Instructor: Rainsong
Date: November 9, 2019 (Saturday)
Seminar: Topic: Games for Practice — Saturday, 9 November, 2019 at 6:30pm/1830hr New York Time — text format in the PSC #lecture room (Discord) — Instructor: Rainsong, probably — Search LECTURE101
Rainsong: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen
Rainsong: Welcome to another psionics seminar here at the social club
Rainsong: Our topic for the evening, suggested by Fern, is “Games for Practice”
Fern: Evening Rain
Rainsong: Good evening 🙂
Chirotractor: hoya
Rainsong: Hi, Chiro
Rainsong: Happily, there are many fun games for practicing psionics, and quite a few for practicing the “not exactly psionic but needed or useful for doing psionic stuff” skills, too
Rainsong: Some can be done alone, some need more than one person, and some can go either way
Rainsong: In a similar manner, some of them need equipment of some kind and some don’t
Rainsong: A few of them were popular parlour tricks around the turn of the 20th century, and some came to prominence in the “local” clump of online groups around the turn of the 21st
Rainsong: (local: Psion Guild, PsiPog, Dimensional Doorways, and their assorted offshoots, of which PSC is one)
Rainsong: Anyone who’s been around this community for any length of time has likely heard of the “drawing on the hand” exercise, in which you tense one finger and basically pretend to shoot a laser beam out of it onto the palm of the other hand (or the flat of the belly or front of the thigh, if the opposite hand is inconvenient or missing)
Rainsong: You can turn this into a game by taking turns drawing shapes on each other’s hands. the one being drawn-on doesn’t look at the hand, obviously,so no peaking at the movements of the finger doing the drawing. Describe the shape
Rainsong: Some parts of the body are harder to feel with enough detail to determine the shape. The back, for example, has long been a popular target for this, but the nerves are spread out relatively thinly compared to the hand, and it therefore adds an extra level of difficulty.
Rainsong: If you feel like trying the game at a distance -such as across the chatroom- The person drawing can either ‘imagine’ the other person’s hand in a conveniently close location to draw on or use their own opposite hand as a deliberate stand in
Rainsong: Questions? Commentary?
Fern: still listening, but no questions
Nickodemo: No questions here either
Nickodemo: Also hello, it’s been awhile
Rainsong: Hi, 🙂 Welcome back
Nickodemo: Ty 😛
Rainsong: One of the aforementioned parlour tricks involved a pendulum and a perpendicular surface, such as the side of a cabinet or a wall
Rainsong: Hold the pendulum such that the pendulum can hit the wall if it swings toward it
Rainsong: Ask “what time is it now?” and count how many times the pendulum hits the surface. The number of regular strikes should give you the nearest hour. If there is a light tap at the end of the strikes, it indicates that it is close to the bottom of the hour / half-past
Rainsong: Questions? Commentary?
Azum’ran: Coolio
Rainsong: Hi, Azum
Azum’ran: Playing with pets was mentioned before, but what about pranking them as a game
Azum’ran: Lil spooks or fake treats
Azum’ran: See who can have the pet fall for them the longest
Fern: I heard about role playing. As in making weapons and effects from books/films/games you like
Azum’ran: Oh that’s rad
Rainsong: I both those examples, you’re typically making toys from constructs.
Fern: I thought so, I think it was from psipog, way back when
Rainsong: Cats can totally detect constructs, for example. Most dogs can, also
Fern: yay toys!
Azum’ran: Sometimes I put balloons on my Chihuahua’s tail
Fern: I liked the idea of making an orrery
Rainsong: To be fair, as far as the weapons and effects from fiction, it’s also possible to make effective ones, but we’re talking games here…
Fern: mhm, just ways to make practice fun to do
Rainsong: Hint: If you are swinging around a sword or quarterstaff or bola or even a heavy veil made of a force-bubble, be sure you’re well clear of anything breakable
Rainsong: Or at least anything breakable that you don’t want to see broken… for example, glass lamp shades
Rainsong: In the category of “learn from other people’s mistakes… you won’t live long enough to make them all yourself”
Azum’ran: Does the warning still apply if I use force-bubblewrap?
Rainsong: Yes, actually
Azum’ran: That explains the last tv
Rainsong: For cat toys, regular constructs work well. They don’t need to be force-bubbles
Rainsong: For messing with the pockets on pool tables or interfering with paintball impacts, force-bubbles are your friends 😀
Fern: that sounds super fun
Rainsong: It is 😀
Azum’ran: Oh force bubble is a particular technique, was it touched upon is a previous lecture?
Fern: I can’t do tk at all, but for that category could you control paper airplanes for fun?
Rainsong: Yes
Rainsong: To both questions, actually….
Azum’ran: BRB then
Rainsong: A force-bubble (and they also have other names) is just a ‘hybrid’ construct that pushes against physical objects using telekinesis
Fern: same actually, gotta do medical stuff, back in a moment
Rainsong: And also, moving paper airplanes, model boats, toy soldiers, soap bubbles, and such are all good ways to practice and play with pk
Azum’ran: Just a psi ball that’s repulsive?
Rainsong: Cheating at darts, archery, horseshoes, shuffleboard, curling, and beanbag tosses by “adjusting” the trajectory of the projectile is another good way to practice
Rainsong: Azum: Pretty much, yes. Normally they are set up to either bounce things off of them, or just to push back with the same amount of pressure being exerted against them, thus stopping the object
Azum’ran: How much attention should be paid to the uhhhhh Precision, i guess, of ones visualizations?
Azum’ran: Like, how high level is the practice of playing pool in visualization, for example
Azum’ran: Or golf, juggling, etc
Rainsong: When using the visualization to improve the skill in those / or to use the mental exercise to improve the condition of the body, you mean?
Azum’ran: More to sharpen ones subtle senses, actually
Azum’ran: Or at the least, control of one’s mindspace
Rainsong: I’m not sure i understand your question, then.
Rainsong: If you are playing pool, on its own, it is useful to visualize the desired end-result of each shot, but otherwise there usually isn’t much involved.
Rainsong: For that purpose, the visualization needs to be accurate. It does not need to be vivid
Rainsong: Same with the mental rehearsal exercises
Fern: alright, back, hello
Rainsong: For a force-bubble on a pocket to mess up someone else’s shot? Not much at all
Rainsong: Welcome back
Chirotractor: easier to muss with the spins on the balls
Chirotractor: lotta chaos in there to tweak
Rainsong: True. Also with the trajectory – it’s easier to adjust the movement of something that’s already moving than it is to overcome inertia and start it moving from a standstill
Fern: how about games for more specific areas? I have trouble with making things last, can you think of a fun way to practice that?
Rainsong: “Things” being constructs?
Fern: eh, willwork too, but i know this is a psionic channel so sure
Rainsong: Hmm. First, when you say you have trouble making things last, what kind of timeframe are we talking here: seconds? Minutes? weeks? Months?
Fern: hours. they don’t just vanish, they fade in what they’re supposed to be
Fern: so it’s every area of the programming, not just keeping energy tight
Chirotractor: get into internet arguments and learn to think more specifically?
Rainsong: If it’s holding up for several hours, then it isn’t likely a technical problem so much as endurance… presuming you’ve set a deliberate duration for the thing, and stuffed it with enough oomph to keep going that long…. presuming there isnn’t any serious interference around
Rainsong: Chiro has a good point, though. The more clearly and precisely you can think, they better your psionic skills will tend to be. It’s even more the case for some other kinds of magic.
Fern: I usually set to last as long as possible but with a kill switch for mistakes, and i doubt there’s a lot of interference, I don’t live under any powerlines
Fern: um, when you say precisely, do you mean like programming languages, because i have a fair amount of experience in them
Rainsong: Try something more specific than “as long as possible”. For example, “until precisely 11:45am Pacific Standard time”
Chirotractor: at risk of derailing things I’ve never really understood killswitches in practice
Fern: they’re really useful. i’ve made self replicating constructs that would have been a really big problem without a kill switch
Fern: and will do, I think i just need practice, hence games
Rainsong: Got one for you 🙂
Fern: Ooo
Chirotractor: I’ve thought it would be neat to hold like a book or something up with a forcebubble. something that would make a loud noise when it hit the ground.
Rainsong: Make a friendly psiball that produces the illusion of a splash of icy water on contact with skin… Set it above your bed, and to fall whenever it starts to dissolve… Then give it a timed duration of a few minutes before your alarm clock goes off in the morning, or before you want to get up, or the like
Rainsong: Chiro: a stack of baking pans hitting the ground would work well
Fern: sounds fun, well.. more like wild panic, but fun to try
Fern: with force bubbles you could displace a bell, to prevent damage to the floor or books
Rainsong: Or, if you’re into pranks and there’s someone you don’t especially like, the splashing psiball could be over someone else’s face…
Fern: be nice to books
Fern: well lately I have to do medical stuff every hour on the hour, so it sounds pretty perfect
Rainsong: nods It’s handy for reminders.
Rainsong: There are of course other setings to replace the splash, but that one’s easy to start with
Fern: um, sorry to go off topic, but could you give me a little walkthrough of how to do sensations? it’s been a while
Fern: just of psionics, i’ve been magically active
Rainsong: No need to apologise. Seminars are for learning, yea?
Rainsong: Have you ever been splashed with cold water?
Rainsong: If not, get some cold water, find a safe place that won’t be water-damaged and in which you won’t trip or get too cold, and splash it on yourself.
Rainsong: Then call to mind how it felt, as vividly as you can
Rainsong: If you need to, splash yourself a second time, and then remember the feeling of it as clearly as possible
Fern: okay
Chirotractor: get your most assholish friend to splash you randomly while you’re making it even >:D
Fern: that is…. really shockingly hard to do with any kind of detail or realism
Rainsong: Hold that memoryn in your mind while pushing some oomph/psi/whatever into the construct, along with the intention to recreate that sensation on contact
Fern: I’m liking the theatricality of making a shield that pings people with that sensation so they think i’m a ghost :sweatsmile:
Rainsong: Yea, eidetic recall is a skill in itself. Most people outgrow it by the time they reach primary school, except in cases of flashbacks such as are associated with PTSD…..
Rainsong: …. and so, such things are deliberately practiced for psionics
Fern: something fun to practice on the bus, thanks 🙂
Rainsong: 🙂 It’s worthwhile to practice recalling other sensations, also.
Fern: like a hug. super useful
Rainsong: for example, calling to mind songs or piano music or fog horns or whatever, as clearly as you can
Chirotractor: Ahh ues. Brain ipods
Rainsong: Having someone set off what they perceive as a fog-horn when opening a door or book or whatever can be fun 😀
Rainsong: Chiro: exactly
Fern: does it work on other people? are you recreating the sensation or just triggering your own memory?
Rainsong: Mentally reciting poetry or singing or reading passages from books… those are also useful, if you ever want to convey actual words
Fern: I have stephen fry on audio book, my audio pings will be amazing
Rainsong: Yes, it works on other people. It’s possible to trigger the physical sensation, but it’s easier to impose the illusion from a memory instead
Fern: because one is telepathy the other is physical?
Rainsong: waggles hand More because the details of how a specific sensation fits together is hella complicated
Fern: speaking of telepathy, how does that work making someone feel or hear something? (like a poke or a hug) free will is complicated
Rainsong: The other person can, if they choose to and are skillful enough, block or ignore an incoming sensation, in the same way they can block or ignore any other sensation… such as the taste of whatever they’re eating, or the pain from a broken bone
Fern: i was thinking deeper magic rules
Rainsong: Otherwise, it’s not much different from being hugged or poked in the normal sense. Something is happening to them and they are feeling it
Chirotractor: the greatest psychic defensive technique is ‘okay i’ll get back to you when I’m done doing literally everything else’
Fern: as far as i know you can’t just make mindslaves (thankfully)
Rainsong: Actually, you can, but that’s not something I’m about to teach anyone
Fern: and i’m not intending to ask
Fern: but you can just push a hug on someone?
Rainsong: Yep
Fern: bit creepy, but okay
Chirotractor: I mean you can do that normally
Rainsong: It’s rude/assault to do it without permission… same as a regular one
Chirotractor: many people will try to deck you if you hug them without permission
Chirotractor: or with permission
Fern: okay, gotten a little murky, so.. back to games? that felt more wholesome
Rainsong: In the same way, extending an impression equivalent to a one-finger salute or the back of two fingers (national preference of your choice…) to the idiot riding your back bumper during rush hour isn’t polite as such, but it’s effective
Fern: really? doesn’t have much effect when i do it physically
Fern: how do you tie things to 3d space by the way? I have trouble with 5d astral space with constructs
Rainsong: I expect they back off because they’re startled by the unexpected sensation and not sure why
Rainsong: Excellent question. One of the ways I do it is to give the “thing” a specific locus.
Fern: also do glamours tie in with the sensation recall thing?
Rainsong: For example, if I’m working on someone’s backache remotely, I’ll place the ‘imaginary” version of the person very specifically, say, 35cm directly in front of me with their shoulders at my elbow height
Rainsong: Various traditions do glamours differently, but I’m not aware of any methods that aren’t improved by having a clear sensory recall
Fern: how would that work for… okay so my idea is to make DnD items for fun and try to recrate the effects (glamour and sensations) but if I make a ring it’s very hard to fit onto a physical finger or a flappy pet is hard to relate to 3d space
Fern: and glamours, i really don’t know anything beyond creating the impression of somethign
Rainsong: Why would it be hard to fit it on the finger? The simplest way would be to actually form the ring around the finger. They you can get the right fit 🙂
Rainsong: As for placing the flappy pet… You can place a physical object such as an apple or a tuba somewhere, right?
Rainsong: Start with placing a small psiball construct in your hand, as if you were holding a tennis ball
Rainsong: Once you’ve got that, then try passing it back and forth between your hands
Rainsong: Then toss it back and forth.
Rainsong: You can add two or three more and take up juggling 😀
Fern: the problem is extra dimensions, things tend to slip.. sideways
Fern: things are fine until i try to relate it to a physical point and then it’s obvious it’s skewed
Rainsong: Practice holding a really small object (tennis ball, apple, pebble, crumpled paper, whatever)
Rainsong: Does that cause the same issues?
Fern: a physical one?
Fern: or psi?
Rainsong: Yea
Rainsong: A regular “normal physical” thing
Fern: no?
Rainsong: And can you toss it back and forth wthout it sliding sideways?
Fern: yes? it’s .. well 3d. or at least the bit i’m playing with is
Rainsong: Alrighty…. Ever charge an object? It’s really just pushing oomph into something, while holding an intention to attach some kind of attribute or action to it
Rainsong: In other words, stuffing a construct into a regular object
Fern: no, i don’t think so. i never got it to meld
Rainsong: It might be useful for you to practice stuffing constructs into regular items, then. Get used to placing the construct in normal space-time, and the physical locus of the regular object simplifies the concept
Fern: sounds interesting
Fern: so to ties things together. say i had a pendant that I wanted to look like a beating heart. I could attack a construct to it and give it the sensation of a heartbeat and the sounds, but what about the appearence?
Rainsong: For appearance, the construct would want to be a bit bigger than the pendant, so that it encloses the pendant.
Rainsong: You know what a beating heart looks like, yes? Review some videos. There are quite a few available, mostly made for med students to study
Rainsong: Do you want it to produce that illusion all the time or only under certain conditions?
Fern: mhm, game programming comes in handy too, you just need to get the key points. off beat chambers going separately and the colour, I doubt you’d need to get every valve precicely positioned
Fern: all the time, for the example
Rainsong: Make the shell/outer edge of the construct nice and thick, and program it to project the image of the remembered animation of the beating heart
Rainsong: The importance of the positioning of the valves and such is determined by how important it is for the specific item to look right. Frankly, most people are sufficiently unfamilliar that they won’t notice even large errors
Fern: thats the bit that I really don’t get, projecting it. is that forcing everyone looking in that direction to see it as a heart or… I really don’t get the mechanic
Rainsong: Let’s back up a bit, and before making it heart-shaped and beating, let’s just make the pendant kinda dark red
Fern: okie
Rainsong: You make it look dark red either by causing it to reflect that colour and absorbing all the other ones, but making it emit dark-red light, or by causing an impression of dark red in whomever looks at it
Rainsong: The mechanic is the same as causing the splash of water impression – whatever the mechanic of it actually is, and we don’t know. The only real difference is that it isn’t triggered by contact. Rather, it either projects an area effect or is triggered by being looked at
Fern: I don’t fully understand, but i guess thats lack of practice more than anything
Rainsong: Start with simple parts and build on them
Rainsong: Have you tried the drawing-on-the-hand thing?
Fern: mhm
Rainsong: And what, if anything did you feel when you did it?
Fern: cool air and borderline painful pins and needles in my entire hand
Rainsong: In the case of the pins-and-needles thing, wash your hands after
Fern: kay
Rainsong: Is it the projection of the sensation that isn’t making sense? Or how to trigger it?
Fern: the projection
Fern: i feel like it’s a lot simpler than i’m making it
Rainsong: Probably so.
Rainsong: You mentioned game programming. Have you placed an animation in a game?
Fern: mhm, lots
Rainsong: Similar concept: placing an image to be seen by someone else if something happens (you technically can program the construct in C# or whatever, if you want to)
Fern: so it’s not alteering the person its… hacking the information stream between person and object?
Rainsong: Yes
Rainsong: That’s a good way to describe it
Fern: that sound way way safer than what i was imagining
Fern: with the image… okay so when I imagine something i tend to just imagine the vague impression rather than details. so would you use a memory of seeing the thing? or rather, construct that like it was a memory?
Rainsong: That’s right. Typically, you can only project what you can call up yourself, so at this point you might only be able to project the vague impression. It’s worthwhile to practice calling images to mind, if you want to cast illusions
Rainsong: It’s not an easy skill to acquire, but it is a simple one. Just takes practice
Rainsong: Hint: Start with complex pictures. They are easier to hold in the mind than simple pictures
Fern: I’ve heard that moving images are too
Rainsong: Yep
Fern: ummm, so fun games for that.. look at the view from a car/bus (not driving) for a few seconds then try to mentally recreate it?
Rainsong: That’s good practice, yes.
Rainsong: And colouring… like with crayons
Rainsong: Do you make any graphics for your game programming? That is helpful, too
Rainsong: Pull up a photograph on the Internet and describe it in as much detail as you can. Then turn off your moniitor and try to re-build the image in your imagination
Fern: I’m doing that now for a game :sweatsmile:
Fern: really helpful to rebuild an image in 3d before painting it
Rainsong: Indeed. And it’s great practice for your psionic activity, too. Whoo. Multi-tasking 😀
Fern: goes both ways. magic made me better at dimensions which makes me a better programmer because i’m not restricted to 3
Fern: how would you go about making an autumny cloak? one that feels like crisp breeze, smells like caramel and sharp apples and reminds you somehow of fallen leaves?
Fern: same as above just sub in the new data?
Rainsong: Exactly so.
Fern: well, aren’t i just going to be the most fashionable mage in town
Rainsong: :thumbsup:
Rainsong: Be sure to make a nice base “cloak” construct: the weight on the shoulders, the drape of the fabric. Then add the other parts on top
Fern: oh! I was thinking melded with an actual coat, i like the purely psi one though
Fern: Would have to pair it with a badge or something though, the amount of detail to get it to hang on a hook, respond to being picked up and put on…
Rainsong: Can do it either way. Stuff the construct cloak into a regular coat or not
Fern: did you ever see fantastic beasts? teh harry potter movie?
Rainsong: Yes
Fern: an epic force bubble exercise might be pairing an expandable force bubble to an umbrella handle. likt the umbrella spell in the film
Fern: way beyond me though 😕
Rainsong: It can be done. Strenuous to maintain, though
Fern: would it? forgive me, I don’t know anything about pk, I thought the construct took the strain of maintaining it?
Rainsong: No, it doesn’t.
Fern: so, for things like shields or the pool table thing, you’d set a trigger, to minimise the effort?
Rainsong: The little pool table pranks don’t take much effort, and they are only bouncing off things occasionally.
Fern: How do you start with pk? I’ve heard a lot of people talk about pinwheels, but i’ve never had much success
Rainsong: Folks starting from scratch with it generally need to put in consistent effort at it, a few times a day. How long it takes, though, varies widely, from a couple days to months or years
Rainsong: It’s easier to change the trajectory of a moving object than to start something moving, though, so try soap bubbles or messing with ‘random’ movements in a video game
Fern: i never thought about soap bubbles, that sounds fun
Fern: easy to write off as an accident though
Rainsong: Yes, and for initial practice that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Obviously, you’ll want to do more ‘certain’ things soon after
Rainsong: A radiometer is a good choice
Fern: Is that one of those spinny sun things?
Rainsong: Yea.
Rainsong: It’s kind of like a psiwheel in reverse. You want to stop it, rather than start it. And the only ways to do that are to a) change the light that’s hitting it, or b) muck with it telekinetically
Fern: Maybe I’ll muck about with a flame first.
Fern: okay so for anyone who happens to review this later, fun way to practice controlling shape and image is to find images of DnD amulets online and remake them, just hanging in the air, also glitter is fantastic to study for the visual thing, essential oils for scent, multifandoms for sounds
Fern: (my past half hour)
Rainsong: Good stuff 🙂
Fern: sorry for kind of taking over the lesson :sweatsmile: I was learning a lot, got a little too enthusiastic
Rainsong: It’s fine. In this kind of scattershot seminar, we just take it where the interest is shown.
Rainsong: I’m happy that you’ve found it useful
Fern: very useful, I’ve been confused about how to interact with other people magically for some time
Rainsong: Sometimes a small tidbit is all it takes to clear up that kind of problem
Rainsong: Thanks for participating
Fern: thank you for the lecture
Rainsong: Incidentally, one of the current projects is a set of psionic videogames. Haven’t determined the best way to post them.
Fern: well that sounds awesome
Fern: lots of random numbers?
Fern: what would make a good psionic practice game? I mean I’m making loads now as practice, i’m not saying they’d be amazing, but I could make one
Rainsong: The first, simple ones will be sets of coloured dots, and the object in one case is to cause them all to go in one direction, and in another case to describe a circle. Not scored or anything, just playing…. Another is a mobile “falling object” type game, with the object to force all the randomly spawned falling objects to fall on one side of the screen or the other. So, yea, pretty simple in terms of programming and graphics
Fern: i never properly understood microPk especially with computers because the numbers are only pseudoRandom
Rainsong: MicroPK can do a lot of stuff with computers. The more complicated things risk damaging your harddrive, though.
Rainsong: For example, it’s possible to imprint a program onto a disk just by force of will and pushing a metric #$% tonne of oomph through it
Rainsong: It’s more efficient to put the disk into a computer and input the coding with a keyboard, though.
Rainsong: I did that to a floppy disk (yes, I’m older than dirt) for shiggles a couple decades ago. Took me an hour to imprint just sixteen lines of code in BASIC.
Fern: that sounds like something where a lot of control and only a little oomph would be required, at least ina way that wouldn’t break things
Fern: hey! I remember floppy disks!
Fern: still pretty cool
Rainsong: Another game in the queue is a simple 3D dice game
Fern: always fun. I remember a game on… was it psigarden?
Fern: with butterflies
Fern: zero success and i wanted to throw my computer out the window, but it was very cool to see a psionic game
Rainsong: The trick with the butterfly one was to not try too hard. It’d backfire
Rainsong: But that site’s games were taken down 🙁
Chirotractor: I liked the tile sliding one
Rainsong: It was fun
Fern: my problem was always the immediate feedback. you always failed or you didn’t, there was never a “close”
Fern: that’s why i liked the butterflies, they kind of drifted
Rainsong: Some are cut-and-dried, and some have more leeway