Tracking a Memetic Diet
Project Infobox 
| |
|---|---|
| Self researcher(s) | Robert DeSaulniers |
| Related tools | video clip, meme |
| Related topics | Cognition, Media |
Builds on project(s) |
|
| Has inspired | Projects (0) |
| Show and Tell Talk Infobox | |
|---|---|
| Featured image | |
| Date | 2014/05/20 |
| Event name | Boston Meetup |
| Slides | |
|
This content was automatically imported. See here how to improve it if any information is missing or out outdated. |
Tracking a Memetic Diet is a Show & Tell talk by Robert DeSaulniers that has been imported from the Quantified Self Show & Tell library.The talk was given on 2014/05/20 and is about Cognition, and Media.
Description[edit | edit source]
A description of this project as introduced by Quantified Self follows:
When memes, symbols, and ideas get transmitted to each other through gestures and rituals, they are in fact what makes up our life, perception, and thoughts. Robert began to wonder where did all the memes come from, and how did they get inside of him? In this talk, he shares his journey of his memetic diet; brain washing himself from these memes, and ideas.
Video and transcript[edit | edit source]
A transcript of this talk is below:
Robert DeSaulniers - Tracking a Memetic Diet - Boston QS
Thank you and it’s a real privilege to be here and I’m going to tell you a little story about a memetic journey of my memetic diet. So we have these things called memes, these symbols, these ideas. They get transmitted to each other through gestures and through rituals and they are infact what makes up our life, perception and thoughts. Peter Gruber, an American film producer said that there’s 10,000 years’ worth of stories encoded into our DNA, so we have all of these stories, listeners and tellers. These stories transform our societies, our religions, everything about us, and when these stories which are like hundreds and hundreds of memes, little puzzle pieces inside of these stories they all get put together. They become represented of maybe just one meme. So, I began to wonder who am I and where did all of these memes come from and how the hell did they get inside of me. I certainly didn’t put them there myself, but somehow I am the way I am. So I began to think, all these memes stuck in my subconscious, part of my dreams. These ideas, they’re inside and how on earth did they first form? So I found them high jacking my prefrontal lobes and my parietal lobes and my vesicular activating system such that I could just see them everywhere. So a thousand years ago around the campfire we had storytellers, and the storyteller would begin to cast a spell. Spell his words, spell his words part of his movie script so that pretty soon he was by the flickering fire by 14 hertz, which is the brain entrainment of alpha. Now, we have the American campfire, our flat screen campfire, seated around everybody, American meditation is what I call it. So what did I do? I would do what any good QS’er would do. I decided to quantify and create a neurological environment so that I could infact brainwash myself. Yes, I will brainwash myself and I will use hemoencephalography. I will use heartrate variability. I will use neurofeedback and Amygdalus stabilization. I will become like Yoda, Tony Robbins, and Neo on steroids! First, I needed to wake up in the morning, so what did I do. So first I needed to wake up in the morning and part of my internal dialog needed to change. So there was connecting with the source. There was a finding a way for me to change that internal dialog and connect with the source. Then I took hydration. I did a hydrating drink of lemon, ginger, 72 trace minerals, alo and this began the very beginning of how I would take this memetic diet to a new level. I also took organic chemistry, and I took essential oils; peppermint, sage, rosemary, Rosemary being key because Rosemary inhibits the uptake inhibitors for acetylcholine. So when you inhale Rosemary you get a bit jacked up. Then I did the Tibetan five rights, which is a 2500 year old exercise and it is to stimulate all the different glands within your endocrine system. Then I moved over to heartrate variability and when you have your hear and breath in sync there is something called heartrate coherence. Mostly no body walks around with this at all. When you find you are in that space you have a much greater open alpha space. Memes, ideas will stick deeper into your consciousness when you are in that state. So taking heartrate variability and watching videos, my chosen memes, put me in that state of alpha hypnosis and began to download in this way of all of these different ideas. Then I changed over to hemoencephalography, where I brought blood flow up to the pre-frontal lobes. When you focus on anything, you will begin to get into that place I call the seat of the King, the throne. So taking that that is what begins to bring vision into your parietal lobes. I also did alpha and beta training. Right now this is the first time in history where you can actually see a direct reflection on yourself internally, your brainwaves, and to be able to see that and manipulate it at will is unlike anything you can ever imagine. You get a texture of state that is unbelievable. I also use neuro-optimal, so that I could get amygdalum stabilization. Your amygdalum is the seat of your emotions and anytime there is destabilization there, it’s harder to gain that nice centeredness. So here’s what I learned you can absolutely self-doctorate yourself. Self-hypnosis has been used for thousands of years. When you think about it what is prayer to the mind if it’s not repetitious incantation of language patterns. If you concentrate on something for an extended period of time you will gain thalamic asymmetry. So what this does is it begins to again, feed the palatial lobes, your vision or whatever it is that you are focusing on. Franciscan nuns and Buddhists different ideologies and different belief systems same parts of the brains lighting up. So when you actually turn on your internal language into something of a meditation you can absolutely change how you feel and see and think. Now one challenge I did run into is that being the man behind the curtain, trying to brainwash the man behind the curtain kept having a voice come up saying, don’t pay attention to that man behind the curtain. Essentially like Kay, you run into an interesting flow of what it’s like to actually self-brainwash yourself. You need discipline. When you are tracking your memetic diet you can’t just look at every single meme that comes along because they begin to affect you in a way that make you feel incongruent. Also you have got to have trust. Essentially you have just got to be able to trust yourself. And that’s all I have. This has been a very unique experience for me and I’m very grateful for it. I have so much more to say and you can tell I get really animated and seven and a half minutes and 15 seconds apiece was like you know do or dis. So I really appreciate Josh for keeping me focused that way and for all of you doing that work.
Thank you.
About the presenter[edit | edit source]
Robert DeSaulniers gave this talk.