It is mind control but not as we know it

The Headlines

The Independent: First ever human brain-to-brain interface successfully tested

BBC News: Are we close to making human ‘mind control’ a reality?

Visual News: Mind Control is Now a Reality: UW Researcher Controls Friend Via an Internet Connection

The story

Using the internet, one researcher remotely controls the finger of another, using it to play a simple video game.

What they actually did

University of Washington researcher Rajesh Rao watches a very simple video game, which involved firing a cannon at incoming rockets (and avoiding firing at incoming supply planes). Electrical signals from his scalp were recorded using a technology called EEG and processed by a computer. The resulting signal was sent over the internet, and across campus, to a lab where another researcher, Andrea Stocco, watches the same video game with his finger over the “fire” button.

Unlike Rao, Stocco wears a magnetic coil over his head. This is designed to invoke electrical activity, not record it. When Rao imagines pressing the fire button, the coil activates the area of Stocco’s brain that makes his finger twitch, thus firing the cannon and completing a startling demonstration of “brain to brain” mind control over the internet.

You can read more details in the University of Washington press release or on the “brain2brain” website where this work is published.

How plausible is this?

EEG recording is a very well established technology, and takes advantage of the fact that the cells of our brain operate by passing around electrochemical signals which can be read from the surface of the scalp with simple electrodes. Unfortunately, the intricate details of brain activity tend to get muffled by the scalp, and the fact that you are recording at one specific point in space, so the technology’s strength is more in telling us that brain activity has changed, rather than in saying how or exactly where brain activity has changed.

The magnetic coil which made the receiver’s finger twitch is also well established, and known in the business as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). An alternating magnetic field is used to alter brain activity underneath the coil. I’ve written about it here before.

The effect is relatively crude. You can’t make someone play the violin, for example, but activating the motor cortex in the right region can generate a finger twitch. So, in summary, the story is very plausible. The researchers are well respected in this area and open about the limitations of their research. Although the experiment wasn’t published in a peer-reviewed journal, we have every reason to believe what we’re being told here.

Tom’s take

This is a wonderful piece of “proof of concept” research, which is completely plausible given existing technology, but yet hints at the possibilities which might soon become available.

The real magic is in the signal processing done. The dizzying complexities of brain activity are compressed into an EEG signal which is still highly complex, and pretty opaque as to what it means – hardly mind reading.

The research team then managed to find a reliable change in the EEG signal which reflected when Rao was thinking about pressing the fire button. The signal – just a simple “go”, as far as I can tell – was then sent over the internet. This “go” signal then triggered the TMS, which is either on or off.

In information terms, this is close to as simple as it gets. Even producing a signal which said what to fire at, as well as when to fire, would be a step change in complexity and wasn’t attempted by the group. TMS is a pretty crude device. Even if the signal the device received was more complex, it wouldn’t be able to make you perform complex, fluid movements, such as those required to track a moving object, tie your shoelaces or pluck a guitar. But this is a real example of brain to brain communication.

As the field develops the thing to watch is not whether this kind of communication can be done (we would have predicted it could be), but exactly how much information is contained in the communication.

A similar moral holds for reports that researchers can read thoughts from brain scans. This is true, but misleading. Many people imagine that such thought-reading gives researchers a read out in full technicolour mentalese, something like “I would like peas for dinner”. The reality is that such experiments allow the researchers to take a guess at what you are thinking based on them having already specified a very limited set of things which you can think about (for example peas or chips, and no other options).

Real progress on this front will come as we identify with more and more precision the brain areas that underlie complex behaviours. Armed with this knowledge, brain interface researchers will be able to use simple signals to generate complex responses by targeting specific circuits.

Read more

The original research report: Direct Brain-to-Brain Communication in Humans: A Pilot Study

Previously at The Conversation, another column on TMS: Does brain stimulation make you better at maths?

Thinking about brain interfaces is helped by a bit of information theory. To read a bit more about that field I recommend James Gleik’s book The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
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Control Your Anger With These 5 Steps to Effective Anger Management

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30sec Tip: Don’t Give Others the Power to Control Your Emotions

Don’t give others the power to control your emotions. Those are only yours and it is only for you to manipulate.

Time after time you see a promising athlete come out of college and go into the pros only to bomb out. He or she had the best athletic ability, yet could not cut it at the professional level. Others might not have great athletic ability, get picked late in the draft and go onto become super stars. Tom Brady comes to mind as someone who wasn’t particularly outstanding in college who has gone on to be a probable first time inductee into the NFL Hall of Fame.

Personally I have seen the same. I spent many years in the US Army Special Forces. We would have tryouts who while in the best physical shape just could not make the grade to be a Green Beret. Others, who would seem to be nondescript, would pass the Special Forces Qualification course with flying colors and go onto to be an outstanding soldier.

You are probably asking yourself by now what is the difference? What do you need to perform at the highest levels, which is even more important than physical ability?

How to Develop Mental Toughness

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How to Keep Your Personal Budget Under Control

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How to Stop Letting Your Money Control You

Money is a mystery to many people and when I got out of college I was no exception. I knew I made a decent wage and I could afford to live but I never seemed to have any extra at the end of the month. When a large, unexpected expense would arise, I was sent running to my parents…or to my credit card. I had no control of my money; it was controlling me.

To control your money, you have to ask yourself a simple question: Where is my money going? Once you begin to understand where the money goes, it’s easy to track and manage it.

The first step is to figure out where your money is going. All of your money goes to one of two places: fixed expenses or variable expenses. Your fixed expenses are going to be things like rent, utilities, student loans, insurance and car payments. These expenses are the same amount every month and ongoing.

Variable expenses are everything else like groceries, restaurants, clothing and entertainment. All of these things can be planned and controlled.

One of the best things you can do to control your money is to create a Bills Calendar. Since I use Google Calendar, I made a new calendar called “Bills” and added all of the fixed expenses for the month. (Don’t forget any yearly expenses like Amazon Prime or XBOX Live, for example.)

Now that you know where your money is going, you can control your money with a budget. Yes — budget is a scary word. It was for me too.

Start with looking over your bank statement and listing all of your expenses for a month. Similarly, if you use Mint, this becomes even easier. Make a note of the categories you’re spending money and how much you’re spending each month. It’s good to look back at least 3 months, but the longer you look back the better idea you’ll have of what you’re really spending each month.

Next, find one of the many budget templates available online and fill it out. You won’t use every category, so just you what applies to you.

The biggest misconception I had about budgeting was that once I set it up, I had to live by it to the cent. A budget is a living document. It is meant to be updated and corrected until it is a true representation of what you’re spending. I review my budget every other month and make corrections as needed.

When you’re living paycheck to paycheck, the idea of Billpay is scary because you never know if you’ll have the money for the payment when it’s due. Now that you control your money, Billpay can save you money and stress.

Many bill payees (such as auto insurance and student loans) will give a small discount if you sign up for their auto payment system. In addition, if you know your fixed expenses are taken care of, you will never pay another late fee again.

Now that your bills are under control it’s time to pay yourself. When you’re 21, the idea of retirement is a lifetime away. You don’t see a need for savings or a 401k or anything your parents worry about. But it’s never too early to start saving.

I look at my savings account as paying myself. Sure, I get a paycheck from my job, and I “give” a lot of it away. But I need to keep some of that money for my “future self”. I need to have money for car repairs, medical bills, or even a new computer or vacation.

I cannot emphasize how much less stressed you’ll feel when you start paying yourself and helping out your “future self”. Take a percentage of your paycheck and put it into savings automatically. You can set up a recurring transfer with your bank to move money into savings every paycheck, or you can set it up through direct deposit with your employer if you use a different bank with a higher-interest savings account.

(Photo credit: A Calculator and Statistics via Shutterstock)

Carl T. Holscher is a writer, tinkerer, owner of too many computers and husband. He holds a Creative Advertising degree which fuels a healthy disdain for it. Check out his writing at Tech in the Trenches or follow him on twitter.

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5 Ways to Immediately Regain Control of Your Day

How often do you begin your day with this thought:

“Ugh.  I’m too tired for this.  I wish I could get settled before the nonstop hassles start?”

How often do you end your day with a thought like:

“I’m exhausted…I can’t remember what I accomplished today, but I feel like I slogged uphill carrying my desk?”

For many of us, the answer is “far too often”.

There are many things that could contribute to those feelings, and many are beyond our control – immediate or otherwise.  However, there are several things we do to ourselves that contribute to ending a day with such work exhaustion that it guarantees the next day will begin with it. This starts a self-reinforcing cycle that will end in burnout.

Fortunately, there are several things you can immediately implement to start gaining control of some of your day and give you the perspective to seize control of as much of the rest of it as you possibly can.  Here are five things you can do…beginning today.

You just gave yourself three hours right there.  If you have a 9-hour workday, it just became a 6-hour (normal) workday with three hours at the beginning and end to review your plans for the day and revise as necessary, identify whether meetings need to be scheduled or rescheduled since yesterday, and finish out your day by making any final notes (either in your calendar or in your daily notebook) about what transpired and any required follow-up actions.

Don’t allow incursions.  Really.  How many times have you tried to schedule a meeting with someone to find their calendar completely full from beginning to the end of the day, and possibly with overlapping or conflicting appointments?  Annoying, isn’t it?  And completely counterproductive.  No one can possibly hold all of those meetings, and if even just one or two slip, the remainder are usually slipped later in the day rather than killing or rescheduling one meeting in favor of saving the others.  Protect your ability to remain effective:  schedule islands of meeting prep and recovery time (for assembly of briefing materials beforehand and documentation afterward) to start gaining control of your day.  A fifteen-to-thirty minute hold on your calendar around most meetings will suffice.

Protect it.  Lunch is important, even if you don’t eat.  But, eat.  Skipping a meal guarantees you’ll crash sometime during the afternoon, and almost certainly overeat at dinner.  Lunch is also a crucial middle-of-the-workday decompression time.  If you don’t want to spend half an hour or an hour in a restaurant, take your lunch to a nearby park, picnic table, or somewhere else that will get you outside if the weather is good, and away from your desk regardless.  If you aren’t eating lunch for some reason, at least take time for a constructive break.

“What’s the next action?”

David Allen’s Getting Things Done espouses this principle as one of the most crucial to being productive.  I happen to agree, and practice it almost constantly.  Ending a meeting with no clear expectation of what is owed to whom guarantees something – or everything – will be late.  Declaring “I need something” does not equate to issuing an action.  Identify the action, the desired result, the expected delivery timeframe, and the person who is responsible.  Ensure they understand this information…have them repeat it back to you.  The trick to gaining control of your day is not to assume they understood you simply because you think you were clear.  Meetings that are scheduled to end at 5PM and do not include a time before the end of the agenda to review action items are not properly-scheduled meetings.  It doesn’t matter if you have a great GTD tool you use, or are using a paper planner, capture the next actions in a way that allows you to find them again.

Do it more often than once a day!  Waiting until the end of the day to make all of your daily notes will virtually guarantee that you will have forgotten an action or an important detail, and it will frustrate you when inevitable interruptions occur during your carefully-constructed end-of-the-day notetaking time.  As much as possible, jot down memory-jogging notes about your meetings and decisions as you make them, or very quickly thereafter.  An easy way to do this is to add notes to calendar appointments, or print the calendar and take it with you; you can then simply add it to your notebook with the appointment “pre-populated” and the notes written on it, automatically placing them in context.

(Photo credit: Man Holding Clock via Shutterstock)

Andrew writes at 360 Minutes, where he shares his best advice on becoming more productive and effective, so you can gain the time to do the things that you love. Get his RSS feed directly, and take a look at his Getting Started page if you're looking for ways to get your head above water at work.

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Control your dreams (ebook)

Anyone can learn to have lucid dreams, and this ebook tells you how. Lucid dreams are those dreams where you become aware you are dreaming, and can even begin to control the reality of the dream. Adventure, problem-solving and consequence-free indulgence await! And for those interested in the mind, lucid dreams are a great place to explore the nature of their own consciousness. The ebook is written as a sort of travel guide, telling you what you need to take on your journey and what to expect when you start to lucid dream. It finishes off with a quick review of the scientific literature on lucid dreaming and links and references for further reading if you want to continue your exploration of lucid dreaming.

I wrote this with friend, and lucid dreamer, Cat Bardsley. My wife Harriet Cameron provided some beautiful illustrations which you can find throughout the book (and on the cover you can see here). The book is Creative Commons licensed so you can copy it and share it as you will, and even modify and improve (as long as you keep the CC licensing). It’s available on smashwords on a pay-what-you-want-basis (and that includes nothing, so it is yours for free if you’d like).

“Control your dreams” is my second self-published ebook. You can also get “Explore your blindspot” from smashwords (which is completely free, and also CC licensed). The wonderful folk at 40k books published my essay The Narrative Escape last year (and after doing all the formatting and admin associated with these two new ebooks I am more and more in awe of what they did).

Sweet Dreams!

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Remote Control Impulse Control

This game uses the remote control symbols to facilitate learning the skills. The symbols are to STOP and redirect behavior; REWIND and learn from past mistakes; and FAST FORWARD and think ahead about potential consequences. There are both competitive and cooperative versions for grades 1-5 and for grades 6-9. The two age groups have separate decks of cards. During the game players read brief case studies adapted from the angry behavior of real kids. Players then practice one of the three essential skills: they PAUSE and describe an additional feeling that they might have along with anger in the scenario, or they REWIND and describe a time in the past when they have been successful calming their angry feelings, or they FAST FORWARD and describe a typical angry response or behavior that might follow the scenario and the probable consequence if the angry behavior is acted on. All players practice all three skills during the course of the game. In addition to practicing the three skills, players practice planning ahead and social skills as well as exercising frustration tolerance.

Price: $24.95

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Co-Creation, Mind Control, and Subjective Reality

I often prep for upcoming workshops by walking around my house talking out loud, as if I’m speaking to an audience. It’s not the ideas I’m trying to polish though. I do this to get better at being in the flow of inspiration as I communicate, maintaining the right balance of head and heart. Inevitably I’ll express the ideas differently at the actual workshop, but the flow of inspiration will feel similar to what I practiced in private.

This inspired vibe has many forms, which include aspects like caring, playfulness, happiness, passion, curiosity, exploration, love, and oneness. There are countless ways to be in the flow. The common element is that when I’m in the flow, I feel open, connected, and graceful.

It took years of public speaking practice to reach the point where I could experience this flow consistently while in front of an audience. When I first began on this path, I started as many others do. I focused on the words I was saying. I learned to write speeches. Then I learned how to deliver what I’d prepared.

I attended workshops on how to improve at writing and delivering speeches. I networked with successful speakers. I got involved in Toastmasters International and the National Speakers Association.

I also stretched myself by competing in speech contests, winning several of them. I did comedy improv for a few months and performed in a couple shows. I kept pushing myself to get better.

In the long run, however, I found this approach to public speaking to be a dead end for me. It always felt a bit unnatural for me. This style of speaking, while very popular and well developed, was too rigid and controlled for me. I can’t speak like that and be in the flow of inspiration at the same time.

My message is about waking up to conscious growth, to live more truthfully, lovingly, and powerfully. It’s not a message just for me. It’s a message for all of us. It’s not a message of words. It’s a message of being.

The particular words I use to deliver this message aren’t as important as I was led to believe. I sure have written plenty of words so far, and I’m always coming up with new ones. If I’m delivering this message to an audience, what I say isn’t critical. I find that the most important factor is who I am when I’m on the stage.

If I’m speaking to an audience, delivering a well-written and polished speech, but internally I’m focusing most of my energy on remembering what to say and do at each step, then what is the audience’s role in that speech?

I’ve seen many speeches that seemed excellent from a technical standpoint, but I didn’t feel the speaker was actually present in the room with us. His/her energy was focused on what to say next… or what gesture to make… or where to move on the stage so as to use the whole speaking area… or perhaps on appearing confident. On the whole I don’t enjoy such speeches, and I prefer not to watch speakers who communicate like that.

When I’m really in the flow of communicating with an audience, I’m not thinking about what I’m going to say next. I’ll have an idea of what I’m going to talk about, but I’m not really giving a speech. The experience is much more interactive. It feels like my energy combines with that of the audience, and I become a conduit for the flow of a co-created experience.

This might sound chaotic at first, but it works well in practice… perhaps because when people come together for a workshop or presentation, they’re showing up with similar assumptions, expectations, and desires. People typically attend my workshops because they want to grow, and so our collective energy co-creates a growth experience for the group. Everyone wants that to happen, and so it does.

I’ve done 5 Conscious Growth Workshops so far (with a 6th one coming up in 4 weeks), and each one has been unique. I do continue to improve the structure each time, but I believe that most of the difference in how these workshops turn out has to do with the particular energy of each group. Every audience broadcasts a collective energy, and it’s a different broadcast each time.

While I understand that for many people, public speaking seems like a frightening thing to do, for me it’s a very beautiful and harmonious experience. This is probably because I don’t see the audience as being opposed to me in any way. We come together with a common purpose — to create a powerful growth experience for all. So we’re all on the same page. I want to be a good facilitator, and the audience wants me to have a good experience. So what is there to be nervous or worried about? A workshop is not a performance; it’s a stimulating group adventure.

I understand pretty well how this co-creative model works in the area of public speaking. I think it’s why I enjoy speaking so much and why I find it so rewarding. Lately I’ve been pondering how to expand this co-creative model and apply it to other parts of my life as well.

Last year I shared some ideas on domination and submission and how it applies to personal growth. While this can be practiced as a sexual thing, it’s really a general pattern of relating. If you tell someone what to do and they do it, you’ve dominated them. If the opposite happens, you’re practicing submission. Don’t get hung up on the words — it’s the underlying concepts that matter, not the words used to describe them.

You can use domination or submission patterns in any part of your life. You can relate to others by trying to dominate them or by submitting to them. A boss tends to be a dominant figure in many organizations, one that employees are expected to submit to. You can use a dominant parenting style by controlling your kids and telling them what to do. When dealing with a gun-wielding law enforcement agent, you might find yourself taking on a more submissive role.

Co-creation, on the other hand, is a more cooperative approach. Parties combine their power to create something together, with neither submitting to the will of the other. In a way you could say that all parties agree to submit themselves to the collective will, but no one is personally in charge of the collective.

I’m not suggesting that one model is superior to the other. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. In urgent situations a command-based approach may be important — there may be little time for discussion when fast, decisive action is required. It makes sense for the surgeon to be the boss of the operating room when a critically injured patient is on the table, and time is of the essence.

In other situations a collaborative approach may produce superior results. To continue the medical example, multiple doctors may confer about a patient’s care, potentially coming up with better treatment options than any one of them might have chosen individually.

I’ve explored the D/s pattern enough to see that it does have value, but my interest in focusing on it has basically run its course, and now I’m drawn to explore a co-creative model. Since I love immersive experiences, I’ve already stepped into that space this week and plan to continue with this direction for quite a while. I want to deepen my understanding of co-creation through direct experience and see what it’s capable of.

Since I’ve been getting incredible mileage from exploring subjective reality, naturally I want to explore how co-creation and subjective reality can mesh with each other.

At first glance it may appear that subjective reality is in conflict with the idea of co-creation. If you create your reality, and if there’s only one consciousness, then how can we talk about multiple consciousnesses creating something collectively? Does that even make sense within a subjective universe? Isn’t there only one being, and how can you co-create with just one entity?

I understand these concerns, but there are easy ways to resolve them. Remember that subjective reality is not a truth per se — it’s just a perspective, a lens through which you can look at truth. It isn’t difficult for the subjective lens to include a co-creative aspect.

For me the major clues regarding how to connect the dots between subjective reality and co-creation came from lucid dreaming. I’ve had many more lucid dreams this year, i.e. dreams where I’m conscious and aware that I’m dreaming, so I’ve been doing further experimenting along these lines.

If you’re having a nighttime dream, would you say there are multiple consciousnesses in the dream, or is it all just you? I imagine you’ll probably agree that there’s ultimately just one consciousness there, and it’s yours. You’re the dreamer of course.

What are the other dream characters? Do they have independent will separate from your own? You’d probably say that they don’t. At best these characters may represent different parts of your psyche. Since the whole dream world is playing out in your mind, everything in it is coming from you.

Those who believe that the objective lens is the only truth would probably agree on this much. They’d probably say that the whole dream is due to a pattern of neurons firing in your physical brain, and therefore everything in the dream world is coming from within your brain. So of course the dream characters don’t really have a consciousness that’s separate from yours.

That said, I’ve had some fairly interesting experiences involving a certain aspect of lucid dreaming — trying to mind control the other dream characters.

You might think that if you get really good at lucid dreaming, you should eventually be able to mind control your dream characters perfectly. What’s to prevent you from controlling them just as easily as you control your own avatar? After all, the dream body you have isn’t the real you. It’s just a mental projection. So are all the other dream characters. So it seems reasonable that you might develop the skill to control the other dream characters, willing them to do your bidding however you see fit. If there’s some mechanism to prevent you from doing this, it’s not clear what that would be. The main limitation seems to be just developing the skill to do it, just as you’d develop any other lucid dreaming skill.

As I tried to further develop this ability in my lucid dreams, I noticed that while I could successfully mind control other dream characters, it wasn’t as easy as I expected it to be. It takes a lot of concentration to bend a character to my will, and on some level it feels like the character is resisting being controlled. As soon as I have a lapse in concentration, that character breaks free for a bit and stops following my mental commands.

I called Erin and asked her about her experiences in this area since she’s been lucid dreaming much longer than I have. She reported similar results, and she added that it feels like the other dream characters are pre-programmed to do certain things. If you try to mind control them, you can, but as soon as you let up or lose concentration, those characters’ original programming reasserts itself, and they continue following their previous scripts. Erin suggested that the resistance may come from the characters being programmed to play out a certain storyline, and when you try to mind control them, you mess up the storyline to an extent.

Erin also said that it’s possible to take control of the whole dream and to essentially wipe out the pre-programmed story. When she does that, she says it’s much easier to mind control the other characters. They no longer have a scripted routine to return to. I haven’t tried wiping out the entire dream story, but what Erin described is consistent with my own experience.

Now the interesting part is that waking reality seems to work in much the same way. If you try to control other people, then to a certain extent, they let you. Perhaps you don’t do this through the same mechanism of telepathic mind control, but you can just as easily develop the skill of influencing others, essentially using your will to override their previous behaviors for a while. It’s not that difficult to knock someone out of their pre-programmed script for a while.

Hitler and the Nazis are one potent example of this phenomenon. Since then there have been some intense psychological experiments demonstrating just how easy it is to control and direct people. Perhaps the most notable would be the Milgram Shock Experiments during the 1960s. If you aren’t familiar with them, I encourage you to follow the link and read up on them. These experiments have been repeated numerous times with similar results.

If we commit to doing so, we are indeed capable of dominating and controlling others, and to a great extent, they’ll let us. Similarly there’s also a part of us that’s eager to submit to authority. Start noticing how often you tell people what to do, and they obey you. And also notice how often people tell you what to do, and you obey them.

Become aware of all the subtle ways the command and control model comes up each day. When you get an email and you reply to it, you’re doing someone else’s bidding. If they hadn’t sent you that message, you’d have directed your time elsewhere.

What I’ve observed regarding how dream characters react to being dominated aligns pretty well with how waking characters respond. They may offer token resistance, but they also bend to the dominant will most of the time. When the dominant will is relaxed, the character return to their previous scripts for the most part.

So how might we use this to connect the dots between subjective reality and co-creation?

If we assume, as Erin suggested, that our dream characters aren’t really conscious and are just following something akin to a pre-programmed script, then one way of explaining co-creation in a dream world is this:

The other dream characters aren’t really conscious, but they’re pre-programmed with a storyline to follow. This storyline is a higher level construct, one created by our subconscious. When we dominate or mind control other characters, we knock them off script, which can throw off the unfolding story. Yes, we have the power to do this, but perhaps it’s better to go with the flow of the story (or the dream) and see where it leads. Perhaps there’s a purpose to the story that we should listen to and understand.

If we apply a subjective reality lens to our waking world, we could suggest a similar interpretation. The other people walking around aren’t separate conscious beings, but they’re pre-programmed to help create a certain storyline. This story isn’t something we’ve consciously created per se. It’s being created by our subconscious. While we can control people by exerting our dominant will, we may mess up the story when we do so. It’s preferable to allow the other characters to follow their intended scripts, so we can better understand where the story is going and flow with it.

What is co-creation then? Co-creation is cooperation with our subconscious. To co-create is to align ourselves with the unfolding story. The other characters all represent different parts of us. They may not be independent, fully conscious beings, but they are pre-programmed with certain behaviors because it’s part of the storyline. We can resist their behaviors and try to change them, but ultimately this may corrupt the storyline. If we really don’t like where the story is going, we always have the power to consciously step in and take control and redirect a given scene, but perhaps it’s best to let the story unfold as it will and to play our own part in alignment with what the other characters are doing.

To co-create with this model is to acknowledge that a story is indeed unfolding in this reality, and we’re all characters within it. Every character has value because each one contributes something to the story. So this form of co-creation isn’t necessarily something we must do in terms of adopting different behaviors. It’s more of a general attitude of cooperation… of valuing what the simulation is playing out and flowing with it. In other words, sit back and enjoy the ride, and don’t resist what’s happening.

There is some value in this perspective, but overall it’s not my preferred model to use for co-creation. It seems a bit too passive, and it also paints the other characters as little more than automatons or NPCs.

Instead of using scripts and programming to describe how people behave, we could also say while deep down there may be just one creator in this reality, everyone is a part of that creator, just as each cell in your body is a part of the greater whole.

So co-creation is simply consciousness collaborating within itself. Just as you may have a discussion with yourself, listening to the different voices within you in order to come to a decision, you can do the same with other people, and it’s essentially the same process.

You enjoy inner harmony when your different facets are in agreement — your thoughts, words, and deeds are congruent. Similarly, you create outer harmony when the people in your life are mutually supporting one another.

External co-creation is really the same thing as doing inner creative work. In order to create anything, you must somehow get all the different parts of yourself to agree upon what to do at any given time. If your mind wants to write, sleep, eat, and go to the bathroom all at the same time, you’ll just spin in circles.

While you can use a domination-based model to get yourself to take action, it tends not to be very sustainable in the long run. Just like mind controlling other dream characters, it requires intense concentration. As soon as your attention lapses, slippage occurs. In practice it’s difficult to maintain this state for long.

With this model the focus is on creating harmony. Forward action requires cooperation, whether it’s internal cooperation or external cooperation.

In this case we wouldn’t say that other people have a separate consciousness per se, but then neither does your avatar. There is still just one consciousness, and the different human beings within it are projections of the different aspects of that consciousness. So they’re not separate consciousnesses, but they are all conscious… just as your fingers aren’t distinct human beings, but they’re still human.

So to subjectively co-create with other people doesn’t imply that we’re all distinct conscious beings. We’re all individual projections of different aspects of consciousness. Co-creation is the process by which consciousness establishes harmony within itself.

Your avatar is a vehicle for creating that harmony. Instead of passively watching the story play out, you can exert some influence over the storyline. You get to be part producer and part audience member.

To co-create is to influence the other aspects of consciousness, to discover where we can agree, and then to leverage that agreement to develop and release a more powerful aspect of the story.

For years I’ve been practicing a model of conscious creation that involves setting goals and achieving them, or setting intentions and manifesting them. This model is effective — it works.

I’d also like to practice co-creation, to see what can be created when two or more people contribute to a goal or intention that goes beyond what either of them would have chosen individually.

Co-creation is more than just teamwork. One person can come up with a goal and assemble a team to work together to achieve that goal. Co-creation, however, is when the team comes up with the goal as well. So the goal isn’t handed down from above.

Co-creation occurs from the idea stage onward, so even the starting idea is worked through collaboratively. If I already know what my goal or intention is in advance, or if some other individual does, then most likely we have one person submitting to another person’s direction. A co-creative team comes up with its own projects.

With co-creation you don’t even know what the goal or intention will be in advance. That’s something to be worked out collaboratively. Each person can suggest ideas and bounce them off each other, but the point isn’t for one person to convince the other that any particular idea is best. The idea is for all involved to collectively reach an agreement that everyone willingly commits themselves to.

While I could apply this model to my business (and I’ve already started doing so, with some cool new ideas percolating), I’m actually more interested in applying it to my social life first. Due to the highly social nature of co-creation, this just makes sense to me. But in practice I have to be more flexible than this because you never know where co-creation will lead. So my social life is merely a place to get started.

Because it’s uncommon to consciously co-create our connections with others (we normally do so unconsciously), we often fall into the domination-submission realm in terms of how these interactions play out. One person decides what they want and then seeks to get the other person to go along with it. This works to some extent, but as with mind controlling a dream character, it normally meets with some resistance.

In situations where I’ve already been using a co-creative model, the results have been promising. My workshops are a good example. I don’t feel overwhelmed or overloaded there. We create a certain energy that seems to keep things pretty balanced and harmonious. I think the face-to-face feedback helps as well. People tend to be open and friendly but also respectful of the fact that I can’t have 5 conversations all at the same time. I don’t need a list of rules telling people what’s okay or not okay. Within the environment that we create, people tend to be pretty socially graceful. You might say that it’s because of the face-to-face element, but I see this online in some places too, such as with my Google+ interactions.

I do believe it’s possible to co-create with large groups, but it may be more difficult to get everyone to agree. Take note that this isn’t the same thing as dominating and controlling large groups, such as Hitler did. My workshops attract people with common interests, so it makes sense that co-creation can gain a foothold there. But with more diverse groups, it could be more challenging.

Consequently, I’m going to focus for now on co-creating with individuals and very small groups, such as my existing friends. I probably won’t have time to try this with everyone right out of the gate, but I think it would be rewarding and enlightening to have a discussion with a friend about how each of us would like to see our connection evolve, then to see what we can agree upon, and then to commit ourselves to that co-created vision of where our relationship will go next. And then of course we have to keep adjusting our vision as we grow and change, so it doesn’t go stale.

I already did some of this with Rachelle yesterday. We had a deep discussion about what we want to create next in our relationship. Instead of only discussing what we each want as individuals, we tried to gain a sense of what we could co-create that would inspire both of us. I think that individual desires are necessary because they provide fuel for the collective vision, but then you have to let others’ desires combine with yours to create something together, something that goes beyond what either of you would have come up with individually.

This morning I had another experience while talking to a business partner. Going into the call, we had two separate projects to discuss, one of his and one of mine, but after we’d talked for a bit, he suggested a creative way to combine them. I instantly liked the idea, recognizing it as something that would be good for everyone. We agreed to make it so immediately, and now we’re already moving forward with it. It was a very fast way to work out a win-win arrangement. The best part is that this will ultimately produce something that’s free for everyone but which will also benefit our respective businesses, so it isn’t just a win for the two of us but also for everyone else who will be affected by it.

A Co-Creative Attitude

At the individual level, you may set goals and intentions based on what you desire.

A co-creation attitude is all about win-win. It isn’t just about what’s good for you. It’s about what’s good for everyone. You can co-create at the level of determining what’s good for the team, or you can co-create as Marc Allen recommends — for the highest good of all.

My experience on this path is pretty limited since I’m just getting started with it, but I can already see that the energy signature of co-creation is different than the one I’m accustomed to with traditional goal setting or intention-manifestation.

Co-creation requires a more flexible attitude. It’s important to bring your own desires to the table, but then you must be willing to allow the energy of others’ desires to merge with your own, so that you eventually come to form an intention or goal that everyone loves.

I’m looking forward to talking with more friends to discuss what we might co-create together next. It’s too early to say what the results will be, but I’m pretty optimistic about it thus far, and the few interactions I’ve had with this mindset in the past couple days have all been great.

I feel this is a good time for me to get started on this path, but I can’t predict where it will lead. To be truly co-creative as opposed to dominant, I have to open myself to seeing my relationships evolve in ways I wouldn’t necessarily have chosen on my own.

I’m not treating this as a 30-day trial since I expect it will take considerably longer to explore it, but it does feel a little like embarking on a new 30-day trial where I don’t know what the outcome will be.

I’ll surely be sharing more about subjective reality and co-creation at the upcoming Subjective Reality Workshop in October, which already has dozens of people signed up for it, but I also expect that I’ll blog about new insights along the way.

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Take Control of Meal Times With A Meal Planner

When you decide to eat a meal out, is it because you are consciously choosing to do so? Or is it because you haven’t the time or ingredients to prepare something at home? If you are like most people, it is probably the latter. Yet it doesn’t have to be that way. With a bit of planning, less than 15 minutes a week, you can cut back on your grocery bills, eat healthier, and feel better. All it takes is a meal planner.

A meal planner is a just a collection of items that will allow you (or any other cooking person) to get a meal on the table with ingredients that are on hand. It will have the following items:

A menu plan. A menu plan is what you will eat for the meals in the coming week. It will list out all the dishes that will be prepared so you can check for nutritional balance, and also take into account family schedules.Recipes. The recipes portion of the planner has two purposes: it allows you to assemble the instructions for making a meal in one place, as well as provide a basis for the next portion of the planner.A shopping list. The shopping list is what allows you to have the ingredients on hand to make the meals you have planned. Nothing is worse than to start a recipe and find that you have forgotten to buy a key ingredient. By taking the ingredient list from the recipes, you can ensure you have everything on hand.Reminders. These instructions would allow you to remember to start dishes on time, or pull things from the freezer. If you are planning a slow cooker dinner that takes 8 hours, you need to be reminded to get it started, or dinner won’t be done on time.

I like to keep everything together in one spot. I have assembled a meal planner using basic office supplies which allows me to keep everything in one place (the front of the refrigerator).

I fastened a sheet protector to the front of a poly folder. The sheet protector holds the menu plan for two weeks. For each day on the planning sheet I have a spot for any activities that are going on that might affect dinner (early evening meetings, for example); a box for the food plan, including side dishes; and a box with reminders for the next day (such as defrosting meat, or assembling the slow cooker meal for the fridge).

Inside the folder I have sheet protectors into which I slip the recipes for each day. This makes it easy for me to find my recipes, or to hand everything over to my husband.

In the back pocket of the folder I keep the shopping list for the plan, and the shopping list for the next two week period. I add items as the week passes that will need to be purchased during the next shopping trip.

I clip the entire folder to the front of the fridge using a heavy-duty magnet.

The first step is to fill out my planning sheet. I list out the days as well as meal-affected events such as meetings, travel and birthdays (for which we eat out). Then I look through my recipes and pick things that fit the schedule and the season. During summer we do a lot of grilling and salads, but I save the labor-intensive food for the weekends.

At this point I have filled out the menu planner and have a pile of recipes. I record each recipe’s ingredients on a shopping list, then file it in the planner pocket for that day.

The shopping list is then double-checked against the planner board in our kitchen for things we are out of, and also compared to our pantry ingredients to see if there is anything we already have on hand.

With a menu planner, we are able to keep our food budget in a good place and only go out to eat when we wish to, rather than because we don’t have our acts together enough to cook. Do you have any tips for meal planning? Share below.

LJ Earnest is a computer programmer by day, productivity geek all the time. Using the principles of productivity and simplicity at SimpleProductivityBlog.com, she helps people get through the stuff they have to do so they can get to the stuff they want to do. She can also be found at Twitter and Facebook. Remember, a productive life doesn't have to be complicated.

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The Illusion of Control

‘The Master allows things to happen.
She shapes events as they come.
She steps out of the way
and lets the Tao speak for itself.’
~Laozi

When you think you control something, you’re wrong.

It’s amazing how often we think we’re in control of something when really we aren’t.

Control is an illusion, as I’ve said many times before.

We constantly make plans that never actually turn out the way we envisioned. ‘If you want to make God laugh, make a plan,’ an old saying goes.

We have been trained to set goals, and then work on the actions that lead to those goals … and yet how often do those goals fail? How often are we trying to control a future that we cannot predict?

Did you know five years ago that the world would turn out as it has — that Obama would be president, that the stock markets would have crashed, that we’d be deep into a recession, that earthquakes and tsunamis would hit, that you’d be doing exactly what you’re doing today?

Of course not. We don’t know the future, much less control it. We like to think we do, but that never turns out to be true.

And yet we continue to believe in the illusion of control. We face a chaotic and complex world, and seek to control it however we can.

Our attempts to control the world can be seen through:

Trying to control how our children turn out, as if we can shape them like blocks of clay, as if humans aren’t more complex than we can possibly understand.Tracking every little thing, from spending to exercise to what we eat to what tasks we do to how many visitors are on our site to how many steps we’ve taken today and how many miles we’ve run. As if our selective tracking can possibly include the many, complex factors that influence outcomes.Trying to control employees — again, complex human beings with many motivations and whims and habits that we don’t understand.Obsessively planning projects, trips, days, parties, as if the outcomes of events are things we can control with our powers of manipulation of the world.

If we can let go of this illusion, what are we left with? How can we live among this chaos?

Consider the fish. A fish swims in a chaotic sea that it cannot possibly control — much as we all do. The fish, unlike us, is under no illusion that it controls the sea, or other fish in the sea. The fish doesn’t even try to control where it ends up — it just swims, either going with the flow or dealing with the flow as it comes. It eats, and hides, and mates, but does not try to control a thing.

We are no better than that fish, yet our thinking creates the need for an illusion.

Let go of that thinking. Learn to be the fish.

When we are in the midst of chaos, let go of the need to control it. Be awash in it, experience it in that moment, try not to control the outcome but deal with the flow as it comes.

How do we live our lives like this? It’s a completely different way of living, once we let go of the illusion:

We stop setting goals, and instead do what excites us.We stop planning, and just do.We stop looking at the future, and live in the moment.We stop trying to control others, and focus instead on being kind to them.We learn that trusting our values is more important to taking action than desiring and striving for certain outcomes.We take each step lightly, with balance, in the moment, guided by those values and what we’re passionate about … rather than trying to plan the next 1,000 steps and where we’ll end up.We learn to accept the world as it is, rather than being annoyed with it, stressed by it, mad at it, despaired by it, or trying to change it into what we want it to be.We are never disappointed with how things turn out, because we never expected anything — we just accept what comes.

This might seem like a passive way of living to some, and it’s against our aggressive, productive, goal-oriented cultural nature. If you can’t accept this way of living, that’s OK — many people live their lives with the illusion of control, and not realizing what it is that makes them unhappy or frustrated isn’t the worst thing ever.

But if you can learn to live this way … it’s the most freeing thing in the world.
—
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ACT in Action: Control and Acceptance

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Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When to Say No to Take Control of Your Life

In order to call themselves good Christians, many people have drawn overly flexible boundaries (unwilling to say no, always accommodating others' needs) or overly rigid boundaries (to the point of being righteous and judgmental). Psychologists and inspirational speakers Cloud and Townsend show readers how to set reasonable boundaries in order to follow the true path of Christianity. This book has become immensely popular, most likely because it makes personal boundaries easier to define and is filled with spiritual purpose. Some cautions: the format can be overly self-helpish for such a complex discussion and the authors at one point imply that judicious spankings may be an acceptable form of setting boundaries with children. However, many Christians will probably find themselves grateful for this biblical context of boundaries. --Gail Hudson

Price: $14.99

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