VisionAndPsychosis.Net©
In Wetumpka, AL.
The Wayback Machine will show this site is an investigation of Subliminal Distraction begun in 2002.
If you wish to help in this project, send the Home page URL to your email list and encourage everyone to do the same.
Preventing Subliminal Distraction episodes, mistaken for mental illness, is simple and free.
Copyright 2003 Edit May 9, 2017
Copyright Contact page Demonstration of subliminal sight
If you reached this page from a search engine enter the site here,
or see other cases on the Disappearance and College Suicides pages
Sections of this page are expanded copies of single page letter texts.
My Experience With Subliminal Distraction_Panic Attacks
Where to Search Peka-Eric Auvinen computer picture Joe Morse-Georgia Tech
Bizarre Impossible Beliefs Background Explanation Landmark Education LGATS mental breaks
Suicide Clusters and Children's Exposure Incident Wi-Fi Illness Ontario, Canada
Scientific Expedition Mental Breaks Culture Bound Syndromes
Startle Matching Behaviors Subliminal Distraction In The News Today
Bottom Line _ What you should understand from this page.
Text on this page has been used in letters to the Ontario Minister of Health, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech,
and the U.S. Department of Labor.
It is a simple presentation of the unrealized history of Subliminal Distraction mental breaks.
There are slight variations in wording since the letters were condensed to a single typed page for each issue.
This site is about a little known problem believed to be a harmless nuisance in the design of crowded offices.
The cubicle was designed to deal with the vision startle reflex to solve the problem by 1968.
The basic facts of physiology involved are explained in first semester psychology classes.
Other than a this single historical reference in psychology class
the discovery is unknown by anyone in mental health services.
"Subliminal Sight caused a problem in the early days of modern office design."
If you begin to have symptoms you believe are related to mental illness your first recourse should be to a full medical checkup. There are medical problems that will cause symptoms that resemble the behaviors of mental illness. Some of these medical problems are potentially fatal if not treated. Micro strokes, reduced blood flow to the brain from plaques in blood vessels, or COPD reducing oxygen content of blood are examples.
While you are having that medical check up your search for Subliminal Distraction exposure will not interfere with any medical investigation or mental heath treatment.
One of the most difficult to understand and believe facets of Subliminal Distraction exposure is that because of the way your brain deals with the vision startle reflex and detected threat-movement in peripheral vision subliminally, exposure cannot be consciously experienced.
If you did not sit in the psychology lecture on peripheral vision reflexes and subliminal sight this whole thing sounds impossible.
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Investigation Methodology
Read this section carefully.
It is the key to understanding Subliminal Distraction.
QiGong,
and Kundalini Yoga group exercises model mental illness, and are engines
for Subliminal Distraction exposure.
It has been
My first investigation was for activities that have
mental breaks associated with them. That activity was examined for
a source of Subliminal Distraction exposure to explain the mental
events.
Both QiGong and
Kundalini yoga have multi thousand year histories of causing mental
problems. There have been previous unsuccessful investigations to find
our why these exercises do this.
Investigations
always end with nonsense psychosocial psychobabble explanations. None of
the investigators have known that Subliminal Distraction exposure
exists.
These almost identical activities are two sources from different countries with different belief systems
to show that Subliminal Distraction causes mental breaks.
That should be convincing to anyone. The moving meditating participants replicate the 1960’s defective office workstations.
This is hard to see and understand on first examination.
_
The model for this is that sudden intense short-term exposure causes an apparently harmless temporary episode that remits with no treatment. Just stop the exercise and that stops exposure. Low-level long-term exposure causes permanent altered mental states. Typical victims believe they have superhuman strength or supernatural powers Yogins believe they can levitate and overcome gravity through the will of their mind. QiGong experts think they can dematerialize at will, walk through solid objects unharmed, or read your mind, control your actions through mental telepathy. It’s psychotic but not recognized as such. These people function normally in their daily lives except for these bizarre beliefs.
Why
would waving your arms and legs around in unison with others in a small
group summon powerful supernatural forces?
Pilates
class does not usually involve eyes open meditation.
That means it alone is not likely to cause
mental problems. But exposure is possible. Therefore Pilates exercise classes are a low potential source of exposure.
That missing element, deep mental investment, meditation, is the reason Subliminal Distraction usually does not happen.
But exposure is cumulative so that if usually harmless mild exposure happens within the time frame of exposure in other locations, it can add up to a problematic total exposure. Cumulative Exposure
In QiGong and Kundalini Yoga exercises acolytes
ignorantly seek enlightenment called opening the third eye in QiGong and
the Awakening of Kundalini in Yoga. There is no magic about these
exercises so that any similar group activity such as Pilates or Karate
class will also cause Subliminal Distraction exposure if your eyes
remain open and you daydream or think of other things while you perform
them. Daydreaming would substitute for the full mental investment used
in QiGong and Kundalini Yoga. As you concentrate on your own performance you will dissociate
conscious knowledge of the movement of others near you. Then their
movement will be detected in subliminal sight. That’s Subliminal
Distraction exposure. Again, low exposure levels are normal for everyone and
harmless.
Instead of the beliefs of supernatural powers you
may begin to believe someone is plotting against you. This is capable of
causing constant arguments with friends or family members. Another
problem when someone has this exposure is they have an answer for their
symptoms they
believe and no argument or proof will suffice to dissuade them.
Professionals consulted blame their favorite explanation for first psychotic episodes. This exposure can be shown to cause trouble sleeping, memory loss, racing hearts, nausea, which can be viewed as stress. Any of these outcomes can be seized upon by professionals as the source of the mental event.
These pictures were used by Canadian newspapers to illustrate the "Wi-Fi illness" incident. Additional pictures
On the classroom floor there are examples of normal reflexes and subliminal distraction happening. The two girls cooperating cannot have SD exposure. You can't subliminally detect movement that is in your conscious sight. Over their heads one boy raises his hand and another, red shirt, shows a normal reflex. The boy, yellow shirt on the right, and the girl in the pink shirt on the left, do not react to that movement. Her long hair might block peripheral vision. That can't be seen from behind.
By examining the situation for Landmark Education mental breaks (below), it is apparent that only a very few students are effected when classroom exposure reaches the 30 hour level within three consecutive days, ten hours each day for three days.
If you suggest this solution for behaviors that appear to be mental illness to "experts' such as psychologists and psychiatrists there will be endless arguments debating it. The answer is to tell students the problem exists, explain it, then allow them to exercise judgment to avoid Subliminal Distraction.
Searching your daily activities for locations where you engage full mental investment while there is detectable movement around you does not require treatment of any kind. It will not interfere with any treatment you now have.
Make small changes so that Subliminal Distraction is no longer possible in that location or with that activity. This usually involves moving or turning a desk. In worst case scenarios you can use a pair of safety glasses with wide temple arms blacked out to block peripheral vision.
This cannot be done outside because you must have notice of objects approaching in peripheral vision.
I have personal experience with ADD and Panic Attacks.
Although I did not understand them at the time my panic attacks stopped
when I bought an early model notebook sized computer. It allowed me to
move to a reclining chair in the corner of the room to reduce back pain
from fusion surgery. Weeks later I noticed the panic attacks were gone
but thought nothing of it. The old desktop computer was located at the
end of a room divider so the entire family walked by me, my wife and two
children, while I used it thus creating Subliminal Distraction exposure. The
new location provided Cubicle Level Protection. It happened so long ago
that I was well into this project before I remembered I once had panic
attacks and realized what stopped them.
When my wife had this mental break she believed that
the University of Alabama had tapped her phone. My brother works in that
campus department but I could not convince her Vernon would have called
me if someone tapped her phone. When anyone with these delusions is
confronted with absolute irrefutable proof they just incorporate it into
the delusion. It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s psychotic.
In McDonough Ga. Connie would
take her plate from the table then stand in the hallway to eat. She said
someone was aiming a gun at her through the windows across the room from
the dining table.
Any
number of outcomes are possible involving paranoia and fear acting to
shape the understanding of contemporaneous events and situations.
One frequent accusation from a spouse is infidelity. Sometimes the
accusation is ‘out of the blue’ but every day activities can be
misinterpreted too.
Couples start out with loving relationships but
months or years later they are at each other’s throats without an
explanation of the change. Why does it happen? Accidental Subliminal
Distraction from living together with out knowledge to prevent it is the
explanation.
The mental problem disappears
once exposure is discovered and stopped. I find cases that have remitted
within a few days but another episode I found had not resolved after
eight months. Eventually
the manic or psychotic-like elements in an episode will fade with no
treatment. But the installed beliefs may be permanent. Barney and Betty
Hill believed they had been abducted by aliens for the remainder of
their lives.
Google Kundalni or QiGong
problems.
…You will find many sites that mention
these mental breaks.
They
all blame supernatural forces for the mental events, Chee or Prana. Some
claim a spontaneous Kundalini awakening is the cause of behaviors
believed to be mental illness. Qigong psychotic reaction is included in
the DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness of the
American Psychiatric Association, the Bible of Mental Illness, but not
the Awakening of Kundalini. No one else has solved the cause of these
mental problems.
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Bizarre behavior and
impossible beliefs
Dim Mak -
Death
Touch
YouTube
search George Dillman and watch the National Geographic Channel video
clip from the program, “Is It Real,” Dillman is a successful business
man who teaches Karate including Dim Mak, or death touch. This is
fascinating. He has convinced students he has the power to throw Chee
energy from his finger tips to knock down opponents without touching
them. It’s psychotic but he doesn’t have mental illness.
What causes the brain disturbance and
change that allows someone to believe they have the power to alter
Newtonian physics, gravity, and normal reality through the will of their
mind? For thirty years he has instructed students while others moved
around them in peripheral vision in his Karate Dojo. That’s Subliminal
Distraction exposure. There is no evidence he ever had the full mental
break it can cause. Rather, low-level long-term exposure gradually
changed his brain to reach this point. This is modeled by QiGong and
Kundalini Yoga group exercises. Long term users begin to believe they
have superhuman strength and supernatural powers.
Is he faking? No one can
open the box, look inside, and determine that. But the mental events of
QiGong, Kundalini Yoga, and Landmark Education happen without dispute.
The bizarre beliefs and claims occur where Subliminal Distraction
appears. That argues there is enough mental disturbance and altered
mental state to explain the beliefs.
The leader of the Falun Gong movement in
China, Li Hongzhi,
lives in New York and has used QiGong since he was six. In a Time Asia
interview he said the major problem facing us today is that
extraterrestrial aliens are cloning humans to take over the world. He
has claimed to be God.
(Google this.)
These bizarre beliefs have been known and observed
for thousands of years. But no one has understood why it happens until
now.
Yogic Flying
“Apparently
the ability to fly has been largely lost in the modern age. “
Yogic
Flying Is a Hindu meditation technique. It is also featured on the
National Geographic Channel program, “Is It Real.” Google “Yogic Flying”
or "Is It Real" to find the YouTube video. Same question: What
happens to someone’s mind so that they believe they can will away
gravity and Newtonian physics with meditation? They must keep their eyes
open during early meditations so they do not “fly” off the cushions and
break a leg. Eyes-open meditation meets the requirement for mental
investment while group flying provides repeating detectable movement in
peripheral vision for Subliminal Distraction. It is not necessary for
the alteration of your mind to happen during this exercise. Subliminal
Distraction could have happened previously to alter your ability to
critically think and reason. But there is video showing “flying in a
circle.”
That requires open eyes. Transcendental
Meditation proposes if one percent of the population were to practice
Yogic Flying it would bring world peace. The beginning basic course
costs $1,500.00.
Flying will be achieved
in three stages, Stage one is the cross leg hopping while meditating. In
stage two the performer will hover without support. Finally in stage
three reaching the highest state of awareness and bliss true flying will
be possible.
If
you tried to write this in a story or movie no one would believe you. It
would have to be proposed as Science Fiction.
Karate and other group
exercises
Any
activity that has eyes-open mental investment while there is repeating
detectable movement in peripheral vision has the possibility for
Subliminal Distraction exposure and the mental alteration it can cause. ___
Since massive short term,
or chronic long term
exposure is needed for the sudden mental break it is unlikely to happen
in most exercise situations. ___ Karate students, for
instance, won’t have that level of exposure. But exposure can happen
anywhere. Since the moving object is never identified, exposure is
cumulative. Think of a perfect storm of different exposure locations
adding up to a problem.
Karate
or Pilates would add its small contribution to that total for someone
with a defective computer workstation where they played video games to
cause massive exposure.
An instructor at the Dojo all day might
have a severe level of exposure. In practice very few do. Most don’t
have that number of students. Where the instructor stands and their
habits for individual instruction would also influence exposure. Do they
take students off to one side for individual attention or stand in the
middle of a moving class? The instructor might only have episodes of
panic, fear, or depression but never realize the cause.
Landmark Education Mental Breaks
The Wayback machine has been blocked for the site.
This legal, and warning information is no longer on the Landmark site.
“6. From time to time, during or shortly after participating in the Program, a very small number of people who have no personal or family history of mental illness or drug abuse have reported experiencing brief, temporary episodes of emotional upset ranging from heightened activity, irregular or diminished sleep, to mild psychotic-like behavior. An even smaller number of people have reported more serious symptoms ranging from mild psychotic behavior to psychosis occasionally requiring medical care and hospitalization.
In less than 1/1000 of 1% of participants, there have been reports of unexplained suicide or other destructive behavior.
While we know of no independent studies to suggest that people who are
physically, emotionally and mentally healthy are at risk in the Program,
certain persons have claimed that the Program has caused or triggered in
them a psychosis or psychotic event.”
Suicide from taking a seminar? ... I didn’t find one to begin with but there was a murder.
Jason Weed took the seminar, had a psychotic break, walked out of his apartment, and killed a mail carrier.
When evaluated two
psychiatrists discounted the seminar as the cause and substituted their
own fictional explanation of what happened.
This is the usual pattern when experts encounter
something they don’t understand. They throw it out and use their own
psychosocial explanation.
“Surely,
this could be Bipolar Disorder, unmasked by the stress and possible
sleep deprivation of Weed’s “participation in an exhaustive
self-awareness program the week prior to the shooting. . . .
Alternatively, it seems at least plausible that “Weed’s previous steroid
use,” was not all that “previous” (389 F.3d at 1064).”
The Journal of the American
Academy of Psychiatry and the Law,
full text
available on line.
Sleep deprivation is not a part of Landmark’s presentation. But trouble sleeping is one symptom from the seminar. Psychiatrists don’t know what causes "Bipolar Disorder." They explain “disorder behaviors” with psychosocial psychobabble.
Dr. Pope, Harvard, government expert, with no evidence blamed this
murder on a ‘complex partial seizure’ deep in the
brain. Harvard had unsuccessful research attempting to prove psychotic
episodes are caused by ‘complex partial seizures’ in the brain.
When
seminar participants are crowded together for up to ten hours they
create the “special circumstances” for Subliminal Distraction by
engaging a level of dissociation for the movement or others around them.
Each person will have a different experience
depending on their level of engagement with the speaker and suspension
of disbelief, as well as the amount of detectable movement in their
peripheral vision.
Just daydreaming while sitting in the audience
would allow exposure.
These
pictures are frame grabs from a documentary posted on YouTube by
Landmark. They show what happens in the seminar.
I have written Landmark years ago telling them what
their problem is.
But
changing the presentation method, turning off the lights over the
audience, would stop all the positive results they argue are caused by
their message.
This is the same method cults use, long hours of
lectures in small rooms with many people crowded together.
Subliminal Distraction acts as
Subliminal Accidental Operant Conditioning. The message is reinforced by
the stimulation of the subconscious mind when the brain attempts but
fails to trigger a vision startle reflex. If that exposure reaches a
personal threshold a mental break will happen. It may be true that the
few who have mental breaks have jobs or activities for addition exposure
at home or work.
There have been
psychology investigations attempting to find out why the Landmark mental
breaks happen.
The only conclusion was that the mental
problems happened with the more aggressive lecturers. It is still a
“mystery” no one else has solved.
Ontario elementary school students don’t have enough exposure to cause the full mental break. They might have enough additional exposure if they create the “special circumstances” at home. The problem was discovered and solved by 1968, before computers existed. But the current computer use in classrooms without "peripheral vision blocking protection" aka Cubicle Level Protection is the problem causing symptoms for these Canadian elementary school students.
I mailed an explanation of the problem to Canadian school authorities and eventually received an email response. It was a form letter. It assumed my letter was the same as parents objecting to Wi-Fi EMR as the cause of the student experience. That says they had not read my letter.
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There are ongoing incidents worldwide with evidence of Subliminal Distraction causation.
There have been fourteen suicides at Foxconn city factories in China since January 2010. Twenty six suicides happened at France Telecom in the last two years. LaPoste, the post office in France, has experienced suicides a well as Renault automotive. Pictures exist for Foxconn and France Telecom. Foxconn
Fourteen elementary schools in Ontario Canada have bizarre symptoms from students using laptop computers in classrooms. Scroll down for those pictures.
Now, in 2014 the suicides are still happening. I reached the Foxconn psychology investigator but could not effectively communicate with him.
In the cases, pictures, and video available on-line show the "Special Circumstances" for Subliminal Distraction.
The Canadian experience shows the wide range of symptoms possible when there are very low but significant persistent levels of exposure.
In LeRoy New Yorrk high school students began to have Tourette like seizures.
In South America students have seizure like episodes locally blamed on demon possession.
Why some are effected but
not others in similar situations?
Fourteen
schools in Ontario Canada are experiencing bizarre problems parents have
blamed on WiFi EMR.
Racing hearts, headaches, dizziness, memory loss, psychosomatic medical
symptoms, trouble sleeping, and strange skin sensations are reported.
These pictures show it’s Subliminal Distraction because there is no
Cubicle Level Protection.
Remember full mental investment plus detectable repeating movement in
peripheral vision must happen at the same time to cause exposure.
Nothing happens if one element is missing.
Anything
that blocks far peripheral vision will prevent exposure.
Small or slow movements are not detected.
Arm or full body movements would be detected; but fingers on a keyboard probably would not.
In
this picture you can see that hair combed forward blocks peripheral
vision. But the out of focus student in the back ground has no such
protection. That is one reason some have exposure and others do not.
If you view classrooms they are a sea of movement. But only some of that movement would be detectable by any one student.
That’s why exposure is rare and difficult to create.
Differences in hair, seating position, and even sight differences in eyesight will block exposure.
Here the student on the left
has her head turned so that her peripheral vision does not include
movement of the teacher or neighbor student. The student on the right
has hair combed forward to block peripheral vision.
There should be a privacy shield/panel to block peripheral vision for students using computers in classrooms.
You can see another computer on the right picture edge. Students are probably sitting around a central table.
Discovered and solved forty years ago
Subliminal Distraction is considered a harmless nuisance in designing crowded office workspace.
Those working in Systems
Furniture have not realized it is a problem of human physiology not just
office workspace.
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Culture Bound Syndromes
There is a long history of mysterious mental events around the world.
Each ethnic or cultural group experiences them in terms of local beliefs.
Volumes have been written to explain them as caused by psychosocial pressures and the frailty of the human psyche.
But the startle matching behaviors argue there is a common cause that
crosses cultural or ethnic boundaries.
Mental breaks have happened at many levels for centuries where the too-small single-room living arrangements allow Subliminal Distraction exposure.
This Native American
lodge woodcut does not look much like a modern business office but
too-small single-room living arrangements can push occupants close
together to allow Subliminal Distraction exposure. When anyone engages
full mental investment to make or repair clothing, create ceremonial
objects, tools, weapons, or just daydream they meet the first element
for exposure and replicate the 1960’s business office problem where
mental breaks happened.
Startle Matching Behaviors
Upon startle the subject will perform any command given them.
or copy any action demonstrated to them, echopraxia, even if it is harmful or
will injure others.
They cannot stop themselves.
Hyper-startle is present and victims sometimes repeat their last words,
or the last words spoken to them; echolalia, usually only seen in catatonic
schizophrenia.
Startle Matching Behaviors including Latah, and Jumping Frenchmen of Maine happen around the world.
But have different local names.
Initially believed to be
a form of Tourette’s and a neurological problem an investigation by Dr.
MH Saint-Hilaire concluded it could be explained by operant conditioning
and “special circumstances” in the bunkhouses in Mooselake. Unaware of
Subliminal Distraction they could not find the source of operant
conditioning. Jumping
Frenchmen of Maine is still a debated unsolved mystery. Understanding it
changes our understanding of mental illness showing Subliminal
Distraction can cause complex behaviors.
This incident and behavior is the hint that Subliminal Distraction can
be perceived as Accidental
Subliminal Operant Conditioning creating the “disorders” of the DSM
(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness) such as Obsessive
Compulsive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder. This has not been examined
because no one in mental health services is aware the phenomenon exists.
When these mental events
happen, just like in business offices, it is always one person using one
exposure location. That means you don’t need the business office or the
ethnic housing. Just create the “special circumstances” for exposure
almost anywhere. Incorrect computer use in a location with detectable
movement in peripheral vision is the most likely cause, but any activity
that engages full mental investment will do if there is detectable
movement nearby in peripheral vision.
The behavior was first
noticed in French Canadian Lumberjacks near Mooselake Maine, 1880. Like
mental illness it seems to run in families.
Jumping Frenchmen of Maine
became a world wide investigation. It also appears as Latah in Malaysia,
as Bah-tchi in Thailand, Myiachit In Siberia, and Lapp Panic in
Greenland. In Malaysia entire villages live in a single longhouse
copying the Mooselake Maine situation. In other countries too-small
single-room ethnic housing, tents, yurts, hogans, fishing shacks, or
even temporary shelters all provide opportunities for exposure if all
the other elements of exposure are present
amp
shows typical activities.
Bunkhouse living crowded lumberjacks close together and short days/cold
weather kept them inside more than a normal living situation. Barracks
or multi-man tents do the same thing for the military since Valley
Forge. The picture on the left is Buffalo Soldiers in the west in the
1870’s. That
living arrangement has been used by military around the world for
centuries.
This picture is a digital sample from the National Archive showing Buffalo Soldiers in the 1870's.
Schools do not provide
Peripheral Vision Blocking Protection, 'Cubicle Level Protection' everywhere it is needed nor do they warn
students about Subliminal Distraction. College dorm rooms often put two or more people
in close proximity for several hours each day. If one of them uses a
computer or studies where the other person can move in their peripheral
vision Subliminal Distraction exposure is possible. Each semester there
is a new list of strange student disappearances and bizarre suicides.
Privacy claims block investigation of these events but some information
leaks out in news reports.
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Sudden violence is one outcome of exposure.
Peka-Eric Auvinen computer picture.
_
This picture was published by the Finnish National Police. A message was sent to the investigating authority, and acknowledged.
When Peka-Eric Auvinen situated his bedroom computer beside a closet door mirror he could subliminally detect his own movement as a reflection when he surfed the Internet.
He planned,
purchased a gun, and killed eight then committed suicide in Jokela
Finland.
For primitive efficiency your brain does not
evaluate the source of movement it just instantly reacts to it.
A blinking light on the computer, swept through
peripheral vision with a head turn, can be mistaken for threat-movement.
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Tommy Stein positioned his
video game playing computer beside a lighted aquarium so that he
subliminally detected the movement of the single large fish in it. (Ben
Stein replied to an email with the information about the aquarium
contents.) His bizarre behavior was believed to be an outcome of playing
the Sony video game Everquest. Ben sent him away to school and he
recovered once the unrealized source of Subliminal Distraction was eliminated.
Subliminal Distraction
happens when you create the “special circumstances” for exposure.
It can be defined as the psychiatric outcome of your brain
attempting but failing to trigger the vision startle reflex many times
in a compact time frame. This
phenomenon is unknown in medicine or psychiatry.
It is briefly mentioned in psychophysics lectures in first
semester psychology.
In my class the instructor said.
“Subliminal sight caused a problem in the early days of modern office
design.” Psychology treats it as something that happened once a
long time ago rather than a feature of human psychology that can happen
today.
In seven years searching I cannot find any paper or research about it.
No one has investigated to determine the possible outcomes of this
experience.
Subliminal Distraction has been known to cause mental
breaks for office workers since the1960’s. The cubicle was designed to
deal with it after1968. It has always been a part of human physiology.
Thus it caused the same mental breaks even in primitive societies.
There is a long list of mental events we call
Culture Bound Syndromes.
Each ethnic group names and defines the experience within their cultural
understanding. These events include sudden violence such as Amok in
Malaysia, iich’aa among the Navajo, and Going Postal here in the United
States.
What is an episode like? Read the suicide note of Mark
Barton, the Atlanta Day Trader killer or watch the video of Stevie Ray
Vaughn on the Hollywood page
at VisionAndPsychosis.Net.
Positioning a computer where others can walk by is the
most likely cause. But remember, this phenomenon was discovered before
computers existed. It is the
‘full investment’ mental state not the activity that allows exposure.
Daydreaming is enough mental investment if there is a source of
detectable movement in peripheral vision.
Video games require full mental
investment so that they are a likely source of exposure.
Only movement and position are communicated
subliminally in the brain to trigger a startle. For that reason exposure
is undetectable. That makes this unbelievable to those who have not
taken the psychology course that covers this material.
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Mental breaks have happened on scientific expeditions.
M
The
entire crew of the Belgica began to go insane when the ship was trapped
in Antarctic ice during the Belgian Polar Expedition of 1898.
One became a deaf mute and another hid in
small spaces to sleep
believing the others were plotting to kill
him. Dr Cook, ship’s doctor, was the only person not effected. He blamed
isolation and constant darkness but when the symptoms got worse with the
return of the sun he blamed constant sunlight.
The
facts that Cook, the only person to maintain their normal activities,
was uneffected, they all recovered when they worked outside the ship,
there were psychosomatic and paranoid symptoms, and symptoms got worse
with increased sunlight, point to Subliminal Distraction exposure.
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Psychiatric problems have happened on NASA projects.
Letters to NASA are ignored.
One Forum group denied the events happen.
In this picture each astronaut is performing work requiring full mental investment.
Small movements would not be detected as threat triggering the startle reflex .
But as they float in weightless space, they drift into and out of each other's peripheral vision.
Only large quick movements in peripheral vision while concentrating will cause Subliminal Distraction.
Flight
engineer Vitali Zholobov had a full psychotic break on Soyuz-21 forcing
the mission to end at 49 days rather than the planned 66 days.
The
Russian Space Agency listed a dozen possible explanations. But they all,
toxic gases for instance, would have caused both cosmonauts the same
symptoms.
In addition this had never happened to
other crews that used the same equipment, chemicals,
and
similar space capsule. When fist fights began to happen in arguments
over Chess games, Russia banned Chess in space. There had been other
psychiatric problems but not the full mental break.
There was an ax murder at
a Russian Antarctic station.
Both the Russian mock up of the planned Mars mission and NASA operations have experienced psychological problems. Letters to both NASA and the Mars Mission project are unanswered. Pictures on-line of the Mars Mission test craft for the experimental isolation project show no precautions for peripheral vision blocking protection.
NASA makes no provision
on missions for Cubicle Level Protection. Although they are rocket
scientists they have been unable to solve this problem. Repeated letters
to NASA and emails to the Russian Mars project are unanswered.
In
his book “Return to Earth” Buzz Aldrin said his problems began after
the stay in the isolation unit in Houston.
Occasionally something happens that rises to a
bizarre level. Captain
Nowak’s cross country trip by car to confront Coleen Shipman certainly
qualifies for that designation. Still these events have not alerted NASA
to the problem.
What would
happen if this behavior occurred during a space mission?
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There have
been two engineering student disappearance suicides at Georgia Tech.
Joe Morse
disappeared leaving all his possessions in the dorm the last day of
school in the spring of 2003. He had withdrawn his last $120, flown to
Miami, broken into a construction site, climbed a crane, and jumped. He
died the day after he disappeared but was an unidentified suicide for
four years.
Persistence by the Georgia Tech
police department finally located him. …
Joe Morse’s roommate from 2003, Tyler
Tipton, supplied diagrams of their dorm room computer locations.
(Georgia Tech has been consulted and has promised an investigation.)
Everyone has this exposure
every day. It is usually harmless.
Trouble begins when someone has massive
exposure in a compact time frame. Although some schools use study
cubicles no school provides Cubicle Level Protection everywhere it is
needed. Students are not warned about computer and study locations. …
Visit the
Joe Morse page, Wayback Machine for larger pictures.
In this overhead view the open door provides additional Subliminal Distraction exposure when other dorm members walk by it. Their hall way light was brighter than the room light so there was a sudden decrease in light when the open doorway was blocked by someone walking by.
The under bed computer and chair on the right prevents that being detected by Tipton. Only Joe’s back is visible in Tipton’s peripheral vision. There should be no movement evident that would trigger an attempt for a vision startle reflex for Tipton.
There was not enough room for Tipton to put his chair
between the two beds like Morse did.
Joe’s desk has the CPU incorrectly positioned on top. Tipton remembered it had a bright blinking hard drive busy light. Blinking lights on the CPU can be mistaken for threat movement when the user turns their head sweeping the blinking light through peripheral vision.
At the primitive level in the brain where threat-movement triggers a startle, below thought, reason, and consciousness, a blinking light from a point source cannot be distinguished from reflected light from a moving object. That deep in the brain it’s all just electro-chemical exchanges across synapses. No thought or evaluation is used. This is a warn first evaluate second system
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In this last diagram Typton's computer is positioned so that the dorm room wall is on his right. There would be nothing to supply threat-movement on that side.
On Typton's left his only view of Morse was from behind. Morse would have blocked any view of moving arms and hands.
That provided Cubicle Level Protection for Typton. Note that his CPU tower is below the work surface so there would not have been a blinking light visible.
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Dan Compton, drove away from a party near his graduation.
He vanished. Found over a week later he had parked the car in a rural
area and put a hose from the exhaust to the passenger compartment. There
had been no warning of depression and he had planned to go to graduate
school at Tech. I was unable to get information on Compton’s dorm room.
Tech has dorm rooms with more than two people.
There have been three Canadian engineering students go missing like
this, two from the same school. One was found in Texas. The other two
have not appeared in Google Alerts I maintain for them.
If you set a Google Alert for "missing student" or "student disappearance" you will get stories from around the world. Although this can happen to any student many are engineering and computer science majors. They have heavier academic loads, and use computers more than your average student.
They have more opportunities to make the mental break causing design mistake.
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Letters to Authorities
I began a project of writing colleges last year. There were four or five letters each week. Very few replied. The one's that did reply were polite but not interested in investigating the problem.
First you must get by gatekeepers who answer mail for University officials. They lack the mental capacity to understand the problem.
If you get to someone in authority they will realize that if they prove Subliminal Distraction is a cause of student deaths the school becomes liable for all the previous cases.
Since this phenomenon is not recognized in mental health they feel that they don't have to treat it seriously. It's just an interesting theory to them.
A few have actually said they wanted to wait until there was investigation by an accredited authority. That will never happen.
So what would it cost to make a few phone calls and then warn students about it so they could exercise judgment to avoid exposure?
Although a normal feature of our physiology the problem is so bizarre as to be unbelievable. Academians have spent life times writing about mental illness and just cannot bring themselves to consider something that would make them all look like fools. The problem has been in plain sight for forty years.
Unlike the newly designed close-spaced workstations that were under observation when the problem was discovered, each effected student creates a unique place to have this exposure.
Both the President and Dean of Students at Virginia Tech promised investigations. But nothing has happened.
Cho, the Virginia Tech mass shooter, created the "special circumstances" for exposure. Two roommates gave TV interviews where they remarked that he was so distant that he would not even look up when they walked by him, using his computer, in the suite common room. They unwittingly were giving a description of Subliminal Distraction exposure. One said he increased that activity in the month before the shooting.
When a student vanishes and is recovered in an altered mental state,
parents, fearing a label of mentally ill take the student home and all
communication stops. This makes the problem difficult to investigate.
If a student dies by suicide parents are so distraught they don't want to communicate with anyone.
I have sent over a thousand emails including to reporters who appear with news articles about missing students and strange suicides. In all of my eight years investigating there has been no more than one or two stories about vanishing college students as a wide range problem. Those appeared in student newspapers years ago. Each student gets coverage for a short time when they disappear but they drop off the news cycle quickly.
There is no interest group for an explanation of why students vanish.
News reporters couldn't be bothered.
There have been news segments on TV programs about the theory that a gang of 'Smiley Face graffiti' serial killers are pushing male college students into rivers and ponds to kill them but, there is no interest in actually solving the problem of missing students and suicides of students.
Complicating this situation is the fact that designers and engineers think it is a harmless problem and they feel justified with their decision to refuse to discuss it. No one wants to become the go-to person for information that might lead to a suit against an employer or customer. That would be a career ending decision.
As linked above I posted questions on sites for information. I was accused of being an attorney trying to get information for a lawsuit. In addition I posted requests for someone familiar with the problem to write an article for this site. There have been no takers in about seven years. My site analysis software still records hits that come from that post. So I know it is still being read when some one finds it with a Google or site search. Here
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What should you take from this site and information?
A simple problem known to cause mental events for more than fifty years is unknown, and uninvestigated as a cause of the mental distress we understand as mental illness.
It is so simple it can be created almost anywhere.
Because of the way your brain subliminally detects movement to attempt a vision startle reflex, exposure is undetectable.
That's why engineers and designers created the cubicle so that every one in a crowded office situation would have "peripheral vision blocking protection," Cubicle Level Protection without argument or discussion.
Cubicles have done that job so well almost no one is aware the problem exists.
Tell every one you know that has a computer at home or children in school.
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How does exposure happen in places other than business offices?
Remember, the subject must engage deep mental investment to the point
that they are no longer aware of events going on around them. Knowledge
workers and students do this all day. That’s why Cubicle Level
Protection is necessary. In this picture it is reading a book. But
substitute any number of other activities such as daydreaming, using a
computer, or playing video games.
It hasn’t occurred to the geniuses that work with this phenomenon that
today this same level of concentration happens in homes, dorm rooms, and
small business offices.
When you engage full mental investment a subliminally functioning brain
system will break that concentration with a startle if threat-movement
is detected near you.
How close must the movement be? In offices it is in a traffic aisle
beside the worker but if the movement is large enough it can be further
away. Adequate lighting is needed and that is the limiting factor.
Since far peripheral vision detects only movement and position any
movement will do. It does not have to be human or alive. One of the
bizarre but normal features of the physiology of sight is that
stationary objects in far peripheral vision are invisible.
In a safe location you can learn to ignore movement around you so you
can continue to work or function normally. The startle will stop. But no
one has voluntary control over the primitive subliminally functioning
brain system that detects the movement and begins or attempts the
startle. This effort cannot be detected by the victim.
Every time movement is detected a startle will be attempted. But if you
consciously ignore movement around you the startle is blocked. Then
subconscious attempts to make you startle will eventually color thought
and reason creating fear, paranoia, panic attacks, depression, and
thoughts of suicide. This cannot happen with a single exposure incident.
Massive exposure is necessary.
My on-line psychology demonstration of subliminal sight and habituation
in peripheral vision shows how exposure begins. Perform it to witness
something disappear while you observe it in peripheral vision.
If you had the ability to evaluate movement before a startle the system
would fail to warn you. The primitive system backfires when we sit, lost
in thought, while others move around us. We evolved as hunter gathers
and there was no stressor that would cause us to change or eliminate
this brain system.
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Where can you
search to verify this problem exists?
Remember, anyone aware of this phenomenon believes it is a harmless nuisance in the design of crowded offices. They will be unaware of my project and potential serious outcomes. If someone begins babbling at their desk designers recognize and understand the problem. But if someone comes back from lunch and shoots everyone in a small business office then commits suicide, they don’t make the connection or investigate. That happened in Waco, Texas. The reason for that shooting/suicide was never found.
1) Phone a designer working in Systems Furniture and have that person explain Cubicle Level Protection. Designers do not recognize that exposure can happen in places other than business offices.
When
I phoned Church and Stagg in Birmingham, a Steelcase dealer, the
designer could not tell me what the name of the problem is. They emailed
Steelcase and got the reply that no one there knew either. There is a
list of office furniture manufacturers on my
Modern Cubicle page on the
Wayback Machine. You should be able to find a local
dealer in a large city. Think about that. They use the information every
day but claimed not to know its name.
A design student from Australia emailed me for permission to use my site in her “thesis.” She supplied the correct name said the phenomenon is not in books but is communicated in lectures. Her words, “Design students in Australia are expected to just ‘pick it up’ from lectures.”
That
will give you an idea of how little is thought of the problem.
When I posted questions on architecture sites I was accused of being an attorney trying to get information to file a lawsuit. There is a link to that forum post on the Homepage of my site. That entry also verifies, by the date on the forum post, how long I have been working on this project. Forum Post (Copy of original post. Link to the original post from that page.)
2) Call an instructor of
first semester psychology and have that person explain Subliminal
Distraction.
If the problem is mentioned in lectures about the physiology of sight, subliminal sight, and peripheral vision reflexes it is treated as something that happened only once a long time ago. In my class the instructor said, “Subliminal sight caused a problem in the early days of modern office design.” It has always been present in any human population. The early close-spaced office designs were the first location under observation when it happened.
Again, any teacher you call will not be aware of my project. They can only tell you what visual, not acoustic, Subliminal Distraction is. The phenomenon that causes mental breaks takes the same name because this feature of human physiology is what allows exposure to happen subliminally without alerting the victim.
3) My project
is original work in psychology and cannot be found anywhere else.
It may be several years before I publish. You don’t need that finished project to learn about this phenomenon and how to avoid it.
The site is an Internet scratch pad for my own use. No attempt has been made to create a professional site presentation.
It is set up with individual pages on each research subject so that Google searches about events such as the Barney and Betty Hill alien abduction story would turn up## just that single page. Hill Abduction
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Background
My guess about why a Subliminal Distraction mental break happens
is the only part of this section that is theory.
The remainder is the history of how the problem was discovered and how I
encountered it in 1966.
This information does not require an
advanced degree in psychology.
In the late 1950's and early 60's a group of
designers, engineers, and human factor scientists were hired to
modernize the business office by researching then creating new modern
workstations their employers could sell.
The first design examples were introduced in 1964.
Some of the workers using those first prototypes began to have mental
breaks. My information from engineering school in about 1966 was that
someone noticed that the mental breaks were not scattered around the
office but happened only at certain desks. That meant it was something
the designers had done not problems with the few effected worker's
brains.
The subliminal detection of movement and your brain's
subliminal reaction to it are a Subliminal Distraction. This is explained in
first semester psychology. It happens because there is no way to turn off sensor
cells in your eyes and ears. If stimulus reaches them they send neural impulses
to your brain over their normal channels no matter what you are doing. When you
use full mental investment to concentrate you still subliminally experience
sound and movement around you. Acoustic SD cannot cause a mental break.
To this day designers see only episodes from light
Subliminal Distraction exposure in offices and believe it can only cause a
harmless temporary episode of confusion that remits with no treatment or after
effects. ___ When it happened to my wife she heard voices, hallucinated, and had
crying episodes from delusional beliefs she psychotically hallucinated. Although
I had known of the phenomenon most of my life I had never seen it happen before.
Every human who ever lived with normal sight has
subliminal sight and peripheral vision reflexes. Your brain has a primitive
system that will subliminally detect movement near you and break your
concentration with a startle and vision reflex to turn and look at the movement.
In a safe location you can learn to consciously ignore movement around you
forcing concentration so the startle and reflex will stop. But that does not
turn off the primitive function to subliminally detect movement. That continues
to happen. No one has voluntary control over this system and the reaction your
brain has to the detected movement. Once you consciously ignore movement around
you very time movement is subliminally detected a startle is attempted but
fails. As exposure continues with time the repeating subliminal appreciation of
threat from that failed attempt will color thought and reason creating fear,
paranoia, panic attacks, anxiety, depression, and even thoughts of suicide.
Why does a
mental break happen?
I
don't know.
There
is no research about it because no one in mental health services is
aware the engineering/design problem exists. The explanation in my
psychology class, 1990's Shelton State Junior College, Tuscaloosa, was
that suppressing the startle caused a conflict that increased with
continued exposure until a mental break happened.
The
course was taught for the Druid City Hospital nursing school.
Course material was from the Psychology Department at the
University of Alabama, taught by Sherry L. Kirksey,
now Ph.D. UA.
My guess
is that since the neural impulses from
subliminal sight serve a limited purpose of triggering the startle
reflex, and because the startle happens so fast, your brain does not
normally become aware of those neural impulses from subliminal sight.
When you create the situation so that the startle is attempted a massive
number of times in a compact time frame your brain does find these
impulses and tries to integrate them into your consciousness experience.
That cannot be done because subliminal sight has only half the normal
information for conscious sight, movement and position, but not color
and shape. As the integration attempt happens new synapses and pathways
are created. When there are enough of these alternate paths your brain
can no longer function. You have a period of coma. If exposure stops the
false paths and synapse dissolve from disuse. There is a full remission
and recovery.
But if exposure is low-level and long-term, so that the sudden mental break does not happen, the alternate paths are slowly reinforced, strengthened. You lose the ability to think and reason critically, see things that are not there, and hear voices.
Again a guess,
this process
may break down a
barrier and allow dreaming while you are awake to explain hallucinations
and hearing voices.
