TRANSFORMING DRAGONS NEWSLETTER

Dear Subscribers,

This is our seventh monthly publication of the Transforming Dragons newsletter. Thank you for your encouragement and support. Your email responses are greatly appreciated. It helps to publicize this work when you forward the newsletter you receive to others.

I encourage subscribers to send me personal email messages. I will take the time to respond individually and privately to your personal concerns, comments, or questions.

What to Expect After Listening
by Gerald Vind, PhD

There is an anonymous story that circulated on the Internet about ten years ago. I am told that this version is similar to an earlier original version by Portia Nelson. In either form, the story is worth reviving because it illustrates the growth process that Transforming Dragons is designed to facilitate. The story is titled: My Biography in Five Chapters.

New TD Module 5 is now complete
by Gerald Vind, PhD

We have completed Module 5, and it is now available as an MP3 download from our new Digital Download Store.

The Module 5 audio file contains a story designed to produce an alternative re-imprinting of the bonding and love between mother and father. Listeners are guided to participate in a positive parental prenatal experience that stimulates the production of a neuropeptide called, oxytocin. This audio experience is designed to stimulate new neural response patterns for several neurochemicals, especially oxytocin.

The neuropeptide oxytocin acts throughout the human body-mind. In women, it is released during the birthing process, and during breast feeding. Oxytocin is also released during orgasm in both sexes, and also during plesant surprises. Oxytocin is an important neurochemical in social recognition and bonding, and it is involved in the formation of trust between people. Oxytocin is seen as an important neuropeptide for the experience of happiness and a feeling of belonging. Module 5 is designed to stimulate and expand your development of a greater response and sensitivity for happiness and love.

Rapport
by Gerald H. Vind

Rapport is one of the most important features of human interaction, yet it is often unnoticed because it is established largely through unconscious interaction. Rapport is defined as a feeling of harmonious or sympathetic relations with, or connection between people.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) stresses the importance of rapport, and teaches techniques of 'mirroring' or matching body language, posture, breathing, predicates and voice tonality. NLP practitioners have been criticized for mirroring with a “pantomime effect” of mere mimicry that fails to establish authentic rapport. Mirroring or matching of client’s body language should strive to come out of the practitioner’s subconscious empathy.

PNRI training also stresses the importance of rapport, and strives to have practitioners achieve an empathetic sensitivity with their client. Empathy allows us to feel the emotions of others, to identify and understand their feelings and motives and see things from their perspective. How we generate empathy remains a subject of debate in cognitive science. However, neuroscientists have discovered the mechanism for “mind reading” that is found in what are called “mirror neurons,” described below.

Empathy is commonly defined as a heightened sensitivity to perceive, recognize, and directly feel the emotions of another person. Empathy is often characterized as an emotional resonance, with the ability to experience the outlook and emotions of another being.

We have a long-term and short-term memory. Our long-term memory can be likened to a computer hard drive, while our short-term memory can be likened to a very small-capacity RAM. Because of this limited capacity, our short-term memory can hold only about seven items (plus-or-minus two)at a time.

Accordingly, our conscious awareness or attention can process on the order of seven items simultaneously. To use the metaphor of a darkened cave, we have our narrow beam of attention lighting our perceptual field. While some beams may be broader and brighter than others, we are all limited in what we can hold in our consciousness awareness at any given moment.

To continue our darkened cave metaphor, we have a subconscious awareness that is able to perceive and process a great deal more information; that is, we also pick up all of the perceptual input that never makes it into the “beam” of our conscious awareness. This latter capacity may be likened to holding up a lantern in our darkened cave, allowing us perceive and record sensory input, but not necessarily be congruent with it. That is, our gut reaction may not agree with our conscious awareness.

So in human interaction we have our conscious awareness, and our subconscious sensory perceptions. However, let us turn that concept around and say that we have broad sensory awareness that floods our nervous system, and out of that “flood” we filter and abstract the average of seven items that make it into our “beam” of conscious awareness. All sensory input is processed by the whole body-mind, and we use but a small portion of that input in our conscious thought.

We talk glibly about the human subconscious without real agreement about what is conscious and what is subconscious. The term “subconscious” rose into popular use from the early works of Sigmund Freud in his efforts to describe the unconscious mind; but it has been avoided by academics because of its ambiguity. In seeking a fuller understanding of the “subconscious” and “unconscious” we would do well to discard both terms and instead think in terms of full-consciousness being our full capacity for sensation, subliminal perception, and full perception.

Accordingly, what is often called human consciousness is the limited capacity that we have to hold our attention on approximately seven items that fill our sensory-perceptual channels.

We have a vast amount of primary perceptual information that constantly floods our brain while we are awake. This information is recorded in the mind as a stream of episodic-memory inputs that are not presented to our conscious awareness unless we direct our attention to them.

Returning to the issue of rapport, we can see that when we are seeking to establish rapport that there is a level of primary perception that becomes excluded by limiting the experience to the narrow focus of conscious awareness. If we can become bigger than our mind’s eye, that is, bigger than our “beam” of conscious awareness we will develop our capacity for a deeper empathetic rapport.

This is not a big stretch to achieve because we do this all the time when we sense the intentions of others around us. Neuroscience has identified neural paths and parts of the brain that are involved in the coding of the intentions of others. This coding of intention involves what are called “mirror neurons.” Brain imaging studies show that the intention behind the actions of others is recognized by the brain’s motor system using a mirror mechanism.

Mirror neurons recognize the actions of others below the threshold of conscious awareness. This is done in a process of matching the observed action onto its motor counterpart coded by the same neurons. Thus, there is an unconscious and automatic coding for intention associated with the actions of others.

This coding is based on the activation of neuronal circuits formed with mirror neurons. Mirror neurons code observed motor acts, and the context and pattern of events that follow. Thus, mirror neurons develop patterns for interpreting and predicting the intention of others.

Thus, in establishing rapport with someone, our studied actions to mirror their physical aspects (posture, breathing, etc.) can subconsciously communicate to them that we are in harmony with them. However, this harmonious relationship is not a given.

“Mirroring” as a rapport facilitating technique may be masking our core inner state that is inconsistent, and is emotionally colored by the dragons deep in the innermost part of our brain. Thus, the dragons imprinted during our prenatal development form fundamental barriers to establishing authentic rapport in later life.

Dallas clinical psychologist Ross Stewart, Ph.D. is one of the first to apply PNRI techniques with his clients. He has identified rapport as a major human problem, and he says that humanity is suffering from a disease pandemic called: Rapport Deprivation Sickness (RDS).

Rapport deprivation produces social and psychological distance from others, and leads to alienation and isolation. Far too few of us are psychologically and emotionally open and honest with others; as is sometimes said, we are not comfortable with psychological nudity. We relate with each other from behind masks and manipulate others for personal advantage. Moral lessons teach us to learn to use things and to love our fellow humans; reality teaches us to love things, and to use people. The latter tends to preclude authentic rapport.

The consequences of the RDS pandemic are a wildly dysfunctional culture. An effective treatment for the foundational causes of RDS can be found in Transforming Dragons.

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Outside The Matrix – B6
by Gerald H. Vind

This is the fourth in a series of articles about the "Matrix" in which we live. The concept of a "Matrix" was introduced by the 1999 Sci-Fi motion picture titled THE MATRIX, written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski. (Although, Sophia Stewart claims to be the "mother" of THE MATRIX, and is suing the Wachowskies.) Nonetheless, the idea of being enslaved by a manipulated reality field has gained a broader acceptance.

Subliminal Influences
By Gerald H. Vind, PhD

Are subliminal techniques employed in advertising and propaganda, and are we are influenced by these techniques? A subliminal message is embedded within a conscious perception that passes below the normal limits of perception. These messages are ignored by the conscious awareness of the mind (because of its limited span of awareness), yet they register in our whole body-mind.

A device called a tachistoscope can project an image for a very brief period that is below the threshold of conscious awareness, and yet registers subliminially in the whole body-mind. It is possible to embed a subliminal messages in any projected visual image, for example words and subliminal images to encourage purchase of snack-bar items during the intermission of a motion picture.

Half a century ago a market researcher named James Vicary claimed that quickly flashing messages on a movie screen influenced people to purchase more food and drinks. Vicary coined the term subliminal advertising and formed the Subliminal Projection Company.

Vicary's claims were promoted in Vance Packard’s book titled: The Hidden Persuaders. Packard’s book led a public uproar, and subsequent ban of subliminal advertising.

However, in 1958 Vicary conducted a television test in Canada and found no increase in subliminally programmed telephone calls. Four years later, Vicary admitted that he fabricated his original claim, and his story was a fraudulent marketing ploy. Some have suggested that Vicary’s scandal provided a misdirection away from a developing field of highly classified mind-control research that was later exposed.

Congressional testimony subsequently exposed Project Artichoke as a CIA mind control program that studied hypnosis and various chemicals and techniques to produce amnesia and vulnerable states for control of human subjects. Artichoke arose from the CIA Project Bluebird on August 29, 1951, and in April 20, 1953 it became Project MKULTRA with their infamous LSD experiments.

Artichoke was an offensive program of mind control. The scope of the project was outlined in a memo dated January 1952 that indicated their objective:

"Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self preservation?"

Two separate stories by victims of the MKULTRA mind control programming have been published by: Cathy O'Brien and Sue Ford (a.k.a., Brice Taylor). These are two well-publicized stories of victims of the CIA's mind control program, which by their account, is designed to create human robots to serve functions ranging from prostitutes to couriers to killers.

Such mind control techniques go well beyond subliminal programming by using very sophisticated techniques to fracture the human mind into self-contained compartments that are called: “alters.” The mind is filled with amnesic barriers that prevent the primary personality (“front alter”) from being aware of the back alters. By an implanted program a handler can cause a back alter to replace a front alter and then direct prearranged programming.

Subliminal techniques, as with any human communication, should be evaluated in terms of the intention of the source. Unfortunately, with high secrecy (as is common in the three-letter Agencies) there is greater opportunity for abuse.

Yet, in the field of personal growth and development, subliminal audio programs have been used widely with extensive reports of benefits and success. Two prominent examples are:

• http://www.monroeinstitute.com - Half a century ago Robert Monroe experienced spontaneous out-of-body experiences. Subsequently, he established The Monroe Institute as a nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to the exploration of human consciousness. Monroe is the pioneer in working with binaural audio sound patterns that affect one’s consciousness states. Monroe’s audio-guidance technology is known as Hemi-Sync®, and it is able to stimulate an expanded awareness and out-of-body experiences.
• http://www.centerpointe.com - Centerpointe’s Holosync audio technology combines binaural and subliminal technology. Centerpointe says their soundtracks are specially engineered to create various states of consciousness, including changes in important brain chemicals related to aging and longevity, including DHEA, cortisol, and melatonin.

Subliminal encoding is used in many other self-improvement or self-help audio programs. However, it will never be used in Transforming Dragons. Subliminal programming is below our threshold of awareness, and we want you develop your awareness, and not subvert it. We want you to become more aware, and using subliminal programming can weaken our ability to resist manipulation.

We want you to develop and expand your personal inner awareness to discover where the “strings” and “hooks” can be attached to you. Transforming Dragons and PNRI are effective methods for expanding our awareness, and avoiding circumstances that diminish our aliveness.

Financial Support

We encourage your support of Transforming Dragons. Contributions can be made directly to Applied Neurobiology, LLC. Tax-deductible donations can be made to our supporting research organization setup in the Applied Neurosciences Institute (ANI). The ANI is part of the Congressional District Programs, a 501(c)(3), 509(a)(1) public charity, and thus shares its federal tax status (Tax Identification Number 65-0970090) with our ANI program.

Contributions or donations should be mailed to:

Transforming Dragons Network
10455 N. Central Expressway
Suite 109-155
Dallas, Texas 75231

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Transforming Dragons Newsletter Archives
by You!

For those who are recent subscribers to this Transforming Dragons newsletter we call your attention to our archives, and invite you to read some of our previous issues.

Issue 6   Transforming Dragons Newsletter – July 2007

• New TD Module 5 is near completion
• Transformation
• The Dragons of Violence
• The Wonder Years
• Recommended Reading: The Second Brain

• New TD Module is under development
• Stressful Pregnancies Create Dragons
• Thoughts, Intentions, and Emotions Influence Prenatal Development
• Recommended Reading: Biology of Belief

• What to Expect After Listening
• The Science Within TDPTP: Meta Programming
• Changing Our Reality
• Recommended Reading: Molecules of Emotion
• Recommended Link: www.birthpsychology.com

• The Science Within TDPTP – Severe Stress
• PNRI and Self Esteem
• Outside The Matrix - Media
• Recommended Reading – The Secret Life of the Unborn Child

• The Developing Phenomena
• The Science Within TDPTP – Neural Circuits
• Outside The Matrix – Health Care
• TD and Seasonal Effective Disorder

• Connecting With Mary
• The Science Within TDPTP - Norepinepherine
• Nurturing and Expressing Creativity
• Outside The Matrix -Education