"Decatur memos" · 22 April 2008
The first year, the question in play was What is this mental state am I experiencing every day?
I was all interested in neuro-linguistic programming from Milton Erickson through Bandler and Grinder to the self-help guy Tony Whateveritis. That was all about suggestibility and the idea that there was a sub-conscious mind. (Side note: the first day I practiced with my teacher and he said “just establishing rapport…” I knew he was hip to the NLP and probably an eclectic like myself… which of course turned out to be exactly right.)
In that line were yoga nidra of course, the intriguing Edgar Cayce, a lot of dimestore self-hypnosis New Age nonsense and cheap evolutionary theory á la Robert Anton Wilson, and finally a mysterious, ancient cassette tape I had mailed in from a distant archive like a character in Umberto Eco. On it a woman called Jasmine Riddle intoned the most potent yoga nidra sequence I’ve ever found, but I can’t tell you what’s in it because I never got past the second minute without my mind shutting off. It would return 50 minutes later, Ms. Riddle whispering to me to wake up. I guess I could try to crack her code but I don’t want to re-request the thing through ILL because my reputation with the university library is already sketchy (seriously).
At the same time, that first year, I was starting to explore Vipassana. Which, at first (shamatha practice) was all about concentration and operated on a simpler idea of the mind than the hypnosis people. For Vipassana, for a practical purposes the mind was just the house of “attachments” and “suffering.”
Together, the NLP and the Vipassana led to a relational question (usually the best kind question): what is the relationship of meditation and hypnosis? (And: which framework is better for mapping my experience, or do I need both?)
The Vipassana people will tell you meditation is not the same as hypnosis. Not the same! Of course they will say that: if it were the same, you could get the method without the metaphysics (the metaphysics being the belief system anchored in the Four Noble Truths, though they will also tell you that this is not a theory but a fact revealed by looking inside, like Socrates supposedly revealed geometry to the boy in the Meno). Over time I found a few very good answers from Buddhist scholars for why meditation and hypnosis are different (along with a lot of answers that made me suspicious), but none of the answers were so good that I remember them.
So now I am concluding the fourth year, and I am still not sure—experientially—what is the relationship of meditation to hypnosis. But what is different now is that I trust myself more as a first-order experiencer and when applicable a second-order witness of that experience. And, I’m a lot more interested in the tones, textures, and subtleties of altered states, and in the meaningfulness that seems to arise out of them after the fact. Also, there is the whole phenomenon of other minds (not the so-called "problem of other minds," thank you), and the ways groups actually share and collectively deepen altered states.
Outside/objective approaches would just quantify things: measure brain activity and be done with it. What if they found that the elecrtromagnetic map of asana (which I experience as meditation ranging from light to deep) is the same as chanting (which I experience as full-on hypnosis)? Would having it quantified externally as 1=1 answer the question?
Actually, yes. And no.
The problem with the subjective side is that once I’m in an altered state I’m not much fit to gather data. And since I love altered states my reflections on them are colored with the emotions of wonderment and joy that I associate with them after the fact.
Is there some kind of meditative-hypnotic spectrum that cannot be reduced to an electroencephalograph readout? Inside, there are other spectra in play:
-witnessing/nondual
-passive/active
-receptive/one-pointed
and others.
Just to mix it up, I practiced this morning with the Gayatri Mantra droning over and over in the background. Swaying right out of my body just standing up, but sharp and focused for the rest of it. It was pretty strange and delicious. Chocolate with chili powder.
Posted by (0v0)
Categories: arbitrage
, astanga yoga
, beta state
, esoteric shit
, evolution
, having a body
, power of suggestion
, science
, social theory
, sound
, spirituality
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There are times that I become fascinatingly aware, all over again, of how COMPLETELY differently you and I have come at/to things. Perhaps a blog post will ensue.
Posted by: patrick · Apr 22, 04:35 PM · #
Blimey, and I thought I was the strange one.
Methinks mefeels hypnosis constitutes inner connection. Meditation outer. At least as the intention. The mechanisms seem to support a similar rational of limiting cognitive efforts and therefor slowing the mind. Perhaps both effect different parts of the brain, but use similar synaptic channels. Hence the entry is somewhat similar. If that makes any sense at all!
And so then a hypnotised person can eat an onion as if an apple, and a deep-meditator can maintain focus with a gunshot going off behind them.
Pointing to a disconnect from apparent reality, or rather judgement of that reality? And if so, points to something in the mind situated ‘prior’ to Ego.
(Inner) Space, the final frontier. Yo, boldly go where no human has come back with a good answer before!
Posted by: Gregor · Apr 22, 07:32 PM · #
Nice. That Methinks paragraph especially.
Once you dig in to your ashtanga practice, you can tell me if it is possible in that scenario to eat an onion and focus through the gunshot at the same time? How could you resist?
I think we need to create more metaphors for this kind of inquiry, though Innerspace (as in the Martin Short film) is good for starters.
Posted by: (0v0) · Apr 22, 08:27 PM · #
Oh yeah, been there done that, but the left brain doesn’t know what the right brain is doing!
Posted by: Gregor · Apr 23, 02:34 AM · #
I’ve wondered about the significance of meditation with respect to ‘other mental states’ but I’ve not wondered about it so much as to try to determine the difference between it and hypnosis. Various authors I’ve read propose that samadhi states and the like are all just self-hypnosis or hysteria or whatever. I have to say that from my skeptical, uninitiated perspective that would seem a very plausible (and rational?) conclusion. The approach to meditation that jives most with me, and that I’ve only begun to begin, appears to me much more practical than Vipassana, which seems like it could be an easy haven for avoidance. But still, I really want to go on a Vipassana retreat. Dhamma makes an attractive offer.
And add to all that discussion the video that Karen recently hyperlinked on her blog! Does stroke create an elevated state of existence? It sure sounds like it!
Posted by: Carl · Apr 23, 10:01 AM · #
Oh c’mon Carl! Just meditate a few years or decades before you tell me about whether samadhi is real and vipassana is avoidance! Please!
Television is avoidance. Consumption is avoidance. Joining a sect is avoidance. Living in a cave (my occasional fantasy) is avoidance.
A left-brain stroke, in Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED talk, created a pre-individuated, pre-rational state of existence. “Elevated” would probably refer to post-rational or non-dual. Bolte Taylor’s experience was sweet and her reflections on them generated a lot of post-hoc meaning for them, but if we take her conclusion literally and take her as an expert on mental states because of just that subjective experience, then the moral of the story is that we need to lobotomize ourselves in order to achieve world peace.
She’s advocating a mind that is pre-dual more than non-dual. Non-rational rather than post-rational. A beautiful illustration of the pre-trans fallacy.
I’ll meditate with both halves of my brain for now, thanks. :) Guns ‘n’ Onions.
Posted by: (0v0) · Apr 23, 11:52 AM · #
Lots of T packin in the INFJ today! Chili!
Posted by: Gregor · Apr 23, 12:59 PM · #
Oh yeah, INFJ has a rep to uphold!
Rx: More onions (right brain), fewer guns (left brain).
INFTJ? T/F code-switching, chilling…
Dispatch from right brain:
fffffffffffffftttttttttttt
F/T?
T or F?
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Posted by: (0v0) · Apr 23, 01:09 PM · #
T is our shield in this awful age of reason. :(
But also most excellent for clearing the irrational with a well timed onion to the head! :)
Posted by: Gregor · Apr 23, 01:21 PM · #
I don’t think the gist is that we need lobotomies but, rather, that Enlightenment, Realization, Peace or Happiness or whatever… it’s all in our minds.
And am I correct in inferring that what you’re saying is that you’re tottering on the margin between F and T?
A quote from one of my favorite Cake songs:
Doesn’t matter if you’re skinny
Doesn’t matter if you’re fat
You can dress up like a sultan
In your onion head hat
Posted by: Carl · Apr 23, 03:14 PM · #
Jeeze, I think I would really hate a lobotomy. They seem like they might hurt. I mean I hear those people are really happy, or at least not very emotional. Which might not be such a bad thing if you were sad all the time. But I bet it would interfere with getting any kind of advanced degree.
I think yoga is the answer!
It’s all over my mind and body!
Yea!
Posted by: Susan · Apr 23, 04:32 PM · #
You’re on the yoga happy drug Susan. Right on. Already your skepticism is turning to mush. It’s all over for you.
Carl, correct inference. I test out 60/40 in favor of F but get baited across the line to T. Frequently. :)
Posted by: (0v0) · Apr 23, 06:52 PM · #
The T is learned behavior. Happen(ed)(s) to me, too.
Posted by: karen · Apr 24, 04:30 AM · #
But isn’t J learned also?
Posted by: Carl · Apr 24, 10:02 AM · #
Sure. All of this from my own perspective, of course. I am an INFP who learned to be an INTJ in order to make more money when I found myself a single mom.
Posted by: karen · Apr 24, 10:58 AM · #
Shazam!
Posted by: Carl · Apr 24, 02:09 PM · #
A few years ago I noticed that I seem to have moved from ENTP to ENFP (that was around the time of mid-diss-writing). I wonder, now that I’m trying to get in good with The Man, if I’ve turned J instead of P. I doubt it. If I remember the (arbitrary) math right, I was something like 70/30 P.
Posted by: patrick · Apr 25, 04:52 AM · #
Really, you’re an extravert, Patrick? I always assume people are introverts, for come reason. Especially those who tend toward philosophical blog entries.
Posted by: karen · Apr 25, 11:12 AM · #
It is true, true, true. I am MASSIVELY extra-directed, but as my partner has noted, I’m also substantially shy, and so I become this sort of reluctant extra (or is it extro?) vert.
Posted by: patrick · Apr 25, 12:27 PM · #
Extra- or extro-. Originally extra-. I like being old school on words.
I’ve seen a good number of introverts who learn to present themselves as extraverts. None the other way, though, at least not that I can think of off hand.
Posted by: karen · Apr 25, 02:50 PM · #
I am in the first number but try to keep the social skills a secret from most people. Acting like a quiet yoga weirdo helps with that.
For the people in this conversation, you know this is something I don’t have worked out yet. I over-commit myself to activities that require charisma, to the point of getting depleted. And this is why one of the few personality characteristics I really dislike is greediness for attention that comes from being super self-centered… public attention-seekers seem to mess up the subtle group ecology of energetic give and take and also pose the greatest threat to my need to be alone. Ironically, this even comes up for me in the blogosphere, even though this medium provides SO MUCH sensory self-insulation and ability to control who you interact with and how much!
I hope I will be more generous to and not so judgemental of energy-needy people when I know myself well enough to play my own social-energetic edge without feeling my reserves are threatened. Between teaching yoga and blogging have gotten to work on it a lot this year.
Gregor clarified a while ago that, for Jung, the idea was that over time, increasingly developed personalities will come to balance out their extremes.
For me, N, F and J are all pretty moderate, with both F and J being changeable. But the introversion is strong in me, so no wonder this is the area where my personality is most likely to feel threatened. So much for you, personality: time to balance out a little!
Maybe Gregor will chime in with a little further clarification about the framework.
Posted by: (0v0) · Apr 25, 03:33 PM · #
For introverts here, I could also add that practicing the second series of ashtanga for a while, especially if you clean up your diet, will probably make you like an HSP on many dimensions.
Which is not easy, but is subtle and wonderful from the experiences I’ve observed.
Posted by: (0v0) · Apr 25, 03:37 PM · #
I have certain characteristics of HSP: 10 on that site’s self-test, but my partner has many more of them. I don’t think that an HSP person would do at all well handling an academic job search (no predictions for misfortune at all intended). I have had to varieties of soul-steeling and yet soul-revealing that dazzle me beyond words, in making it through this past year.
Posted by: patrick · Apr 25, 04:00 PM · #
26. Okay, no second series for me. Or maybe it’ll be okay if I eat lots of potato chips and ice cream?
Posted by: karen · Apr 25, 05:16 PM · #