A central element of my research project is the "peak" experience. This is the intense reaction I get when I cross from the Negative Zone to the Happy Zone, or vice versa. You can see a video of it here. Most of the time I drove alone to the peak. My girlfriend at the time helped me create the video. She was behind the camera at the time I crossed the peak. She says that she didn't feel anything when I crossed the peak.
Last July, when vacationing in Utah, I brought two of my friends along with me to the peak. They are both experienced in energy/psychic phenomena. When I went through the peak, they experienced intense reactions, too. One friend could visualize the peak traversing the area we were in. One time, I walked the peak with my arms around each friend. They were shaking almost as much as I was.
I think that their reaction was secondary to my peak reaction, but nevertheless it was intense for them. I'm curious to know if anyone else experiences the peak, either alone or with others.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Crazy Ideas
I want to talk about crazy ideas. Most crazy ideas are not influential nor socially useful. A good example is the perpetual motion machine. No one has heard of the vast majority of crazy ideas, for good reason.
Some crazy ideas are influential, some are socially useful, and some are both. I want to talk about 2 crazy ideas that came into existence about the same time, at the beginning of the 20th century: Freud's psychoanalytic theory and Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Freud's theory was influential, but socially useless. He came up with the theory at a time when psychology was in its infancy. He could get away with creating an unverifiable and unfalsifiable theory that captivated and influenced many mental health professionals, including psychiatrists. After a century of practice, there's no evidence supporting his ideas. An enormous amount of time and money has been wasted on psychoanalytic therapy. Experimental psychology has advanced enough now that he wouldn't be able to get away with perpetuating such an unscientific theory today.
Einstein's theory was both influential and socially useful. It laid the groundwork for modern physics, which is behind much of the technological advances in the 20th century. Einstein couldn't get away with a speculative and unverifiable theory like Freud's. The reason for this is that physics had several centuries of development prior to Einstein, and was much further advanced than psychology.
My human magnetoreception hypothesis, in which I claim that my OCD and tics are connected to the Earth's magnetic field, is definitely high in craziness, probably higher than Freud's and Einstein's theories. Whether it will be influential or socially useful remains to be seen. It's not quite as crazy as the idea that my symptoms are caused by the Martians, but it's close. Since I'm writing this in 2009, and there's been over a century of research in psychology, I can't get away with what Freud did. So if no one is able to verify my theory, it won't become influential. In my paper, I list specific experiments that can be done to verify my theory. Even though my data is based on subjective experience, it is still empirical, and can be verified in a double-blind manner. Compare this to Freud's theory, which is pure speculation. Compare it to the Martian idea, which obviously cannot be verified.
The key problem with my hypothesis is that human magnetoreception isn't accepted by scientists. But we know that animal magnetoreception exists, and we know that humans are animals. So there's no reason a priori to reject human magnetoreception. I'm hoping that the necessary research will be done to verify or reject my hypothesis.
Some crazy ideas are influential, some are socially useful, and some are both. I want to talk about 2 crazy ideas that came into existence about the same time, at the beginning of the 20th century: Freud's psychoanalytic theory and Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Freud's theory was influential, but socially useless. He came up with the theory at a time when psychology was in its infancy. He could get away with creating an unverifiable and unfalsifiable theory that captivated and influenced many mental health professionals, including psychiatrists. After a century of practice, there's no evidence supporting his ideas. An enormous amount of time and money has been wasted on psychoanalytic therapy. Experimental psychology has advanced enough now that he wouldn't be able to get away with perpetuating such an unscientific theory today.
Einstein's theory was both influential and socially useful. It laid the groundwork for modern physics, which is behind much of the technological advances in the 20th century. Einstein couldn't get away with a speculative and unverifiable theory like Freud's. The reason for this is that physics had several centuries of development prior to Einstein, and was much further advanced than psychology.
My human magnetoreception hypothesis, in which I claim that my OCD and tics are connected to the Earth's magnetic field, is definitely high in craziness, probably higher than Freud's and Einstein's theories. Whether it will be influential or socially useful remains to be seen. It's not quite as crazy as the idea that my symptoms are caused by the Martians, but it's close. Since I'm writing this in 2009, and there's been over a century of research in psychology, I can't get away with what Freud did. So if no one is able to verify my theory, it won't become influential. In my paper, I list specific experiments that can be done to verify my theory. Even though my data is based on subjective experience, it is still empirical, and can be verified in a double-blind manner. Compare this to Freud's theory, which is pure speculation. Compare it to the Martian idea, which obviously cannot be verified.
The key problem with my hypothesis is that human magnetoreception isn't accepted by scientists. But we know that animal magnetoreception exists, and we know that humans are animals. So there's no reason a priori to reject human magnetoreception. I'm hoping that the necessary research will be done to verify or reject my hypothesis.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Why I went public now
Some people may wonder why I went public with a lot of my personal information, including a detailed description of my disorder. The video isn't exactly flattering. This wasn't my original intention. I wanted to find a scientist to work with me and verify if I really have magnetoreceptive ability. The problem is, I'm not aware of any scientist who is actually studying human magnetoreception. Robin Baker studied it in the 1970's and 1980's. Since then, he's moved on to other things. I was able to contact him via his agent, and although he declined to help me, he gave me some valuable advice. He said I need to find other people with similar magnetoreceptive ability. This is necessary for generalizability.
I tried some other scientists who I thought might be interested, but only got one to read my paper. He did not give me any feedback. I decided that it was useless to keep querying scientists about this.
My main marketing goal initially will be to reach out to selected clinical populations: bipolar, OCD/Tourette, and schizophrenia. The reason for this is that I think that these people have magnetoreceptive abilities like mine, but just don't know it. Unlike scientists, who have no incentive to research some half-crazy thing like human magnetoreception, these patients have enormous motivation to learn more about this. Like me, anyone suffering from these disorders wants to feel better. If there is a Happy Zone, as I'm convinced there is, who wouldn't want to find it? While not the Garden of Eden or Nirvana, the Happy Zone is certainly a desirable place to be in.
I think that if enough people claim to have similar abilities, and the techniques I describe in my website and research paper turn out to have beneficial psychological effects, a few scientists may become interested. It will take some time, and there's still the question of funding, but I think eventually research will get started.
I tried some other scientists who I thought might be interested, but only got one to read my paper. He did not give me any feedback. I decided that it was useless to keep querying scientists about this.
My main marketing goal initially will be to reach out to selected clinical populations: bipolar, OCD/Tourette, and schizophrenia. The reason for this is that I think that these people have magnetoreceptive abilities like mine, but just don't know it. Unlike scientists, who have no incentive to research some half-crazy thing like human magnetoreception, these patients have enormous motivation to learn more about this. Like me, anyone suffering from these disorders wants to feel better. If there is a Happy Zone, as I'm convinced there is, who wouldn't want to find it? While not the Garden of Eden or Nirvana, the Happy Zone is certainly a desirable place to be in.
I think that if enough people claim to have similar abilities, and the techniques I describe in my website and research paper turn out to have beneficial psychological effects, a few scientists may become interested. It will take some time, and there's still the question of funding, but I think eventually research will get started.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
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