Subliminal Talk

So, to pick up where my last thread left off, my undocumented sub usage since ending OF has consisted of:

1. A third run of MHS that was more turbulent that either of my two MHS runs from 2020.
   
2. A run of AOL.
   

#1 continued the productivity of past runs (adding up to ~5 significant lifestyle changes across all 3 runs), and #2 had mostly provided relaxation.

Even though MHS had coincided with health-related improvements that've made me feel years younger, I doubt that I could've identified what OF, MHS, or AOL were intended to achieve without prior explanation. In a blind taste-test, I'd have guessed that AOL was for stress relief, that OF was for surmounting excuses that hinder work productivity, and that MHS was for dreaming dreams in which I was personally absent. These impressions may be telling about how love, fear, and health intersect with my specific personality, but, even if that's the case, these presentations were still surprising to me.

And that was 5.75G through 5.75.7G. Now, I guess that it's time to try 5.8G. I've been running DMSI 3.4 (masked/FLAC/50% laptop headphone volume) since the 9th, following a couple weeks of no subs at all. As with past DSMI runs, I've felt none of the heat, sweating, or other physical side effects that people usually report, either during listening or socialization. This sub has historically synced up with changes in my personal interactions, not my thermometer readings.

Observations so far:

• A recently heightened sexual bluntness (online) from someone who has already spent the last 30 years being fairly direct about her interest in me.
  
• Very forward online and oral conversation that came out of me before I'd even noticed that I wasn't filtering myself.
  
• Compliments about how I'd looked and smelled on Friday after running DMSI -- BUT Occam's razor's probably leaning more toward the fact that I'd just showered, shaved, and done plenty of other grooming immediately before running said DMSI loop. The sub is never the only thing that I've been doing.
  

As a quick review of my DMSI history, I'd enjoyed DMSI 3.1 and most of the earlier releases quite a bit. I'd never run 3.2 or 3.3.2. My 3.3.0 and 3.3.1 runs saw reduced motivation toward having sex with my existing partners. I'd have switched back to 3.1 if not for a hard drive crash that left my copy of it irretrievable.

DMSI isn't a sub that I strictly need to run, and this is probably also a particularly useless time to run it. I'm not going anywhere for at least a month, so social variety will be nearly nonexistent, and the only woman physically in my vicinity first hit on me over 25 years ago. Hello, foregone conclusions. I'll definitely have plenty of room to notice if/when something out of the ordinary occurs, but there'll be far fewer opportunities for it to do so.

Not sure if my reporting will be all that helpful, especially given that most relationships in my life have already been prompted by others, not by me. The outcomes have typically been predicated by how much I did or didn't reciprocate. I'm certainly not always wanted by those who I find attractive, just as I don't always want those who find me attractive, but, aside from physical appearance not being everything (even when it comes to sexual attraction), everybody has their own taste, and I focus more on those who do appreciate me than on those who don't. If we're like oil and water together, the sex is rarely any good.

Another MHS run would probably have been a more timely choice than DMSI, and UMS wouldn't have hurt either, given that I've been effectively paying 2x rent for a year and 2x food for 2 years, but I don't particularly enjoy the feeling of running a sub out of desperation. That, and the lifestyle changes that I'd begun during my previous MHS runs, while increasingly beneficial since their introduction, still have plenty of road left to run. They still need time to get where they're going. Expecting fruit immediately from seed would do little more than demonstrate either an ignorance or a denial of the valuable intermediate steps.

So, to sum up, I'm back on DMSI again. If I observe any significant changes, I'll probably mention them here.

Yeah, I wasn't expecting me to post again so soon either. But, since I've gone to the trouble of doing so, these are some other unusual tidbits that I've noticed:

• Remembering dreams again. I'd encountered few, if any, memorable dreams during FRM-containing subs. Might explain why MHS led to turbulent sleeping, although DMSI 3.4 has (so far) been a different experience. If anything, dreaming on DMSI's more reminiscent of my E2 run, years ago.
  
• Experienced the beginning of a recurring dream sequence in which my parents typically pursue me from dream to dream, but, for the first time in recent memory, I chose to stand my ground, stay in the first dream, and nonchalantly disable their plan for whatever it was they were trying to get me to do.
  
• Noticed a pronounced increase in the number of times that some variation of the word "physical" enters my writing or speech. Not sure if the word gets a hefty number of repeats in the DMSI 3.4 script or if it's some other nearby earworm that my head keeps spilling over into my sentence construction.
  

Might not relate to DMSI in any way, but they'd been deviations from the usual, so they'd seemed worthy of a brief mention. Mention accomplished.

Switching to DMSI 3.5 on my next listen, I guess. Expected, I know, but probably worth timestamping.

Not sure if I've really given 3.4 a fair chance to show what it can do, but I'm loosely assuming that a minor version bump (in contrast to the minor revision bumps that occurred during 3.3.x) might mean that some significant improvement has been introduced. The sales page hasn't seemed very obvious about any differences, but, if this is one of Shannon's mystery surprises, I probably shouldn't expect it to be. Oh well. Don't need to know what it is to be able to enjoy it.

And I realize that I'm a little behind on posting even a single observation on 3.5. Whoops! So far:

• Libido hasn't been as high on 3.5 as had begun happening on 3.4. Maybe something that was left out of 3.4 became a higher priority in 3.5?
  
• Back to no dream recall. Given the sort of dreams that I'd had on 3.4, I'm extremely comfortable with this.
  
• Only been exposed to one woman lately, and her level of flirtation hasn't really changed. Not that it was ever all that subtle.
  
• Still blurting out my thoughts before realizing what's about to be said. Seems likely to get me into trouble at some point, but it hasn't done so yet.
  
• Have had some "stop and smell the roses" moments, something that I'd previously credited to the so-called "morphine drip" before it'd been removed.
  

Regarding the forum's recent enthusiasm over the "DMSI for couples" topic: 15 years ago, I and my then-partner ran some "kindling/rekindling the spark" couples mind-programming, and it was one of the most irresponsible decisions that I'd ever made. The relationship had been a disaster in sheep's clothing (deception, resentment, unjustified jealousy, and more) that never should've started, much less continued, and definitely shouldn't have been artificially fortified with subconscious superglue. The break-up alone took nearly an entire year from start to finish, and the lingering drama persisted for several more, even after she'd gotten married. The added mind-tinkering made an unhealthy relationship harder to end and more resistant to being left in the past.

I'm not saying that all relationships are like this or that Shannon wouldn't consider potential negative outcomes, but I am saying that it's easy to think that one's relationship is healthier than it actually is and to think that mind-programming for couples is a currently favorable choice. In my case, the problems weren't out in the open for the first 3 years, so even a long(-ish)-term relationship doesn't always equate to knowing the person/relationship well enough to tell the difference. Back then, I'd been as excited about couples programming as the forum seems to be now, but that'd been before I'd lived through its downside. It's one thing for a sub to have safeties built into it, but I'm guessing that, as with the ME sub, there might be no undo option. If IML were to offer such a sub eventually, it seems to me that users being very sure of their relationship's health might be important.

I think you're a little paranoid here. DMSI for couples would be about making the couple more sexually attractive to each other. Easier and more fluid sexual attraction, arousal and seduction of one's chosen partner is not going to result in what you experienced. It sounds to me like either your relationship had some unusual toxoicity involved, the subliminal was poorly designed and scripted, or both.

The effects I have seen on my relationship were very positive, although of course the down side was that DMSI is designed to result in sexual interaction with whomever you find sexually attractive, not just one person. DMSI for couples will be focused entirely on your significant other(s). Plural for those of you who are polygamous/polyandrous/polygynous.

(12-19-2021, 12:29 PM)Shannon Wrote: [ -> ]I think you're a little paranoid here.  DMSI for couples would be about making the couple more sexually attractive to each other.

Understood. And the first half of my point was to illustrate how more sexual attraction (and kindling/rekindling sparks and going to couples therapy and more) can prolong/enhance relationships, including unhealthy ones.

Whether or not someone wants to prolong/enhance an unhealthy relationship is their choice, of course, but the second half of my point was that people may not always realize how unhealthy the relationship is.

I'm certainly not suggesting that all (or even most) relationships are unhealthy (or, to use your terminology, "toxic"), but, while I'm not completely convinced that it's paranoid to suggest evaluating a relationship's health/trajectory before hitting the accelerator, I do realize that I shouldn't have cast any accidental aspersions as to the quality of anyone else's relationships. Besides, everyone has their own definitions of healthy/unhealthy. Mine only apply to me.

In any case, my last post's point overstepped the intent of my public journals anyway. I usually aim for observational summaries, and, instead, I seem to have veered off into the Land of What Ifs. I'll make an effort to stay more on-course in future posts.

(12-19-2021, 07:39 PM)myth Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-19-2021, 12:29 PM)Shannon Wrote: [ -> ]I think you're a little paranoid here.  DMSI for couples would be about making the couple more sexually attractive to each other.

Understood. And the first half of my point was to illustrate how more sexual attraction (and kindling/rekindling sparks and going to couples therapy and more) can prolong/enhance relationships, including unhealthy ones.

Whether or not someone wants to prolong/enhance an unhealthy relationship is their choice, of course, but the second half of my point was that people may not always realize how unhealthy the relationship is.

I'm certainly not suggesting that all (or even most) relationships are unhealthy (or, to use your terminology, "toxic"), but, while I'm not completely convinced that it's paranoid to suggest evaluating a relationship's health/trajectory before hitting the accelerator, I do realize that I shouldn't have cast any accidental aspersions as to the quality of anyone else's relationships. Besides, everyone has their own definitions of healthy/unhealthy. Mine only apply to me.

In any case, my last post's point overstepped the intent of my public journals anyway. I usually aim for observational summaries, and, instead, I seem to have veered off into the Land of What Ifs. I'll make an effort to stay more on-course in future posts.

Would your relationship have fared any better without the program you used, or would it have been a longer, slower death of the same sort?  By the sounds of it, it was already suffering some serious issues before you used that program.  I appreciate your point, but having been through what you're referring to myself, I'm of the opinion that adding sexual attraction will neither save nor destroy a relationship that is going to die anyway.

(12-19-2021, 09:44 PM)Shannon Wrote: [ -> ]Would your relationship have fared any better without the program you used, or would it have been a longer, slower death of the same sort?  By the sounds of it, it was already suffering some serious issues before you used that program.  I appreciate your point, but having been through what you're referring to myself, I'm of the opinion that adding sexual attraction will neither save nor destroy a relationship that is going to die anyway.

Do I think that the relationship would've fared better without the program? Only if you mean "ended sooner" when you say "fared better." Not that I'd credit the program as the sole contributor, as I've already mentioned.

Do I think that it'd have been a longer, slower death without the programming? Hrm. Confusing question. Was a decade of receiving unnecessary (and sometimes abusive) phone calls (after the near-year-long break-up) not unusually long and slow already?

She'd hated me before she'd ever met me and, from whatever truth I'd ever gleaned, never really stopped. If that's not a serious issue, I'm not sure what is.

It seems as if you think that I'm blaming mind-programming for ruining/not saving/not fixing a salvageable relationship. I'm really not. I think that, post-hoc, it'd contributed to prolonging (via memories, nostalgia, shared history, in-jokes, etc) what really needed to end, not anything that I'd wanted to last longer.

We didn't run it to fix or save anything. We ran it because, like many people, I'd thought that a couples program for a healthy relationship would be a lot of fun. We'd run it a year before she'd admitted how much she'd been lying about, back when the relationship had seemed healthy -- but was nothing of the sort.

I don't believe that the program was at fault for anything. I also don't believe that it'd been scripted poorly. Or that I'd seen any downside until years later.

I just think that I'd foolishly chosen to run mind-programming with someone who'd secretly hated me for years, someone who'd spent years afterward angrily contacting me while groaning that she didn't want to think about me at all. Of course, I've seen similar situations with couples who hadn't run mind-programming, so, as I've said, I'm not holding couples mind-programming as a sole contributor, but I'm also not sure that there's a huge difference between memorable moments inspired by couples mind-programming and memorable moments inspired by couples therapy, a couples retreat/vacation/road trip, etc.

More to the point, I know that other unhealthy relationships exist. Are they unhealthy in exactly the same ways? I'd hope not. But I don't think that all of them are obviously unhealthy to their participants, and they might be unaware that adding a little extra glue might make future contingency plans stickier later.

Might not matter as much in a sexual, non-romantic context, but I'd mentioned it here in case it does.

The whole point I was raising is what seems to be confirmed here. You were engaged in a relationship with someone who had what sounds like a mental and or emotional disorder. The relationship would have self destructed regardless. So warning people about the mind programming isn't going to do much when it's the person you chose who was the real issue. Been there, done that.

(12-20-2021, 12:37 PM)Shannon Wrote: [ -> ]The whole point I was raising is what seems to be confirmed here.  You were engaged in a relationship with someone who had what sounds like a mental and or emotional disorder.  The relationship would have self destructed regardless.  So warning people about the mind programming isn't going to do much when it's the person you chose who was the real issue.  Been there, done that.

Absolutely. My original comment on this topic was about the value of being "very sure" about the person/relationship's health before getting into something like that. As you've said, the person/relationship, not the programming or type of program. Sorry if I hadn't made that clear or concise enough initially.

Many on the forum have probably bought the T-shirt on relationships like these, but it'd crossed my mind that not everybody might've.

More recently-observed changes that've occurred in parallel with the sub run:

• Dream recall returned. Any association with the sub appears to have been either coincidental or, at closest, temporary.
  
• Work performance is back on the rise. Often happens when I run DMSI, even though 99.9% of my work is autonomous/invisible, not social/noticeable.
  
• Still blurting things out before my mouth's private/public filter knows what I've just said. More of a continuation of a recent change than a new one.
  
• My ability to size up situations (or "mindful awareness" or any other preferred synonym) seems highly performant.
  
• Received praise specifically for my patience and helpfulness, behaviors that were simply byproducts of seeing no need to overreact.
  
• Online situations/relationships where sex is often discussed/reminisced have become unusually asexual. But there's still a pandemic in progress.
  
• My minimal interest in self-identification continues to wane. Less concerned about which qualities are/aren't "like me" and feeling less so every day.
  
• Still only around one woman in person, and, when compared with my time on AOL, she's gotten more irritable and less cuddly. More back rubs, though.
  

Yesterday included an exception to the last observation: A sudden/brief period where she'd wondered if she'd been affectionately remiss lately. While this certainly sounds related, there may have been confounding circumstances, so I'm reserving my opinion until after other influences become less likely.

Thoughts stirred up by one of Tuesday night's dreams, not that I'm entirely sure why they'd seemed to matter at the time:

• I sometimes rely on the kindness of others while suffering under the weight of their expectation.
  
• Anyone actively participating in a consumer society (services/products/trade) operates without complete independence.
  

... and Wednesday night's dream consisted of a street-sweeper that I'd somehow unwittingly let loose on the streets of every co-worker, followed by my co-workers asking for any future sweeping to be stopped. It was left vague as to how they'd uncovered that I'd been responsible, since I wasn't even aware that the sweeping request had been mine. It's possible that my dream self had simply been accepting responsibility for something that it hadn't actually done.

One or both dreams may have been unrelated to the sub, but their recollection had seemed worthy of a quick mention anyhow.

So, after a month on DMSI 3.5 (or over a month, if I count 3.4), I can easily say that it's the most comfortable version of DMSI that I can recall running. But, as I've stated before, my set of possible responders (for the next few weeks or months) is/would be N=1, and she'd first "responded" over half a lifetime ago.

All observations since my last post have been continuations. Unfortunately, my current excuse for a social life hasn't made this journal (or specific sub run) very interesting, informative, or illuminating, and, for that, I take full responsibility. I'd chosen to run 3.4/3.5 for fun, not for perfect timing/circumstances.

I'll happily continue to bank a little more time on DMSI as UH's release date approaches, but, as my health's kept me from entering my own home since late 2019, it's hard to convince myself that DMSI (a sub whose goal's a bit ill-suited to my present situation) is somehow the best use of my energy, focus, and effort. I'm not usually one to sub-hop after only a month or so, but UH sounds like it'll be far more assistive with my goals of the past few years than DMSI is.

Unless something remarkable occurs during the rest of this run, I'll probably close this journal here. Might reopen it again if I revisit 3.5 after my social activities resume. For multiple reasons, my plans for UH don't include keeping a public journal.