Physiology of temporal regression

[John Harris]

Have any experiments been done to identify the physiology of temporal regression? My best guess is that it's caused by a slowing of the action potentials due to a drop in interaxonal serotonin, but I haven't seen any science on it. Please help before my imagination takes me down the road and over the edge!

[modus_tollens]

What do you mean? Do you mean what is the physical result (or cause) of time seeming to slow down?

[John Harris]

Originally Posted by modus_tollens

What do you mean? Do you mean what is the physical result (or cause) of time seeming to slow down?

--Sorry I wasn't more specific. I should have said "hypnosis". Freud says that temporal regression is one aspect of hypnosis. One becomes as a child. It also opens up the more rigid parts of the personality structure, allowing them to be changed.

Do you or does anyone out there know of any literature on physiological changes occurring during hypnosis? Thanks.

[modus_tollens]

Originally Posted by John Harris

--Sorry I wasn't more specific. I should have said "hypnosis". Freud says that temporal regression is one aspect of hypnosis. One becomes as a child. It also opens up the more rigid parts of the personality structure, allowing them to be changed.

Do you or does anyone out there know of any literature on physiological changes occurring during hypnosis? Thanks.

Ah. I don't know of any lit on the subject. Sounds interesting. I studied hypnosis superficially a long time ago.

Are you looking to see if the state can be reproduced synthetically (like with medication)?

[vivamis123]

I read in a book called Hypnosis for change that freud rejected Hypnosis as a tool to unlock repressed memories, favoring instead his techniques of free association and dream interpretation.

Hypnosis for change was a suggested read when I became a certified hypnotist. Even though this book is a great manual, this book does not cover regression.

[aged hippy]

Originally Posted by vivamis123

I read in a book called Hypnosis for change that freud rejected Hypnosis as a tool to unlock repressed memories, favoring instead his techniques of free association and dream interpretation.
......

.... a cynic would probably say that it was because he was making money out of his own techniques...


or should that word be "realist"....


Peace, Love, & Light

[John Harris]

Originally Posted by modus tollens

Are you looking to see if the state can be reproduced synthetically (like with medication)?

Actually, if my understanding is correct, I already know of such a medication. It's LSD. I believe that the definitive action of this drug (and other entheogenics) is temporal regression. The hallucinations I attribute to the brain's scrambling to bring the other components of sleep into sync.

Ultimately I'm trying to discover why some people meditate and find God, whereas others take entheogenics and find God. Meditation, I am postulating, also causes temporal regression.

Of course, hypnosis, prayer, and meditation are very similar.

[John Harris]

Originally Posted by vivamis123

...when I became a certified hypnotist.

Ah, perhaps you will have some insight! I once asked a certified hypnotist if anyone ever got stuck in hypnosis and didn't come out. She said yes, but that it was no problem: She would just tell the subject to go even deeper, and eventually, the hypnosis would convert to natural sleep, and she would just awaken the subject. I have found from personal experience that prayer also converts to natural sleep. I think the goal of meditation is to go deeper into temporal regression than either sleep or hypnosis could produce -- but not go to sleep!

[vivamis123]

Dear John,
How I view it is that the mind is made of of three parts: conscious mind (that which we are aware of) the subconsciousmind (that which we are not aware of) and the super consciousmind. What the consciousmind is aware of is stored in the sub consciousmind, if the subconsciousmind recognizes a pattern it forms a belief. The belief creates our experience. The goal of Hypnosis is to still the consciousmind and find entrance into the subconsciousmind. Here we can re-program the subconsciousmind by entering suggestions.

I can see where people think meditation and hypnosis are the same or simular. The goal in meditation is also to still the consciousmind. In deep meditation we can even by pass the subconsciousmind and go straight to the superconsciousmind. This is done through open the person to immagination using visualizations. The deeper relaxed a person is the further he can go.

I don't use hypnosis, but use my knowledge of hypnosis to guide people into a deep relaxation. At that point I (as the guider) become completely silent.
I have found that many people can not hear "God" because of all the chatter going on in there mind. Once they learn to control the mind they are in control of their experiences. Not what happens to them, but how they deal with it.

Meditation is a tool, but not the only tool. The stilling of the mind can also occure by giving no attention to thoughts (they live off attention LOL) or counteracting them.

I myself have been in a meditation I could not come out of. The person guiding the meditation simply placed her hand in mine and guided me back out. I have had a few cases where people have had a hard time coming out of meditation. I tell peopel before I start the meditation that if anyone gets too emotional or falls alseep that I will place my hand on them. This way I don't scare them and they don't have to come out of meditation just because they fell asleep. I don't tell them that they might get stuck, it happens to rare and noone ever stays stuck for more than a few seconds. Telling them of this possibility only opens them up to fear, which could provoke the experience or counteract the goal of relaxing.

We hear often that some people are more suggestable than others, or that meditation takes practice. I have found that the more people are attached to the physical, to their individuality, their beliefs harder to relax. Fear of the unknown is a great blockage too.

[John Harris]

Originally Posted by vivamis123

I don't use hypnosis, but use my knowledge of hypnosis to guide people into a deep relaxation. At that point I (as the guider) become completely silent.

I heartily approve. To me, you just said that you help people meditate.

I've been frustrated that hypnotism seems so easy, yet it seems I need to meditate a lot in order to get any where near the same state. --But I shall continue to try.

How I view it is that the mind is made of of three parts: conscious mind (that which we are aware of) the subconsciousmind (that which we are not aware of) and the super consciousmind.

It is remarkable how we can both live in the topic and still be so different. I don't understand a "super consciousmind". I think of the subconscious mind as being the frontal lobe and the conscious mind as being the parietal lobe, but I have no mapping for the super consciousmind. Also, as you would imagine from my use of the word "temporal regression", frontal lobe = past = subconscious, and parietal lobe = present = conscious, but the future hasn't happened yet.

I have found that the more people are attached to the physical, to their individuality, their beliefs harder to relax.

Tenbones was telling me something somewhat similar (under the "REAL Christianity" thread); he said (approximately) that my preconceptions about enlightenment might block me from spiritual progress. You folks remind me of a passage from T.S. Eliot in Four Quartets:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting,
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
--T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets (A Harvest Book, Harcourt, Inc., San Diego, New York, London, 1971) p. 28.

I can't pretend to understand that last line. My thought is it's a reference to stuff he had been discussing earlier, but then I'd better "wait without thought"....