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Copyright 2003 edited April 13, 2010

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Subliminal Distraction

Never heard of it?

I have been asked to write out a simple explanation of what happens to allow SD exposure on the Hoax forum site.

The problem with that is so few people have the basic first semester psychology information about the startle reflex.

So we must start with basic human physiology, the physiology of sight and hearing.

Subliminal Distraction is a normal feature in everyone's physiology of sight and hearing. Both acoustic and visual SD arise from the same basic facts. There is no way to turn off the sensor cells in your eyes and ears. That means you can't stop hearing or seeing anything. You can ignore something by attaching a zero level of attention to it.

If stimulus in the form of electromagnetic radiation or vibrations through the air or other media reach your eyes and ears neural impulses go to your brain over their normal channels no matter what you are doing. You do not have voluntary control over this.

Remember, you still hear during portions of sleep.

That means when you concentrate to work so that you are completely immersed in your activity you will still subliminally see and hear every thing happing around you. The key word here is happening. Stationary objects in far peripheral vision are invisible. You can only "subliminally see" movement there. Input, visual or acoustic, must rise over the threshold of detectability.

Sensory adaptability of hearing from the chemical depletion of the cells  will reduce the level of acoustic impulses. This can't happen for sight because micro movements of your eyes refresh the cells. Neural impulses for sight are always at full strength.

Neural impulses from far peripheral vision are carried on the M-Channel for vision and only movement and position are involved. Color and shape information use the P-Channel. When you turn and look, your conscious sight does include color and shape, P-Channel, so you can identify the object that moved. (This is important for cumulative exposure, explained below.)

Repeat: Your concentration must be to a level of full mental investment for this subliminal perception to happen. That full investment could be said to engage the brain system for the startle reflex. It is the level of investment not the activity that determines this.

Today we think of using a computer or working in a business office to engage full mental investment but for primitives making or repairing clothing, knapping flint blades, making arrows, or weaving baskets would all qualify.

You engage this level when you read a book, perform math calculations, plan, daydream, use a computer, play video games, or watch TV (if you watch to a level of suspension of disbelief).

Acoustic SD does not create a problem for us except that it is studied as a fatiguing factor where knowledge work is  done.

Visual Subliminal Distraction, however, has caused problems.

The Startle Reflex

Every one who ever lived has subliminal sight and peripheral vision reflexes. Perform my psychology demonstration of subliminal sight and habituation in peripheral vision. You will witness something disappear while you observe it in peripheral vision. The Demonstration is written for a sixth grade level.

A small slice of our vision field functions subliminally to detect threat-movement and warn us by breaking our concentration with a startle and vision reflex to turn and look at the movement.

If you are an astute observer you know you startle first then become aware of the movement as you turn to see it. That is your evidence that the detection of that movement happened subliminally. The evaluation of movement to cause the startle happens at a level below thought, reason, or consciousness.

This would make it difficult to work in a busy location and maintain concentration except that we can learn ignore movement that is not dangerous to  us. We do this almost automatically, without thinking about it.

When you do that the startle will stop.

This is safe for very short periods of time.

The problem with this arises because ignoring movement does not turn off the subliminal brain system that detects it and attempts to initiate the startle. You can't turn it off. If you create the "special circumstances" so that repeating movement causes you brain to attempt the startle many times in a compact time frame the subliminal appreciation of threat will eventually color thought and reason.

When a threshold of exposure is reached a mental break happens. These mental events have happened for centuries, Culture Bound Syndromes.

In the field of Design this phenomenon is believed to cause only  a harmless temporary episode of confusion and takes the name of the normal feature of physiology. It was discovered in the 1960's and solved by 1968.

The Cubicle was designed to prevent Subliminal Distraction exposure in offices and does that by blocking peripheral vision for a concentrating worker.

So what is the bottom line? What has to happen for you to have this mental break?

1)  Competent peripheral vision is necessary.

Did you know there has never been a case of a blind alien abductee? Those who are blind from birth don't have panic attacks or Schizophrenia either. I found one source that said there were only two such cases in all the literature. Those could have been misdiagnosed. There are cases among those with loss of central vision or the legally blind. There are cases where some one was Schizophrenic and went blind but not the other way around.

2)  Deep mental investment to the point of light dissociation for events around you is the second step.

This is the absolutely critical mental state necessary for exposure. You must concentrate deeply.

3)  Time or repeating blocked attempts to startle is the last item.

On the HOME page are four examples of the time and levels of exposure necessary. These vary from person to person.

4)  Exposure is undetectable by the victim.

Like a computer program running in the background the brain system is subliminal. This is the hard to believe element of this problem. But it is a normal feature of our physiology.

5) Exposure is cumulative.

Once you consciously ignore movement around you the connection to identify the source of movement is broken Your brain never again gains the information about what is moving. All the attempts to make you startle are then the same. It all adds together to reach the threshold for the mental event.

Why does the mental break happen? What does your brain do or change to effect the mental event?

I don't know. There is no information or research because those in mental health services are unaware such a problem does or even could exist.

Best Guess

The subliminal peripheral vision input to trigger a startle serves that single purpose. It happens so fast the brain does not find it or understand it is vision input. When the startle is attempted unsuccessfully over and over the brain finally does find it and then functioning normally, attempts to integrate subliminal vision into consciousness and reality. That can't be done.

Examine what your brain does to record thought and effect memory. It must grow new synapses, or modify old ones, or change the physical connections, or modify the chemical neurotransmitters between neurons. As the unsuccessful attempts are made new paths are created until the brain has so many it can no longer function. A period of coma is one of the frequent outcomes of this exposure,

If the onset is sudden and the exposure stops with the mental event those new paths dissolve from disuse and brain function returns to normal. This is a spontaneous remission. Your brain repairs itself just as it does for stroke victims.

But if the exposure is low and long term the new paths are created then reinforced slowly and remain creating an altered mental state we call mental illness.

This is what we see in Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga psychotic episodes. That is the example I used once I examined how these exercises are performed. Intense short term exposure causes a temporary episode. But long term users have  psychotic-like beliefs that they possess super human or super natural powers. If they are performed with eyes-open meditation as acolytes are instructed, both  Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga are engines for Subliminal Distraction exposure.

Do you really believe waving your arms and legs around with others in unison generates the ability to summon powerful supernatural forces? How do people reach a mental state so that they believe it does?

It could be said to be Subliminal Accidental Operant Conditioning.

The mistake being made by psychiatry.

The DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness of the American Psychiatric Association only examines behaviors that seriously effect lives. It discounts anything that remits quickly with no after effects. This precludes the possibility that mental illness is a continuum of exposure beginning with simple apparently harmless episodes.

Although this phenomenon has been known and prevented in Design for forty years I am unable to find anyone in mental health services aware it exists.

Anything that is proposed as a cause of mental illness must be something that has always been present in human populations. It must function regardless of culture or level of societal advancement. Subliminal Distraction fits that description.

We evolved as hunter gathers and there was no pressure to change a simple defensive feature of our physiology. We did not develop protection for sitting long hours thinking while others walked around us.

This explanation posits that mental illness is not treatable but is preventable.

The altered mental state from low level long term exposure can be layered on any number of diseases, physical brain conditions, or birth defects. As long as you can effect a vision startle reflex you can be a victim.