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I'm not sure about these Sensory Deprivation Tanks, simply because I haven't tried them, but it all seems a bit too much hocus pocus. Richard Feynman (as one p

I'm not sure about these Sensory Deprivation Tanks, simply because I haven't tried them, but it all seems a bit too much hocus pocus. Richard Feynman (as one post mentions) tried it, felt good, had some experiences, but once out of it he quickly realized that it was just another perception. We all perceive, if there is no sensory input, the brain will fill in the blanks. I've been practicing mediation (Vipassna, which is also minfullness meditation) for around 6 months now. I highly recommend it. The mind-body complex is what its mainly about. You have to observe your bodily senses and your thoughts. As quantum mechanics demonstrates, observing changes the thing being observed. (Like the wave function collapse, I'm no expert). But you can surely change your mind by meditation. Happy New Year!

visarga 10y ago
> haven't tried Sensory Deprivation Tanks Cheap replacement - brain machine. Combines stroboscopic light flashes with binaural beats. Pretty trippy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_machine Even cheaper - foam padded meditation mask (Mindfold Mask) and ear plugs. It puts you in total darkness and silence. Samadhi tank offers the same deal + floating in liquid, which is not so essential. If you can sit alert in total blackness for 30 minutes, you will lose your spatial orientation completely and feel like you are suspended in void. I have practiced meditation for 20 years (normal meditation, without samadhi tanks and brain machines) and what is essential is to focus your attention and keep it on its object. It really feels like something different than day to day experiences, after a while. There is much potential for life hacking through meditation, the brain being so complex and open.
- amingilani 10y ago
  Light flashes... Of all the times to have epilepsy, this one is the worst. Sighhhh
  - visarga 10y ago
    You are supposed to keep your eyes closed and see the flashes through your eyelids. The intensity of light and sound is adjustable for comfort. It's also related to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_effect
sudshekhar 10y ago
Isn't Vipassna basically the 10 day meditation retreat? Do they have their own meditation techniques that you can follow post those 10 days? Also, did you complete the full 10 days? I've been thinking of doing this for some time, read a lot about it but there's a mental block stopping me.
- westoncb 10y ago
  Vipassina is a style of meditation and does not refer to retreats specifically—though Vipassina retreats are common (from my understanding it's partly because Vipassina roughly means 'insight meditation,' and a deep state of relaxation/tranquility is required for the insights to emerge [and meditating for many full days in a row can get you there]).
- arc_of_descent 10y ago
  Thats how its marketed. But no, Vipassna is a form of meditation practice. There are many others. And to be honest its not the real stuff. What are 10 days? You are going to learn absolutely nothing. Mediation is a 24 hours a day practice. And it takes a lot of time to just get used to it. For example, in one form they only tell you to focus your mind on an object (like breathing, or your abdomen). In Vipassna, the idea is focus first, but the next step is to observe your thoughts (mindfullness). Observe, never reject, whatever it is. Happiness, Lust, Greediness, Anxiety. Observe, and let it go. The mind is a crazy machine. More precisely, our chattering monkey mind. Please read this book if you haven't already. I can't recommend it enough. It has changed my life. Mindfulness in Plain English - Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
  - sudshekhar 10y ago
    > Thats how its marketed. But no, Vipassna is a form of meditation practice. I never realized that. Thank you! I've been looking for a good getting started guide to meditation. The book seems like a great resource. I will definitely read it.
    - contingencies 10y ago
astrodev 10y ago
> "As quantum mechanics demonstrates, observing changes the thing being observed" Every single Vipassana practitioner I have met said something of this kind. I know this comes from one of Goenka's recording. But the analogy is bad, wrong, not even wrong, it does not mean anything. As rewarding and beneficial as meditation is to some, please leave quantum mechanics out of it.
- pdimitar 10y ago
  > please leave quantum mechanics out of it Would you explain why? Many things were considered magic and witchcraft in the past and people were burned alive for being slightly more intelligent and/or intuitive in their approaches to life or various objective problems of the age. A good part of these "witchcraft" practices are now commonly known "life hacks", or "tips and tricks", etc. Quantum mechanics is something nobody on this planet actually fully grasps. Isn't it our duty to be skeptical not only to the religious believers and meditation practitioners but to be skeptical about us being too skeptical as well, so to speak? For all we know, there might exist a soul, consciousness, or a "hollistic wave front" as Dan Simmons in Hyperion / Endymion calls it, and it might as well operate exactly on one of the quantum fields of reality. (It might be a very fine and huge collection of mega-complex algorithms that work on a quantum plane same way our machines' code works only on certain silicon-derived dies.) So again, why should we leave the quantum mechanics out of the spiritual/meditative/what-you-wanna-call-it experiences, exactly? The objective truth is, for now both sides don't know for sure if they are right or wrong. No?
  - pdimitar 10y ago
    Gotta love the downvotes without explanation.
    - pierrepoutine 10y ago
      you're engaging in pseudoscience
      - deleted 10y ago
appleflaxen 10y ago
> ...it all seems a bit too much hocus pocus. > ...I've been practicing mediation (Vipassna, which is also minfullness meditation) for around 6 months now. I highly recommend it. huh. didn't expect that pair of opinions.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  why? do you consider Vipassana to be "hocus pocus"?
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    He might be associating Vipassana with the Goenka courses. Any time the guy speaks, it's nonsense. He explicitly states his whole course and meditation is a way to make sure you reincarnate better. Also lots of inane physics talk, mostly attacking scientists for figuring out stuff then claiming Buddhists knew such technical details all along. Also, gems such as "a cat killing a mouse is not true nature". The many days without any communication is great. The schedule, up at 4, hours of meditation a day, is great. But everything from the guy's fake accent/guru style to the words he says is "hocus pocus".
    - arc_of_descent 10y ago
      I've heard of Goenka, but never ventured to listen to his talks. I'm not a big fan of these new age Gurus. I believe mediation is science, since it requires practice, discipline and effort. Some might not see results immediately, but keep pushing.
      - metaphorm 10y ago
        playing the piano well also requires practice, discipline, and effort. it's not science. it's an artistic performance skill. meditation is an empirical approach to psychological and spiritual development. there is a lot of overlap between the empirical approach of Buddhist meditation and the empirical approach of Western experimental science. however, it's not accurate to describe meditation as science.
hillz 10y ago
> "As quantum mechanics demonstrates, observing changes the thing being observed" This isn't really a fair corollary. It's not that true observation that changes particles, it's that once we hit them with light (to enable observation), they change their state. This is so so often misinterpreted in journalism. The change has nothing to do with a conscious observer being present.
wyager 10y ago
> As quantum mechanics demonstrates, observing changes the thing being observed. Appealing to pop-quantum mechanics is an almost 100% accurate indicator that whatever you're pitching is hocus-pocus BS. This statement is also wrong. Taking a measurement corresponding to some operator appears to put the system into an eigenstate of that operator. It may or may not change the state of the system. It's also many orders of magnitude too small to be relevant to considerations of bulk systems like the human brain and body. Lots of systems are self-interacting but we don't feel the need to try to use hand-wavy pseudoscience analogies. Consider https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z86V_ICUCD4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z86V_ICUCD4

visarga 10y ago

> haven't tried Sensory Deprivation Tanks Cheap replacement - brain machine. Combines stroboscopic light flashes with binaural beats. Pretty trippy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_machine Even cheaper - foam padded meditation mask (Mindfold Mask) and ear plugs. It puts you in total darkness and silence. Samadhi tank offers the same deal + floating in liquid, which is not so essential. If you can sit alert in total blackness for 30 minutes, you will lose your spatial orientation completely and feel like you are suspended in void. I have practiced meditation for 20 years (normal meditation, without samadhi tanks and brain machines) and what is essential is to focus your attention and keep it on its object. It really feels like something different than day to day experiences, after a while. There is much potential for life hacking through meditation, the brain being so complex and open.

amingilani 10y ago
Light flashes... Of all the times to have epilepsy, this one is the worst. Sighhhh
- visarga 10y ago
  You are supposed to keep your eyes closed and see the flashes through your eyelids. The intensity of light and sound is adjustable for comfort. It's also related to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_effect

sudshekhar 10y ago

Isn't Vipassna basically the 10 day meditation retreat? Do they have their own meditation techniques that you can follow post those 10 days? Also, did you complete the full 10 days? I've been thinking of doing this for some time, read a lot about it but there's a mental block stopping me.

westoncb 10y ago
Vipassina is a style of meditation and does not refer to retreats specifically—though Vipassina retreats are common (from my understanding it's partly because Vipassina roughly means 'insight meditation,' and a deep state of relaxation/tranquility is required for the insights to emerge [and meditating for many full days in a row can get you there]).
arc_of_descent 10y ago
Thats how its marketed. But no, Vipassna is a form of meditation practice. There are many others. And to be honest its not the real stuff. What are 10 days? You are going to learn absolutely nothing. Mediation is a 24 hours a day practice. And it takes a lot of time to just get used to it. For example, in one form they only tell you to focus your mind on an object (like breathing, or your abdomen). In Vipassna, the idea is focus first, but the next step is to observe your thoughts (mindfullness). Observe, never reject, whatever it is. Happiness, Lust, Greediness, Anxiety. Observe, and let it go. The mind is a crazy machine. More precisely, our chattering monkey mind. Please read this book if you haven't already. I can't recommend it enough. It has changed my life. Mindfulness in Plain English - Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
- sudshekhar 10y ago
  > Thats how its marketed. But no, Vipassna is a form of meditation practice. I never realized that. Thank you! I've been looking for a good getting started guide to meditation. The book seems like a great resource. I will definitely read it.
  - contingencies 10y ago

astrodev 10y ago

> "As quantum mechanics demonstrates, observing changes the thing being observed" Every single Vipassana practitioner I have met said something of this kind. I know this comes from one of Goenka's recording. But the analogy is bad, wrong, not even wrong, it does not mean anything. As rewarding and beneficial as meditation is to some, please leave quantum mechanics out of it.

pdimitar 10y ago
> please leave quantum mechanics out of it Would you explain why? Many things were considered magic and witchcraft in the past and people were burned alive for being slightly more intelligent and/or intuitive in their approaches to life or various objective problems of the age. A good part of these "witchcraft" practices are now commonly known "life hacks", or "tips and tricks", etc. Quantum mechanics is something nobody on this planet actually fully grasps. Isn't it our duty to be skeptical not only to the religious believers and meditation practitioners but to be skeptical about us being too skeptical as well, so to speak? For all we know, there might exist a soul, consciousness, or a "hollistic wave front" as Dan Simmons in Hyperion / Endymion calls it, and it might as well operate exactly on one of the quantum fields of reality. (It might be a very fine and huge collection of mega-complex algorithms that work on a quantum plane same way our machines' code works only on certain silicon-derived dies.) So again, why should we leave the quantum mechanics out of the spiritual/meditative/what-you-wanna-call-it experiences, exactly? The objective truth is, for now both sides don't know for sure if they are right or wrong. No?
- pdimitar 10y ago
  Gotta love the downvotes without explanation.
  - pierrepoutine 10y ago
    you're engaging in pseudoscience
    - deleted 10y ago

appleflaxen 10y ago

> ...it all seems a bit too much hocus pocus. > ...I've been practicing mediation (Vipassna, which is also minfullness meditation) for around 6 months now. I highly recommend it. huh. didn't expect that pair of opinions.

metaphorm 10y ago
why? do you consider Vipassana to be "hocus pocus"?
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  He might be associating Vipassana with the Goenka courses. Any time the guy speaks, it's nonsense. He explicitly states his whole course and meditation is a way to make sure you reincarnate better. Also lots of inane physics talk, mostly attacking scientists for figuring out stuff then claiming Buddhists knew such technical details all along. Also, gems such as "a cat killing a mouse is not true nature". The many days without any communication is great. The schedule, up at 4, hours of meditation a day, is great. But everything from the guy's fake accent/guru style to the words he says is "hocus pocus".
  - arc_of_descent 10y ago
    I've heard of Goenka, but never ventured to listen to his talks. I'm not a big fan of these new age Gurus. I believe mediation is science, since it requires practice, discipline and effort. Some might not see results immediately, but keep pushing.
    - metaphorm 10y ago
      playing the piano well also requires practice, discipline, and effort. it's not science. it's an artistic performance skill. meditation is an empirical approach to psychological and spiritual development. there is a lot of overlap between the empirical approach of Buddhist meditation and the empirical approach of Western experimental science. however, it's not accurate to describe meditation as science.

hillz 10y ago

> "As quantum mechanics demonstrates, observing changes the thing being observed" This isn't really a fair corollary. It's not that true observation that changes particles, it's that once we hit them with light (to enable observation), they change their state. This is so so often misinterpreted in journalism. The change has nothing to do with a conscious observer being present.

wyager 10y ago

> As quantum mechanics demonstrates, observing changes the thing being observed. Appealing to pop-quantum mechanics is an almost 100% accurate indicator that whatever you're pitching is hocus-pocus BS. This statement is also wrong. Taking a measurement corresponding to some operator appears to put the system into an eigenstate of that operator. It may or may not change the state of the system. It's also many orders of magnitude too small to be relevant to considerations of bulk systems like the human brain and body. Lots of systems are self-interacting but we don't feel the need to try to use hand-wavy pseudoscience analogies. Consider https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z86V_ICUCD4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z86V_ICUCD4