Shannon's Journal Discussion

[Shannon]

I'll state my thoughts on this article in chunks.

Do Subliminal Messages Work?

Tips to Avoid buying Bogus Subliminal Message Products

What is Real and what is Subliminal *****?

Many companies that sell Subliminal Message products will promote how their products ‘go beyond‘ typical (often described as old fashioned or outdated techniques) subliminal message systems. Most common ‘Advanced & Powerful” promises of product effectiveness are added by using techniques such as

1) Reversed Speech: Embedding the Subliminal Affirmations in Reversed playback. The Claim is that it allows the suggestions to bypass the critical Conscious Mind and access the Subconscious Mind

"Typical" by this definition sounds like what I call 1st Generation technology, which was top of the line in the 1970's and 1980's. I think we've discovered that a few newer and more advanced things work by this point.

While I don't use it, to the best of my knowledge reversed messaging works. I haven't spent a lot of time studying it.

2) Sped up messages: Embedding the Subliminal Affirmations played at super high speeds. (check the sample of this later in the article)

At up to the limit of comprehension, this works. Beyond that limit, of course it fails. But it does work.

3) Silent tracks: Nothing is Embedded, the volume of the affirmations is recorded below anyone’s ability to hear them

The way this is described, it's referring to truly ancient techniques. Silent tracks haven't been based on low volume alone since the 1970's.

While these claims sound nice, and are designed to appeal to your desire to believe that your subconscious mind is capable of this incredible feats – They are simple not true.

Incorrect.

You are wasting your time and money on marketing fantasy with absolutely no evidence that it works! This is the same as claiming that because you painted Angel wings on your car it will now fly.

Sentence number one in this quote is an opinion, and sentence number two is a logical fallacy that does not give me much confidence in the author's knowledge or thinking skills. Besides, how can you waste money if you can get your money back if you don't get the desired results?

The advancement of Neuroscience while freely admitting does not understand many things about the human brain, does understand a tremendous amount, AND more importantly knows what the brain is not capable of. The Sub Conscious mind does not encode a secret message in reversed speech to express your ‘true’ intentions when speaking. Neurons do not respond to stimulus it does not hear, nor can you understand speech speed up at a rate where it is gobbledygook.

Modern neuroscience knows a lot, but does it know how much it does not know? Have you noticed that every few months/years/decades, a new fact is confidently paraded forth by science, which discredits or supersedes the one before it? In other words... they don't know. They have some of the puzzle, but not all of it. And misunderstandings, logic errors and assumptions can make that worse.

Point #1: The brain is capable of things neuroscience has not yet discovered. This therefore invalidates the idea that they know definitively what it is NOT capable of.

Point #2: This author is assuming that the subconscious mind and the brain are one and the same thing, which is definitively not the case.

Point #3: Neurons don't hear. Hearing is a result of the combined function of the auditory SYSTEM, not neurons.

Point #4: The conscious mind's limits of perception are far and away less than those of the subconscious mind. The statement given assumes that there is no difference between the perceptory range of the conscious and subconscious minds, which was dis proven in the late 1800's when subliminal effect was discovered!

Point #5: The conscious mind ccannot comprehend speech at speeds that the subconscious mind can. However, there are limits for moth degrees of awareness, beyond which, yes, it becomes "gobbledygook".

The Science of Subliminal Messaging

The science of Subliminal Messaging is based on the messages being there, but beyond the threshold of conscious perception. The messages must be perceivable without the encoding stimulus or else they just do not work. This means that any type of affirmations given in a subliminal message product must be able to be heard and understood if the background (masking) sound was not there.

Not true. Subconscious perceptual limits far outstrip conscious perceptual limits.

You will find that in true recordings you will sometimes hear a muffled sound of the affirmations in the session at certain times. This is when the background music has a rising and lowering volume level and sometimes the affirmations are heard at the low points of volume. For this reason using music is not always the best ‘carrier track’ and something with a steady white noise (like ocean waves) is better.

This is an opinion, as hearing those muffled sounds from the subliminal audio is not going to make it any less effective.

Any Subliminal Message Recordings with other claims (reversed, silent, super fast etc) should be a red flag that you are dealing with either a con artist or someone with good intentions but fell into the trap of believing fantasy about what the mind can do and never checked with the real science of what is known.

This author's knowledge of the subject is so limited, so biased and so faulty that s/he serves as a prime example of what I talk about when I say... most people think they know everything there is to know about the subject after surfing the net for a few hours.

If we never tried to advance the limits of what "real science" knows, we would still be letting blood to cure disease and burning people at the stake. The fact that scientific proof is very expensive is not the fault of those who are working in the field without funds to "scientifically prove" their work. But given a refund policy like we have, and a public forum like we have, AND free full version samples... how on earth could we possibly stay in business if this stuff didn't work?! Hmmm.

There is Absolutely NO EVIDENCE that any Subliminal Message given beyond normal conscious perception (as opposed to masked by a carrier sound) has any effect. NO Study of ANY product has ever produced a result.

Corrected version:

There is Absolutely NO EVIDENCE that I am aware of or accept as valid that any Subliminal Message given beyond normal conscious perception (as opposed to masked by a carrier sound) has any effect. NO Study that I know of, or accept as valid, of ANY product has ever produced a result.

Which brings me to the final points:

People assume they know everything by jumping to conclusions, or studying the subject for very short periods of time. It's a well known fact that people using absolutes in arguments are usually wrong by virtue of the fact that there is indeed precious little under the sun that exists in absolutes instead of shades of gray. Just because you haven't taken the time to look, or refuse to accept it as valid, does not mean it does not exist or is not valid.

And, the grammar in the second sentence absolutely assures that the author is wrong, because all trials and studies produce a result, even if the result is "nothing happened". But bypassing the author's terrible use of grammar so far (which invalidates them for being a competent subliminal scripter, by the way) we can respond to what they meant instead of what they literally said with this:

Wrong.

All in all, it's people like this who are the reason why subliminal sciences are still largely in the stone age. And thank you, because you're only making my job easier by contrast. Keep it up.