MindPlace Forums - Blogs - Marisa https://mindplacesupport.com/forum/blog.php?3-Marisa This is the Support Page for MindPlace Sound and Light and BioFeedback Devices en Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:54:32 GMT vBulletin 60 https://mindplacesupport.com/forum/images/misc/rss.jpg MindPlace Forums - Blogs - Marisa https://mindplacesupport.com/forum/blog.php?3-Marisa Procyon Diet and Exercise https://mindplacesupport.com/forum/entry.php?36-Procyon-Diet-and-Exercise Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:28:10 GMT One of our regular Forum users - SteveMod, wrote a post where he talked about how he used the Procyon for weight loss. Below is his response to what... One of our regular Forum users - SteveMod, wrote a post where he talked about how he used the Procyon for weight loss. Below is his response to what programs he used and how he did this. I'm so pleased that he shared this information with all of us. Thank you Steve.

Quote Originally Posted by SteveMod View Post
Thanks Andy, thanks Marisa.

The programs I used varied but the ones that worked best for my needs were :

I relied heavily on the Peak Performance programs. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14
The Mind Sauna was used on off days to recharge for the next days workouts. I say workouts (plural) because I split lifting and cardio into two different workouts (on paper). Athletic warmup was used everyday.

I used 39, Middle Mind Centering to assist in ignoring hunger pains. The stomach is an intense organ, it's like a child that fights for your attention and like a child has to be ignored sometimes when it's acting up. Yes, the stomach has to shrink and it will actually cause pain coupled with an intense hunger and this is the whole reason most people fail to succeed when attempting to diet. For this reason the Procyon is such an important tool in exchanging bad habits for good ones. Centering the middle mind gives a person a huge edge when dealing with this most basic survival instinct that just needs you to control it instead of it controling you.


The Quick Energy programs (mostly 28) were also an invaluable tool, a lot of times combined with 10, Athletic Warmup.

After that it was a lot of usual programs for night time, pre-sleep, relaxation, and escape that all played a role ( and still do) in the most important rest period of the day. I am however, still trying to understand how melatonin levels are going to play a role and trying to tweak those levels via AVS. As everyone knows though, this can be a complicated study and possibly out of my reach, I'll keep everyone posted.
]]> Marisa https://mindplacesupport.com/forum/entry.php?36-Procyon-Diet-and-Exercise Defining Magick https://mindplacesupport.com/forum/entry.php?16-Defining-Magick Tue, 14 Jun 2011 21:04:42 GMT Magick is the art and science of mastering the mind. There is no religion in magick, though there is heavy use of symbolism (often confused with... Magick is the art and science of mastering the mind. There is no religion in magick, though there is heavy use of symbolism (often confused with religion or the occult). The symbolism is useful, it helps direct the mind and associate ideas. The key is not to get caught up in the symbolism and mistake it for reality.


The infamous Aleister Crowley was the first person to coin the term "Magick" and his definition is: "Magick is the Science of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will."

What I've always liked about Crowley is that things are never as they appear with him. I can't say that I totally understand everything that Crowley talks about, there is a way to look at his work from a perspective outside of religion or occult theory - that makes some of it rather practical and brilliant. Take for example the following paragraph:

"The sincere student will discover, behind the symbolic technicalities of this book [Magick in Theory and Practice], a practical method of making himself a Magician. The process described will enable him to discriminate between what he actually is, and what he has fondly imagined himself to be. He must behold his soul in all its awful nakedness, he must not fear to look on that appalling actuality. He must discard the garments with which his shame has screened him; he must accept the fact that nothing can make I'm anything but what he is. He may lie to himself, drug himself, hide himself; but he is always there. Magick will teach him that his mind is playing him traitor."


Of course, not all of what Crowley writes is useful but that can be said about anything. :eusa_think:

M.

]]> Marisa https://mindplacesupport.com/forum/entry.php?16-Defining-Magick AVS and Sleep https://mindplacesupport.com/forum/entry.php?10-AVS-and-Sleep Fri, 27 May 2011 22:01:28 GMT I have used the Procyon (and Proteus) for many years (off and on) to help me get to sleep. While I don't use the machine every day, I learned the hard way that if I don't keep it in my room, where I can access it easily, I will find myself awake and thinking about using it but don't want to get out of bed to go find it.

I have a sleep disorder (Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and so falling asleep and staying asleep is a challenge. I do take a sleeping pill and even with that, I don't always fall asleep easily. Take last night, for example, I went to bed at 11 pm and read for an hour. I was exhausted from having to get up really early that day and the activity of the day was more than what I had for energy for. Anyway, midnight and I'm still awake (overtired) and so I put on the Procyon (Program 27) and off I drift into sleep.

I slept for about four hours and woke up (darn it!). I reached over and put the machine on again and dimmed the lights to the point where I could still see them flashing through my closed eyes but not bright enough to wake me up totally. I find it okay to have the lights on full when I first go to sleep but if I want to continue to sleep, it's best to turn them down. During the session I accidentally disconnected the light frames (old style connector) and didn't want to turn on a light to reconnect it so I put the machine aside and fell back into a light sleep.

8 AM and I wake up again and know I need more sleep. The room is light enough to see the connector and so I plug it back in and turn on the machine. The hour goes by and while I have the machine on, I'm thinking about my body healing itself and my cells remembering how to create and store energy. The session ends and I'm not asleep at least not asleep enough to not be thinking about sleep. I think about the forum and some of the people who have used Delta for hypnosis and consider the benefits and .... zzzzzz I fall into a deep, deep sleep. Note: Don't use the sleep programs for hypnosis or meditation.

What I think is an interesting point is that the effects of the machine are not always immediate. While I was "awake" for that last session - my brain was gearing back down for more sleep. It just took longer. If you are not falling asleep using one of the Night Voyage programs, don't give up. Let the program play through and if you are still awake when it is over, just lie there with your eyes closed and I'm pretty sure you will drift off.

Sidebar: If you use a sleep program for meditation or self-hypnosis, do it at night where you can fall asleep afterward. You will likely fall asleep during the session and so playing a hypnosis CD with that program will not get you the best results because once you fall asleep, suggestions won't work. Also, since these programs do not ramp up at the end, which wakes the brain up and unless you are able to go to sleep afterward, you will feel really groggy and it will take your brain some time to "wake up". You could counter this with an energizing program but I think it would be easier to choose a program like "Deep meditation" than the "Night Voyage" for anything other than sleep.

I woke up at 1:30 pm (the joy of being self-employed) and felt refreshed. I have to say - if any of you have problems getting to sleep - get an AVS machine. Make sure you put it within reach of your bed and set it to the sleep program ahead of time so all you have to do is put the machine on and switch it on. ]]> Marisa https://mindplacesupport.com/forum/entry.php?10-AVS-and-Sleep Dreaming, Dementia and Hallucinations https://mindplacesupport.com/forum/entry.php?6-Dreaming-Dementia-and-Hallucinations Thu, 19 May 2011 21:40:26 GMT In dreams, our mind pulls information from a variety of sources - what someone said the other day, a segment from a TV show or movie, past... In dreams, our mind pulls information from a variety of sources - what someone said the other day, a segment from a TV show or movie, past experience, something we read and so forth. In our dream, this all seems to flow and make sense. Yet when we awaken, as real as the dream seemed at the time – we know it was only a dream.

How do we know what is real?

My mother had a stroke, and often when we hear or think about stokes, we think about the type which leaves the person paralyzed on one side. A stroke can affect any part of the brain and in my mom's case, it damaged a segment of her temporal lobe. Her ability to walk and speak were unaffected but she left the hospital with significant (vascular) dementia.

The aspect of the dementia that I'm going to talk about today is what has happened to her memory and her conscious thoughts and how similar they are to what we experience in dreams.
I don't know if this is a unique case or if this sort of thing happens in other cases of dementia or this angle has even been considered before.

Our memories tend to organized in a linear fashion. We have a pretty good grasp on whether an event happened recently or a long time ago. For some memories, we can remember a specific date of the incident. In my mom's case, it was as if someone had taken the filing cabinets that contained her memories, dumped them on the floor, mixed them up and put them back. Her history as we knew it and as she once knew it has been replaced with a different set of events, some that actually happened and others that have been created by fragments of "other" (thoughts, feelings, memory segments).

In our dreams, even the strangest connection of events seem normal or reasonable. In remembering out dreams, we find ourselves a little surprised about how some of the incidents in the dream fit together and that they did make sense to us at the time.

The veil between conscious reality and dream state has thinned and is even transparent in my mom's new world. Sometimes she sees images that are not really there. Sometimes she has conversations with memories of my father (making him and his memory two different people). Most of it doesn't happen in the moment, while we are there, but is told to me later as if it did happen (memory). What is real to her – is not necessarily real to us.

While writing this blog, I'm thinking about other circumstances where hallucination happens and we lose our ability to distinguish between reality and imagination. Hallucination is actually a common phenomena that we experience daily. We though we saw our keys on the table and they are not there or they are there and we don't see them. We mistake a branch in the distance for an animal and so forth. What differs our hallucinations from a diagnosis of dementia or schizophrenia is that our hallucinations are minor and usually have to do with perceptual mistakes and not abnormal reasoning about what we thought we saw, heard or felt. We don't think we see a dragon in the distance, we may think we see a bear. With mental illness, what is perceived is real and no other explanation is accepted.

I've read that with hallucinatory illnesses such as schizophrenia, too much dopamine in the system is responsible for the hallucinations. I don't know if anyone has ever tested dementia patients for dopamine levels? It would be interesting to know if there is a connection. I also wonder if our dopamine levels are higher while we dream or if they spike when we hallucinate or experience an ASC (altered state of consciousness)?

It would also be interesting to know the EEG readings on my mom when she is "remembering" something or while a schizophrenic is having an episode or … . I suspect Theta Delta being in appropriating dominant. I guess I'll have to look into this further. ]]> Marisa https://mindplacesupport.com/forum/entry.php?6-Dreaming-Dementia-and-Hallucinations