Instructor: Rainsong
Date: November 24, 2018 (Saturday)
Seminar: Topic “Aeon Trinity” Series – Conference of the NORCA – mucking around with your own body, and illusion for disguise (real world psionics, in spite of the game-inspired topic) -Saturday, 24 November 2018 at 6:30pm/1830hr New York Time — text format in the PSC #lecture room (Discord) — Instructor: Rainsong — Search LECTURE50
Rainsong: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Rainsong: Welcome to another seminar here at the social club.
Rainsong: This is another in our Aeon Trinity Conference series.
Rainsong: Tonight, we have the conference of the NORCA, the Sudamerican shape-changers
Rainsong: In spite of the game-related theme, we will be discussing real-world psionics.
Rainsong: Are there any questions or comments before we get going?
Scelana: I have none atm
Chirotractor: Not yet
Rainsong: The fictional NORCA could do stuff that, as far as I’m aware, has never been duplicated in real life. However, some of their basic stuff, is also basic stuff for real-world psionicists, and that’s what we’ll take a look at.
Rainsong: In the introductory comments, I described them as shape-changers. And that is part of what they did. Nifty way for a spy to disguise him/herself is to physically alter the shape and details of the body…
Rainsong: It’s tricky, though, and dangerous. All those changes so fast run the very real risk of overloading your kidneys with the metabolites produced by the change, especially if there’s a significant change of size or “plumbing”
Chirotractor: This is still fake psionics right?
Rainsong: waggles hand Shifting over into real-world.
Rainsong: People have been known to ask about changing parts of their own bodies. And some of that can be done, real-world, strangely enough
Rainsong: But nowhere near what the game characters “did” routinely
Rainsong: There was a guy whose name escapes me – I was thinking it was Ted Serios, but Serios is the one who liked to project thoughts onto Polaroid film — who would startle audiences by causing a tumour to grow on this arm, and then reabsorbing it again, within a matter of minutes.
Rainsong: Sure, that’s a cool way to demonstrate the power of the mind over the physical body.
Rainsong: But it really annoys the kidneys.
Rainsong: and runs the risk of not entirely ridding yourself of the deliberate tumour.
Rainsong: If you choose to try that one, be careful.
Rainsong: So, yea, now we’re back into real-world.
Rainsong: Questions and commentary so far?
Chirotractor: Comment: Wow, that’s crazy.
Scelana: How interesting, I wonder how small of a change it would have to be in order to not bother one’s kidneys so much?
Rainsong: I’m not sure. Slower changes, taking days or months instead of minutes, are safer generally.
Scelana: Ahh
Scelana: Closer a rate to what a human body normally would do, makes sense
Rainsong: nods Then the work the kidneys are doing is more along the lines of what they are meant to handle
Rainsong: Also less effort to accomplish. 🙂
Rainsong: The best-documented slow version seems like a variant of self-hypnosis with a trigger/anchor,
Rainsong: By best-documented, I mean it has formal clinical studies. And I probably should have rooted those out to link in here. 🙁
Rainsong: Anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard of cosmetic surgeries to adjust the size and shape of the various primary and secondary sex characteristics….?
Scelana: Yep
Rainsong: Most of the clinical studies were looking at whether the effects could be duplicated with what amounts to mental exercise.
Rainsong: And, – spoiler alert – it could.
Rainsong: In fact, the results tended to be better.
Rainsong: And, because the risks of the surgery itself were taken out of the picture, there were fewer complications.
Rainsong: Over the course of three months, the study participants would sit quietly and make a chosen gesture while telling themselves that either (whatever) hadn’t finished growing, and so the body would release the hormones to start it growing again, or, that (whatever) was too big and it would start to shrink.
Rainsong: Depending on the study, they either did this twice or three times a day, or three or four times a week.
Rainsong: Each session would be somewhere between fifteen and forty-five minutes, again varying with the study.
Rainsong: And they’d make their little hand gesture thing periodically in between sessions to remind their bodies to do stuff.
Rainsong: As mentioned, it worked.
Rainsong: for everybody every time?
Rainsong: No
Rainsong: There aren’t many things that work for everyone all the time.
Rainsong: Safer and easier than surgery, though (cheaper, too). So if anybody reading this were considering any of those kinds of surgeries, might be worth your while to try this first
Rainsong: Questions? Commentary?
Scelana: None here
Rainsong: There are, of course, smaller changes to one’s body that are far more common: changing body temperature (overall or just in one area), adjusting blood pressure, convincing the bladder to empty for convenience sake before a long flight/lecture or because you’re having a medical test done… you know, that sort of thing.
Rainsong: These are often considered to be biofeedback-type activities.
Rainsong: Technically speaking, it’s only biofeedback if you’re using an outside tool – such as a sensor hooked up to a computer – to reflect information back to you as you’re doing it.
Rainsong: Those machines are handy for learning with, sure.
Rainsong: They tend to be a bit pricey, though
Chirotractor: I’ve said it before but it’s suprisingly easy to give yourself a really unpleasant fever
Rainsong: It’s true
Rainsong: It’s also surprisingly easy to just make a “fever” in a small area on the palm of the hand.
Rainsong: Concentrate on pretending to hold something moderately hot there. Not hot enough to burn because yes, that is possible, and no, open wounds are not what we’re going for here.
Rainsong: Why would you want to do that, you ask?
Rainsong: It can relieve the symptoms of a headache, apparently because it affects the bloodpressure.
Rainsong: Chiro: Do you care to share how you do your fever thing?
Chirotractor: oh… I just sorta set myself on fire and keep it going for a while..
Chirotractor: Which is to say, I focus on circulating heat and burning more energy until it sorta sticks.
Rainsong: nods Good approach for that, if you feel the need to give yourself an unpleasant fever
Chirotractor: Mostly it’s a matter of “Oh shit I wish I brought a coat” for several hours and then three days of regret.
Rainsong: Adjusting blood pressure is most easily done with simple visualisations: chillin’ on the beach or something similar for lowering the bloodpressure, and a scene that angers or frightens you to raise it
Rainsong: And strangely, it’s been found that it’s easier to produce a “biofeedback” type of effect in someone else than in your own body.
Rainsong: Just focus on that person in any of the usual ways while doing whichever biofeedback-like activity you choose
Rainsong: Questions? Commentary?
Scelana: None here atm
Chirotractor: wondering it that’s from the same thing empathy is
Rainsong: Probably. A lot of it seems pretty similar and is approached pretty much the same way. (But I don’t know whether it actually is from the same thing empathy is)
Rainsong: Any other questions or comments?
Chirotractor: must step out actually, Thanks for the lecture!
Rainsong: Thanks for participating
Rainsong: Cheers 🙂
Scelana: I can’t seem to think of anymore questions or such for now so far hehe
Rainsong: In that case, we’ll call it a night.
Rainsong: Thanks for participating. 😀
Scelana: Thxies for the lecture Rainsong!
Rainsong: 🙂