Re: Is it possible to program oneself to see things?
Date: June 10, 2008 09:41PM
Daytripper,
Improper meditation techniques are and can be used to put people in elevated mood states in addition to helping them develop cognitive distortions. In these hypomanic states, one can become delusional and even halucinate. When one halucinates there are several common things one sees and they are as follows; spiders, snakes, little green men, angels, demons and devils. Even everyday individuals can halucinate and see the shadows climbing off of the walls if they miss a night of sleep. I work the graveyard shift and have had to turn my entire life around to be able to operate at night. I have done it successfully for many years, but it takes hard core work, but in the begining, I did see shadows climb off the walls and when I was very sleep deprived, I began hearing voices.
I am working in a graduate program to get a PsyD (Doctorate in Psychology) and from what little knowledge I have gained from both working with people who have halucianted and seen the spiders, snakes, devils and angels. I have the following theory; we see these things because they are the easiest for our brains to create. I say this because visualization is extremely difficult to do and requires a tremendous amount of energy. Our minds and brains cannot maintain such a complex image as a woman dressed in a three piece suit very easily, but it can maintain and sustain simple images. The one thing which the demons, devils angels, spiders and snakes all have in common are the fact that they are basically monotone in color and very simple shapes. The basic human figure is easy imagine and sustain, yet I think that getting much more detail is not possible.
I think that this man is definitely halucinating and should not be trusted, he should be refered over to the proper authorities for psych evaluation.