The ExtraRoom, a space to achieve psychological alterations

Extra Room from Bernd Hopfengaertner on Vimeo.

A very very interesting project at Design Interactions Summer show was ExtraRoom by Gunnar Green (in collaboration with Bernhard Hopfengaertner). Directly influenced by the 50s and '60s experiments, ExtraRoom puts the sensory deprivation practice in a near futuristic scenario, when mind reading technologies are in common use and thoughts are not private anymore.

What would happen if your thoughts became directly accessible to others? What would happen to your innermost desires and believes? Would you still be you?

Bobby McFerrin hacks your brain with music | Video on TED.com

Conversations

Conversational data gathered and consolidated. (Understanding belief: what it is? Where all does it occur? How it occurs? How people perceive and respond to it?)

People spoken to :

An astrologer, a homeopath, a transactional psychotherapist

---------------------------------------------

On 23^rd July : A chat with Venkat Shastri – Astrologer, Yelahanka New Town

What is your education?

A retired government servant. Attended college PUC (Intermediate college)

What is your profession?

Now, after retirement “in order to kill time” he took up his family tradition profession of astrological forecasting – to predict if possibly the question thrown at him will be possible or not.

For how many years have you been doing this?

Since 1952 till date

Who taught him to do this?

A two day workshop from his guru in order to understand what exactly one needs to do this and there onwards he has self-learning from books and learning from much wiser (older experienced pple) and now what counts the most is his experience, knowledge and his faith in god.

Who gives him the answers to the questions asked to him?

He uses the calender – the Panchanga which has all the dates from 1782 till date for answers. But he also spoke of this ‘connection with God’ where he said a lot of answers are given to him by God. This connection he attains through deep meditation.

Points through Chit Chat: He said that a lot of methods exist in the world if one is seeking for answers. One of the methods he believes in and has faith in is praying to God.

God here may refer to a spiritual connection.

His methods are godly approved, not science approved.

Possible placebo? The story goes like this: A doctor came to him once and he was wearing rings and he complained about the sleeplessness and a severe headache. The astrologer asked him to remove a particular ring and asked him to sit calmly for ten minutes. After 10 min, he doctor replied that he was feeling much better.

Stones usually carry a cosmic energy which may clash with one’s own energy resulting in certain disturbances in the body.

OBSERVATION/Inferences:

In this case, it was more like the doctor was expected to feel better/relief after removing the ring and the result was positive.

Understanding belief

20^th July

Importance of understanding the idea of belief-how is it defined/how people react/respond. Understanding this might give a clue as to how a placebo takes place/manifests itself at a later stage.

Placebo is a manifestation of belief, therefore understanding placebo as a mechanism in everyday life.Speculation on how belief occurs in different contexts? (Spiritual, social, psychological, philosophical levels)

As per the talks, it is easier to map the where all belief occurs.

• After the talking to the astrologer, one observation was that when belief is seen as a spiritual occurrence.
• A strong and conscious belief is seen in God. (his connection to God through meditation).
• From the story he told, it was easy to infer how he uses the 'expectancy technique' which takes place as a placebo effect.

After talking to the homeopath, belief was a motivational push to 'vital force' to bring about a placebo effect.

• Homeopathy is a topic of controversy. Since there is no such plausible evidence, many in the western culture have termed it as a pseudoscience.

• Acceptance of homeopathy in Indian culture (analogy of a duck to water): Indian culture has an inherent metaphysical backing which makes it easier for the Indians to accept homeopathy due to the philosophical attribute attached to it

Vital force=Mind

Mind over body equation

• Possible placebo: Positive energy in the form of motivation acts as a placebo (theory # 3)

As a homeopath, empathetic role-playing to bring about awareness of the problem/relation between disease, illness and circumstance.

When this awareness is brought, the patients themselves come up with solutions. (Possible placebo?)

To create a receptive state of mind = understanding the cause and effect equation + indicative medicines.

Observation/Conclusion: All people need sometimes is a motivation/external push to the vital force present within for a placebo effect to take place.

Shows the mind over body control through a placebo, which could be a psychological state of mind. (diagram: head & body)

25^th july/almost the 26^th morning 1.06AM

It has been a week

the progress goes like this:

From thought of confusion to certain clarity

I have already spoken to two people and hopefully will be talking to the third person tomorrow. The earlier two people I spoke to were an astrologer and a homeopath.

I have to still write down the conversation I had with them to see how people abundantly practice placebo(the power of belief) through their profession. In their own respective ways they both use belief and faith either in god or in the medicines prescribed to formulate solutions/answers to questions by giving hope that everything will be okay.

I have to still consolidate the conversation and the research in terms of ideas of possible outcomes and ideas for my own installation.

Exercises like the Rorschach inkblots, similar to this exercise I have to ask Anna Chandy(T.A) if she can suggest a few more. I have to also look up transactional therapy games? – both reading and Youtube.

Placebo in everyday life

Placebo buttons are buttons that actually do nothing except give the user an illusion of control.

The advent of computer-controlled traffic signals make thewalk buttons at pedestrian crossings on heavily trafficked streets obsolete. By the late 1980s, most (but not all) walk buttons in New York City have been deactivated yet people push them anyhow, either in ignorance, out of habit, or in the off chance the buttons did work.

Many large office buildings also have dummy thermostats to give office workers the illusion of control. Some even go as far as installing white-noise generators to mimic the hum of fans after the HVAC system is shut off.

The same goes for the close button in elevators. Most elevators built or installed since the early 1990s don’t have close buttons that work, unless you have a fireman’s key. People do push them anyhow, because the fact that the door eventually closes reinforces their belief that the button works.

Experiments testing placebo effect

The Power of the Placebo Effect

A psychology experiment was conducted to test the placebo effect

Excerpt:

Scientist genrally agree that for the placebo effect to occur, the subject must believe that he is given effective treatment and that it must be suggested to him that the treatment is effective. The question of how and why placebo responses are generated is still a matter of debate and three well-known theories have been proposed, though these three are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The first theory argues that the placebo effect is the result of the subject-expectancy effect: subjects will expect a given result and will therefore report that result. Another theory argues that it is the result of classical conditioning. Proponents of this theory explain that people are conditioned to associate a particular stimulus with a particular response. With confronted with a stimulus of a placebo that is perceived to be medicine, subjects will give off the appropriate response, which is relief. The last theory proposes that motivation to feel better and cooperate with an experimenter to be the ultimate cause (Carroll).

Read more: http://socyberty.com/psychology/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect/#ixzz0uyAdalyQ

17th July - Focus, focus? where is it?

(Thoughts of confusion)

I am really confused. I am stuck at the part where I have to go collect stories. I am certain I need material to introspect on, if I intend to write a narrative. But also, “belief ” is such a topic, which has a lot of solving and clearing out of my own prejudices before talking to anyone else. I am struggling to do that. More like, how do I go about clearing out my own prejudices?

Also interviewing some people might actually help me clear my prejudices (in a way) but it needs to be a very focused interview (I need to interview pple in such a way or ask those Qs. Where I can get to the experiences I am looking for) and I need to identify who all is it I am talking to? Since I am looking at Placebo and how a placebo makes use of Belief as a powerful medication, I will be interviewing counselors (psychotherapy) and Homeopaths. But this is only in the area of medicinal practice. There are more aspects through which belief can be looked at like “belief in a supreme power”, “belief in yourself-internal belief”, “belief in someone else – external belief” – This sort of opens up the premise of Belief especially that area where what is it that people have belief in, more than questioning what belief is?

I am feeling really stuck and I think I am wasting time just thinking. What should be my next step?

I met Vasanthi day before yesterday, and another way to go about the abstract idea of belief would be to somehow symbolize it and use it as a metaphor to say many things. I actually got homework: to look up the term “Metonymy” and how it is different from a Metaphor and see possibilities of how I can convert this idea abstract idea of Belief into something more tangible.

Mindmap to get started..

Before the first review, this mindmap was helpful in terms of explaining the topic of my project. To build my narrative, i have focused on the phenomenon of the "Placebo Effect" which is a simulated medical intervention which uses Belief as a very powerful medication.

Dip Review # 1 (Guides - Kumkum, Vasanthi, Nupur ), 13th July 2010

Few Pointers

• The topic of Placebo itself is controversial in nature like a Pandora's Box
• The whole idea of Placebo (how belief is used as medication) is also very mysterious in nature because the unknown part is how Belief not only brings about the self-healing but also brings about this inner-strength which makes someone overcome challenges.
• Interesting area - How certain incidences in lives of people elevate their mind-body dynamism and pushes it's limits to go beyond and do certain magical things that go beyond any logical, rational or scientific explanation.
• NOT MAKING IT MUMBO-JUMBO but still retaining that air of mystery, uncanny-ness around it. Ex. Shyamalans Movies, Hitchcock movies - Rebecca, Spellbound - Psychological Thrillers!
• the narrative could also be a depiction of experiences in a setting of complex minded of people instead of it being a comment on the situation.

Thoughts:

After having quick chats with Avy, Jayshree and Suchitra it was becoming more and more crucial to define the next step. How was I going to go about collecting experiences and stories of people.

"More than questioning what belief is, it would be more interesting to observe/find patterns in what is it that people believe/have faith in?"

(The beginning of research to build a narrative) Taking off from there - a personality test to narrow down to focus groups that will help me identify the different groups of people and what to them is belief. Through the questionnaire, enable sharing of first hand experiences, real life incidences where they encountered belief.

A useful article that helped me articulate what I am trying to articulate

The most powerful medicine: Belief, Thursday March 25th 2010Posted by Craig HarperI’ve spoken to you before about a thing called Psychoneuroimmunology. PNI is (put simply) the impact our thinking can have (positively or negatively) on our immune system. Some might call it the interplay or relationship between our thoughts and our physiology (well, part of our physiology). It is now known – not hypothesised or theorised – that our thoughts can increase or decrease our chances of becoming sick, of recovering more quickly or slowly and, in some instances, of recovering at all. No, we don’t totally understand it (well, I don’t) but, yes, we know it’s a reality. In fact, we have known about (the science of) PNI for around forty years. We just haven’t explored it, exploited it or tapped into it as effectively as we could.
However, in many cultures less scientific and educated than ours, the powerful relationship between mind and body (in terms of potential for healing) has been respected, explored and exploited for millennia.
Some shamans in remote areas of the world are well aware of the power of an individual to cure themselves and use that as a legitimate part of their “whole person” treatment. Their ceremonies sometimes give their patient the feeling that they are being given “the works”. The sick person totally buys into the treatment, and their internal curative powers step in to do the work. That is, they heal themselves courtesy of their belief in the ‘treatment’. (P.19, book reference to follow).
I also wrote a few weeks ago about how we can consciously manipulate our physiology (respiration, blood pressure, heart rate, hormone production, sweat response, anxiety levels and lots more) while doing absolutely nothing but sitting in a chair and thinking. Our body doesn’t know the difference between fantasy and reality so it responds (physiologically) as though the experience is real. Which is why when you dream that you’re being attacked by bad guys in a dark alley, you wake up with your body in a state of heightened arousal ,that is, the stress response.
Even though you’re lying there sound asleep, your body responds as if the experience is totally real because it doesn’t differentiate between your dream-state (your self-created reality) and what happens when you’re awake and functioning in your physical world. Your mind has created your reality (and we don’t only do this when we’re asleep, by the way!). Was it your intention to create that physical response? No. Was it a conscious process? No. It all happened without your consent (so to speak), without your knowledge and at a level below your conscious self.
It’s amazing that our mind can create this kind of (perceived) reality isn’t it? If I were to ask you if you believe whether or not it’s possible to manipulate your physiology (heart rate, hormones, blood pressure, etc.) through thought alone, would your answer be ‘yes I do’ or ‘no I don’t’? At this point, I’ll assume it’s yes.
Okay, what if I were to ask you if you believe that you could heal yourself from a terminal disease using a similar process – that is, manipulating your physiology (creating change on a cellular level) via thought? I’m guessing if we were all totally honest, most of us would answer ‘er, probably not’ to that question. “Sure, I want to believe it, but I don’t think I can. It doesn’t really make sense.”
And therein lies (part of) the problem.
Of course, it’s hard to believe in a concept like self-healing because, with our current level of knowledge and understanding of how things work, it doesn’t make sense. Just ask the experts; they’ll tell you. And in order to believe, most of us need things to make sense. Being a scientist (of sorts), I’m all for proof, logic, data and evidence but the fact remains: when it comes to the human body and its potential, there’s simply a lot we still don’t know or understand. Especially when it comes to the mind-body dynamic and the potential therein.
We’ve all heard of people who have taken tablets full of nothing (placebos) in double-blind studies who have experienced immediate relief from certain physical symptoms (sometimes chronic symptoms) because they believe they’ve taken an actual drug. While we still don’t (totally) understand it, we now know that our belief can affect our physiology on a cellular level. It can create chemical changes. It can slow or accelerate healing. It can turn hair grey.
David R Hamilton (with a Ph.D in organic chemistry) in his book It’s the Thought That Counts asserts that it’s often not the drug which does the healing but rather our belief in the drug. That is, we (unknowingly) create the appropriate chemical reaction independent of the actual tablet. Is that amazing or what!?
Take a peek at a few extracts from his book:
Some doctors believe that it is important to give a patient a new drug while it is still considered the “in thing” because once a new drug appears on the scene, the previous one seems to lose much of its miraculous healing power. It’s not because the medicine stops working but because people stop believing in it (P.19).
Time has revealed that many miraculous medicines of the past had almost no curative powers of their own. But the patients who believed in them and were cured by them didn’t know that at the time (P.19).
Taking faith out of the healing equation would nevertheless reveal many medicines to be very powerful, but it is just not possible to remove faith (belief). The bottom line is that if you believe in a particular medicine, or in the doctor who prescribed it, then it is more likely to work for you. Conversely, if you don’t believe in the medicine or the doctor, there is a good chance that you will negate the medicine’s power. (P.19)
And here’s the kicker – my personal fave (you might need to read it a few times):
It is now understood that neuropeptides are involved in a whole array of different bodily functions, from hormone regulation to protein manufacture, cellular repair upon injury, memory storage and pain management. So, since neuropeptides are produced by emotion, all of these things are affected by how a person feels. It is now known that there is an entire psychosomatic network connecting the body and mind involving hundreds of neuropeptides and thousands of receptor locations throughout the body. Any of a vast range of thoughts or feelings can cause a whole cascade of changes in a person’s body (P.28).
And I love this sentence….
The whole body is psychosomatically wired to dance to the tune of thought and emotion (P.29).
I know some of this stuff can be a little technical, sciencey, confusing and.. er..out-there, but hopefully you get the gist of the message: what we believe can have a dramatic (and often, instant) impact on our physiology. For good or bad. I’m still studying and slowly getting my head around this topic so that I might be able to distill it into further messages which hopefully will be of interest and value to you. Our body is indeed an awesome gift with incredible capabilities – we just need to learn to drive it.