VisionAndPsychosis.Net©
In Wetumpka, AL.
The Wayback Machine will show this site is an investigation of Subliminal Distraction begun in 2002.
If you wish to help in this project, send the Home page URL to your email list and encourage everyone to do the same.
Preventing Subliminal Distraction episodes, mistaken for mental illness, is simple and free.
Copyright 2003 Edit Sep 28, 2016
Copyright Contact page Demonstration of subliminal sight
If you reached this page from a search engine enter the site here,
or see other cases on the Disappearance and College Suicides pages.
Scroll Down to the 2012 page, The Everquest Connection.
It is being edited after copying/
The page and information is available on the Wayback Machine before Oct 2012, here.
If this is your first visit, the explanation of the "mental break causing design mistake,"
that has caused problems on space missions, the Mars project,
and on scientific explorations for over a 100 years, begin with the first explanation page,
This explanation is the same given in first semester psychology lectures about,
how peripheral vision reflexes are created.
Other explanation pages are linked and include:
2) Mental Break Discovery 1964 3) Why they happen 4) Drugs 5) Spontaneous Remission
Pages which have examples of the design mistake are:
Home Computer Locations. Site Outline Mass Shootings The Jamison Family Disappearance Joe Morse Georgia Tech suicide
Foxconn-France Telecom suicides QiGong-Kundalini Mental Breaks Connie Tucker hospital record
The College Suicides page has the explanation for Subliminal Distraction caused suicides.
Skeptical?
Perform my demonstration of subliminal sight and habituation in peripheral vision here.
The problem explained on this site is the only psychiatric symptom that has ever been correctly evaluated,
then PREVENTED, and without treatment !
But it was done by engineers, not doctors.
If your Computer Game Playing Workstation does not have Cubicle Level Protection and there is repeating, detectable, movement in the room, sufficient to create a peripheral vision reflex, the psychiatric injury can happen to you. Read ....Prevention... at the bottom of this page.
__________________________
It was the fall of 2002. I had been searching the Internet for information to help a family member who suddenly became seriously mentally ill just days after moving into a new office in a major university. I was resting, watching 48 Hours Investigates on TV. I was caught off guard when I saw the problem I had been attempting to research being featured on the program. There was one slight glitch. They were calling it the Sony™ Everquest™ Addiction Problem. I was stunned.
The interviews were close up headshots with no background to show the computer installation. Each player said there was no problem with the game. They blamed the effected players. Most of the comments were centered on the player’s inability to control their game playing habit. Actor Ben Stein was interviewed and the program moved to his house and his son’s room. The boy sat there, his back to the camera. At that point in my investigation I thought the movement which causes the injury had to be beside but just behind the subject.
There it was on the boy’s right side. A big glass box sat a foot
or two from his right shoulder, against the wall. It was about half full of
water and a bottle floated upside down in it. The camera pan was so fast;
it was a blur. (Picture below.)
I realized just then, I had not put a tape in the VCR.
At that point I would have over-taped anything. I tried to divide my
attention between the TV monitor and the stack of mixed tapes. I got one in and
taped the last few seconds. The show is often repeated here later, delayed
because of sports coverage. I managed to find a short segment on another
affiliated show and got the camera pan of the bedroom game playing position.
Using slow motion I saw that the glass box was a lighted aquarium.
Tornadoes cut power over part of the weekend and I missed the show when it
repeated. I was sure that I had seen enough. I had confirmation the Sony™
Everquest™ addiction problem was also my research problem.
When Tommy
Stein turned off the room lights to prevent glare on the monitor and left the
aquarium light on, the fish or other pets in the tank would be detectable
by reflected light. While peripheral vision reflexes only happen when we are
approached from behind anything moving in one direction in the tank must
eventually go back in the other.
Before I saw the 48 Hours Investigates segment I had never heard of Everquest™.
Dec 10, 2004 An email communication from Ben Stein now confirms that Tommy had a large fish in the tank.
Now empty with cleaning sponge floating in it, the lighted tank contained one large fish when Tommy had the problem with Everquest
This picture is a frame grab from an Entertainment Tonight broadcast near the time of the uproar about Everquest.
It was found in a box of tapes. It had been lost after several moves.
/////////
In this view you can see the relative position of the aquarium and the computer screen. Remember that this was shot with a full size (remote event) TV camera and with a full crew. They might have made small changes in the room to allow the best view for the camera.
Tommy has been positioned so you can see his face. A normal seating position would have been turned slightly to his right. The aquarium would have been in far peripheral vision in that seating position.
In a program, THS Investigates On-Line Nightmares, E Network, broadcast on December 3, 2006 there is a picture of Shawn Woolley (then younger) using his home computer with the CPU tower mounted in his peripheral vision, on top of the desk. As he turned his head while playing Everquest the blinking hard drive busy light would have been swept through Subliminal Sight and detected as a pulsing stimulus to trigger a peripheral vision reflex. At the level in the brain where these reflexes are produced, below thought, reason, and consciousness, the neural impulses are all electro chemical exchanges across synapses between neurons. There is no ability to evaluate the stimulus and tell the difference between reflected light from an object moving and a blinking point source of light. Shawn Woolley's problems with Everquest began while living at home with his mother.
______________________________
(This page was the first post for the site)
There is no secret script in the programming that causes
addiction even though apparent addiction does occur. What appears, as
addiction, is a low-level psychotic episode. It is a focused psychotic delusion
caused by a very old work place injury, which is the subject of this Web Site.
The psychotic element we see manifested and which appears to be addiction in
those playing the Sony™ game Everquest™ is caused by a quirk of human
physiology. When humans habituate or dismiss notice of a moving object in our
peripheral vision, our brain loses the ability to complete the reflex, which
should normally occur. A subliminal portion of your vision field drives
peripheral Vision Reflexes. This allows the generation of the reflex to continue
to happen, unnoticed. Unrecognized elements of the reflex bombard consciousness
for days creating a psychotic episode.
Subliminal Sight
It comes as a shock to most people that they have the ability to 'see subliminally.' Every human who ever lived had this ability. Subliminal sight serves as the detection system for Peripheral Vision Reflexes. It allows you to see something and not have it recorded by your conscious mind. You will experience the reflex but will not be aware of how that reflex was triggered. Subliminal sight is central to this problem and when combined with a quirk of your physiology contributes to cause a devastating psychiatric injury. While Shawn Woolley was the only reported suicide there were other serious outcomes. You can visit the Demonstration page to prove that you have this ability. (Psychology demonstration instructions)
The quirk or conflict of
physiology is that although you can ignore the conscious peripheral vision
reflexes, and they will appear to stop, you cannot control the detection of
movement or the continued efforts of your brain to force a reflex.
Blinking lights
Viewing a blinking light in conscious sight does not cause this problem. There is information that blinking rates which are the same as brain wave frequencies will cause seizures. This is not that problem.
The connection to blinking lights related to this problem arises from misidentification of stimulus.
Movement of your head causes the image of a blinking light, to
sweep across the retina. The source of stimulus, the hard drive busy light or
LED, is stationary. When you turn your head the relative movement causes the
stimulus to appear to approach from behind. (It would be out of focus and
apparently larger than reality.) The portion of your brain that evaluates this
stimulus has no memory or ability to reason. The interruption of the stimulus
during the LED off, or dimmed period may be miss-evaluated as a sudden
lurch forward. There is a stream of data as the light moves from rod to rod on
the retina. Suddenly the data stream stops or decreases then resumes at a point
further on. The misperception would be that the object moved very fast to cross
that empty space on the retina and thus no input occurred. If, in addition, the
source of stimulus is perceived as close to you, the strength of the alarm
created could be immense. Your peripheral vision reflex system would try
to warn you that something very close is moving very fast toward you.
(LED = Light Emitting Diode)
Put your CPU and any blinking lights out of sight under the desk....Prevention...
Both HP and Compaq computers have removed the bright blinking light from their CPU cases.
Every human with complete normal healthy physiology has two vision systems. Conscious sight and peripheral vision. A portion of you peripheral vision field operates subliminally to detect threat movement and trigger the creation of peripheral vision reflexes. This warning system, built into our physiology, detects movement toward us from behind. It is a result of the evolutionary development of humans. Without this feature early man could not have survived. To work the system must be available and working all the time, no matter what you are doing. For this reason your peripheral vision and peripheral vision reflexes operate apart from normal consciousness. Textbooks will explain this if you want to dig deeper. This system works ‘below’ thought, reason, and consciousness. It could be said, it operates as a part of your subconscious mind. You cannot control or turn off this system unless you close your eyes.
Another feature of your physiology, Plitz's reflex, slightly modifies your eye as you concentrate on an object at arm's length. This modification, pupil dilation, floods the rods with ambient light desensitizing them. It changes the stimulus or movement required to cause a peripheral vision reflex to a large movement close to you.
If you succeed in finding this phenomenon in basic psychology texts they will explain that a conflict arises in the mind as the victim continues to ignore their brain's efforts to break their concentration. They further explain that the conflict builds to a mental break. This is incorrect. The phenomenon is actually operant conditioning.
When the repeating internal brain signals generated in the effort to produce peripheral vision reflex are mistakenly perceived as reinforcement for contemporaneous activity operant conditioning happens.
The conditioned response is random, different, between different cases and individuals due to the variation of each person's situation and of their accidental method of subliminal stimulation. Low levels of stimulus which do not rise to a level which would create a mental break create other effects. Unresolved panic attacks, inability to concentrate, or other problems can be caused this way. This is a rare injury because of the large level of stimulus and length of time required to effect a mental break.
The mistake the player makes
There
are two models for this, Dismissal of Notice, Habituation of Notice. I am
separating them to explain each.
This just means humans can decide to ignore detected movement,
which would break concentration by producing a normal peripheral vision reflex.
The player believes he has successfully ignored movement, which
is distracting to him. In fact, all that has happened is that the subject has
decreased his attention given to movement in peripheral vision. Once the player
is aware the movement is part of the room environment, his mind will
automatically ignore it the next time it is “acquired,” detected, and evaluated
through Subliminal Peripheral Vision even if this happens a day or so later.
When this learning process is complete, no first warning reflex will be
perceived the next day, for instance. This happens smoothly and imperceptibly as
a normal experience. The player is unaware any thing out of the ordinary is
happening.
Habituation of stimulus
Habituation of a stimulus means that the stimulus no longer commands attention. Examples often given involve sound and hearing. After a period of adjustment workers in a noisy factory are no longer aware the noise is present. They have habituated the stimulus, the noise. The sensory adaptability of hearing allows this. Depletion of sensor cells will lower the input to the brain.
Hearing is sensory adaptable, sight is not. Micro movements of your eye constantly refresh sensor cells on rods and cones. You cannot stop seeing something in the same way the workers stop hearing the sound but you can both attach selective levels of attention to objects in your vision field and habituate notice of stimulus. In this case the disappearance of the urge to look is “habituation to extinction of notice taken of movement in your Subliminal Peripheral field of view.” This will happen in seconds.
The subject loses the urge to look at the movement. The urge
simply fades or disappears from consciousness. On the demonstration page I
suggest the experience is difficult to record. It is a non-event, a
non-experience. You may find that a difficult concept. Think of an
itch that stops. You would not experience it again and there would be no reason
to scratch. As you continue activity without the itch you never miss it. As a
contemporaneous event, it has been ‘lost to consciousness.’ You can of course
remember if you recall the day's events later.
The
smooth subliminal operation of these two features of human physiology combine to
cause events involved in SPVP to be experienced as normal reality. The subject
is not warned again after the initial experience of the first reflex and the
dismissal of notice of the stimulus. If enough time intervenes between episodes
of SPVP stimulation, and there are subsequent ‘first reflexes,’ the dismissal or
habituation would occur quicker as this becomes a natural part of beginning work
in the defective workstation. This can happen over and over so that the player
is never aware of this, nor is he aware the phenomenon is causing him to become
psychotic.
The problem and descent into psychosis happens because the subconscious operation of this system cannot be controlled or turned off. Only the removal of the subliminal stimulation or movement will stop the process.
Co-generated
emotional content of reflexes
The term 'Co-Generated emotional content' refers to the product of a human's ability to create or adjust the meaning, or sense of the signal generated to cause a peripheral vision reflex.
The human vision startle reflex
If you have ever been startled you know that in addition to the
muscle reaction which causes you to turn quickly with out any conscious thought,
there is a emotional content which occurs simultaneously. You feel an absolutely
gut wrenching fear, apprehension, or horror at the same time your head snaps to
one side. Movement on one side appreciated through subliminal peripheral vision
has caused your brain to determine an apparent threat exists. (Texts may refer
to the apparent size of the moving object in relation to the size of the
subliminal peripheral vision field close to the head and eye as the trigger for
the startle reflex.) Your brain evaluates the apparent proximity using input
from peripheral vision. How close your brain evaluates the threat to be
determines which reflex occurs and therefore moderates the strength of your
emotional and other reactions. In addition, the context of the situation
moderates how your brain perceives the emotional signal. In a scary situations
the co-generated emotion would be experienced as fear combined with surprise.
Consider this example.
Imagine you are raking grass after mowing the lawn. There is a movement just to your side. You "catch the movement out of the corner of your eye." That would be a peripheral vision reflex and you would suddenly turn your head to look at the movement. That's how it works. Now use your personal mental 'Way-Back-Machine' to re-live the same incident except that this time we are adding something to the situation. You saw a snake earlier and are aware it might still be hiding under the cut grass. Each time a piece of bark or lawn litter is uncovered you feel apprehension that the snake is there. Now, in that situation, the identical movement occurs. The same reflected light is generated, and reaches your retina. The identical signal is sent to your brain but this time you jump three feet instead of just turning to look. The contemporaneous activity and your mental state caused the different reaction.
In any event movement in subliminal peripheral vision must rise above the
threshold of delectability to be seen. Humans see by reflected light. There must
be adequate light reflected from an object in three-dimensional space or it will
not be detected. When the stimulus
involves a point source of light or a reflection of strong light it too
must rise above the threshold of detection. A small blinking light may
not be detected in a mass of other light such as normal strong artificial room
lighting or sunlight. Not all
movement in Subliminal Peripheral Vision will be seen, detected. A strong desk
lamp over the area of a blinking light source would wash it out in the total
light of the scene.
Understand, … it is
not just that there is movement behind someone. It is that the movement is
detected and causes a peripheral vision reflex to happen. Several additional
criteria must be met for SPVP to happen.
Weaker emotional content
Based on observation, when the reflex is weaker than a
startle reflex it would have a milder emotional content. Because the
detection and generation of the reflex is subliminal it creates a feeling
of mild threat, of low level danger, or apprehension. Even curiosity is
possible. The reasoning behind this is that all peripheral reflexes are
generated by the same system. The apparent proximity and apparent speed of
approach play a part in the smaller level reflex.
An
Exception
The apparent size, proximity, and speed of the movement are
factors involved in your brain’s evaluation process.
The true facts of reality are irrelevant. Your brain is using monocular
subliminal vision to detect motion. A monocular detection system must rely on
different clues from binocular normal sight to determine distance and size. This
allows misperception to happen. If the signal arriving on nerves meets the
criterion a peripheral reflex happens. Whether or not it should have happened
does not matter. An image on a
computer monitor, which meets all other criterion for detection then quickly
increases size, may be evaluated in peripheral vision as something large and
very close. This would cause extreme alarm to be generated subliminally from the
innocuous presence of a computer screensaver incorrectly positioned in
subliminal peripheral vision. This would be a problem source of stimulation in
dual monitor or dual computer setups.
The Everquest™ connection
Effected players have accidentally created the engineering design flaw in their game playing ‘workstation.' In published information there were about twenty serious cases out of 400,000 players. (I only found three on-line.) First impression is that it has a low probability of happening. That would be wrong. There is no probability involved. If you have the workstation defect and movement is present, detectable by your brain, you will be effected. If you do not have the problem you will not be effected. Do what engineers did fifty years ago. Eliminate the possibility that the defect exists in your workstation. (See Prevention now at the bottom of each site page.)
Game players experience
this emotion as part of
the game play
The coincidence of the ambiance of Everquest™, Middle Earth,
Dragons, Witches, Wizards, matching the subliminal emotion of the failed reflex,
causes a misperception. Think of the 1950's so called subliminal advertising
placed between frames of movies.* The patrons wanted to go to the snack bar but
they were unaware of the reason. In this case the player wants to re-experience
game play because of the unique sensations he experiences only while playing
this game. The player is unable to explain it because it happens subliminally.[+]
He must play the game again but doesn’t quite know why. Just as in the
snack bar example the desire is part of his reality and consciousness.
* Those subliminal advertising experiments may not have happened as claimed. Results were published but challenged later. I suspect it was an advertising gimmick for a movie. Often the stories about marketing events are hype to create talk and news coverage. You can research this on the Internet.
+ Case histories from China linked on the Qi Gong Psychotic Episodes page say that exercise participants seem to become addicted to Qi Gong and won't stop gathering others to exercise with them. The apparent addiction is to stimulation in Subliminal Peripheral Vision.
If any
other game had been played in that same room while the engineering design defect
existed the result might have been the same.
This would happen so long as the ambience of another game like
wise matched the common emotional content of peripheral vision reflexes, danger,
warning, mild fear, or other sensations. Given that your perception of this
co-generated content can be changed slightly by your own reality and
experiences, any game player playing any game is potentially at risk.
It
was the defective computer workstation’s design in the room not the game.
Cluster Suicides MIT NYU
Qi Gong, (chee gung) addiction
Case histories of persons experiencing Qi Gong Psychotic Reaction say that effected practitioners seem to become addicted to the slow motion martial arts exercise. Even under penalty of being arrested they continue to gather others to exercise with them. This apparent addiction in China is the same experienced by the effected MMORPG players. Qi Gong
Cluster suicides at Foxconn in China and France Telecom
Internet chatter and other sources blame strict military type management for the suicides at Foxconn. But where true sweat shop conditions have previously existed, such as in the garment industry in New York, there have never been suicides reported. But at France Telecom with 35 hour work weeks and union negotiated wages there have been 60 suicide attempts with a reported 30 deaths. Pictures and video shot by TV news crews in both countries show the failure to provide Cubicle Level Protection where it would be needed. That's Subliminal Distraction causarion. Foxconn France Telecom
Ontario, Canada elementary schools incident
An incident in 14 Ontario, Canada elementary schools where Wi-Fi had been installed so laptop computers could be used anywhere in classrooms caused bizarre physical and mental symptoms for about 50 of 50,000 students. Parents and activists insisted the problem was the Wi-Fi transmitter EMR. But again pictures taken by Canadian TV and newspapers to illustrate their stories showed that the problem was Subliminal Distraction. Ontario Schools
Internet Porn Addiction
July 25,2003 In a recent discussion an acquaintance pointed out that if the peripheral vision reflexes were generated while viewing porn on the internet the effect would be the same as Internet game playing. If the computer user has a slow Internet connection or is downloading large files, pictures, the hard drive busy light would flash constantly just as it does while playing Internet games. The common co-generated emotional signal perceived as being watched would add to the experience. Those users so effected have a unique experience from other porn viewers.
After investigation on Role Playing Game sites, RPG's I learned that other cases involved different games. The players and their mental states were different, the computers and workstations were different. What was the common element? I believe that each player who had serious negative mental outcomes had the same design defect in their home, dorm, or student apartment computer workstations. They failed to provide Cubicle Level Protection where the computer was installed in a room with movement or the computer was installed so that the blinking hard drive busy light could sweep Subliminal Peripheral Vision as the player used the computer. That miss-positioning may have been such that the detection only happened when the player turned away from the monitor to write or check something beside the keyboard then looked back at the monitor.
Shawn was the only suicide.
If you watched the 48Hours Investigates segment, there was video of Ben Stein's
fifteen-year-old son playing his computer. Look closely as the camera pans the
room. (I had to use frame by frame slow motion to see it.) There is an abandoned
fish tank to the right. This lighted tank would have provided movement in
subliminal peripheral vision as the fish, illuminated by the tank light, swam
back and forth. (I how have confirmation that a large fish was in the tank but
reptiles or mammals moving in the closed tank would have caused the same
problem.) I recently visited a home where a ceiling fan swept shadows of the
slowly rotating blades on the floor and walls below and beside the computer
station. Anything can be the source of apparent movement if it rises above the
threshold of delectability
Observers of these problems seize upon the obvious. That is, the
game, Internet, and computers are what appear foremost in observer's minds when
one of these events happens. Unseen, right there in the room is a problem
creating SPVP. If a person looking for this problem investigated each of these
cases at the time of the occurrence, it would be easily noticed and discovered
as the cause. The general public is unaware of the possible danger and the
method of injury is so unbelievably implausible, it escapes attention.
When home computers came on the national scene no one realized that the use of
the computer required the same behavior, which caused this problem when it was
discovered over fifty years ago.
Everquest™ and computers are not a necessary part of the SPVP injury under this
model. Remember the original discovery was in days of pencil and paper. (We have
a family member with this injury. She was using pencil, paper and an electric
adding machine.) If the same design flaw happened at a location where a subject
was reading something, which also matched the content of the subliminal
emotional stimulation, such as reading and studying The New Testament Chapter,
Revelations, SPVP could also occur. The psychotic episode might take a path in
which the subject thought he was one of the characters in the Bible.
Some computer manufacturers have removed detectable blinking lights from their CPU cases. Look in the computer store the next time you visit. The hard drive busy light is now hidden, undetectable.
Repeating from the paragraphs above for emphasis
You should understand that your mind can adjust the perception of that co-generated emotional content. You will perceive the co-generated emotional content of a peripheral vision reflex differently depending on the situation and environment at the time the reflex occurs.
SPVP In the Home-Small Business
The home user is unaware this problem exists. The computer is
stuck in a convenient location in most homes. Available space is used. The
computer store didn’t know to tell the new owner there might be a problem with
set up location. The computer store does not know about SPVP. If you look at the
furniture catalog for any large office equipment company the illustrations in
the office furniture section assume there will not be heavy human traffic in an
aisle adjoining the computer user. I find only one or two furniture
illustrations that would have ‘Cubicle Level Protection’ for the occupant if
installed as pictured in a national office supply catalog.
The design engineers used that assumption about the level of movement or
traffic when designing desks and chairs for sale to the small business owner.
Several groupings of desk models would provide complete Cubicle Level Protection
if the entry were reversed from the catalog picture. One side of those desk
groupings is open. To provide complete protection in a small business setting
with substantial traffic the open side of those designs would be against a wall
or window.
Some designs do not need blocking panels. They angle the seating position so that traffic beside the open side is either approaching from ahead or moving away as the movement crosses the workers Subliminal Peripheral Vision.
Frequency of exposure
Another possibility to complicate SPVP is that in some situations the stimulation might be intermittent. Seasonal movement caused by air conditioner or heater vents moving something is possible. In intermittent or limited exposure the stimulation would not be enough to cause a psychotic episode but might create other problems. The fact that a computer game player does not play eight hours each day changes the outcome for SPVP. This is the basis for the theory that SPVP might be the reason violent TV has subtlety altered the personality traits of children to show a statistical increase of violence in children who watch it. Children are not held in front of a TV eight hours each day but rather experience possible stimulation over many years. Read other pages to find out about this subject.
Summary
SPVP occurs subliminally, the victim is unaware any thing is
happening. SPVP slowly changes reality for the effected player. Outside
observers believe players are addicted to the computer, Internet, or the Sony™
game. The ‘occurrence frequency' of the moving object, how and when it moves,
will change both the length of time necessary to cause this injury and degree or
depth of the injury. Something moving all the time would cause a quick onset of
the problem. If the movement or stimulation starts and stops, or is seasonal, it
would have a different speed of onset. In addition if the stimulus or its
introduction is random but regularly reoccurring there will be a different
pattern than if the movement was continuous and regular. (B F Skinner stuff.)
Only in rare cases do all necessary elements happen together to
cause SPVP. This problem is rarely correctly diagnosed. The cases stopped
appearing in the 1960s after the cubicle entered the work place. This Internet
site argues that the problem can appear in forms other than a full psychotic
break. It might not be as rare as had previously been believed. I have been
unable to locate any doctor who has ever heard of the problem. Engineers use the
facts to design ‘systems furniture,’ to give workers ‘Cubicle Level Protection.’
An investigation is currently underway attempting to find the correct name for
this phenomena or the reason engineers design cubicles so that workers do not
“see” movement in peripheral vision while they concentrate working.