let your mind wander. But identify everything that’s happening in your mind, when it happens. Slow it down, and watch yourself.

Practice that. Over time, you’ll get a real sense for how your mind works.

Ask yourself a question, and listen for the answer. Watch your normal mind routine, and discard it. Look for information that doesn’t originate from your mind. An idea, or an emotion, or a feeling of truth will pop-up out of nowhere. Investigate it. Pull it in, and open it up. What do you feel? What do you see?

I know I stress that translation is important, but if you are aware of the thoughts in your own mind like I described earlier (being aware of when you access a memory, and how you jump from topic to topic, etc), then translation will come naturally. Once you hit that point, you’re already aware of what’s going on.

In this post, I tried to present the subconscious from a different angle. Hopefully this alternate perspective will help :-). Good luck, and feel free to post any follow-up questions in the comments.

Bahahaha.

Absolutely ridiculous :-).

So I walked to the store, needing to buy some batteries. I brought $2 with me specifically because I wanted to play a scratch off lottery again, and win $100. My subconscious told me I was going to lose, but I didn’t care. I went. Bought the batteries. Bought the ticket. And lost.

On my walk home, I was pissed. I was talking to my subconscious, and declared (being rude, almost): if you know that I’m going to lose, then you know when I’m going to win. Go FIND me a winning ticket, and I’ll drive to it!

So I grabbed my camera and documented my adventure. I ended up filming about 60 minutes of footage, and trimmed it down to 10 minutes for YouTube. Enjoy!

(I’d also like to note that I haven’t bought any lottery tickets since my last winning, so this isn’t a case of playing a whole lot to win a few times - I’m making a profit).

And now for something completely different…

I had a near-lucid dream this morning. I was walking around, and found myself in a zoo. I got myself stuck, and had to go down some stairs, but there was a huge snake guarding it. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice until I was so close the snake was right on my foot.

At first I was afraid to get bitten, but then I started to become partly lucid. I knew that if I feared the snake biting me, then it would bite me. Instead of focusing on the fear, I decided to try to focus on getting the snake to leave me alone. I started to visualize the snake going down the stairs, and leaving. It didn’t leave… but instead, the snake started licking my foot playfully.

I believe there are lessons to be had in dreams. If you’ve never had a lucid dream, then I recommend training for it. That applies to anyone. We sleep one third of our life - it’s amazing we don’t take that time period more seriously. No matter what your beliefs are about what dreams are - there is one thing for sure. You choose how to navigate your dream. And you use the same decision making process in your waking life. Dreams give us the opportunity to test our belief structures in fantasy situations without putting ourselves in real danger. They’re beyond helpful in self-discovery.

Plus it’s fun.

EDIT: Also…

A not-so-funny experience happened. Yesterday, I reminded myself that I needed to pay my car payment, which requires me to go to the bank. I asked myself, “When does the bank close?” and got a response of “1:00pm”. I thought - gee, that doesn’t sound right. When I got home, I checked the bank hours online. According to their website, they close at 3:00pm. So I felt confident going to the bank at 2:00pm to pay my bill, despite the little annoying voice within telling me otherwise. Upon arrival, it turns out it did close at 1:00pm because of Memorial Day weekend. On their door, they have the normal hours posted, and then a cute little printed paper saying they’re closing early because it’s Memorial Day weekend.

How nice. Now my car payment is going to be late. I should have listened to my subconscious.

I’ve been posting a lot lately, because the comments from the previous posts engage my mind :-). If you haven’t visited the blog in a few days, be sure to check out the previous posts. I’m moving somewhat fast.

Why do we love this idea of randomness? Why are we attached to it?

I was sitting and thinking about this question, and the solution popped into my head. In hindsight, it’s actually pretty obvious, and it’s spelled out very clearly in the movie “The Secret” (which I’ve seen a few times, Joe :-P). The way the solution popped into my head is pretty funny though… I was getting bored with the question of why people love randomness (because I couldn’t answer it), so I decided to start an entirely new and unrelated line of questioning. I asked myself what my most offensive belief was. I answered that karma and cause and effect is a pretty offensive belief. Then the solution to my previous question about randomness hit me.

The reason we love this idea of randomness is because we use it 99% of the time when something bad happens.

One of the biggest problems in all religions is answering the question of: why do bad things happen to good people? This is a very hard question. Small bad things can be reasoned away, but then you see extremely bad things, like child molestation, rape, or natural disasters that kill millions of people… and in religion, people are forced to ask themselves: if God is a good God, then why would he allow this to happen? Big problem for religion.

What do we do? I believe that while we all have our own religious beliefs, and we all will answer why bad things happen to good people differently - I believe that in our hearts, most of us will rely on this idea of randomness. Some of the really bad things in this world don’t have a good explanation, no matter how much faith we have. So at some point, in our conscious or subconscious mind, we latch onto the idea that sometimes random shit happens.

But now look at what we’ve done. We’ve attached the idea that randomness exists to the most emotionally charged experiences we can think of. That means we really need this idea of randomness. If randomness were to leave the picture, then we would have to deal with all these highly emotional issues again. Our subconscious mind does not want this.

For example, when I was a little kid, my aunt died from cancer. I think she was in her 30’s. I must have been 8 years old, and at such a young age, I had to deal with this extremely emotional situation. I barely understand death as it is, and now my aunt is gone. I ask my parents why she died, but they can’t give a solid explanation. Maybe I hear that it was “her time”, and that “God decided to take her”. Those are great ideas… but what sinks into the subconscious mind? What is the belief I form in my heart?

Probably that random shit happens. Now I’m 24, and I’m challenging this belief. Which means I have to re-live my aunt’s death, and try to make sense of it again. I also have to re-live everything else where I’ve used randomness as the explanation. Talk about exhausting!

I think we all latch onto this idea of randomness because we’ve all had bad experiences. No one lives a perfect life. Everyone has family members who have died, or friends, or teachers. My 6th grade teacher died when I was 13 years old - he was a volunteer firefighter, and was responding to a call, and a tree fell on his car with him in it. How do I explain that to myself? It seems the only way I can live in peace is to use this idea of randomness.

If you don’t like my theories on randomness, or even if you do, I submit to you an exercise: ask yourself, “What would it mean, emotionally, if randomness didn’t exist?” - you can start by finishing this sentence: “If randomness didn’t exist, then _______”. Don’t give a one sentence answer either :-P. Chances are that blank should be a few pages long. (No need to post your response in the comments :-P).

Hahaha!

So I went to the store today. For no real reason… mainly because I wanted to walk outside, and walking to the store gives me an excuse to enjoy the sunny weather.

By the time I made it to the store, I had to pee, so I went to the bathroom. I came out, and figured it’s time to go home. While walking out the store, a lottery machine caught my eye :-). I had $60 on me, all in $20 bills. I was going to purchase one ticket for the fun of it, until I noticed a sign saying that the machine doesn’t give any change. So it was either buy a bunch of tickets for $20, or walk.

After deliberation, I decided to put in a $20. I got 9 tickets, at different price ranges ($1, $1, $2, $2, $2, $3, $3, $3, $3). I walked home with them in my hands, partly thinking I’m a complete fool, and partly thinking this is going to be totally sweet.

About half way home, I decided to send out the intention. I made the decision to make a profit. I didn’t want to go for the jackpot, because it was too unbelievable for me at that point. But I could realistically intend on making a profit, and not feel guilty about lying to myself :-P. I also visualized myself making this post online, announcing that my intention came true.

When I got home, I laid out all the tickets, and told each one that it was a winner. I also told the tickets that the total of all the prizes would be more than $20. Then I started scratching, from cheapest to most expensive.

The first ticket I scratched, I won $3. So I was feeling really awesome :-).

The second ticket was a dud. And so were the next 4 tickets.

The 7th ticket I won $10. So my prizes totaled $13, with 2 tickets left.

My 8th ticket won $24. And my 9th was a dud.

So: I spent $20 on scratch off tickets, intended to make a profit, and post my success online.

I scratched the tickets, won $37, and am posting this online.

I hate being right sometimes >:-D.

This is a continuation of ideas from my last post on randomness…

Let’s assume you look at someone winning the lottery twice, and you have the same reaction that I do: there’s no way our current model correctly predicts it happening. Now I notice a lot of people in the previous post don’t have that reaction :-P. I’ll attempt to address people’s complaints, but also move along at the same time.

There are a few problems that spring up if we say that randomness doesn’t exist. The idea of randomness is essential to the field of probability and statistics. It’s also essential to Quantum Physics, where matter phases out into a “probability-cloud” that acts as a wave-form when not being observed. Mad Hatter made the observation that if randomness doesn’t exist, then reality is deterministic - and we have no free will.

There is a solution to these problems though. What if, where we perceive randomness, what actually exists is a conscious choice?

Probability and statistics are still useful. They just model choice instead of random behavior. Quantum Physics is still correct - but it just means that when matter phases out of existence, it just hasn’t chosen where to exist yet. And free will still exists, because everything is now free will!

So my current understanding is that, where we perceive randomness, what we’re really perceiving is a choice that we don’t understand completely.

Think of a hypothetical situation: imagine that I’m paralyzed, and all I can control is my blinking. Now imagine that you come to see me, and you are absolutely convinced that I’m a machine. You believe you are looking at a complicated clock. Perhaps I try to communicate with you by blinking letters of the alphabet… maybe using morse code. I painstakingly spell out “Hey Jimmy, how’s the wife and kids?” What do you perceive?

You will see me blinking, but you’ll think it’s just random movement. You can watch my blinking, and figure out the “probability” that I’ll blink or not. You might declare that “This machine has a 0.476 chance of blinking at any given second” - and that might true. But because of your belief that my blinking is inherently random, you miss the message.

A strange analogy… but that’s what I think is happening. We witness seemingly random events, and sure - we can calculate the odds of that event happening, and we can study it, and analyze it, and make great models. But so long as we believe that the event itself is inherently random - we are stuck. If randomness exists, then that means events are meaningless.

If we replace the idea of randomness with conscious choice, then everything has meaning. Things fall into place.

Perhaps you disagree with me :-P. Or perhaps you think it’s interesting, but haven’t made up your mind. Either way, that’s fine. This is only my current understanding - there’s a good chance the more I think about it, the more this will change as well :-P.

“God does not play dice with the universe.” - Albert Einstein

I will explain my ideas on why I believe randomness doesn’t truly exist. I believe I can win the lottery using these ideas.

The first thing to understand is what society’s current beliefs are about randomness.

One of the first things you might think about, is that when you play video games on your computer, there is obviously some random stuff going on. Sometimes an enemy turns left, sometimes he turns right - completely random. You might even know some things about programming, and know of functions to call when you want a random number.

All these random numbers on computers aren’t truly random though - they are pseudo-random numbers. What that means is that usually some number is taken from the outside world - for example, the time it takes you to click on the “New Game” button in milliseconds - or the time of day you run the program in milliseconds - and that number is treated as the “seed”. From this seed number, the computer can generate a sequence of numbers that appear to be random. All it does is perform some math on the seed number, and spit out the result for you. Then change the seed number (according to a formula), so the next time you want a random number, it has a new result.

You don’t have to understand the exact formulas. If you’re curious you can do some more research on pseudo-random numbers, and random number generation. It’s a large field in computer science. The important part to understand is that these “random” numbers on computers aren’t actually random. They are calculated from some seed, based on formulas. Not random.

So randomness doesn’t exist on a computer. But surely randomness exists in reality?! You might argue, for example, what about flipping a coin? What about rolling dice? These events are truly random.

Well, on the surface they sure do seem like it. After all - how many of us can predict 100 dice rolls in a row? No one. So it does seem like that is a random system. However, there is a problem.

The problem comes in when we research how many people have won the lottery twice. Google, Video, Couple, Family, PA, NY Deli, etc, etc…

Now of course there are skeptics on the issue, claiming that with so many people playing, surely there will be some people who win twice. For those with some common sense, reading the skeptic side of things is actually pretty hilarious - they claim: “the odds of someone winning the lottery twice to be something like 1 in 30 for a four month period and better than even odds over a seven year period. Why? Because players don’t buy one ticket for each of two lotteries, they buy multiple tickets every week” - wow. Then how come everyone doesn’t win twice? All they have to do is play 40 times ;-). An absolutely ridiculous article, especially for those that understand statistics and probability at a high-school level.

The truth is that our current understanding of reality can NOT explain how people win the lottery twice.

So, we have to do what’s right. We have to be honest with ourselves. Probability and statistics are models for reality. The models work pretty good most of the time, but when we look at people who win the lottery twice, we notice that our model is incorrect. If our model is mostly correct, but has some incorrect moments, then what do we do? Modify the model. Clearly our model isn’t completely accurate. So we modify it. We DO NOT spatter off nonsense to try and convince ourselves that our model must be correct, and that reality is just being rude for not following our laws. We take an honest and humble look at it and say: Well gee, we’re a little bit off, how can we make a more accurate model?

Think about it. Study probability and statistics a little bit. Try to digest the odds of someone winning twice. In this article we’re told the odds are 419 million to one. That would mean the winner would have to play the lottery every minute - for 796 years - to accomplish this using our current model. Now you see how impossible this really is with our current model.

Think about it. I’ll post more on it later.

I’ve become convinced I can win the lottery :-).

My obsession started at the beginning of March. I had heard on the news that the MegaMillions jackpot was at a record $390 million. I was visiting my father in Georgia, and he asked me what I would do if I won that much money. I’m sure his question was just an innocent way to talk about something for a little bit. I think I may have taken the question a little too seriously :-).

I started to really think about what I would do with that much money. What would I really do. It dominated my thoughts for quite a while.

Then I remembered talking to my friend about the lottery, a few months prior to my Georgia visit. We were talking about how reality is not some machine, and that modern science doesn’t give it enough credit. I had told him about a news article I had read, where a lady won the lottery twice. I tried to get my friend to understand that this simply should NEVER REALISTICALLY HAPPEN - according to statistics and probability. The fact that it has happened is evidence that things aren’t what they seem.

Thinking about the lady winning twice, and thinking about the question of what I would do with $390 million dollars… I became convinced that if someone else can do it - then so can I. I started playing MegaMillions, and made a goal to figure out how others have won, and how I could win myself.

All this thinking led me to a realization. I realized that randomness doesn’t truly exist. I may post on this idea later, but the general idea is that nothing in this world is truly random. Where the modern worlds sees random occurrences, what they’re really witnessing is a subconscious choice - but they can’t figure it out, so they just simplify it to this idea of “random”, so they don’t have to think about it.

Once I had made this realization, the next time I played the lottery I won. $3 to be exact (odds 1 in 141). I was pretty happy, and I kept thinking about this idea of randomness - and won again the next drawing. $7 this time (odds 1 in 306). Back to back, the “odds” of winning twice is 1 in 43,146. You may disagree with the math, but the fact still remains that I had only played 5 tickets at that point, and 2 of them had been winners.

That sealed the deal.

Since then, I’ve continued to play the lottery, but haven’t won yet. I’m convinced that I can win. If someone can win twice, I can win once. And if I can win once, I can win a hundred times.

It’s very interesting to me. I’ll post on it later :-).

A lot of psychic abilities fall into the category of perception. Remote viewing, clairvoyance, talking to your subconscious, telepathy, empathy, etc. Here’s one analogy that might help you in all your ESP endeavors.

Think of your mind and emotions as a pool of water. Every thought you have creates a ripple in this pool of water. Every emotion you conjure also makes ripples. Any mental or emotional “movement” will create ripples, which can turn into giant waves if it’s strong enough.

Now, to perceive something psychically, you need to keep your pool of water absolutely still. No splashing, no ripples, no swirling, no marco-polo :-P. When you do this, your goal is to stop all thoughts, and keep your emotions still and passive. You’re just holding still.

Hold that for a while, and see how long you can do that for. If you can make it past a minute, with ZERO ripples, then you’re doing great.

Once you gain the skill to stop all ripples on command (and it does take some practice), then you’ll be ready to receive information psychically. All you do is go stop all ripples, wait a second for everything to settle, and then announce one big wave of whatever your question is.

“How does my mother feel today?”

Once you make that announcement, then just sit back and calm your pool down. Keep your mind and emotions still. You’ll notice that new ripples will form on their own. You’ll know it’s not YOU creating the ripples, because you are already confident you can keep a still pool from all your practicing earlier.

Decode these new ripples into thoughts and emotions. Interpret them. Figure out what these foreign ripples are saying to you.

If all goes well, this will be a reply to whatever question you asked. If not - try again. If you continue to fail after a long period of time, then you either need a new technique, or you need to work on keeping your pool still. If you’re confused over whether the ripples are coming from your own thoughts, or somewhere else, then you need to practice keeping your pool still until you are confident that the ripples can’t be coming from you.

Try it out.

I got into a discussion with a co-worker.  He claimed that people like the Virginia Tech student who went on a rampage just need God in their life, and things like that wouldn’t happen.

Now, sure - I could go into reasons on why I disagree with the idea.  Eh.   Who cares why I disagree anyways?

I had a realization at the moment I started to disagree with my co-worker.  I saw how my mind had reacted.  If you see your own thoughts, who are you?  Are you your thoughts?  Or are you the one whose seeing the thoughts?

The realization I had was a pretty simple one, I suppose.  But the realization was this: no one knows what another person needs.  I don’t know what you need.  I could make some guesses… but I don’t know.  Likewise, you don’t know what I truly need.  Nor do any of us truly know what Seung-Hui Cho needed.

I think we might fall into a little trap… we think to ourselves, “Boy, the fact that I do <something> has really helped me in my life.  If everyone did it, then they would all benefit the same way I have.”  This line of reasoning is false.  Perhaps the very thing that has helped you greatly could harm someone else.  Every person and situation is unique, and no one can truly know what someone else needs.  We can make guesses - even very informed intelligent guesses - but they are still just guesses.

Perhaps I’m too philosophical for my own good :-P.