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  • P&S Moderators: Xorkoth | Madness

Mental Conditioning

NeighborMike

NeighborMike

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Aug 12, 2009
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Sorry if this is the wrong forum for this

Do any of you think its possible to condition yourself to be numb on purpose? So that you dont care about things that most people do.
Im sure most of us have had negative things happen in our lives big or small that had to do with letting our emotions get the best of us causing us to make a bad decision

I read a book called deep survival that basically said its impossible because our emotions respond quicker to situations then logic, but I wanted to know what you guys thought
 
Yes, it's possible. Usually numbness happens in childhood as a reaction to difficult emotional states. We dissociate from our emotions out of a need to escape and are left numb. In turn, our thoughts turn numb. Those that suffered such wounds as I have can spend a good deal of their lives in a struggle to reconnect with our emotions. Your survival book was right in a sense, but not complete. Pressure from our feelings and emotions causes thoughts! Not many are aware of this even though we experience it all throughout the day. Needs to be repeated: Emotions are causal to thoughts, not the other way around. Don't take my word for it, see if it happening in your life. Thoughts in turn are causal to actions and manifestations in the physical world.

If we want to numb our emotions because they are manifesting too many distressing thoughts, well, a psychiatrist will usually give you an anti-psychotic drug to reduce the impact of negative emotions. Some people actually end up thinking more clearly because of it, others end up having dull thoughts, anhedonia and feel violated by the effects of the medication. So unless your emotional state really needs it I'd say drop the numbing strategy altogether and ask a different question "What causes emotions?" If you can accept that emotions are the cause of thoughts, then something must be the cause of emotions. Here it becomes a question of where we are in our experience. If we are living in the past or in anticipation of the future (which is shaped from our past experiences), the emotions we are experiencing are like memories. The joyful emotions manifest a very different quality of thought than the painful ones. Unfortunately we seem helpless to pick and choose our emotions. We are stuck in time! So present moment awareness is absolutely key to manifesting emotions, thoughts and physical actions that are suited to the present moment. In order to impact the emotions that keep us stuck in time something else is needed. You can call it your higher power or God, the vibrational, the etheric, the higher-self, spiritual awareness, holistic awareness, etc, etc. A mind stuck in time cannot undo its own paradox while stuck in time. Be present and your thoughts will be razor sharp arrows of manifestation.
 
nuttynutskin said:
Why would you want to be numb? It's not exactly a good feeling.
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Because I feel like I would be more effective if i was able to care less and be moved by certain things, like women for example
Or condition myself to not want to help people so much, to stop caring in general about people and random things that dont matter

Im not looking to turn into some emo kid or anything like that. Its just a question ive always had cause withthe thought that I could condition myself to just focus on certain things to improve my quality of life without being distracted by certain things
 
From what little I understand scientifically about the limbic system, it can't selectively shut off certain emotions. It's either all or nothing. It might be useful to numb yourself to certain situations while letting yourself be moved by others, but IIRC this isn't possible. Most people in their attempt to avoid dealing with certain emotions end up becoming apathetic or experiencing anhedonia.

Conditioning yourself to be less reactive to certain emotional situations is a different story. We can't control how we feel but we can control how we react to those feelings, and that's where training comes in.

People who feel nothing have either been through trauma and are suppressing, or have borderline personality disorder, and neither are really all that healthy.
 
Its very possible, and very powerful. Have you ever looked into meditation? Is a very interesting subject to study up on. Those monks and shit have got almost super human powers because they meditate like all day every day. Its some serous shit the things you can do when you can tame your mind bro.
 
anti150 said:
Its very possible, and very powerful. Have you ever looked into meditation? Is a very interesting subject to study up on. Those monks and shit have got almost super human powers because they meditate like all day every day. Its some serous shit the things you can do when you can tame your mind bro.
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yeah ive thought of that before but I didnt know what to research to accomplish my goal
i dont know many people who set out to do what i want to do
 
Foreigner said:
From what little I understand scientifically about the limbic system, it can't selectively shut off certain emotions. It's either all or nothing. It might be useful to numb yourself to certain situations while letting yourself be moved by others, but IIRC this isn't possible. Most people in their attempt to avoid dealing with certain emotions end up becoming apathetic or experiencing anhedonia.

Conditioning yourself to be less reactive to certain emotional situations is a different story. We can't control how we feel but we can control how we react to those feelings, and that's where training comes in.

People who feel nothing have either been through trauma and are suppressing, or have borderline personality disorder, and neither are really all that healthy.
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good post bro
 
Do you really want to stop helping and caring about people? Or is it just because people have taken advantage of your nature and hurt you? In my opinion, caring about people is one of the most worthwhile and beautiful things one can do in life. I would imagine living an uncaring life to be lonely and depressing.

Maybe what you need is a change of perspective. When someone does something negative, realize it's coming from a place of pain within them, and it allows you to remain less affected emotionally. The more you look for beauty and positivity in the world, the more you will find it, and the more you find it, the better life feels. Removing yourself from feeling and caring will not improve your life, even if it might occasionally let you avoid experiencing something painful.
 
Xorkoth said:
Do you really want to stop helping and caring about people? Or is it just because people have taken advantage of your nature and hurt you? In my opinion, caring about people is one of the most worthwhile and beautiful things one can do in life. I would imagine living an uncaring life to be lonely and depressing.

Maybe what you need is a change of perspective. When someone does something negative, realize it's coming from a place of pain within them, and it allows you to remain less affected emotionally. The more you look for beauty and positivity in the world, the more you will find it, and the more you find it, the better life feels. Removing yourself from feeling and caring will not improve your life, even if it might occasionally let you avoid experiencing something painful.
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I just want to be a more affective person.
I feel like if you can not be swayed by various emotions you could perform better

The most basic example is when a women comes into a mans life. Lots of men chase behind women and do stupid things. So pretty much i dont want things in my life that i know can have a negative result on to be able to have an effect on me by building like a mental immunity
Maybe the way I said i wanted not to care made it sound a little worse then what my intentions are
 
Okay I get that for sure. I think one of the greatest pursuits a person can follow is to become as consciously aware of your thoughts and the reasons for them as possible. It's possible to experience the same thing differently at different points in your life. For example, when I was younger, and someone behaved a certain way towards me, I might have reacted to it differently than I would now, and experienced pain. But now, as I have gotten older and more aware, it's possible for me to understand why a person would do that, and feel sorry for them or just simply not allow it to affect me, because I realize it's their problem and does not reflect on me.
 
Mental conditioning is a hardcore practice. I've done it a lot. It's not for the faint of heart.
I'm talking about cutting your feet and stepping on salt while shouting, "I deserve the pain" repeatedly. This is why I know that conversion therapy clinics are bullshit. If they were serious about trying to change people, they'd be in prison right now. Their doing all this light-winded, sissified techniques, and wondering why their members go back to liking the same sex after a weak?
If they were serious they'd bound their arms and legs and throw rotten eggs at them while shouting at them to change. They'd continue ECT, psychedelic drugs, and vomit inducing drugs. They'd spit on you, scream at you, and physically hurt you. A proper conversion therapy clinic should look like the McKamey Manor Haunted House. Look it up...

Mental conditioning takes pain and sorrow. You need to break yourself.
You need to bring yourself to the point of tears. You need to find whatever it is you dislike about yourself and allow the guilt to fester in your heart. You need to learn to increase the pain you feel emotionally. When you start feeling like you'e calmed down you need to hurt yourself more, and you need to insult yourself more.
You need to deprive yourself of earthly joy and take a vow of sorrow. Stop watching your favorite shows, stop listening to your favorite shows, and stay away from friends and family. It must be a private journey filled with loneliness and pain.

THAT'S mental conditioning, or shall I say, "reconditioning". It's the most poignant way to free your mind.
Now, I did this for my sexuality, but I'm sure if you wanted to try this technique for other reasons, it would work.
 
psychedelicsoul said:
Mental conditioning is a hardcore practice. I've done it a lot. It's not for the faint of heart.
I'm talking about cutting your feet and stepping on salt while shouting, "I deserve the pain" repeatedly. This is why I know that conversion therapy clinics are bullshit. If they were serious about trying to change people, they'd be in prison right now. Their doing all this light-winded, sissified techniques, and wondering why their members go back to liking the same sex after a weak?
If they were serious they'd bound their arms and legs and throw rotten eggs at them while shouting at them to change. They'd continue ECT, psychedelic drugs, and vomit inducing drugs. They'd spit on you, scream at you, and physically hurt you. A proper conversion therapy clinic should look like the McKamey Manor Haunted House. Look it up...

Mental conditioning takes pain and sorrow. You need to break yourself.
You need to bring yourself to the point of tears. You need to find whatever it is you dislike about yourself and allow the guilt to fester in your heart. You need to learn to increase the pain you feel emotionally. When you start feeling like you'e calmed down you need to hurt yourself more, and you need to insult yourself more.
You need to deprive yourself of earthly joy and take a vow of sorrow. Stop watching your favorite shows, stop listening to your favorite shows, and stay away from friends and family. It must be a private journey filled with loneliness and pain.

THAT'S mental conditioning, or shall I say, "reconditioning". It's the most poignant way to free your mind.
Now, I did this for my sexuality, but I'm sure if you wanted to try this technique for other reasons, it would work.
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I think you're off base on this. Certainly self-torture is one way to change your mental processes, but I think it leads to behaviors and mental patterns that are centered around pain and self-loathing. It's also possible to change your behaviors through any other amount of discipline and perseverance. Through self-love you can become more loving of others, for example. By trying very devoted to recognize and dismiss negative mental responses to things, you can truly move past those negative mental responses.
 
Xorkoth said:
I think you're off base on this. Certainly self-torture is one way to change your mental processes, but I think it leads to behaviors and mental patterns that are centered around pain and self-loathing. It's also possible to change your behaviors through any other amount of discipline and perseverance. Through self-love you can become more loving of others, for example. By trying very devoted to recognize and dismiss negative mental responses to things, you can truly move past those negative mental responses.
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Well, for me, it's about weighing the pros and cons.
Would I rather be bisexual or would I rather be straight and face anxiety and depression as a result of self harm.
I chose the latter.

However, the negative effects that come from self-torture (Which I acknowledge are real), don't really follow you for the rest of your life. Maybe I could have changed some other way besides through self-harm. But at that point I was extremely desperate and wanted to make myself suffer.

In fact, it didn't begin as something I did to change. I actually started to torture myself as punishment and intended to do it for the rest of my life. It wasn't until later on that I got the idea that it could change me. I was also mad at god. I thought he made me that way as an excuse to send me to hell and laugh about it.
 
Having recently gone through a long period of self-induced 'numbness' to achieve a certain goal as quick as possible; i do believe it's possible but i certainly wouldn't want to live like that long-term. For me it came down to hardcore discipline and deprivation in order to delay gratification, eventually leading to a very apathetic nature. I drilled routine into my life to the point where the weeks blurred together, this made achieving my goal easier because i had pushed past the point of experiencing negative emotions and became apathetic.

I'm sure there's better ways to go about this, but in my case i wanted to make x amount of money in x amount of time and took the most extreme route possible for the quickest result. I also considered it a sort of experiment, as i was curious where the boundaries were and how far i could push it.. i've experienced the opposite end of this spectrum in the past in dramatic form, so while serving the primary purpose i also wanted to understand the polarity.

A dose of MDMA broke me out of it and the floodgates to my emotions re-opened; it was ridiculously intense. Almost like life was been breathed back into a corpse.

What amazes me is i think there's quite a lot of people who do essentially live this drone life, they repeat the same actions and routines over and over again and become worn down and crushed into an empty place and it's not until some major crisis, breakdown or trauma occurs that they snap back and wake up, and it really is like a rebirth.
 
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what ahppend to the days of taking a psychedelic drug to open ones mind?

I definatley think your on the money with the mass conditioning of the worlds populations, look at the tv! same story they play every couple of months then at the end of the news the play a reel of clips that range from pictures of family being reunited to clips of the current 'hate' campaign either meth or ice here in australia.
I turn my head away these days and watch everyone go on there little rollercoaster of emotions for 30minutes... bloody riducluos if you ask me.

STICK TO NATURAL HALLICUGENS AND IF YOU DARE LIKE OUR FRIEND SASHA MAKE SOME NEW ONES AND TAKE EM AND WRITE REPORTS ABOUT IT.
LISTEN TO TECHNO.. YEAH ITS GETTING COMMERCIALISED NOW BUT IT STILL THE ONLY GENDER THAT IS NOT CONTROLLED 100% BY THE GUYS RUNNING THE MICE MAZE WE CALL EARTH
 
I would say to explore yourself through meditation intense self discipline with things such as workouts and martial arts constantly contitioning yourself to pain both physical and mentally things such as knifes lighters blunt objects (ect) and also doing things like constantly telling your self you did this wrong you suck and calling yourself things that would be very extreme (remember you have to believe it when you tell your self other wise it won't work) i would also recommend watch horrible horrible things such as forcing yourself to watch people being brutally murdered/tortured or the scariest horror movie that you can think of (ect) well I hope this helps (I know it works from experience I have scars the scars to prove it both physically and mentally)

-Streetcow
 
Xorkoth said:
Okay I get that for sure. I think one of the greatest pursuits a person can follow is to become as consciously aware of your thoughts and the reasons for them as possible. It's possible to experience the same thing differently at different points in your life. For example, when I was younger, and someone behaved a certain way towards me, I might have reacted to it differently than I would now, and experienced pain. But now, as I have gotten older and more aware, it's possible for me to understand why a person would do that, and feel sorry for them or just simply not allow it to affect me, because I realize it's their problem and does not reflect on me.
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I agree. I have also gone through experiences like that. And have learnt to spot on what's clearly not mine and do not let myself get 'infested' by someone else's stress or problems they try to through it to you.
Those situations tend to happen more often at work where we usually have to follow hierarchy and accept certain things we disagree.
Although I did grow up in that area sometimes depending on how strong some people behave against you, I find myself in situations I need to reply properly so to establish basic limits on what is really unacceptable regardless of their status or position in a work environment.
 
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