Quantum Self-shifting

Covert Cinemorphics

The term Covert Cinemorphics can refer to a variety of applications of the Cinemorphic methodology, but two very useful and effective ones are…

1. Covert Rehearsal, which refers to the practice of performing a behavior “in your head” rather than actually…secretly rather than in the open. It has been demonstrated that this technique, which uses imagery, visualization, sensory imagination, etc. can be effective in improving sports performance, musical performance, getting rid of phobias, getting over shyness, etc…a valuable tool for re-writing and re-enacting your self.

2. Covert Third Party Conditioning (Shaping), which refers to re-writing and modifying somebody else’s behavior rather than your own. This type of conditioning, of course, was used on you as a child by your parents, and later by your peers and culture to shape who you became before you realized that you could consciously deconstruct, the reconstruct your self. Everyone does this all the time unconsciously…in marriages, working relationships, child rearing, etc., but it is possible to use the techniques of positive and negative reinforcement, successive approximation , aversion training, etc. consciously to fix some problem or just to play. Of course, manipulating someone else’s behavior just for the fun of it raises ethical questions, but is evident on various scales throughout our society…think ad campaigns, political propaganda, Facebook manipulating emotions by varying what’s in our news feeds, etc.

Persona Play - The Baobah Sessions

Cinemorphics Exercises, Games & Experiments...The Baobah Sessions, September 2014, Florianopolis, Brazil. Here are some videos from the seminar and workshop featuring the Baobah team. All 12 videos may be found at: https://www.youtube.com/user/cinemorphics

This one was inspired by and is dedicated to Federico Fellini who said, "A different language is a different vision of life". The music is from 8½. The new characters devise scenarios in which they can interact with each other in character. One for Janis...

The Baobah Sessions

Edwina and I just got back to San Francisco from a very successful two week Cinemorphics seminar and workshop at what I am now thinking of as the Baobah Art & Physics Labs (my take on Baobah Novas Formas de Inteligência) in Florianopolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil. Watch for exciting game changing developments and projects coming from Baobah Director Jussara Figueira and her team, Ana Ciscato, Claudia Passos, Emmanuel Bohrer Junior, Glaucia Grigolo, Marisa Naspolini and Ramon Noro (all pictured). Quite a group!

Train Your Brain To Let Go Of Habits - 10 Methods For Creating New Neural Pathways

When you understand how neural pathways are created in the brain, you get a front row seat for truly comprehending how to let go of habits. Neural pathways are like superhighways of nerve cells that transmit messages. You travel over the superhighway many times, and the pathway becomes more and more solid. You may go to a specific food or cigarettes for comfort over and over, and that forms a brain pathway. The hopeful fact, however, is that the brain is always changing and you can forge new pathways and create new habits. That’s called the neuroplasticity of the brain.
I used to drive with one foot on the brake and the other on the accelerator, and I wanted to train myself to drive with one foot only. It took some time, as I had a strong neural pathway for two-footed driving. But because I had the will to do it, I built a new pathway, and I rewired or reprogrammed my brain. You can remove a behavior or thought or addictions directly from the brain.
Because of neuroplasticity, the brain’s ever-changing potentials, anything is possible. People who’ve had strokes can retrain their brains to function again by building new pathways. Smokers and overeaters and many others can learn new behaviors and attitudes and can transform their lives.
Whether you work with others on their habits or you work with your own (or both), you can apply these understandings to boost your success.
Some Powerful Ways to Retrain the Brain

1. Identity the habit you’d like to transform and set the intention.

You may remember the punch line “The light bulb has to want to change.”  You have to have a high intention to change as well. If there is this high intention, then creating new pathways in your brain is bound to happen.

2. Observe what the old habit or pathway is doing in your life.

Look at feelings, thoughts, and how the body is responding to the habit, and see what results you’re creating in your life. Be the witness, and  be aware.

3. Shift your focus.

This is very important. To create a new neural pathway, you take the focus off the old habit, and then that old habit eventually falls away. Don’t pay attention to the donuts and cakes. Take your awareness and focus it on good, wholesome, healthy delicious foods.

4. Use your imagination.

You can build new neural pathways not only with new behaviors, but through the imagination. Just imagine the new behaviors over and over and over. Keep repeating that in your mind so you build new pathways. Focus your mind and retrain your brain.

5. Interrupt your thoughts and patterns when they arise.

Say “no” or “cancel” when an old thought or impulse comes in, and say, “I don’t have to do that anymore.” Then turn toward the new neural pathway you’re building and keep on going in the right direction.

6. Use aversion therapy.

This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. It’s an optional path. I like to call it “the maggots on the chocolate cake technique.” I used to love candies and sweets, and when I stopped eating them, I still had to pass by them when I walked by the candy store in town. I used aversion to train my brain to walk on by: “That’s junk,” I said to myself. “It’s made in factories, sickeningly sweet, makes me feel bad. The company makes it so sweet just to addict buyers. I don’t want any of that.” So I talk myself out of it. I’ve use it with many clients (only those who say they want it) on smoking, junk food, cocaine and many other behaviors.

7.  Create a specific plan and choose what to do instead.

When you get specific, it’s easier to build new neural pathways. You “make it official.”  Decide if you want to exercise instead of overeating or if you want to eat fruit instead of candy. Just keep focused on the new choice.  You may want to create affirmations and anchors to reinforce your choices. This can be “I’m free or “I’m in control.” Reinforce this with energy therapies like EFT or other techniques.

8. Transform the obstacles.

Look at what’s in the way. Look at secondary gain – what you’ve been getting out of the old habits or pathways. Look at the stress in your life and how you can handle it differently. Get your mind in the place of possibility. Handle the emotions and thoughts and get on a new superhighway in your mind.

9. Connect with your Higher Source for inspiration and support.

Listen to our guidance. Know you have the Force within you, and therefore you have great power. Meditation creates new pathways and brain changes. Actual studies have been done on the brains of monks to show meditation’s effect on neural circuits of the brain.

10. Transform and make the shift.

Know that transformation is always possible and that you can create new brain pathways whenever you’re ready to make the shift. When you keep your mind in the “I can do it!” space, you get a clear sense that you’re done with the old and on a new beam now.
Some people feel we’re being rewired spiritually for anew era. There’s great upheaval now in our world. And there’s a process of transformation happening on earth in which huge changes are taking place for all of humanity. You have to be present in the moment, overcome your fears, and get to know the Infinite source so you can be a vehicle for the light to predominate on the earth.

From: http://themindunleashed.org/2014/03/train-brain-let-go-habits-10-methods-creating-new-neural-pathways.html

Play Intelligence Theory

Play Intelligence
James Findlay

Play intelligence is best understood from a position of unlearning what we already know about play and intelligence. Our knowledge about these two concepts may be advanced, normal, or mere opinion. But in all cases, as adults, in learning something new, we need to free up previously “learned” knowledge, opinions, habits, emotions, cultural distortions etc, so that we have the “open” space to understand something new.
The theory defines intelligence in a manner which will radically challenge our world view. Furthermore, it informs educational researchers and the general public of the importance of play.This is the only concrete model in the world which demonstrates the relationship between play and intelligence called “The Meta model”. Pioneering and innovative new research into Play Intelligence may turn out to be the most important theory on intelligence yet.
The Theory of Play Intelligence explains and demonstrates:

• The building blocks behind play, intelligence, and human abilities.
• The science of play and intelligence.
• The importance of play for improving many of the brains functions.
• The importance of playing with our newborn child.
• How to improve human abilities.
• Why it is important to introduce or reintroduce play in schools.
• Learn to create play in different environments.
• Effective ways in solving problems.
• How to play with stress in stressful environments.
• The higher values of play.
• How to learn, and increase memory.
• how to tap inner human resources to improve our lives.
• How to improve intelligence.

Play Intelligence:

• Shows the general scientific relationship of play and intelligence
• Confirms the recent play research on neuroscience and the brain.
• Explains the importance of the “code of play” between mother and infant.
• Demonstrates the relationship of play to human abilities.
• Gives meaning to the influence of play in education, society and culture.
• Provides a series of examples of how to play under stressful situations.
• Explains how to meta communicate with their environment.
• Outlines how to contact the essential element of play within oneself and others.
• Explains the interconnectedness of play in thoughts, emotion, and environment.
• Creates a new world view of intelligence and play.

For more info go to: http://www.playfoundation.com/

Non-Dual Intelligence

Schrödinger’s Cat

How was Marlon Brando like Schrödinger’s Cat?

For one thing, they both needed an audience...

SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR

A "Not-Doing" Worth Doing

UN-OCCUPIED, UN-EMPLOYED: Don't Just Do Something! Stand There!

In 1994 Bernard McGrane published a book entitled “The Un-TV and the 10MPH Car, Experiments in Personal Freedom and Everyday Life”. In it he describes some strange and very cool experiments that he has his students fool around with that have some entertaining things to say about this whole carnival side show we find ourselves mixed up in.

In the first experiment…Un-Occupied, Un-Employed: Don’t Just Do Something! Stand There!…he has them “do nothing, be un-occupied and un-employed for ten minutes and see what you can see”. This was to be done in a relatively busy public place and was to be taken quite literally…they were to stand there at semi-attention, eyes not wandering about, for a full ten minutes. They were not allowed to pretend they were waiting for someone, if asked…that would be “doing waiting”…they were not allowed to pretend they were sightseeing or just relaxing…that would be “doing sightseeing” or “doing relaxing”, etc. They were to do this for the full ten minutes….the time requirement was strict. As McGrane says…”I looked at them a little like a cross between a meditator and a zombie”.

Try this…have some friends try it…but not in a group…and see what happens. Get McGrane’s book if you can…out of print but available all over the net…and check out other people’s experiences.

Doing a “Not doing” in this way is worth the effort.

Temporary Autonomous Zones

Burning Man - An archetypal T.A.Z.

A Temporary Autonomous Zone (T.A.Z.), first described by Hakim Bey, is a liberated area “of land, time or imagination” where one can be for something, not just against, and where new ways of being human together can be explored and experimented with. Locating itself in the cracks and fault lines in the global grid of control and alienation, a T.A.Z. is an eruption of free culture where life and creativity are experienced at maximum intensity. It should feel like an exceptional party where for a brief moment our desires are made manifest and we all become the creators of the art of everyday life.

"Caged creative brilliance unleashed! I feel like a new kind of life form..." 
Anonymous "Burner"

For more please visit:
http://satoritango.blogspot.com/2005/10/temporary-autonomous-zones_23.html

Finite & Infinite Games...as dance...

An interdisciplinary dance film, Finite & Infinite Games, is a celebration of unity and color. Filmed at Judson Memorial Church in 2010 and premiered at Art Basil Switzerland, Games draws inspiration from philosopher James P. Carse’s “Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility.” The suite of nine dances, directed and choreographed by Katherine Helen Fisher, explore the individual’s quest for generativity within community.

Visual artist C. Finley created the 48′x12′ non-repetitive geometric painted canvas as a comparative replication of the dance. Costumes by fashion designer Gai Mattiolo. Film by RJ Muna. Edited by Sam Chase. Score by Phillip Glass, Moondog, Michael Nyman, Riff-Ola, Food. A thisiswater Production.

Live performances of Games were presented at Judson Church and at Danspace Project in 2011.

Age Hacking with AAARG!

Back in 2011, when I published The Tao of Aging and Method Aging and the Infinite Game, I planned a third book to complete what I envisioned being a trilogy about aging. I took a turn in the road and found myself making a film (totally unrelated to aging) instead. Other zigzags have appeared since (e.g. an upcoming visit to Brazil...more on that in another post), but despite these meanderings in the drift, I can now announce that the third volume in the aging trilogy, AAARGH! Action Aging Alternate Reality Game, will appear before the end of the year. 

For info on the other two, please visit: http://www.amazon.com/Charles-Webb/e/B004L6SY7U/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Borges' Labyrinth

The passage below is from James E. Irby’s introduction to Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths, a collection of short stories, essays, and parables all too easy to get disturbingly lost in. He’s writing about the “creative deception” Borges uses to dissolve boundaries we take for granted, such as the distinction between literature and life:

“We are transported into a realm where fact and fiction, the real and the unreal, the whole and the part, the highest and the lowest, are complementary aspects of the same continuous being: a realm where ‘any man is all men’, where ‘all men who repeat a line of Shakespeare are William Shakespeare’. The world is a book and the book is a world, and both are labyrinthine and enclose enigmas designed to be understood and participated in by man. We should note that this all-compromising intellectual unity is achieved precisely by the sharpest and most scandalous confrontation of opposites.”

Alternate Reality Gaming

Cinemorphics suggests that "you" are similar in many ways to a fictitious character in a film or novel and can be re-written. This re-write creates an alternate reality which "you" can then inhabit as you begin to perform your new persona in the "real" world. This method resonates in interesting ways with the world of alternate reality gaming, which we will explore.

Here is a short video from an ARG group in Belfast.




More detailed information may be found here... http://cinemorphics.blogspot.com/p/alternate-reality-gaming.html

Embracing Our (Many, Many) Selves

The Voice Dialogue method and Psychology of Selves developed by Hal and Sidra Stone have important implications for Cinemorphics. The short videos below are part of an Introduction to Voice Dialogue series... 

Hal Stone: The Total Self (excerpt) -- A Thinking Allowed DVD w/ Jeffrey Mishlove


The second video, Introduction to Voice Dialogue, is actually the first in the series. At the end of the video the second in the series will begin automatically, then the third, etc. There are nine videos in this series covering various aspects of the Stone's work.

"Church of Facebook" & Cinemorphics

This view of the increasingly pervasive use of social media in identity shaping has important implications for possible uses of Cinemorphics.

From Fraser Hamilton...
Is Facebook the new religion?
in Interaction design

Today I listened to an interesting interview with AS Byatt, the Booker Prize-winning author.
She suggested that social networks, formed and nurtured in applications such as Facebook and Twitter are replacing religion as way of identifying ourselves. Facebook is being used as a mirror.

In generations past, religions were defined people and societies: what is acceptable, what the social norms are, how to behave, and so on. However, with the demise of religion (at least in the west), we’re now looking at reality as it really is. We’re left to work out how to say who we are.

While the broadcast media – press, TV, radio – help us define ourselves, increasingly social media such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs let us work out who we are. We ask ourselves “How do I differ from this person?”, “Is this something I would do?”, and so on.

With religion playing less and less of a role in our lives, we are coming to learn that you only exist if you tell people you are there.

Psychology Today Article & Cinemorphics

Here's an article that obviously can be read from the POV of Cinemorphics:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201404/reinvent-yourself

The article discusses WHAT to do to reinvent yourself, but comes up short in the "how to do it" department...i.e....the METHOD.

Cinemorphics adds the Method to the madness of re-creating your self.

Cinemorphic Play (Cinemorphing)

An extreme example of the exercise described below from Improv Everywhere...
 

On October 25, 2005 I posted a brief exercise suggestion, Operation 3 - Madonna - Brando, which I re-present and elaborate on below. This is one of a new group of exercises and experiments, which emphasize Cinemorphic play. 

Spend the day "as" a well known personality. i.e. pretend you are…say… Johnny Depp or Lady Gaga all day…identify with and play an array of different personas. Don't just feel it from the inside…act it out. Do impersonations. Variation: Be an animal for a day…a gorilla, say…or a cat.

This casual exercise can be developed in detail also to interesting effect e.g…

Reincarnation: Research some dead historic figure, either well known or obscure, then “reanimate” them, complete with accurate costume, props, speech patterns, etc. in actual locations.

Doppelganger: Do the same for a living person, again either well known or obscure. Create their double. Possibly confront them with themselves.

Movie/theater/literary characters: Do the same with a well described fictitious character.

Make scenes: Once a character is ready to “manifest” in public, work with one or more other players who have also developed characters along one of these lines, to put together scenarios, either scripted or improvised, to perform, with variations, in several locations, e.g. a café, a train station, in a park, etc…anywhere there will be an audience that can either just watch or become “spect-actors” (Boal).

Note: These scenes can also be played out in public with the players not yet in full historic/double/fictitious character and costume…just as actors rehearsing, to interesting effect. This would be more like Boal’s Invisible Theater.

Record these experiments with HIDDEN cameras if desired. Obviously recording them with even a small crew will change/damage the effect. It may be, in the case of period costumed players, that the spect-actors will record the scenes with their phone cameras. “Insider” friends of the players can also do this, of course. An interesting side effect of this would be a subsequent viral YouTube post.

CINEMORPHICS 2.0: Cinemorphic Play

Cinemorphics was originally conceived  and practiced as a method of reality handling that could address certain problems...e.g. substance abuse, shyness, aging, etc. and only secondarily as a technique for pure self expression...i.e...."playing with your self".

In Cinemorphics 2.0, the emphasis shifts. We are currently assembling a set of routines, exercises and games, which, while similar to many practiced in groups and individual sessions addressing problem solving in the past, put the accent on a different beat...the amplification and elaboration of the players' creativity.

One of the modified routines states partially...

"...look at yourself as a constantly evolving work of performance art. This is an advanced exercise that can involve much hard work and development…or not…if the player, once told that he/she is a fiction, “gets it”.

“One should either be a work of art or wear a work of art”

Oscar Wilde

Dates for a new Cinemorphics 2.0 Workshop will be announced here in the next few weeks.