Reverse Thinking

Why you can't just do what you want

This is the follow up to my article on The Dice Man the week before on Anything Goes?

In which I referred to the anti-hero who makes all his decisions by shaking the dice.

Specifically, he comes up with SIX possible outcomes for any given situation. Then he rolls the dice to decide which he shall follow.

For example the situation might be:

A person unknown to you keeps looking at you when you go to the bar. Your six possibilities might be:

1. Hit her.

2. Put Rohypnol in her drink.

3. Ask her if you've met before

4. Ask if she has a squint

5. Ask for sex

6. Talk about things you might have in common

You shake the dice and are obliged to follow that 'choice'.

But here are my objections to the Dice Man's Theory:

1. Stupid people will come up with six dumb choices (like most of those above)
2. Insensitive people might come up with six unimaginative choices (ditto)
3. Emotionally unintelligent people could come up with six abusive choices (ditto)

The idea that shaking the dice can make your decisions for you is also wrong on three important counts:

• Headmind may not have enough experience or imagination to think up some worthwhile choices
• Bodymind may not approve the choices made for you and may react with disgust
• You can't just use the dice to further the illusion of free will. You don't have free will because your body (amongst other things) always forces the 'right choice' on you

The idea of letting the dice rule our lives might free us up from rules, conventions and worries but it won't teach us how to be real human beings, happier, wiser, or even self-actualizers.

Handing control of your life over to dice is the same kind of cop-out as is handing over control to drugs, other people, or fate.

Image by art makes me smile

EMDR

About 20 years ago we discovered that changing your eye-movements while you process a worry, a phobia or a trauma reduces - or eliminates - the problem.

Sometimes this process is called Eye Movement Integration (EMI), or Rapid Eye Technology (RET), or Rapid Eye Movement Technology (REMT), or Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR).

The basic premise is that eye movements signal the brain to process information in different ways.

For example:

Slowing down or holding eye movements still while you process a pleasant memory enables you to become more fully absorbed in it (try it for yourself).

Speeding up the eye movements while holding in mind a worry or a bad memory weakens its impact.

The fact that rapid eye movements appear when we dream shows that they are closely linked to brain cebtres that process information as dreams are partly a digest of that day's experiences. Interestingly, people with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder often report with damage to the Hippocampus - a brain centre closely linked to memory processing.

If you want to erase a trauma or a phobia for yourself you could consult someone with a training in Reverse Therapy (I don't recommend you try it by yourself).

If you want to experiment with milder problems like a worry then just switch on the program at the top and stare at the X in the middle while you hold the worry in mind.

It works for most people.

Anything goes?

In The Dice Man the author/anti-hero, Luke Rhinehart, a fictional psychiatrist, describes how he changes his life by making all his decisions by shaking dice.

So he shakes the dice to decide what to eat, who to date, how to behave at a party, whether to set his patients free, annoy his boss, murder, rape his next door neighbour (ahem) or whether to be Jesus for a day.

The book is also a satire on psychotherapy. Rhinehart teaches his patients how to use the dice to improve their lives and discovers that the result is far more effective than therapy.

That's because the Self/Ego is a prison created by the rules made up by your Internal Control Freak. The dice technique is one way to escape from those rules - and also from the illusion of free will.

People who suffer from the delusion that all their major decisions are made in the Head fail to see that Headmind is really controlled by other peoples' rules and ideas. So 'Free Will' is just another disguise for conformity.

But maybe that's not too different from people who imagine that gambling on the horses or the lottery will lead to a better life.

The Dice Man takes to its logical conclusion the insight that, since 50% of your decisions - on average - will be 'wrong', you might as well make them random ones. That will at least free you from making the 'correct' decisions your Headmind maps out for you. And the decisions you make through the dice will free you up from the trap and take you into experiences you never could have imagined for yourself. That, in turn, frees you up from Personality.

Reading The Dice Man is a liberating (but somewhat scary) experience. But I think I know at least one important way in which its basic premise is wrong. More on that in the next article.

    "If you are never scared, embarrassed or hurt it means you never take chances."

     Julia Soul

How to be a victim

Being a victim is hard work. For those of you out there who think that it is important to become one here are my top tips on how to make victimization work for you.

1. Live in the past.

This is the golden rule. Thinking that you have been fucked up by your childhood, or by people who bullied or abused you, is a cast-iron guarantee that you have joined the Victim Club.

2. Hand your power over to others.

This is Rule number 2. You simply have to see other people as more attractive, happier, and more powerful than you are. Be sure to think of these people as part of an unspoken conspiracy to do you down.

3. Whinge - often.

One sure way to draw attention to the fact that you are a victim is to complain a lot. This takes practice, I recommend that you use a dictaphone and develop a script which explains why you can't do things you want to be doing but your childhood, bad luck, current illnesses, the system, the authorities, your enemies, etc., won't let you do them.

4. Keep listening to the bad thoughts.

Like: "I am a stupid/bad/guilty/fucked up/useless failure". Be sure not to do anything else with your day but sit around and listen to Headmind.

5. Do as little as possible.

Good losers don't actually do anything. They just sit around and think about the what-might-have beens.

6. Do resentment

This is really a re-run of rule number 2. Gossip as much as you can about people who appear to be better-off than you are. Be sure to dwell on their weaknesses and problems and try to make out that they owe everything to 'luck'.

7. Do Depression

This is related to tips Number 4 and 5. If you want to be a victim then think as much as you can about your past failures and your future hopelessness. Learn how to be depressed and do it well.

8. Be a pessimist.

Professional victims believe they are doomed. That they are in the power of things that they cannot control. That little they do makes any difference, That the world is in the grip of evil powers. Be sure to think the same way.

9. Blame your frustrations on other people.

When Bodymind notices that you are acting like a victim it creates an emotion called frustration. This signal-state is actually telling you to get a life. But don't do that. Instead, tell anyone who wants to listen that your horrible emotions have been caused by dark forces beyond your control.

10 Do things that demean you.

This a tricky one. You could stay in a dead-end job. Or you could stay in a relationship that's past it's sell-by date (see next item). You could also stay in a rut. Or focus all your attention on other peoples' problems. But the safest tip is to always talk yourself down. Don't stint on this: keep telling people how miserable you are.

11. Keep doing dysfunctional relationships.

Victims never learn from their mistakes. They keep choosing the same stupid partners again and again. Always do internet chats/fantasize about/go to bed with/marry people who are losers just like you. Be sure to end the 'relationship' by telling as many people as you can how awful your ex-partner was and how this has screwed you up even more than before.

12. Believe everything you are told.

Spend as much time as you can reading the newspapers, watching morning television, or Googling items that explain why you are a victim. Then go and see a Therapist.

13. Visit doctors/psychiatrists/psychotherapists/counsellors - often.

See Rule 2 and Rule 12. Because you are a victim you will need constant help. Help in understanding why you are a victim. Prescription drugs to help you through the pain of failure. Counselling so that you can become a proficient whinger and get even more stuck.

14. Do lots of courses that promise a better life - and fail.

You might need some government grants for this. Always choose dodgy courses that suggest that you will cease to be a victim once you have mastered the formula for success. Then, once the course has finished, you can blame your failures on the trainer.

15. Rage on about conspiracy theories.

See Rule 2. Adolf Hitler - who was perhaps the most famous victim in history - believed that the Jews were behind a plot to do him and his friends down. Other groups that control victims include the 'System', the Freemasons, the Templars, Opus Dei, the Illuminati and spaceships from Venus. Follow Adolf's example and use monotony to explain why your life has been spent in a long struggle against dark forces.

16. Ignore your passions.

This could well be Golden rule number 3. It's important to understand that you are not important. You are not here for any particular reason and nor have you been provided with any particular gifts, talents, or Personal Genius. Because you live most of the time in your Head you find it unbelievable that Bodymind is continually using emotions to prompt you towards being a real human being.