Hello Again.
Lately, I've been wondering about some of the assumptions which seems to be the base of a lot of thing in the field of self-improvement, Accelerated Learning and so on. For most of these things, I have no source. They just get re-told and re-written over and over again.
So, please, if someone has any clue to where these things come from, post it here or eMail me directly.
Here we go:
No no
The subconcious mind/other than concious mind doesn't understand the meaning of "not".
Classic: "If I tell you NOT to think about a pink elephant, you will instantly think of one." From personal experience, I must reject this.
Contradiction: "Saying I can't do this" has an effect on the unconsious part of our minds, even if it has a negation in it.
So: "Negative Selftalk Works", "Negative Goal-Setting Doesn't". Where the common ground here?
Everything we sense, think and experience is stored in our mind
Where does this come from? Is there any proof? Statistical, theoretical, anecdotical? And, if anything is stored, why hasn't anybody developed a method to access this vast storehouse?
Hemispheres
As far as I know, the concept of left/right-brain-functions comes from Robert Ornstein (and others), but has by now been updated to a much more complex model of the human mind and brain. This does not mean that methods based on the left/right-scheme don't work, but are there any methods out there which take in account the current models?
Brain Waves
Is there any material on how brainwaves and mind-states really correlate? To me, it seems a bit funny that a certain frequency is good for learning and that another frequency, just some hertz away is good for something completely different.
And, as I remember from other posts, the "enlightened" mind has a frequency spectrum spread across the whole range of brain frequencies. So, why is everyone shooting for only a small range? And why is "beta" so often looked down upon?
(It would be really nice to monitor ones own brain frequencies continously for some time, so one could see for one's self what is happening wiht one's mind.)
A closing remark: I think that all the notions above have (had) some strong influences on "The Self-Improvement Movement", but as far as I know, most of these assumptions/findings are at least some years, if not decades old. So, are they still current, or have they been already fossilized? Or, to play devil's advocate, are they still in use because they are simple and nobody wants to deal with more complex, yet more accurate knowledge? Or, to get really nasty, does newer research contradict this foundations of self-improvement?
Critical, but still a believer,
Jens
[This message has been edited by Jens (edited May 21, 2001).]
