Once while visiting my hypnotherapy mentor I heard a brief question posed to him in the hall-way outside his office. This as he departed, so I unfortunately didn’t hear the answer he provided though I’m almost certain I know what it would have contained in principle.

Outside the atmosphere sizzled at 100 degrees at the time, and had been for days on end with barely any breeze – the stifling air sat oppressively over everything. At least it was a dry heat.

The question related directly to this: “Hey Clark, could you hypnotize someone so they wouldn’t feel the heat?”

The answer from a functional perspective is of course Yes – this would be a fairly simple suggestion and task that the sub-conscious would be particularly receptive too. The continuation to this though is that it’s a suggestion which shouldn’t be entertained regardless of the relief it would bring.

Pain, discomfort, and negative psychological pressure together serve a very important purpose in the protection and preservation of both mind and body. Protection is in fact the primary motivation of the subconscious, coupled with its uncanny knack for automation of simple activity and behavior.

In this case the discomfort resulting from heat acts as a warning flag to care for the body by reducing exposure, hydrating, and relaxation. If this warning were to be overridden the threshold before damage and discomfort would normally become severe would be far more likely to be breached through a course of activity obliviously pursued. The discomfort should remain to draw attention where appropriate so course corrections can be made and the matter resolved instead of potentially exacerbated.

I’m sure his response was less technically oriented and very kindly worded into something else. After all, responding negatively to one request is not nearly as powerful a psychological communication tool as placing positive emphasis on a proposed alternate. I would have like to hear what his alternate was – this is an area I could still use much improvement.

I have much I would like to say regarding the positive nature of pain in providing attention and focus to its origins. Bad habits arise to do this, as well as to provide outlet for negative pressures or because the derived pleasure out-weighs the negative consequences (which then potentially continue to build until expressed through other seemingly unrelated avenues). However, I can’t seem to get the ideas straight in my mind in any pre-compositional organization. I’m taking this to mean that I haven’t yet internalized it in a sufficient way to articulate it to others. I have it solidified on the abstract spatial side, but haven’t broached into the logical hemisphere to complete the picture in a way to express it linguistically.

Something I’ll have to keep working on, since this is one of the primary areas I would like my hypnotherapy client education material to focus on.

As a child, I was granted by my peers the cruelest title they had available: Different. There were of course many appendages to this in the form of the classic Nerd, Geek, and so on. I must also admit a great deal of accuracy in these observations: received my first pair of glasses (thick black plastic rims) for myopia in Kindergarten, had a much greater than average interest in the exactness of all things and accuracy of statements, and diminished physical capacity. Orthodontia starting in grade 2 represented no small contribution (before the onset of which I was also the proud owner of an extra and malformed toot – perfectly conical fang, dead center). I would also rather read than play, and carried sophisticated (for the age) discourse with adults rather than my immediate peers.

This does not in any way presume maturity since the emotional development was not apace with the presumed intellect, nor could it be – the amygdala, the portion of the limbic system of the brain responsible for the formation and execution of both complex and intense emotional and social manifestations, does not achieve significant development until adolescence – also the reason teens are so volatile, generally. My behavior then was in part a shadow or a mimicry of those whom I desired to emulate – given that I was incapable of forming the truly deep connections from the activity (which is not to say that children cannot, as they do with their parents, but without the time and context required the bonds are incapable of forming as a matter of daily course). Despite this I called the behavior distinctly mine and began to accept the nature of the differences.

The simplest path to accomplish this acceptance was to assume I was smarter than everyone else. Add to this the general counsel as applied by parents consoling their bully-saturated child (something to the effect of non-retaliation meaning “you’re better than they are”) and the environment easily skews to reinforce the artificial superiority.

Pride can be damaged, or forced to be abandoned or swallowed. Ego can be bruised. But conceit – no, conceit transcends these self-inflicted inflations to become a shielding neurosis. Epithets are easily deflected by assessing their slinger as inferior, knowing that the naive moron is surely missing the point of it all and must be pitied. Or, that their incapacity is so great, they must simply be ignored as there is no hope for them.

None of this heals a bruise, mind you, or retrieves instrument cases from ditches or scattered papers from a hillside. Or un-bends orthodontic headgear – that was a fun one.

Owning these differences also created a very real chasm in association with others. Pride and boasting in nerdliness is simply the adoption of a form of identity like any other, but as one of the social outliers it denies familiarity – reduced though it may be in children. This hurt a great deal and led to aberrant actions. So great was my desire to connect with others that I would go to great lengths to impress the few who I considered my audience. In the same month I won the school-wide “Student of the Month” I had also unscrupulously acquired much of the combined display of crystals and geological artifacts the class had assembled as a companion to recent lessons (this at age 8).

This did not improve over time, no affection was won, and the social distances increased as did the violence visited upon me. The intellect was recognized and fostered and blossomed, but the awkwardness was simply dismissed as a typical attendant of my disposition.

Eventually I did pull out of it all and put myself on a track with which I was satisfied and left no great unsatisfied drives which could would to inappropriate action. I worked to bridle my ego and removed conceit by striving to understand my fellow man in all circumstances, assuming equal footing as a baseline in my relationship with all – both elevating the repressed and diminishing the haughty to a common level of assumed humanity. This outlook started to take hold in mid High School years, and has been cultivated since through my studies of psychology and my own self exploration.

I treasure where I am now and feel well served by my attitudes and the precepts which guide me. But for many partially wasted years I insisted on both maintaining and suffering the chasm of my early youth in autoimposed (not that I could see it that way) imprisonment. While I do feel pangs of resentment and regret (the deep bitterness tempered by time and the aforementioned understanding), one must always ponder when looking back – would I be the person I am today if not for these things? Could I have achieved the wisdom I may hold now without the challenges and trials, failures and successes, unique to these experiences? Probably not – I’m not that smart. What will I think in successive decades of similar review of where I am now?

Sorry to wax semi-nostalgic here. These are musings for now – action is still in ponderance; especially as I now watch the growth of my own children.

The worst of the project (which has prevented me from posting regularly for the last 2 months) is finally over. Only a few issues remain, and none of them as painful as any of those which were uncovered during an immature roll-out.

There is no fanfare, no great celebration – I have been able to extract from the execusphere that some form of reward is in the works, but nothing upon which they will disclose or even would like to hint at. This is more information than they wish the troops to have even, which is asinine. We’ve already lost one high-class engineer to all of this, and I am absolutely certain others are eyeing the door and moving that direction with varying amounts of haste.

My average clock-out time for the last 2 weeks of this was 2am, always starting the next day’s work by 9. Monday through Saturday (only had to be “on-call” Sundays).

Even though I’ve scaled back rather tremendously from those standards to a meager 55 hour week, I’m still exhausted. Near the end I fell ill, probably due to weakened immune system, and haven’t slept well since (still on-call, which is used). I’m making simple decisions slowly, can’t recall as much, and am probably going to make some large mistakes.

At least it’s a 3 day weekend, and “weekend” applies this time.

Enough whining for now.

The extension to all of this is that sleep makes a phenomenal difference – a fact I’ve already been aware of as the lucky recipient of the Sleep Disorder Lottery. Together with hydration this pair is probably the most crucial and frequently overlooked area in managing energy, health, fitness, and dietary effectiveness.

There are many things I’d like to think I’m good at – but after one or two nights like this they disappear. This is true of everyone, though I don’t know how many are really aware of it – how can one objectively assess one’s own condition when judgement is impaired?

I look forward to the dawn when I can awake rested. Everyone deserves a good night’s sleep.

“I don’t dream [very often].” Many have used this phrase, and most are wrong in doing so. The vast majority of people enter into the signature REM sleep which twists fantasies in front of the mind’s eye – however, the nuerophysiology of this sleep state deactivates the short-term memory, rendering the imagery unlikely to be remembered unless A) one wakes up in the middle or B) the subject matter has more to do with the long term memory storage, thus creating associative patterns with an anchor.

In my case, I have a non-specific (meaning the medical profession is currently unable to diagnose the cause for) sleep disorder, causing multiple waking episodes during the night – a couple dozen, in fact. Consciousness is not well formed in these instances, such that I do not remember them and did not know about them until they were on the readout in front of me (though I’ve long felt the resultant crippling fatigue). This disturbs my REM, fracturing it into brief spikes scattered across the night. Without contiguance, it’s exceptionally rare for me to catch anything from this alternate realm of imagination.

This is the reason why, when I do catch something, it becomes very meaningful for me as a sign of both normalcy and perhaps a poignant glimpse into my own nature.

One of the dream themes I’ve encountered is attempting to rank in a beautiful dojo of deadly arts. Imperial Chinese construction with Japanese themes, the dojo is a combination of interior and exterior settings – the most memorable of which is a stone courtyard with large vibrant-red pillars supporting a translucent sun-roof over the open walls. Surrounded with beautifully tended garden landscape the setting belies the intention – that I am there to die, or by preventing that demise aspire to new heights.

Coming to this place has meant the vanquishing of many an opponent in lower ranks and less extreme circumstances. It is now, in facing an advocate of the O-Sensei Sama (generically, meaning “The Master”, not the actual O-Sensei Sama of Howard O. Davis of Kishindo with which I am acquainted in waking-space), that I am to prove whether I have truly owned and embodied the wisdom and strength of the art or be destroyed – or at least broken and sent away from the grown-up table, to rebuild myself and try again. I do not believe I have ever faced the mythical master of the place – it doesn’t feel like it, at any rate, and that’s enough for me to call it fact in this pretense.

Still “a” Master though, and the combat is dreadfully fierce. The subconscious, which has been a more keen and uninhibited observer of physicality than myself, aids the conjuring of this ultra-real and yet impossible choreography. The feel of bone against bone, the minor yield of toned muscle under blows, and the intense production of adrenaline to move ever faster and more powerfully, are all beautifully and viscerally presented in the lucid experience.

The battle has never concluded. Or at least, the war has not – many battles have been waged. I have dreamed in this wise several times over the last half-dozen years that I can recall.

The meaning to me is easily apparent: I fear that I am potentially weak in both my convictions and my personal or professional skills, or that my best effort may be appraised as weakness by others. To overcome this insecurity I apply (a perhaps unhealthy) vigilance to excel so that even if I am still just winging it, I’m the best at doing so and can stand vindicated having conquered the challenge. The hidden master driving this event is most likely myself.

However, 2 nights ago: the end of the first day of my vacation after an unpleasant string of near all-nighters at work, the context of the dream changed. It was not in the beautiful dojo, but more mundane but unrecognizable circumstance. The setting’s conflict was no longer an honorable battle to prove personal self worth, but a literal and direct challenge of my worthiness as an individual – a question of, “Do you deserve to be here?” The Master presenting the challenge was not the typical distant figure veiled in mystery, but a real individual with whom I now work directly – an adversary, but not a master of any principles to which I subscribe. I did not attack (which has always been at least a nice back-and-forth in the typical scenario). I was instead being presented challenges to overcome.

In one, I was told to slay a ferocious beast – cat-like, probably a panther of sorts but light in color. I was given directly as a resource a half-skeletonized carcass (which also appeared catlike, and was blue). Which was, for some reason, still alive though a portion of the pelvic structure was exposed and looked sun-bleached. This was delivered to me in an open-topped cardboard box, covered in an lacy (large, open holes in the design) small white throw-blanket. My first order was to dispatch the miserable creature to put it out of its misery – I drew my sword (Japanese katana, single edged and slightly curved blade), and holding it point-outstretched with the blade up found a good insertion point between the ribs and lightly slid the blade into the body to destroy lungs and heart. Gruesome, but merciful in the dream. Probably in real life, too.

The target beast came and attacked the carcass after I stood back. I probed for an attack, still holding the blade in an up-turned thrust position, but could not feel comfortable with any of the vectors I could manage, so turned to a downward cut. Almost a chop, really – I wouldn’t get close enough for a traditional draw-cut (the maneuver which leverages the curve and from which the legendary cutting power of the katana emanates), so only the very outer length of the blade was used. The animal was also low to the surface (this was, I believe, taking place on a bed at this point for some odd reason) so I didn’t have much follow-through. This led to an only slightly injured and subsequently frightened and very angry large animal with many pointy bits.

I should mention here that throughout this I am completely un-armored.

I had not withdrawn from my initial cut, and so leaned deeply on the sword and began to saw. The cat was crouched onto its left shoulder, ears flattenend and mouth wide in fighting flight. It could not bring its right forepaw around for batting attack before the cut began to find purchase and blood flowed freely out as the wound widened and neck began to separate. During this last portion I either transposed feeling with the animal (which really did contain no sentience) or became aware of its physical sensations in an extra sensory fashion, because I felt that vibrant unfettered life drain darkly away into a cold black fog of unfeeling – and then gone.

I turned away from the scene and proceeded about the area. There are a few other informational encounters as I do so, though I do not now remember what they revealed. I simply remember talking with others, and occasionally wondering what the next battle with the actual adversary was going to be like, remembering the honorable encounters from dreams (reality, here) past. I met with my wife, and was speaking with her when her eyes reacted to something behind me and she began to make a sound (which I for some reason associate with an “O” or “oo” sound, even though it was not quite uttered). At this same time my surreal senses became aware of this Adversary descending on me (through the air) with his similar sword drawn and held vertically in front of his body in a descending slice. This would cleave me cleanly in half if not countered.

I drew my sword from my back over the right shoulder and spun to hold it also vertically in front of me, though higher – the base of the blade at collarbone height – and slightly angled back toward me in a defensive posture. While doing this I spun to face him, all in the smallest fraction of an instant.

In the physical world, I had been sleeping turned mostly faced down, and during the dream here awoke spinning counter-clockwise onto my back whilst bringing my hands down in front in the same high-on-guard defensive position. This was just before the moment of impact between the blades.

I lay there facing the ceiling with my heart pounding from the sudden endocrine surge, thinking equal parts about the dream which had led to the reaction, how cool the reaction itself was (for a somewhat pasty and currently very out-of-shape Software Development Director to still have some ninja-esque reflexes), and noting that I had never been awoken in such fashion. I’ve had a few little foot-jerks or something here and there to stop me from stumbling – basically other purely reflexive actions – but nothing out of a combat setting. I was a little geeked out thinking about the underlying neuroscience and psychology, and feeling pretty cool about my bad/wicked (derivative of jazz “bad” = “cool”) performance.

The new meaning is also apparent. Though my adversary inhabits a position I respect, I do not maintain trust for him directly and see the requested challenges as a compromise of my personally important virtues despite being able to fulfill them.

This is something I’ve noticed about dreams: they’ll tell me what I feel, but not what to do about it. This offers good feminine-style commiseration and validation, but none of the masculine-style immediate “plan of action.” I feel a confirmation of previously vague and unexpressed emotion, but I have no idea what to do about it.

It’s something I’ll have to ponder on the remainder of my vacation.