(By: Peebrain)

I might have a slight advantage when it comes to talking with your subconscious, because I’ve always talked to myself, ever since I was a little kid. However, it’s never too late to pick up a crazed habit .

Now, in the past I have claimed that the internal dialogue was between your conscious mind, and your subconscious mind. Which is true in a sense. However, I’ve experienced some odd events that make me think it also might be a little more. In this experience, I asked for help during an OBE from what I thought was my subconscious mind, however – two pairs of hands actually grabbed me and yanked me out. In this experience, I had made a deal with my subconscious mind, and experienced hands pulling me along during the following OBE as well.

The point being: sometimes when I communicate with what I think is my subconscious mind, I get external help from “someone else” during OBEs. So I might not just be communicating with my subconscious mind when I talk to myself. Judge for yourself.

Either way, until there is some more evidence that I’m talking to an external entity, we might as well just continue using the label of “subconscious”. So anyways… how DO you talk to your subconscious?

Talking to your subconscious is easy. Just use that internal voice you have, inside your head. Let that voice speak for your entire mind. By that I mean – don’t be thinking about a million things, and also try to talk to your subconscious mind. Focus on what you want to say, and say it with your entire mind. No side thoughts. Straight, clear, and to the point.

That’s the easy part. Now how do you hear a reply from your subconscious mind?

Well, first, you have to listen. Some people have zero listening skills. Have you ever been in a conversation with someone, where you were trying to tell them something, but they just didn’t listen? They kept interrupting, trying to make their own point, and wouldn’t really give any consideration to what you were saying? Pretty annoying stuff. That’s how your mind works when you first start trying to listen to your subconscious. Your mind keeps trying to interrupt.

So you have to learn to just SHUT UP AND LISTEN. This is a passive state of mind. You shouldn’t be thinking, “Ok, gotta be quiet, gotta listen… ok be quiet… time to listen.” No. Just like in a normal conversation, you have to drop what you’re thinking, and start taking in what the other person is saying. Same idea here. Shut your mind up, and just wait and listen for a response.

A lot of people get to this step, and don’t hear anything. Chances are you won’t hear a voice, so don’t wait around for one. If you’re just starting out, instead of waiting to hear a voice, listen for an emotion. We’re used to listening for words, or talking, or something vocal. Take that same action of listening, but instead of listening for words, listen for an emotion.

Your subconscious mind is going to deliver an emotion to you. It’s one big lump of solid emotion. No words attached. Sometimes pictures and videos will be attached, but when you’re just starting out, chances are it will just be a big emotional turd.

This emotional turd is the response. Now, when you feel this emotion, it will pass by pretty quickly. Even the longer responses pass by in just a few seconds. The quicker responses pass by in a second or less. If you’re listening for that ball of emotion, then you will feel it enter into your awareness.

If you don’t feel any emotions, or it passes by to quickly, then just ask again. And again. And again and again and again. Keep asking. Your mind will start to whine and complain about how annoying it is to keep asking the same question over and over again. Keep asking. You’ll tire your mind out eventually . That little voice that complains is just a little bitch. Show that bitch whose boss. YOU ARE BOSS. Not that whiny voice. If you demand an answer, and refuse to think about anything else until you get an answer, then you will be delivered an answer. The louder you ask, the louder it returns. By “loud”, I don’t mean the volume of your internal voice. I mean the amount of energy you put into it. And by asking the same question over and over, you keep adding more and more mental energy to the same question.

Once you receive an emotional response, you can either take this emotional ball as the answer, or you can try to translate it into words. I personally like to translate it into words most of the time. Sometimes the emotions are too complex to translate into words, so the best I can do is to translate it into pictures, or experiences I’ve had in the past. And sometimes I can’t translate it to anything… I’m forced to just deal with the pure emotion. No problem.

Think of this emotional ball as a meal that you’re digesting all at once. You can taste everything in one instant. You can taste some chicken, some mashed potatoes, some french fries… all at once. Now, if you want, you can pull apart this taste, and experience each taste by itself. Or you can just take one big gulp. With the emotional ball, you will feel a dash of happiness, some alertness, some laughter, some guidance, and a bunch of other emotions that simply don’t have words. All at once. Pull it apart if you wish, and try to find the right words for the feelings… or just take the response in one big gulp.

Don’t think about it too much. A lot of this is emotional in nature, and if you become over-analytical, then it sort of defeats the purpose. You should have an analytical side, and an emotional side, both working together. Don’t let the analytical side dominate, and smother the emotional response.

It is a strange process to describe. However, it can be learned. I know this – because I learned it myself . When you first start off, there is going to be a lot of uncertainty. Don’t worry about it. It took me a good month to start getting something going for sure. Once you get over the initial uncertainty, then it becomes easier, because you can pinpoint what you need to work on. When you first start off, there will be a lot of confusion over whether you’re making the answer up yourself, or whether it’s coming from your subconscious. It’s ok to be confused. Just keep practicing, and it’ll become more clear as time goes on. Don’t let the temporary confusion stop you from continuing. You will work through it if you keep at it.

As you become better at this listening process, you will begin to notice a lot of mental functions that you didn’t even realize you could perform. When I look at what goes on inside my head, it’s not just thoughts. It’s not just words. It’s an entire universe of acrobatics using pictures, emotions, experiences, colors, voices, metaphors, structure, thought patterns, belief systems, pathways, translations, and a bunch of other functions that have no words. I didn’t use to be like this. I’ve come to this point with a lot of practice communicating with my subconscious, and watching the internal working of my mind.

Keep practicing, and keep asking questions .

(By: Peebrain)

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 . 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.
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(By: Peebrain)

READ: This is a huge post. I’m sorry – I can’t help myself – my thoughts must move! I realize that most people probably won’t read it all – that’s fine, I don’t expect anyone to. This post is more for my own documentation than it is to share my ideas with everyone. In a future post, I will condense this down into a more readable format. Until then, I need to document my thoughts before the next lottery drawing…

So anyways… I lost the lottery on June 15th, and it really pissed me off, and got me thinking. Look – there’s an important lesson here that needs to be learned by the majority of people on this planet. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. It’s not reality’s fault – it’s mine. When your model of reality is incorrect, you DO NOT force reality to fit into your arbitrary mold. You change your model, and learn from your mistakes. That’s what this post is about.

I was wrong about intention manifestation. I believe intention manifestation is a very nice model of reality, but there are some flaws, and these flaws are holding me back. All models of reality have partial truths in them, so I must take what is true out of the intention manifestation model of reality, and create a new model that can help me win the lottery.

I was breaking the news to a friend of mine, and he responded that first I rejected randomness, and now I’m rejecting intention manifestation… what next? Perhaps I enjoy rejecting models of reality a little too much . Either way, I have an updated understanding (which will someday be replaced by yet another, I’m sure). On to version 3.0…

The realization I made originated in my second lottery adventure, which is documented in text and video. What sparked that experience was that I went to the store, and tried to force a win from the scratch off machine. And I failed. Being pissed, I decided to listen instead of forcing things, and documented one of my biggest wins on video as a result.

Where intention manifestation fails is that it gives you the sense that you can accomplish anything, as long as you believe it through and through. This is false. I hate to be a downer, and I hate to sound negative… but I have to conclude it’s false based on the evidence. Belief can help by filtering and aligning your perspective on reality – but belief alone can not create. All it does is change the filter, which can help you in finding opportunities, and things of that nature. With an open belief system, your eyes are more open to success. Belief is important – but belief alone does not do the creation.

Intention manifestation agrees with this mostly. Intention manifestation states that you have to have belief, but you also have to have feelings – you have to visualize and feel as though your goal is true in this moment. Intention manifestation states it’s more than just positive thinking… it’s more than just filtering your perspective. Adding emotions into the mix, and really FEELING it, will produce results. This is false.

Now you might jump out of your seat and yell – “Wait a second, you’ve been using intention manifestation to do all sorts of things, and you’ve gotten results! How can you say that intention manifestation is false?! You’ve used it and seen it with your own eyes!”

True enough. I have used intention manifestation to produce results that can’t be explained by simply altering your beliefs, and changing your filter. On the surface, it seems as though intention manifestation is true, and that’s whats so tricky about it. But we have to dig a little deeper.

The truth is that sometimes intentions come true, and sometimes they don’t. The truth is that sometimes we go through all the steps, and it just doesn’t work. Sometimes it does! And it’s awesome! But sometimes it doesn’t. So obviously we’re missing something in the equation. Some other factor that plays an important role, or some other understanding.

Hopefully I haven’t lost you just yet. Let me review everything, from the beginning, to clear up what I’m about to do.

Ok. So we have these models for reality. Everyone has models for reality in their own minds… we might call them “belief systems”, or “the way things are”, or “how things work”, or “religion” … etc. We all have an internal model of reality that we use in our minds.

Now there are some popular models that a lot of people share. For example, the skeptical/cynical model of reality (version 1.0). If I were to tell a skeptic that I plan on winning the lottery, they might respond that it is POSSIBLE for me to win… but in all likelihood, I won’t. They might use concepts found in statistics and probability to talk about how the world works, and how the lottery is designed to make a profit for the government. They might say that the lottery is the tax for the stupid. Stuff like that. This is all in their model of reality. Now the skeptic usually has trouble telling the difference between actual reality, and the model of reality in their head. They think they see reality perfectly clear, and usually have a hard time admitting that they just might be wrong. They haven’t made the distinction that it’s simply a model in their own mind. But that’s ok, we can forgive them for now.

In the New Age and Personal Development circles, we have the intention manifestation model of reality (version 2.0). If I tell people who subscribe to this model that I plan on winning the lottery, most would probably cheer me on saying that it’s certainly possible if I do what intention manifestation tells me to do. Some people might argue that because I’m getting “something for nothing”, that I will fail, because I don’t have a noble cause. But most would probably admit that it’s possible. They would tell me that I have to really believe that I can win, and that I have to meditate and visualize myself winning, and feel all the emotions associated with that. Really put myself in the moment and feel like a winner. Feel like I just won. See it in my mind so clearly that it becomes superimposed on my subconscious mind, and transmitted out to the universe to attract it using “vibrations” and such. Ok.

Now, those are just two models of reality. Sure, they are each interesting in their own right, and they each have a body of literature and history. They each have truths that can’t be denied. But both of them are still just models of reality made by humans… they inherently have faults in them. The trick is to separate yourself from the model you hold in your mind. Don’t become attached to the model – become attached to reality. Reality is the judge. Not the model in your mind. Reality determines what is possible, and what isn’t possible. Not your human understanding. So we must constantly evolve our own internal models based on what we observe in reality. We might not be able to create a 100% perfect model, but that’s ok. We just need to be flexible enough to modify our model when the situation calls for it. We need to be willing to change.

So… my interest in the lottery was sparked by internalizing the realization that the skeptical/cynical model of reality (version 1.0, dealing with probability and statistics) isn’t entirely true. There is a vital flaw in this model. I outline the flaw in three posts on this website, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. If you don’t want to read all those, I will summarize the flaw briefly here.

The flaw with the skeptical/cynical model of reality is that it can’t explain how people win the lottery twice. It simply can’t. Now, if you think that it can explain it, then I encourage you to take classes in probability and statistics to truly understand what our modern views of reality tell us about someone winning the lottery twice. If you grasp probability and statistics correctly, then there is only one conclusion to make: people should never win the lottery twice. Yet, people do. So we must admit that the skeptical/cynical model is incorrect.

Now we reach another crossroad. Reality is not behaving as the intention manifestation model states that it should. Just like reality doesn’t behave like the skeptical/cynical model says it should. What is our response? Modify our model of reality. We are forced to reject intention manifestation, the same way we were forced to reject modern ideas of probability and statistics.

When we rejected probability and statistics, we didn’t reject everything. We can’t. A lot of probability and statistics is completely correct and accurate! I would say probably 99% of it . But there is a vital flaw. Probability and statistics rely on the existence of the concept of randomness. However, it is my understanding that randomness does not exist. Therefore, while probability and statistics are great tools, we have to realize what they are doing. They are not modeling random numbers. They are modeling choice. Making that simple correction does not undermine all the work that’s gone into the fields of probability and statistics. It simply tweaks it slightly to more accurately fit reality – and it works.

Now that we’re rejecting intention manifestation, we have to realize that a lot of intention manifestation is completely correct. But we need to tweak again. We need to observe reality, and realize where the holes are in our model. Then we need to patch the holes, and use this modified model of reality to accomplish our goals. If reality throws experiences at us that contradict our modified model (which will certainly happen at some point), then we will be forced to tweak again.

So – where does intention manifestation fail?

It fails when we try to manifest something, following the instructions correctly, and it doesn’t work. Our goal isn’t accomplished. We experienced the feelings, we did the visualization, we focused, felt good, believed… and then nothing. No results. Instead of beating ourselves up, let’s beat up intention manifestation .

Let’s try to understand how humans created intention manifestation to begin with. We were pretty smart about it… What we did was go around, and interview and talk to all these successful people. We asked them, “How did you do it? What is your story? What made you succeed where everyone else failed?” This is a great idea! Asking questions is a brilliant idea.

Successful people responded with their stories. And a lot of these stories had things in common. So, being the smart human race that we are, we looked at the patterns. We noticed that a lot of successful people had a burning desire to succeed. And this desire consumed their thoughts. We noticed that a lot of successful people believed they would succeed before they did – even when they logically shouldn’t have believed it. We noticed that this burning desire and belief were the very things that made them succeed. Story after story, we noticed that it was this burning desire and belief that got these people through the tough times, and allowed them to create opportunities for them, that led to success. Amazing!

So, after we noticed this, we proclaimed: Successful people had a burning desire and unwavering belief before they were successful. If you want to be successful, you need a burning desire and unwavering belief. Tada!

This idea is outlined in hundreds of books, the most popular of which is undoubtedly Napoleon Hill’s, Think and Grow Rich, published in 1937. A lot of books influenced the creation of the intention manifestation model of reality, but it is my opinion that this book is one of the major ones.

Over time, the intention manifestation model has evolved into what we see presented today, by programs like “The Secret“, and all the other ripoffs. It has evolved from this idea of burning desire and belief, into visualization and feeling your goal is already achieved.

So where is the mistake? Where is the flaw?

I will tell you. It’s very clear to me now that I have hindsight. The flaw is that we think belief, expectation, and feelings cause our goal to be accomplished. This is incorrect.

This is the mistake that we made. We saw that successful people have strong beliefs, and having this sense of “knowing” that they would succeed, before they actually succeeded. This sense of “knowing” is very important – and anyone who has applied intention manifestation knows specifically what it is. This sense of simply knowing that your goal WILL be accomplished. You just know. The mistake that we made is thinking that this sense of knowing caused the goal to be accomplished.

It’s actually a pretty normal mistake that we make all the time. The cynics have solved this problem already for us (hey, what can I say, I owe you a beer ). It’s a logical fallacy, called Post Hoc. We noticed that this sense of knowing came before the success, so we assumed this sense of knowing caused the success. Incorrect. Just because it came before does not mean that it caused it.

Our techniques for intention manifestation are based on the idea that we need to induce this sense of knowing. We need to alter our beliefs. We need to create a burning desire. We need to make ourselves believe. We need to convince ourselves that our goal is accomplished. Once we do that, we will have our sense of knowing. And once we have this sense of knowing, then success will follow.

But now we have to reconcile the fact that people can brainwash a sense of knowing in themselves, and the goal still isn’t accomplished. How do you reconcile that? All you intention manifestation people out there reading this… how do you explain how a person can believe 100%, feel it, visualize it, get into it… and then fail? You can’t. Not with the intention manifestation model. It’s time for a new model.

We run into some tension here, because some people might fear that if intention manifestation is incorrect, then we must downgrade to the skeptical/cynical model of reality. Hey, don’t beat yourself up too bad. We don’t have to move in that direction. We can create a new model that incorporates everything we’ve learned. And since our new model is going to be based on personal experience and open mindedness, we’ll be sure to include everything we possibly can, which will in turn help us to accomplish our goals even faster than before.

So now that we know the history of all this bullshit, what is our new model going to be? I propose version 3.0, the choice model . Please be aware that I didn’t come up with this all on my own. My current understanding is a result of reading, experimenting, discussing, and stealing ideas from other smart people (one good location for that is Steve’s forum on intention manifestation).

(This is a long post, I’m sorry. I want to get this down on paper before the next lottery drawing, even if that means no one will read the entire post .)

My current understanding is that choice is the root to achieving a goal. This choice is made before the goal is actually manifested, ranging anywhere from a few microseconds, to decades. When this choice is made, we feel a sense of knowing that the goal will be accomplished. Perhaps this sense of knowing comes from a precognitive facility in our minds that actually sees the goal being accomplished – I’m not sure.

What I want to point out is that this choice has a supernatural quality about it that creates the reality we will someday experience. This isn’t simply a normal decision that we experience all the time… this choice is on a different level. English doesn’t have the vocabulary for it.

Ok, look. This isn’t your normal decision. I’m not sure if I can explain it to someone whose never made a decision like this before. To people who have used intention manifestation, you’ve already done it, and you can probably understand what I’m getting at. There comes a point when you say to yourself, “I AM going to do this. Period.” And that sentence alone isn’t what’s so powerful about it. It’s all the emotion… it’s every cell in your body saying “YES” to this. It is a true decision, a real choice. Not the wishy-washy crap that we do daily. It’s the type of choice that makes you slam your fist down on the table, stand up tall, and stare reality in it’s eye. It’s not anger, it’s not fear, it’s not happiness, it’s not joyfulness. It’s the raw emotion of “am”. “To be”. I AM going to do this.

That’s where the power is. It’s not about good or bad, or noble, or evil. It’s raw “YES”. It’s raw “GO”. This is the emotion that is the root to the burning desire. This is the emotion that is the root to belief. To the sense of knowing. This emotion – this choice – is the origin. Maybe you’ve never made a decision like this before, but you’ve probably seen someone make this decision. To look in their eye, and see their resolve. It’s almost like their decision convinces you. You don’t know how they’re going to accomplish their goal, but just by looking at them you know they are going to.

It’s not stubbornness, though it might look a little similar. It’s different. Stubbornness is forceful in nature… this type of decision that I’m describing really isn’t forceful. It’s self-evident. It’s true because it’s true. Stubbornness shuts down your mind… this type of decision opens your mind up. That’s one way to tell the difference.

When you make a decision like this, the world moves. Shit that’s in your way gets out of your way. Shit you need to experience starts to bee-line in your direction.

Now – there are different degrees, which is important to realize. It’s not all about emotion, even though that’s the picture I painted above. Emotion does help though. We can throw all the emotion out the window, and still be left with this choice. However, if you want to make the choice consciously, it would probably be in your best interest to use emotion to help you.

It’s about existence. It’s about being. It’s not inducing a sense of knowing… it’s behind that. Once you hit it, you feel a sense of knowing. Don’t identify it as the sense of knowing – that’s where intention manifestation made it’s mistake. It’s behind the sense of knowing. It’s the root.

Intention manifestation points us in the right direction, which is why it’s successful. But it fails because it’s not precise. It gets us in the right area, but it misses the exact location. We may stumble upon the exact location while using intention manifestation, but only because it’s in such close proximity. These are the times when we succeed. Other times, we are still in the same ballpark, but we fail because we didn’t precisely hit where we need to be.

I’m not sure if I’m explaining it correctly. Sometimes my mind gets carried away… let me try again .

Ultimately, it is a choice. Wash away the extra bullshit, and you’re left with a choice. Now, in reality, we have a real hard time washing away the extra bullshit . So we have to deal with the bullshit instead. That’s where things start getting hard to understand. Everyone has different stuff piled on their consciousness, so we all have different things to deal with when it comes to making this choice. It’s tough to get through and make the choice, because there’s so much crap. That’s why we have techniques, methods, exercises, models, ideas, discussions, growth, etc.

Look, if you believe that you can’t win the lottery, then that is extra bullshit piled on your consciousness that needs to be dealt with before you can win the lottery. But it’s not even that simple. If that’s all you had to deal with, then that would be easy! In reality, we have miles of shit to wade through. A simple belief that you can’t win is just an ounce.

Here, let me draw a picture:

Alrighty!
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All hope is not lost… yet .

My point is that we have a lot of stuff that goes on inside of our head that stops us from making these powerful choices all the time. The intention manifestation model does a pretty good job of cutting through a lot of that shit, but it’s not good enough. We can accomplish a lot of wonderful things with intention manifestation, but it falls short when it comes to winning the lottery. We might be able to use intention manifestation to win the lottery, but there is a better way.

I failed to win the lottery this past time because I focused on inducing a sense of knowing, assuming that it was the sense of knowing that created the success. This is false, hence I failed.

Now that I see that this supernatural choice is my goal, I know where to aim. And I’ll know when I get it, because I’ll feel a sense of knowing.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

What does it all mean?!

It means I’m changing my strategy for picking lottery numbers. In the past, I just picked random numbers while filling out the lottery sheet. This method may produce a win, but I want to be smarter about it. My new method is to write down lottery numbers on paper, and examine my “sense of knowing” about them. Then tweak the numbers over and over again, until I find my maximum “sense of knowing”. Then play those numbers.

This “sense of knowing” is something that needs to be polled. It needs to be examined and used. NOT FORCED. Not induced. It’s already in us, so let’s use it! I’m much more confident with this strategy than my strategy in the past, and it feels much more correct.

We shall see where it leads.

If you’ve made it this far, amazing. I really didn’t expect anyone to read this entire post. You must be bored . Like I said at the start, I intend on making a much more smaller version of this post in the future. I simply didn’t have the time, and I wanted to get my ideas out before the next lottery drawing. If you’ve skipped to the end, then you’re a lousy cheater!
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JERK! . Anyways… this post took three days to write. And my thoughts are still bouncing around. They will eventually settle down. Thanks! See ya.

(By: Peebrain)

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 ). 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 . Chances are that blank should be a few pages long. (No need to post your response in the comments ).

(By: Peebrain)

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 . 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 . 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 .

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

(By: Peebrain)

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.

(By: Peebrain)

I love using the term “dangerous thoughts”. It encapsulates precisely what I feel the need to describe. A dangerous thought is a destructive thought that is tempting, but ultimately not true.

For example, racism. Imagine if you grow up, and know a lot of black criminals. A dangerous thought would be to think that black people are criminals. From your perspective, it seems true – your experience has led you to believe it. In reality, the thought is very destructive, and is ultimately not true. Crime doesn’t originate from skin color, it originates from social conditions (and some other things probably).

Racism is an easy example though. There are much more clever dangerous thoughts though.

What about intention manifestation? I believe that intention manifestation is a dangerous thought. This is why:

Intention manifestation says that: “You get what you think about, in accordance to the law of attraction. If you aren’t getting what you want, then you need to change your thoughts. If you’ve changed your thoughts, and you STILL aren’t getting what you want, then really you haven’t changed your thoughts… you are canceling yourself out with other thoughts.”

Why is this dangerous? Well, first – it’s tempting. We would all love to think that we can wish and get whatever we want. It’s a really nice idea! I want a genie too! All I have to do is think the right thoughts (and listen to my emotions), and I’ll get what I want! Hurray!

But there’s a much larger reason for why this thought is dangerous. Any failure is a failure of the believer – never a failure of the theory. Now, forget that we’re talking about intention manifestation for a second. Imagine we are talking about some random theory about reality. And imagine that this random theory states at the end, “If you observe this theory to be untrue, then this theory states that it is a result of you not believing entirely in this theory.”

If the theory is, in reality, untrue – how could you prove it? What if my theory was, “Trees have learned to speak English. If you cannot hear a tree speak English, it’s because you don’t believe they can, and trees can also read minds and become offended by people like you, so they refuse to talk to you.”

Now, of course trees can not speak English, nor are they capable of such highly accurate telepathy . But how can you disprove such a theory? Any attempt to disprove it will result in “well, of course you never hear the trees – they won’t allow disbelievers to hear them. You just proved the theory is true!”

You can see how ridiculous this is. And hopefully you can also see why I label this sort of thinking as “dangerous”. You can easily get caught in a loop – forcing yourself to believe something in order to test the theory.

I propose a new thought-suggestion:

Thought Suggestion 132: I will not attempt to test theories that require belief in the theory in order to be tested. It is the fault of the theory for not providing a way for healthy thinkers to verify the theory without mandating a belief system.

You’ll notice that a lot of religion gets cut deep with this suggestion as well. “If you observe Christianity to be untrue, then really you’re just being fooled by the Devil, and you must believe even more in Christianity in order to overcome the Devil.”

Ouch .

(By: Peebrain)

Parapsychology is commonly regarded as pseudoscience – it is attacked for its lack of adherence to the scientific method. This is a problem – because they are right.

Let’s outline the problem:

We are trying to discover and learn things about reality. We are seeking genuine, reality-based truth.

What are the problems we need to overcome to do that? Wild theories from armchair philosophers. Confirmation bias. Self-deception.

1. Wild theories are easy – let’s focus on personal experience. If you haven’t experienced something, then you have no business in trying to make sense of it. Let’s just throw out the ideas of the world being created on the back of a turtle, since no one actually saw it happen.

2. Confirmation bias is a little harder – let’s develop intelligent tests that can falsify our ideas. If we develop and execute tests that can disprove our idea, then we can be more sure that our idea is true.

3. Self-deception is tough. Well, if something happened, then it should be able to happen again. So, we should tell everyone what we experienced and tested. If other people reproduce our results, then we can be sure we aren’t deceiving ourselves. Or at least, if we are deceiving ourselves, then so is everyone else who is seeing the same thing we are.

Sounds like a plan! Actually, it’s a revolutionary idea that transformed the human race – it’s called the “scientific method”. Start with personal experience, followed by experiments to try and prove our ideas false, followed by peer-review.

So why don’t we use this for researching the paranormal? It turns out that’s very hard. Well… maybe we can simplify things.

What if we just focus on personal experience? Confirmation bias and self-deception is overrated anyways, so just throw that out the window. A lot of online communities take this position – including PsiPog (when it was open)!

What happens? Eventually, the community fails at discovering genuine truth. When a community’s focus is solely on personal experience, then it rewards confirmation bias and self-deception.

Confirmation bias manifests itself as a bunch of people sitting around, doing nothing. After all, there’s no need to test anything when you have it all figured out. The scientific method states that we should be trying to prove our ideas false, in order to avoid confirmation bias. But if the community throws that idea out the window, then why test anything? We have it figured out, so there’s no need to do anything.

Self-deception manifests itself as varying levels of delusion. Did you just blow a hole in someone’s shield? Better check with the referee! Awesome, you did! You are now level 98. You’ll be flying around and blowing up planets in no time. Welcome to fluff-ville.

Without dealing with confirmation bias and self-deception, we will forever be doomed to apathetic inactivity and fluff bunnies.

So why can’t we just use the scientific method to research parapsychology? To answer that, let’s use our imagination for a second.

We need to deal with wild theories, confirmation bias, and self-deception. We’ve come up with three solutions to these problems, labeled collectively as the “scientific method”. Is it possible that there exists a property about reality that will naturally “evade” discovery based on the three solutions we’ve provided? Phrased another way: do the three solutions guarantee that we will discover every truth about reality? And another way: could a real phenomenon exist that, when the scientific method is applied to it, makes the phenomenon itself go away?

Now, at this point, I’m not saying that these types of “evading phenomenon” exist. I’m just saying, is it possible that they exist? The answer has to be: yes!

With that said, I believe parapsychology has become a grab-bag of these such phenomenon. Telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, DMILs, OBEs, ghosts, aliens, precognition, etc. These are all very strange things, that normally wouldn’t be grouped together. But they share a common thread: they naturally evade discovery when applying the three solutions outlined above.

So, when someone claims that parapsychology is nothing but mere pseudoscience… I have to agree. Except without the condescending attitude . I believe that parapsychology is, by definition, the collection of phenomenon that, by their very nature, evade discovery when applying the scientific method. So of course it’s pseudoscience!

Now, after all that, saying something is “pseudoscience” doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. I definitely believe in telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, DMILs, OBEs, “ghosts” (in a sense) and precognition, with some curious skepticism for aliens. The label of “pseudoscience” isn’t an insult.

But just because we are throwing parts of the scientific method out the window, by necessity, doesn’t mean we can just do whatever we want. In order to ensure our pursuit of truth is legitimate, we must create new solutions for the problem of confirmation bias and self-deception – perhaps on a case-by-case basis. If the scientific method’s solution to these problems will cause the phenomenon we are studying to naturally “evade” discovery, then we must come up with new solutions. Not just toss the scientific method out the window and hope things work out.

(By: Peebrain)

I like to think of beliefs as living organisms inside my head. They aren’t ME… they are external to ME… but I choose to buy into some of them, for one reason or another. My beliefs aren’t me is because I can change my beliefs drastically, yet I still exist, right here, same old me .

I also like to think of beliefs as fighting inside of my head. Beliefs that contradict each other battle it out in the desolate landscape of my brain . Beliefs that agree with each other team up. When one belief-team beats another belief-team, it represents a shift in my personal beliefs – it means I no longer believe in the dead team, and I put more energy in believing the winning team.

Maybe the analogy is a little silly, but it’ll help to use it when understanding how beliefs become ingrained in our minds.

There is a “Natural Selection” process in our minds. The “strongest” will survive. And there is an evolution in beliefs as well. Over time, beliefs evolve towards stronger ideas. If they don’t evolve, they usually die off.

Now to the point: A lot of times, the things we believe in are only believed in because that belief has navigated our mental landscape effectively. Not because it’s true.

Let me give you an example to clear all this up. Let’s examine the belief, “Psychic abilities don’t exist.” Your browser may not support display of this image. This one I have a lot of experience with.

At some point, the idea of psychic abilities enters your head. It’s then divided into two beliefs – one, it exists, and two, it doesn’t exist. Each side starts building an army. Psychic abilities exist because… maybe… “My mom says they do, and my mom is smart.” Or, “The world is a magical place.” Or, “I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” Or, the classic, “They just do.”

Psychic abilities don’t exist because… maybe… “Science says they don’t.” Or, “It’s silly.” Or, “I’ve never seen it.” Or, “It wasn’t announced on the news.”

Now the two beliefs battle it out.

1. “My mom says psychic abilities exist… my mom wouldn’t lie, and she’s smart.”

2. “Yes, but, that doesn’t mean she can’t be wrong. She’s human, maybe she’s made some mistakes. Besides, science says psychic abilities don’t exist.”

1. “What does science know anyway? Who cares what science says. If my mom could be wrong, then you have to admit science could be wrong as well. If you think that psychic abilities don’t exist, then you are taking the magic out of the world.”

2. “Science has a better track record than your mom. How ‘magical’ the world is really doesn’t play a factor into what’s true or false. The world can still be a beautiful and amazing place without psychic abilities. It’s just silly to believe in them.”

1. “Why is it silly? That doesn’t make sense. Besides, you can argue about this stuff all you want, but you have to remember that time when my mom knew Sally was pregnant before Sally told anyone. If psychic abilities aren’t real, then how did mom do that?”

2. “There could be a million explanations. Listen, just because I can’t explain every little thing in the universe doesn’t mean that psychic abilities exist. Maybe your mom just guessed and got lucky – who knows. Or maybe Sally told your mom, but your mom didn’t tell you. Maybe you’re just remembering the whole situation backwards.”

Now we hit one interesting point. Both the 1 and 2 beliefs are debating about a memory. What if a belief could rewrite memories? Then that belief would be pretty strong. A belief that could rewrite memories is more powerful than a belief that couldn’t – so, it’s natural for beliefs to evolve towards editing your memory. Those that don’t edit your memory will die off. Those that do edit your memory can literally create evidence in it’s favor. Let’s suppose the #2 belief discovers how to edit memories .

2. “In fact, if you remember specifically what happened, your mom received a phone call right before she told you that Sally was pregnant. I bet either someone told her, or someone hinted it to her over the phone.”

1. “Hmmm. I do remember that. I don’t think the phone call was related though.”

2. “Yes, it was related. She told you right after she got off the phone. I’m surprised you didn’t think of this before!”

And now our #1 belief is about to die off… unless it also evolves. So our clever #1 belief decides to get some help from surrounding beliefs – specifically, the belief that “My mother is honest.”

1. “Wait a second. If you’re telling me that my mother purposely lied to me, then that simply isn’t true. My mother is an honorable person who would never deceive me. She doesn’t lie. If what you’re saying is true, then you also have to admit that my mother is a liar.”

2. “Well, your mother did lie. You have to face the facts.”

1. “Absolutely not. The only fact here is that my mother is honest, and that if I don’t believe in psychic abilities, then I’m calling my mother a liar. Since she isn’t a liar, then I must believe in psychic abilities. Simple as that.”

2. *Croak*

Alrighty! So our #1 belief lived to see another day (for all the wrong reasons!).

These mental tricks are performed all the time. A belief will grow stronger and stronger, using tricks like altering your memory, aligning itself to other beliefs, name calling, social conditioning, altering your perception, “selective hearing”, becoming emotional, using pride and the ego, etc. All these strategies are effective.

One way to stop these dirty tricks from occurring in your mind is to sit and listen to two beliefs battle it out. A lot of times these battles will take place subconsciously. Sit and listen. Make these battles conscious. For example, when our #2 belief tried to alter our memory, we could consciously see this happening, and intervene. Perhaps you keep a diary or journal. Look at the entry from that day, and force your beliefs to play by the rules. Whatever your journal entry is, then decide that it must be the way it happened. Tada – no more memory alteration. (Of course, this still encourages beliefs to alter your perception of experiences, which would in turn alter how you would record it in your journal.)

Another example – notice how the #1 belief makes the statement: “If I don’t believe in psychic abilities, then I’m calling my mother a liar.” Our beliefs do this ALL THE TIME (another example, “If you’re a republican, you’re not a democrat. I’m a democrat, and I’m smart. Therefore, if you’re a republican, you aren’t smart, and therefore stupid.” – sound familiar?) When I notice a belief trying to do something like that, I always interject: “Surely we can have it both ways. It doesn’t have to be one way or the other. You can not believe in psychic abilities, and your mother can still be honest. You can be a republican, and still be smart.”

Over time, the strongest beliefs in your mind are probably in that position because they have the dirtiest tricks. Not because they hold any truth. An even bigger problem is when you believe in something that’s true, yet you believe in it for all the wrong reasons. In those cases, the belief can attach a lot of negative baggage to something you have to admit is true. You’ll feel obligated to also believe in the negative baggage as well, and it will feel like you MUST believe in all the baggage, even though you don’t want to.

Watch for these dirty tricks. Your beliefs will only use them if you allow them to use them. Hold your beliefs accountable, and force each one to make an honest case for itself. And if you ever notice a belief become too ingrained, let that fact set off an alarm in your head. If a belief is really strong, chances are it got that way by doing something dirty. This is why the “Beginner’s Mind” is treasured in Zen — in the beginner’s mind, there are no overpowering beliefs that dominate the mental landscape.