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The sentic cycle is a technique developed by Dr Manfred Clynes to help people express and master their emotions. I vaguely heard about something like it being employed by astronauts during extended spaceflight in order to keep themselves from going stir crazy.
I read up on it last night. The sentic cycle is an emotional journey, where a person spends 3 minutes at a time inducing and experiencing different emotions while pressing with their fingers on a small rubber pad. The 3-minute emotions are in fixed sequence: No emotion -> anger -> hatred -> grief -> love -> sexual arousal -> joy -> reverence. The person can use their own memories to induce the desired emotional state. The finger motions help reinforce the emotional state and link the two together such that the emotion can eventually be induced by the finger motion. At the end the person is supposed to feel an emotional release and gain a heightened sense of their own emotions.
So... will it blend?
I tried it. They offered a kit consisting of a small rubber pad and an audio file for $60. No thanks. I'll just use my chair's armrest and a clock, thanks. Inducing anger and hatred was actually surprisingly hard -- I had only mild results there. Grief and everything that came afterwards were actually much easier to induce. At the end I felt a huge wave of relaxed happiness. For the next few hours I noticed that I was much more aware of my own emotional state than normal. For example, I began to think "I'm getting frustrated" far sooner into the frustration process than I would have otherwise. The next morning I decided to try it on my drive into work... taking care not to get too into it. It also worked well, though I thought it was funny that I couldn't stay above 65mph in the "grief" phase whereas I normally drive 75-80mph if there's no traffic.
All in all, it was a fun little technique, and I'm glad I tried it.
It's interesting that it works so well. It seems like we need emotional exercise, though we'd prefer that exercise not come from real events. The good feeling I got at the end of the sentic cycle is not unlike the feeling after having seen a good movie. This is not surprising -- a good movie takes you through a range of emotional states, all without subjecting you to real tragic or anger-inducing events.
Just yesterday, I saw a demo by a company called Emotiv that is going to start selling a consumer EEG system that can read brainwave activity. It can sense a variety of emotional states and can be trained to recognize a small number of other thought patterns. Their main goal is to allow developers to create computer games that you can play using your mind. I seriously wasn't expecting this sort of thing to hit the market for another 10 years or so, so I'm overjoyed.
I've found that I can make myself succeed at many things by turning them into a game. While the sentic cycle is an interesting technique, I think it could be greatly enhanced by turning it into a game that you play with the Emotiv headset.
I read up on it last night. The sentic cycle is an emotional journey, where a person spends 3 minutes at a time inducing and experiencing different emotions while pressing with their fingers on a small rubber pad. The 3-minute emotions are in fixed sequence: No emotion -> anger -> hatred -> grief -> love -> sexual arousal -> joy -> reverence. The person can use their own memories to induce the desired emotional state. The finger motions help reinforce the emotional state and link the two together such that the emotion can eventually be induced by the finger motion. At the end the person is supposed to feel an emotional release and gain a heightened sense of their own emotions.
So... will it blend?
I tried it. They offered a kit consisting of a small rubber pad and an audio file for $60. No thanks. I'll just use my chair's armrest and a clock, thanks. Inducing anger and hatred was actually surprisingly hard -- I had only mild results there. Grief and everything that came afterwards were actually much easier to induce. At the end I felt a huge wave of relaxed happiness. For the next few hours I noticed that I was much more aware of my own emotional state than normal. For example, I began to think "I'm getting frustrated" far sooner into the frustration process than I would have otherwise. The next morning I decided to try it on my drive into work... taking care not to get too into it. It also worked well, though I thought it was funny that I couldn't stay above 65mph in the "grief" phase whereas I normally drive 75-80mph if there's no traffic.
All in all, it was a fun little technique, and I'm glad I tried it.
It's interesting that it works so well. It seems like we need emotional exercise, though we'd prefer that exercise not come from real events. The good feeling I got at the end of the sentic cycle is not unlike the feeling after having seen a good movie. This is not surprising -- a good movie takes you through a range of emotional states, all without subjecting you to real tragic or anger-inducing events.
Just yesterday, I saw a demo by a company called Emotiv that is going to start selling a consumer EEG system that can read brainwave activity. It can sense a variety of emotional states and can be trained to recognize a small number of other thought patterns. Their main goal is to allow developers to create computer games that you can play using your mind. I seriously wasn't expecting this sort of thing to hit the market for another 10 years or so, so I'm overjoyed.
I've found that I can make myself succeed at many things by turning them into a game. While the sentic cycle is an interesting technique, I think it could be greatly enhanced by turning it into a game that you play with the Emotiv headset.
