So I’ve been alive a while now, and there are a certain number of things that I’ve learned to take voluntary control over in that time. We all get potty-trained, for instance, and then there are those groovy Kegel exercises. I’ve also heard about people learning these:
slowing breathing and heart rates
overcoming the “fight or flight” response
extending orgasms
sleeping with eyes open (or just not blinking for a long time)
dreaming lucidly
popping/clearing ears when diving or flying
heightening their senses, i.e. wine connoisseurs’ taste, musician’s ears, etc.
So, given as much time to develop such skills as I needed, how much of my body could I consciously control? What are some other involuntary functions that can be overridden with practice?
Are you sure they “gained control over” all of them?
While some of them I’m sure can be learned, others on your list (esp. the last one) might just be paticular to the person’s make up. Take “heightened hearing” for example, I can hear high pitches, like dog whistles, and the pest control gagets that are supposedly above what a person can hear. I’d rather I didn’t. I also pop my ears without thinking about it, just now I noticed when trying to describe it that it has to do with swallowing with my tongue pressed towards the front of my mouth. I can also spread and wiggle my toes seperately. In no case did I learn how to, I’ve just always been able to…
There are books on lucid dreaming, though, and many people learn how. Maybe a couple of the others, too. If the third one was easily possible, there’d be about 100,000 books about it, you think?
I learned in high school to adjust my body’s skin temperature. I believe (although I haven’t researched it) that the particular physiological process I was affecting was the dilation of my capillaries, normally handled automatically by my body in response to outside temperature.
I’m not sure about the ones on your list, but I overcame ticklishness. It just took heap of practice and I think it took about a year, but now it is almost impossible to tickle me.
Mr. Gadetgirl hates it.
I can do stuff but I am not sure whether everyone can do it.
I can make my eyes go out of focus.
Pop my ears.
Lucid Dreaming.
I can hear high pitched sounds like if you turn your television off. (I can hear it from another part of the house and go… hmm. guess someone just turned the tv off. Sure enough they did)
I can slow and speed up my heart beat by thinking about it.
I can hear my heart beating just by thinking about it.
As a child, I could wiggle my ears, both ears back and forth at the same time. I’d do this to show off…
But then, I met someone else who could do it, and after a while I met more people who could wiggle their ears back and forth at the same time. Still, those who couldn’t do it at all were still impressed with me, but I needed to be <I>special!</I>
So somehow (I don’t even remember what I did) I learned to move my ears independantly of each other. The left one goes back and forth, the right one stays still. This freaks people out. To me, it feels like I’m wiggling a finger, or a toe…there’s no real hard thinking going on, I just do it.
I’m not sure if wiggling ears was innate to me, or if it took practice, but I was certainly able to expand my control over that part of me…
[ul]
[li]Lucid dreaming= overcomming horrible nightmares.[/li][li]Lowering heart rate= breathing exercises (playing clarinet)[/li][li]Increase persperation= Attempting astral projection as a teenager per instructions I read out of an old book.[/li][/ul]
I also “trained” myself to control my ears. I wasn’t born with it innately, I was fourteen when I first realized I had control over them.
I was playing a video game, and pleased with myself, so I smiled. Only, it turned out I really wasn’t smiling, I was flexing my ears. So, I spent some time in front of the mirror trying to figure myself out (which is something every teenager should do.)
Now, like bradysg, I can move each ear independantly of the other. I don’t do it so much anymore to show off, because I scared myself…What if I did it SO MUCH, that the muscles that move the ears got SO BIG I couldn’t wear my hats anymore?
That’d be a crime.
As far as the “extending orgasms” go…isn’t there something about that in Tantric sex?
Guys, this is all great, but it isn’t exactly answering the question. To keep this on topic, please describe the techniques used to harness your different abilities, or hard science and medical facts about body control.
To pop your ears voluntarily: Press the sides of your tongue to your molars while flexing the rear portion back into your throat. Eventually you will get good enough that you don’t need to flex anything but the back of your tongue where it connects to your throat to pop your ears.
This is the only of the multitude of involuntary muscle functions I have learned to harness, but it is the only one that can be easily explained.
Lucid dreaming is not something you want to learn to do.
I will try to start as far back as I can recall, and give MHO on why I can do it. Bare with me on this some things I say might not be important. you decide.
At the age of 5 our family moved into a new apparment complex. I didnt like it at all. I had horible nightmares night after night of this giant rat chaseing me around the new house. The dreams always ended when I finaly opened an extra door that led to my old house and the rat wouldnt follow. My problem was finding that door that wasn’t realy there. I learned to focus hard enoff to get it to open up. and problem solved.
* * *
A few years later, at the age of 9 or so, Night mare on elm’s street came out and agents my parents wishs I watched it any way. I had horible night mares again of Fred’s WIFE cutting off peoples heads. (yes, i died alot of times in my dreams) After my head was gone i would wake up with my whole body numb like when you rest on your arm to long and the blood flow to it stops and then when you get blood back into your arm it feals like a thousand niddles pricking your skin. ANYWAY. i found if i focused hard enoff i could fly away from her and they couldnt get me.
* * *
In my early teens I started reading alot of fantasy books. My dreams consisted mostly of being inside there worlds. For a time it nice controling my dreams. Flying over mountains, Blowing the heads off people you dislike with your breath, visiting other worlds, but after a while you get sick of trying to make up something to dream about. You float in and out of jarbeled <enviroments> and you wake up fealing like you never slep.
* * *
Now, I dream of voids, and nothings, and constantly brake out of dreaming to rejoin my void of tranquility. But dreams… I rarely have anymore.
* * *
Now if you do wish to try this. first step is realizeing when your dreaming. You have to be aware that yes this is a dream, calm down dont wake myself up.
Next focus just enoff to make some part of your dream change. I think after you can get this far the hardest part you’ll have is not wakeing yourself up.
Good luck… and Im sorry
PS. English is my second language. so bare with me over the next few months, I dont mind spelling corrections, just dont use them as an attack agenst what im trying to get across.
Welcome to the boards, Xenos! We have dozens of ESL speakers here, so no one’s going to give you crap about messing up your grammar or spelling, and if they do they probably aren’t worth listening to anyway.
Sorry for the bad manners, but I wasn’t able to get on the Boards again until today.
Thanks for tne responses, guys! I guess I need to refine my own question a little more:
What are the limits to what I can gain voluntary control over? I mean, I assume that responses controlled by my immune system can’t be altered, nor could I decide to regenerate a finger if one were to be cut off. But if, with time, I could learn to slow my heart & breathing rates, could I also learn to control, say, the speed at which I digest food? Or is the fact that the heart is a muscle the thing that allows me to control it? My apologies if this makes sense to no one but me. I’m having trouble phrasing this clearly.
