Posted by Neil Slade on December 5, 2003, at 23:56:11
In reply to Re: Clicking the Amygdala?!?!?, posted by stjames on December 5, 2003, at 22:40:52
I appreciate all moderately phrased inquiries regarding
the topics at my site-- especially regarding the
more far-out stuff like "Cloudbusting".The details are all outlined beginning on
http://www.neilslade.com/cloud.html
and please also see
http://www.neilslade.com/skeptics.htmlI've tried to document this phenomenon as best I could with
a couple of short video excerpts posted on those
pages.I first heard about "Cloudbusting" when I was about 18 years old
in a book by skeptic journalist Jesse Stern, in
"Yoga, Youth, and Reincarnation", in which he follows around
a couple of yoga teachers making a number of
extraordinary claims. Among the "tricks" in the books,
besides the subject gaining weight drinking a liquid
diet below the accepted calorie intake- was one fellow
who claimed he and his students could cause selected
clouds to vaporize at will through sheer concentration.
I.e., cause a specific cloud in a group of clouds to
vanish, and leave surrounding clouds unaffected.Though Stern was a total skeptic, he had to admit,
it seemed to work as claimed in this instance.My own experience at age 18, alone, and with friends,
amazing to me, seemed to concure that this was something
one could actually do with remarkable repetition.I had forgotten all about this until about thirty
years later, and about a decade after beginning my
work with behaviorist T.D. Lingo at his research facility
in Colorado.In 1997, and this was about seventeen years after doing my tour
of duty teaching creative therapeutic workshops in Denver area
hospitals and schools, I had finally published my
first book outlining the basic principles- in layman's terms-
about brain self-control methods explored at Lingo's lab.
I had already done one national interview on the Coast to Coast radio
show, and I was looking for a "hook" that might
get me a second appearance.Suddenly I remembered the "Cloudbusting" experiments
as a much younger person, and knowing how much Art
Bell loved offbeat stories, I thought this might be
the hook. So, I headed to my backyard, camcorder in
tow, I tried to "bust" a couple of selected clouds
as described on the web pages above.It worked perfectly as it had in the past-- and I have to admit-
as much to my surprise as anyone.After I described the procedure on the air, both
Art and I were flooded with emails from people having similar success
on their own. Of course we got some emails saying
we were out of our minds as well, but the percentage
of these were certainly under 1/2 of 1% of the total
responses we received. Literally, thousands of
positive responses to "Cloudbusting" came in.There are three posible explanations to observation
of selected clouds vanishing under the deliberate
concentration of an individual or individuals.1) Such people truly are deluded, and it is only
a coincidence that a chosen cloud- and not others
nearby- will vanish within minutes during the
exercise. Of course this is possible, but the phenomenon
seems to be a repeatable event, given the parameters
I outline in the instructions. It should be noted
that people reporting success include college
graduates, and people in the sciences, as well as
people who start out thinking this idea is totally
nuts to begin with.2) Focusing one's mental activity actually can cause
a cloud to trip over into gas from vapor. This seems
extremely improbable, but hey, there's a lot we don't
understand in this universe. I've merely reported
that this phenomenon seems to be real, and I'm not the only
one. And I am not an idiot, thank you. I too have
a college degree (like that guarantees sanity!) a verifiable
high IQ (like that means anything either).3) It may be that the phenomenon is instead just the
ability to subconsciously figure out what cloud in
a sky full of clouds is likely to evaporate before
others. Although this is certainly not the same
thing as CAUSING a cloud to disappear, hey, it's still
an impressive mental feat.I don't know that you could actually do a double blind
experiment to PROVE this thing or not, since I believe
that the consciousness of a skeptical observer would
have an impact on the results. Its the quantum physics
thing- I believe called "The Baxter Effect". I.e., if
you think the idea is a bunch of baloney- you will
prove via your observations that it is. This may
be unavoidable in this. There is also the notion that
the pressure to "perform" this feat under the
watchful eye of an official observer may also
negatively affect the results. "Prove it!" can
adversely affect the outcome of something rather
delicate, perhaps in the same manner as playing
your piano piece perfectly when your teacher is
sitting next to you-- you always play worse for your
techer. I don't know about
you, but there are just SOME THINGS I can not do
when someone is watching, if you know what I mean.
If someone wants to carry on such an experiment however,
and can do it honestly- more power to them. The
"Amazing Randy" claims to have done this in the past,
but I went overthe details of his "experiment" and it had more
holes in it than a pound of swiss cheese.In any case, "Cloudbusting" is a fun thing to try,
and quite fun to observe and consider. Something
is going on here that defies explanation, and from
all the reports it goes beyond mere coincidence or
deluded nut cases making impossible claims.The phenomenon is not simply the matter that clouds dissappear on
their own whether you focus your concentration on
them or not, since the idea is specifically that
you consciously SELECT a cloud among many to vaporize
alone- and very often, and what seems to defy the odds-
your chosen cloud does exactly this.How this happens, beats me, it just seems to work often
enough to make you think about what may be possible to
accomplish with mental faculties.As to the relative importance in the grand scheme
of brain self-control, increasing one's creativity,
intelligence, and gaining control over one's emotions-
well, its not that important. But a lot of things
in life that are just plain fun to mess around with-
music, art, games, playing, relaxing-- to scientists
and researchers who know about brain function, these
kinds of activities are proving to be more essential
to health than one might first suspect.Thanks for your consideration
Neil Slade
poster:Neil Slade
thread:28672
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031202/msgs/287054.html