The Museum of Hoaxes
Subliminal Peripheral Vision Psychosis
Posted By:
Myst
Mar 23, 2005
 Please note: Reading the following site could cause bouts of insanity accompanied by uncontrolled eye rolling.


Fifty years ago Engineers found a conflict of physiology when it caused a sudden psychotic episode in certain office workers. They didn't tell anyone else and to this day they believe it is confined to the business office. Cubicle Level Protection is the solution. But they didn't give the problem a name. Maybe that's why it is unknown fifty years later.....

http://visionandpsychosis.net/
Category: Psychology; Replies: 61

Comments
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The Curator
in San Diego
 Member
Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 | 09:49 PM
So I'm trying to understand what the site is all about, but it's a little hard.

Either they're saying that people who work in cubicles are all going to go stark raving mad... very soon.

Or they're saying that cubicles protect people from going stark raving mad.

One or the other. I'm not sure.

But I'm impressed with how they tie this theory in with pueblo indian archaeology. Very x-files.
Myst
Member
Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 | 10:14 PM
I can't figure it out either. I gave up after my eyes began to roll crazily around and I felt my own version of insanity slipping away.

I'm hoping Hairy can interpret some of this for us.
The Curator
in San Diego
 Member
Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 | 10:18 PM
Somehow I don't see Hairy as a cubicle kind of guy.
Smerk
in to mischief
 Member
Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 | 10:27 PM
I do seem to suffer from the QiGong psychotic reaction...short of having eyes in the back of my head, how else do I keep an eye on my class when they follow me?
Rod
in the land of smarties.
 Member
Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 | 10:42 PM
From what I can see, this guy seems to be attempting to make the facts match up when they don't. Now, don't quote me on that (yet), 'cause I'm not done reading the site.

Hairy not the cubicle type? Are you kidding? Maybe it's a cubicle that made him the Hairy we know and love... We could add that to this guys's proof collection.

And if things moving quickly in your peripheral vision drive you nuts, why isn't every single person who drives a car insane, just California drivers? (yes, kidding. Kinda.)
X
in McKinney, TX
 Member
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 | 07:27 AM
It looks to me that what they are speaking of is all the close movement that is expierianced when confined in a small working environment. The brain is pushed into overdrive because it is seeing things in the peripheral vision and taking them as threats and having to decipher everything to figure out what it is. I am a cubicle guy and I do agree. If it wasn't for the walls of the cube, I would get less done because of a slight paranoia (Not spelled right) from seeing everything moving in close to me or by me. Our instincts want to take over to make sure no danger is approaching. With this overload, some people get stressed, go crazy, smoke (like I do). Most of us get more conditioned to it now in this fast paced world. I can see the relation to suicide.

The computer added to this stress. So many things the mind is deciphering. Seeing blinking lights, words everywhere, different screens. When a pop up add appears while you are reading your computer, you get a little annoyed. It came out of no where and this triggers instinct. There is actually a slight adrenaline rush which quickly goes away because you figured out what just happend, a pop up, so it wasn't a threat, unless you feel it was an invasion of privacy, and the body wants to recover which it then undergoes a level of stress. Too much of crap similar to this may cause a nervous breakdown.
Charybdis
in Hell
 Member
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 | 07:45 AM
I'm a cubie and I think that you are all well aware of how sane and stable I am.

http://www.clicksmilies.com/s0105/aktion/action-smiley-073.gif
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
 Member
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 | 09:59 AM
I'm in a cubical. I don't have any creepy smilies.
L K Tucker
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 | 11:37 PM
If you are having trouble believing the subject of VisionAndPsychosis.Net perform the demonstration of subliminal sight and habituation in peripheral vision.

Over five years of investigation I found four activities that have mental breaks associated with them. All four have Subliminal Distraction exposure as part of the experience.

Negative mental outcomes have occurred with Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga for about 3000 years. Participants blame supernatural forces Chee and Prana for this. But eyes open meditation while preforming kata movements in groups is actually a description of SD exposure.

The simple message is that all computer workstations must have Cubicle Level Protection if they are located where there is repeating detectable movement in peripheral vision.

This is usually FREE. You move the computer somewhere there cannot be movement beside you.
David
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 | 05:34 PM
This is interesting.
I tripped over that website and I suddenly recalled 2 co-workers at 2 different jobs that "lost it" for no apparent reason.

Due to space restrictions, both of them were stuck in cubicles that had other equipment with rapidly blinking and sequencing lights in peripheral view.

I did work for a week or so in the 1st co-worker's cube and I could never figure out why I was so uncomfortable working in there. There was always a mild sense of apprehension in there. Others that had to use that workstation didn't like it either. We laughed and thought it was haunted.
I wonder now about it.
Ordinary Jane
Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 | 07:40 AM
That website is pretty confusing but I think there is something in the theory. I'd love to see more work done on this.

I worked in a situation for a year where my desk was set up in such a way that people were always entering the room behind me, and I had a tower of server equipment on my right, blinking and whining all the time.

I am a very low-key easy going person but over time, my anxiety level went sky high and I was constantly on edge. I remember that when sitting beside people, I'd get this fight-or-flight urge that I found very distressing and unsettling. It was literally only when people were beside me - in my peripheral vision!!!

I started meditating on a regular basis to get rid of the anxiety, but that stressed out fight or flight response went away completely when I stopped my job. It wasn't until I stumbled upon that weird website that a lightbulb went off over my head.

I'm just sharing this anonymously in case anybody else out there experienced the same thing and was, like I was, worried they were going crazy. From now one I will never work where I can be disturbed from behind or where there are flashing lights in my periphery.
Josh
Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 | 01:47 PM
I have to agree. I worked a computer job in a cubicle where I was facing a short (height) cubicle wall, where on the other side of that wall was a shelf where workers would come to stack papers. So my brain would constantly be analyzing the "threats" approaching in my peripheral vision and it drove me nuts. Constantly breaking my attention because I thought someone was confronting me. I found it extremely difficult to focus and get any concentrated work done.
L K Tucker
Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 | 03:16 PM
While you may have had minor Subliminal Distraction exposure remember that it happens when you learn to ignore distracting movement in your peripheral vision.

Subliminal Peripheral Vision forms a cone around conscious sight. When you look down to work movement in front of you across the low cubicle wall was in your peripheral vision.

I have found some people who cannot learn to ignore distracting movement. My guess is that they cannot have SD exposure and will not have the mental break it can cause.

Hospital intensive care units have a problem when patients who spend more than five days there begin to have mental breaks. I suspect it is caused by something similar to your experience. The exposure rate minimum is every fifteen minutes around the clock as long as the patient is awake.
joah
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 | 06:16 PM
L K Tucker,
can you please email about this, it is very important.
A few years ago in highschool i started to notice that I wasn't able to control where i looked and things in my peripheral vision would distract me, like moving objects. some kids started to notice this and for six months would have fun with me like rasing there hand or dropping a pencil to pick it up knowing that it got my attention.

I want to explain more to you but don't want to go on talking about it here, please send me an email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
nur s.
Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 | 07:13 PM
After spending some time on the web site of concern, I started looking for a comment form to fill just to tell the authors that it might as well be them suffering from a paranoid schizophrenic episode..and I ended up here. No complaints about that 😊 I particularly enjoyed the simple yet so very logical question Rod sent about 4 years ago (wow) ---> "And if things moving quickly in your peripheral vision drive you nuts, why isn't every single person who drives a car insane, just California drivers? (yes, kidding. Kinda.)"

I'll try to be brief:

1) I find it most bizarre that the authors of the web site seem to pay no attention whatsoever to the nature of psychotic illnesses, or to the physiological (hereditary/ genetic disposition, hormonal imbalance), social (alienation, occupational dissatisfaction, estrangement, repressed traumas) reasons well known and well documented to be related with psychotic reactions.

2) While reading them is somewhat a fun way of killing time, majority of the complex speculations that go under "consipracy theories" are works of a mind prone to paranoid and/ or schizophrenic disturbances. In fact such "irrational rationalizations" are considered to be solid symptoms of psychological problems. Going through many material on the web-site, I can't help but notice what an immense time & energy is put into proving a connection between unrelated, random and otherwise explainable occurences.

3) The range of the visual field of human species, along with our neuro-system is capable of multi-tasking & multi-proccessing, which is partly what puts humans on top of the food chain. While sensory agitation and over-stimulation is not without the expense of psychological health, the web-site offers no solid proof that such blinking-lights can be strong enough to trigger psychotic episodes.

4) Any theory, argument or notion with the word "subliminal" is dubious to me. It's an overrated term that undermines human system, and often used by people with little or no knowledge of neurology or neuro-psychology.

5) About the yoga and Qui Gong references on the web-site: any practice with the claim of spiritual enlightenment or cleansing is bound to cause adverse reactions to some degree. Many people turning to them do so with the intention of facing their long-ignored or untackled issues. The affirmative tone of such practices about facing what you fear or leaving your previous life behind might as well trigger anxiety, further fear or even the return of traumas repressed due to inability to deal with them. Unexperienced teachers with little insight to the student's individual state of mind/ soul can also be part of the problem (poor or bad conditioning).

I wasn't as brief as I wanted to be. Sorry 😊
L K Tucker
Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 | 10:40 PM
I don't know why the mental break with Subliminal Distraction happens. Neither does anyone else. There is absolutely no research about it.

But you failed to perform the basic investigation into first semester psychology where the problem is explained.

In the 1990's it was explained as the result of the effort to suppress the startle. Avoiding the startle caused a conflict in the mind that would build until a mental break happens.

I suggest that the trigger for the startle, subliminally detected movement in peripheral vision, happens so quickly it is not treated as vision input until you create the repeating circumstances for it. When your brain attempts to source and understand subliminal vision input that effort causes additional synapses and pathways to be created to confuse reason and thought.

I didn't dream up the problem. I learned of it in psychology class.

I searched for activities that have mental breaks associated with them and then looked for Subliminal Distraction in that activity.

ICU Psychosis, Qi Gong, Kundalini Yoga, and Landmark Education's seminar are the four primary places investigated. Culture Bound Syndromes have similar mental events but they are too far flung to investigate.

Even the authors of the DSM admit they don't know what causes mental illness. Your time would be better spent performing your own investigation after you verify the problem is real.

I can't help you do that. You must have the insight to understand the basic problem. Go back and read about subliminal sight and how it triggers the human vision startle reflex.
nur s.
Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 | 05:42 AM
Sorry to see that my earlier response have upset the the authors of the web-site. Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I have to say that I have teaching experience with neuro-psychology at the university, which goes, let's say 'a bit' further than taking a beginner/ intermed. level course or gathering loose information in the field. The impulsive response above (which doesn't really 'respond' content-wise) already indicates that this SPV speculation isn't anywhere close to posing plausible questions or engage in coherent argumentation to begin with-- let alone tackle with its own leaks or blind spots like any scientific thoughtful theory would be able to do so.
Joah
Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 | 09:11 AM
Hey Nur S. This is true, I wish you were right and this was made up but its not because I am suffering with it right now and have been for the last 6 years.

It started in Highshool, I was a very shy and nervous kid, always feeling like people where staring at me. one day It just happened, I couldn't ignore movements around me, I could be staring at the teacher and a hand would go up arcoss the room and I would see it imedeitly or someones pencil would drop on the floor right next to me and I would be distracted by that, it has gotten so bad to the point where I cannot take classes at school or hold a job because now every movement around me distracts me to look at it. I am seeking professional help but because very few has heard abou this its very hard to explain to them what I am going through.
L K Tucker
Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 | 04:13 PM
You haven't upset me. I don't get upset about this problem. I have a outlook of benevolent fatalism.

How many people have to die before this problem is correctly investigated?

Again .... you failed to go to first semester psychology and find the problem explained there. It is in psychophysics, the physiology of sight.

You should investigate how the human vision startle reflex is formed.

So little is thought of the odd problem that it has not been investigated since that first discovery

The exact wording in my course at Shelton State Junior College was that, "Subliminal sight caused a problem in the early days of modern office design."

That course was taught with the same books and materials as the University of Alabama. Shelton State is across town from UA. The courses are coordinated for the degree program from UA.

I should warn you that I have exchanged emails with an emeritus professor of psychology that said he had never encountered it in 23 years of teaching entry level psychology at the University of Georgia.

It does not appear in advanced courses. It is mentioned just that once if at all.

I have searched for five years and do not find anyone in medicine or psychiatry aware of the phenomenon.

I called a Steelcase dealer in Birmingham to refresh my forty year old memory of it (2003). I first encountered the problem as an engineering student around 1966.

If you visited my site you saw the page where I had posted a question on an architectural forum. They accused me of being an attorney trying to get information for a lawsuit.

Designers treat the information as proprietary. They don't want to be called as a witness against a customer or employer.

The problem is real and does cause a believed-to-be-harmless mental break.
nur s.
Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 | 04:30 AM
If read carefully, it would be clear in my previous posts that I don't altogether negate the bad effects of sensory agitation or over stimulation on an individual's psychology. It is the causal and correlative relation suggested between the visual over-stimulation described on the web-site and psychosis that I don't find plausible on the basis of my knowledge and practice in the field. (Doesn't it ring a bell that an Emeritus Prof. has made the same remarks? That a causal,correlative relation as such has never been noticed or acknowledged as worthy-of further study by people who are trained in the field? It isn't a warning to me, it is a warning to the authors of such pseudo-causalities. That is an epic failure of understanding on the part of the authors of the web-site. Also called a 'disavowal' in psychology.)

A wording along the lines of "Subliminal sight causing a problem" doesn't mean that the same problem can safely and positively be called a psychotic disturbance due to this subliminal sight agitation. Not to mention that it is argued to be psychosis on the web-site while the authors of it used the wording "harmless mental break" here, in the above response. Somebody has to decide now.

These are a few of the many, many indicators of the fact that the authors of the web-site hold no understanding of the categorical differences between a sign, a trigger, a cause, a problem and a symptom from the perspective of medicine and psychology.

Fortunately (or not, for some), it takes a lot more than an internet search and a couple of college courses to make claims on a subject as complicated as psychological health. Ironic that these claims for which a lot of time & energy is spent is discussed here, in museumofhoaxes. That speaks volumes in and of itself. It also makes it superfluous for me to engage in any further debate with a party who seems to enjoy quite a bit of attention for unfounded conspiracies despite any credible knowledge or substantial argument to make sense.

My final words to anyone who thinks he/she might be suffering a psychotic disturbance because lights blinking around create a sense of paranoia or insecurity, please waste no further time with hoaxes and seek professional help from medical experts. A little bit of knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge because the former often has to create myths and create confusion to support itself. Keep in mind that no medical diagnosis can be made, or even suspected without a one-on-one consultation with an MD.
L K Tucker
Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 | 12:51 PM
I don't know where to start with a reply. You still refuse to investigate and acknowledge the 1960's accidental discovery that visual subliminal distraction would, with enough exposure, cause a "not harmless but believed-to-be-harmless" mental break. You could not even get that right.

You do not investigate that the cubicle was designed to deal with the problem and has done so for forty years. That may require several phone calls to find a designer willing to talk about it. My site provides a list of manufacturers on the Modern Cubicle page.

I advise anyone with beginning psychiatric symptoms to have a full physical exam. The phenomenon on my site does not require that you engage any treatment to investigate. It cost nothing. Avoiding it also should cost nothing.

As clearly stated my project seeks through historical investigation so show that none of the current beliefs about this phenomenon are true. Specifically that it only causes a harmless temporary episode. (Again, you don't seem to understand that.)

Typical historical events are the Taiping Rebellion of 1840's China, the mass insanity event on the Belgian Polar Expedition of 1898, the first episodes of Dissociative Fugue in 1880's France, a temporary mental break that happened to a Russian cosmonaut, mental problems of users of two 3000 year old exercise forms (believed to be supernatural forces), mental problems of participants in a three day ten hour per day seminar, and Culture Bound Syndromes as I define them.

Rather than making an effort to find out that this is a real problem you want us to substitute your "opinion."

My wife's current mental problems are from drug reactions to Alzheimer's and antipsychotic drugs a quack psychiatrist lied about to get me to give her.
ron
Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 | 07:10 PM
I once watched a multipart documentary of Abraham Lincoln on PBS, and they related a story from his childhood, where he witnessed a traumatic scene.
His neighbor's son was outside chopping wood, and out of nowhere became psychotic and began to attack his own mother.

I always wondered what in his environment could have caused this reaction. Possibly it could somehow be related to this theory.

One question: how are ICU patients in a similar state of mental dissociation, as are students studying in a library, or those practicing meditation?
L K Tucker
Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 | 11:18 PM
The human mind can only do one thing at a time if that activity requires full mental investment. When you engage that level of concentration you dissociate (ignore) everything happening around you. This is true in each of the situations mentioned. The ICU patient is daydreaming. The student, reading for comprehension, and those using 'eyes open' meditation are all engaging a level of mental investment that allows light dissociation for things happening around them.

When in that mental state, if there is threat-movement in your peripheral vision, you will subliminally detect it and your brain will react to that detection by breaking your concentration with a startle and vision reflex to look at the detected movement.

If it is a safe situation most of us can ignore or attach a zero level of attention to the detected movement so that the startle will stop.

But you cannot stop seeing anything in your vision field. This is because you cannot turn off the sensor cells on the rods and cones of your retina. If stimulus, reflected light from movement in peripheral vision, strikes them neural impulses go to your brain over their normal channels.

After you learn to ignore the movement your brain still detects it and attempts the reaction. That is a Subliminal Distraction.

It is my operating theory that your brain, with repeated detection incidents, eventually discovers this "new but subliminal" vision input and attempts to integrate it into consciousness and reality. In so doing it makes new synapses and false associations that eventually cause the brain to stop normal function.

Your brain cannot reconcile the subliminal input because it is movement and position information only. There is no color or shape data available from your Subliminal Peripheral Vision.

If the stimulus stops the new connections dissolve from disuse and normal brain function returns. But if the stimulus is low level for long periods the brain changes are reinforced and that makes them permanent.

If you go back into the history of mental illness you find that even some of those committed to mad houses in the 1500's spontaneously recovered with no treatment.

Today claims are made for drugs, talk therapy, and a hose of other modalities. There is no 'testable objective evidence' that these therapies do anything. How many of the claimed cures are actually spontaneous recoveries? How would anyone know?
ron
Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 | 06:37 AM
That would be a perfect test for your theory. There must have been a number of blind persons in ICU units somewhere. If one third go crazy, then surely they would too.

Unless your theory is true. Possibly you could ask ICU nurses about their experience.

If that is what causes the problem, then the blind persons would not suffer from it.
L K Tucker
Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 | 07:42 AM
You have stated the problem exactly. I have searched the APA data base and had volunteers search it for me.

We could not find any cases of someone blind from birth with schizophrenia, panic attacks, or bipolar disorder. There are cases of those who are legally blind or that have reduced vision that do have these disorders. In addition there are cases of some who were schizophrenic before becoming blind.

Any disorder that remits and returns would be suspect as caused by Subliminal Distraction. SD exposure that increases or decreases from changes in daily activities would cause that.

My medical condition and my wife's mental condition have prevented a full investigation. You are welcome to do that and post your own website.

Yes I am searching for someone to write and implement a study to establish that ICU Psychosis is caused by Subliminal Distraction.

The other ongoing effort is to reach someone in South America working with Moskito Indians to investigate Grisi Siknis, (crazy sickness or jungle madness) incidents of mass insanity, as being caused by Subliminal Distraction exposure.

I used my congressman to contact OSHA about why there is no knowledge of Subliminal Distraction since it has been known as a problem in offices for forty years. They said they would refer it to investigation. If you want to help get your congressman to contact OSHA also.

There is no reply from the Office of the Postmaster General about the two investigations of mass shooting events that failed to find Subliminal Distraction and the lack of Cubicle Level Protection as causation for the shootings. A letter writing campaign might push that forward.
ron
Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 | 06:50 PM
Unfortunately, I am a phd. student in a different field. Or else I could possibly help you out. It seems like a very easy hypothesis to test though.

That is, what percentage of completely blind ICU patients suffer from ICU psychosis. If it is significantly less than 33 percent, then your claim definitely has some validity.

Believe it or not, I did find one non-example where all blind and deaf patients were excluded from the study:

Although I found your website to be confusing, as others have mentioned. The hypothesis is intriguing, especially to those of us who have lost faith in the professional psychological diagnoses.

Possibly I could talk to you through email if you are interested in my personal experience. But for right now I will just mention two of my current interests: Ruth Whalen, and psychetruth on youtube. Both offer some interesting alternative perspectives.
Garrett
Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 | 08:56 AM
I found some videos of office mental breakdowns on youtube. They all seem to be in workspaces where people can come up behind you alot, or see moving objects when you turn your head. Some start when someone walks in from behind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxHEkjaAfOo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJvwlw8AsA4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M__Q0D-BNg (idk bout this one...)
L K TTucker
Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2009 | 08:25 PM
Ron,
I have posted a beta email form on the contact page for VisionAndPsychosis.Net. I am interested in gathering stories or cases of successful use of the information on my site.

http://visionandpsychosis.net/contact.htm

The index page still says that the contact email is down and that message will be left until the new method is proven out.

Garrett,
On the subect of YouTube videos, be careful. The center url given is revealed to be an advertisement for a movie (?).

All three situations are correct for Subliminal Distraction exposure because of the close proximity of low-wall cubicles. The "desks" are incorrectly situated. The printer is located so that several workers will be exposed as office staff visit the printer or copier often. Copiers should be an a separate room.

But ask yourself, why was the camera there turned on?
Justin
Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 | 03:31 PM
Seriously, L.K., your ramblings do have the tone of a paranoid schizophrenic or other psychotic-spectrum patient. I say this as a licensed, Ph.D.-holding clinical psychologist who has worked with that population for over twenty years.

I suspect you're familiar with Morgellons Syndrome and its online cult -- in my view, your site reads like Morgellons.org, only yours is significantly more disorganized and rambling. Similarly, try reading the works of "Tomotom" -- again, they are quite reminiscent of your website.

Before you call me out for "ignoring intro-level psychology" (per your experience in a single course in community college), please note that I not only completed but also teach numerous undergraduate and graduate-level psychology courses, including introductory courses.

The causal link you posit between subliminal peripheral movement and psychosis is ludicrous. There are so many potential mediating factors -- including several which have repeatedly been clearly demonstrated to have ACTUAL causal effects -- that to make the leaps you have is almost laughable.

I say "almost" because I can't in good conscience laugh at a person with delusions. Still, you should take heed with regard to how dangerous those delusions may be when presented to others as fact.
the good doctor
Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 | 04:26 PM
Justin, your ramblings have the tone of someone that's not really in the mental health field.

We also doubt that you "teach numerous undergraduate and graduate-level psychology courses, including introductory courses." You must be very, very busy. How many courses do you teach in a semester?

Doing a meta-search, I can't find any clinical psychologists named Justin in Atlanta. Why is that?

I say this as a licensed, M.D.-holding psychiatrist ( a real doctor ) who has worked in the field for over thirty five years (teaching and private practice).

I passed around a copy of your response with my former colleagues ( psychologists and psychiatrists ) at U.T. Southwest Medical School and it raised a few eyebrows. I might add that none of them believe you are authentic.

Although there are numerous questionable statements made on this site, your unprofessional conjectures, ramblings and tone of attack are an embarrassment. Justin, not all people in my field are arrogant jackasses.

Since you seem comfortable in guessing a diagnosis without the benefit of the patient "on the couch" ( not that a real "Ph.D.-holding clinical psychologist" would ever do that anyway, right? ), I'll go out on a limb and throw one at you for entertainment purposes only.

You have self-esteem issues and I'll wager it's very easy to engage/challenge your parent ego state. I can imagine an undergrad challenging you in class and you beating them over the head with your "credentials". I've seen it many, many times before.

Get some help.

Take care.
Tinker Bell
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 | 03:48 PM
This is great research. I am soooo glad to find some science not based just on "facts" and "findings" and "studies." Bleghh! I mean where's the magic?

I myself firmly believe in SPVP and often experience it when flying back and forth between Never Never land and London. Maybe it's the planes and satellites? Maybe it's the other faeries and pixies? I don't know but have been consulting with both Peter Pan and Merlin the Wizard (both of whom have confirmed the veracity of this condition) in order to try and overcome it.

One question: has anyone considered the fact that the Illuminati may be behind this?

It would seem obvious to me that Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and John Wilkes Booth all suffered from SPVS and was at the root of them being targeted and implicated as assassins. Which we all know isn't true!

And what about 9-11? Huh? Huh?!?

Anyways, the Tooth Fairy and I have set up an appointment with "The Good (witch)Doctor in Dallas" and the esteemed Shaman/Quack, LK Tucker to try and get to the bottom of this.

BTW, if you still don't believe in this very well researched phenomena, just watch "Office Space" over and over. You'll get it. I mean they put that one guy in the basement. The basement! And look at what he did. Proof positive.

Okay, got to run (or fly), having coffee with Bigfoot and Puff the Magic Dragon in an hour in Shangri-La.

Thanks again to LK Tucker, VisionsandPsychos.Net and "The Good Doctor in Dallas" for helping us all to remember that we shouldn't be always believe the truth. Especially if it doesn't support our crazy, made up, mystical fantasies.

I mean, if we always did that, we would have no Santa Claus or Jesus.

Sincerely,
Tinker Bell

PS - PSVD is soooo crazy on acid!!!!! Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and I just dropped a couple of tabs and totally saw Barack Obama having tea with Karl Marx and the Devil. I knew it! I knew it!!!
Tinker Bell
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 | 03:53 PM
LOL! Sorry bout the typo in the post-script. SPVP not PSVD!!! Who even knows what PSVD is? Hahah!

Nowadays it's hard to keep the acronyms for all of these great made-up conditions straight.

But in all honesty the acid was kicking in and Boehner's face was glowing radioactive orange.

Totally distracted me. My bad.

-Tinker Bell
L K Tucker
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 | 04:59 PM
The site is slowly being edited to remove the substitute names used before Subliminal Distraction was introduced as the correct term.

I will have more time if we do not move in March.

Which page did you find SPVP, Subliminal Peripheral Vision Psychosis, or another acronym on??

You did not comment on the nonsense names in the DSM. Perhaps you believe these disorders, PTSD, Bipolar, or Schizophrenia, are real diseases?

They are made up names for observed behavior. The membership of the American Psychiatric Association votes on them. No science is used.
L K Tucker
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 | 05:24 PM
I am going to go one step further.

If Subliminal Distraction exposure is a serious problem the evidence exists. It must, and it will be in plain sight. How is that possible?

Researchers did not have a key piece of information to put the puzzle pieces together.

In fact the key is necessary to know what the puzzle pieces are.

Culture Bound Syndromes were the significant break through. They have existed for centuries under different names.

Every place these CBS mental breaks happen the locals give it a name based on their culture and concept of reality.

Once you understand a simple problem is causing them they can be grouped for deeper understanding.

The startle matching behaviors are a prime example. These events are so bizarre they cannot be mistaken for anything else.

Upon startle the person will perform any action demonstrated to them or perform any action commanded to them even if it is harmful to themselves or others.

Since it happens around the world it can't be caused by local psychosocial pressures, the current belief of experts. Each culture is different. It has to be something common to all those individuals living around the world.

Human physiology, the startle reflex, and Subliminal Distraction is that commonality.

Everywhere these CBS's happen the population lives in too-small single-room arrangements or the equivalent.

In Mooselake Maine it was bunkhouses in remote lumber camps where Jumping Frenchmen of Maine appeared. (How about that for a made up name?)

Latah, the startle matching behavior in Malaysia, appears where entire villages live in single room longhouses.

You can link to the Culture Bound Syndromes for the full discussion.

No one will ever be able to "open the box" and look inside the human mind to determine what causes mental illness. But you can be intelligent enough to read then make your own informed decision.
Dr. Scott
Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 | 01:48 PM
I encountered the website several years ago, and read the entire contents. I followed-up with related reading from other sources which corroborated the effects described, and supported the conclusions.

While I realize that professional scientists who are already firmly in the grip of the Academic and Research establishments will instantly discount the information as a.) not having been arrived at by a grant-funded double-blind research study at an accredited university, and b.) deriving conclusions from largely anecdotal evidence, I would like to point out that UNTIL there is research, it is scientifically FOOLISH to assert that the author's conclusions are patently wrong and that the phenomenon does not exist.

The optic nerve is hardwired to the vision centers in the Occipital Lobes, and there are 17 different and seperate parts of our brains that ALL play a part in vision proscessing. "Subliminal" is a reasonable description of the phenomenon (though subconscious might be more accurate) because any nerve stimuli which do not produce perceptions registering on conscious perception STILL cause neurophysiological effects.

I think the problem is labelling it as a psychosis. It may be an unrelated induced dissociative disorder, or even an Autism spectrum related response to certain repettive peripheral visual stimuli.

May I note here that when Jules Verne wrote about Submarines, people called him crazy and said such things were impossible. When Anton Mesmer claimed results through "animal magnetism" nobody knew what hypnosis was, and said he was a quack. When Kary Mullis took a tab of LSD and had a vision in which he created the Polymerase Chain Reaction DNA replication process, people said he was nuts. (He got the Nobel Prize for it, you know.)

When the answer is still unknown and uninvestigated by proper research, it is wholly unscientific to declare that such a thing does not exist. The purpose of science is to illuminate such questions. Only when you do the research study, can you properly confirm or dismiss the question.

And I believe this phenomenon is a dissertation-worthy subject. Someone WILL look into it, and will be awarded PhD. for it.
L K Tucker
Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 | 02:13 PM
I cannot believe you continue to post and repeat nonsense while withholding your true name.

Subliminal Distraction as a cause of mental breaks for knowledge workers in business offices is a problem discovered and solved forty years ago!

Let me repeat: It was discovered and solved forty years ago.

You have not bothered to pick up the phone and speak with a designer working for any major office furniture manufacturer. Have that person explain Cubicle Level Protection for you.

It is not the presence of blinking lights that causes the problem. It is your brain's attempt to integrate subliminal sight, subliminal vision input, into consciousness and reality. That cannot be done.

Give us all a break. Post your name or investigate this as I explained it to you.
C schmidt
Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 | 08:10 AM
I personally think there is merit in the conclusions of the author. What i would like to know is if there are any non drug or psychobabble treatments for this problem.Why was the site http://www.navaching.com/index.html nightwalking referred to on your site? It seems to me that it could offer some help if a person could be more aware and use his peripheral and or subconscious vision. Thank you for the many hours you have spent investigating this worthy subject.
L K Tucker
Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 | 02:09 PM
There are no treatments for this problem. When you eliminate exposure your brain recovers normally. (See the est Werner Erhard page. Wood recovered in one week with "one dose of medication.")) The 'psychosocial and psychobabble' reference is to the current state of the art in mental health services. When a serious mental event happens social stresses are usually blamed.

One such case was Jennifer Wilbanks, runaway bride. She began to quote a therapist that her episode was "running away from self." But in her interviews she revealed it was so distressing she considered suicide. It happened when she moved in with her boyfriend and began planning the wedding. She worked in a doctor's office and there is no provision for Cubicle Level Protection in such offices. Her new roommate provided a source of movement in peripheral vision at home. (She would not reply to interview requests.)

Practitioners believe if someone improves while undergoing treatment then the treatment must have helped. There is no "testable objective evidence" that current treatments do anything. (See the new Site Summary page.)

The 'nightwalking' site was included in the early investigation of subliminal sight. I have not repeated that investigated so it is possible the site has changed and eliminated the information I originally found there. My memory is that those early site references were to the sensitivity of peripheral vision to detect movement and the sensitivity of peripheral vision in low light situations.

Culture Bound Syndromes through the centuries show that these episodes have happened across the ages. Too small single room living arrangements allow SD exposure even with primitive or no illumination source except cooking fires. (See the Culture Bound Syndromes page.)

I have permission to use the Auburn University library here in Montgomery and expect to add evidence of this phenomenon.
L K Tucker
Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 | 02:44 PM
That should have been Jason Weed who recovered in one week not"Wood."
Kundalini Girl
Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 | 02:52 PM
LK,

I am a tad confused by your website. I would really like to understand it, but cannot discern entirely what you are trying to say.

I think your proposed issue may have merit. Would you consider defining subliminal distraction using new words? Give it a 1-2-3 approach. -example - first you close your eyes, second you ??????? - third - then what happens?

Please consider this an earnest request, as I would like to understand more fully.
L K Tucker
Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 | 07:28 PM
There may be a post missing, removed. I responded to a specific post on march 16th and I was not responding to Dr Scott.

Repeat my March 16 comment was not made to Dr Scott.
L K Tucker
Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2010 | 09:33 PM
Kundalini Girl,

The problem posting that here is the 4000 character limit.

Unless you have an understanding of the physiology of subliminal sight and how the startle reflex is formed it takes much more space to put it all together.

So I posted a new page that does all that.

Go to the site, VisionAndPsychosis.Net and click the new Subliminal Distraction link.

Is that what you wanted?
Ron
Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 | 08:26 AM
LK,

did you read about the taxi driver in UK? It was the last couple days. Here's a snippet of the article:

"The landlady of Derrick Bird's local pub has said that he was a easy-going man and never appeared aggressive.

Police have said that Mr Bird killed 12 people and injured 11 on a rampage across Cumbria."
L K Tucker
Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 | 01:09 PM
I did notice that but there is nothing in the reporting that would connect if firmly with the metal event from Subliminal Distraction. I would guess SD is the cause but there is no evidence. Visit my the Culture Bound Syndromes page. Sudden violence has different names around the world, iich'aa among the Navajo, Amok in Malaysia, and Going Postal here.

If you search the mass shooting cases every one has a pet theory they put forth when one happens.

In 2008 a video game playing temporary worker in Japan rented a two ton truck, drove it into a crowd, jumped out and stabbed seventeen killing seven. Video game violence is likely SD exposure.

An electronics factory in China, Foxconn, has had about ten suicides this year. They have dormitories for workers so they never leave the site. What would you bet they don't use Cubicle Level Protection on the factory work floor?

There have been five mass knife murders at Chinese kindergartens and elementary schools. When guns are not present the killer chooses some other method and manages to disable victims to kill them.

I did finally make contact with Joe Morse's roommate from Ga Tech. He supplied a sketch of their dorm set up that shows Morse had Subliminal Distraction exposure. He vanished the day of finals while others were packing to go home. After withdrawing his last $120 from an ATM he flew to Miami where he broke into a construction site, climbed a 187 foot crane and jumped. It took four years for the Tech police department to locate him. He as been an unidentified suicide. There is a new page with those three diagrams. Look in the new pages section.
Ron
Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 | 10:25 PM
Do you have any idea if animals are subject to SD?
L K Tucker
Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 | 07:23 AM
No this is a human problem. They don't engage deep mental investment for hours like humans. In fact, both humans and animals have the reaction to detected movement. But that's where it stops.

Animals must always react to movement around them. They never learn to ignore it. If they could do that they wouldn't survive.
Ron
Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 | 01:39 PM
Yes, thats true about animals. In fact, deep mental investment and the ability to concentrate for long periods is relatively new even in the human species. It seems to have developed through the usage of the very important tool.. the book.

So we may not necessarily be 'evolutionarily prepared' for it. And hypothetically, there is a conflict between learned trait, and the evolutionary hardware of the brain?

I still do not understand how the people in ICU are involved in deep mental investment or concentration. There is a huge difference between meditation and daydreaming. I would imagine that most people lying down, and idle, would be more prone to daydreaming not sharp mental focus.
L K Tucker
Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 | 07:59 PM
It's the dissociation of for things happening around you that engages the opportunity for a startle.

You are correct there is a large difference in study, meditation, reading a book, or daydreaming. But they all involve the same level of disengagement for things happening around you.

In the ICU there is nothing to do but think or daydream. I was surprised when I found a report of a study that there could be more than two hundred visits to the bedside of an ICU patient.

The order of my investigation was to locate places the sudden unexplained mental breaks happen then explore that activity to find a source of Subliminal Distraction.

To confuse the issue in the ICU there is the possibility that delirium happens because of medical conditions or drug treatment.

In addition the possibility exists that someone in an ICU bed had a job or activity that exposed them to a near threshold for the mental event before they were confined in the ICU.

My object is to locate a preponderance of evidence for Subliminal Distraction as a source of behaviors we call mental illness.

As the next stage is investigated some of the previously proposed solutions may have to be modified as evidence is uncovered. The investigation will have to go where the evidence leads.
Ron
Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 | 11:39 AM
I think driving definitely could lead to SD because many people do daydream while driving. This would explain a lot of the instances of road rage. The longer you are on the road, and depending on your personality, you would be more prone to SD exposure.

I don't agree with you that all mental illness can be described by youre theory. That is going way too far... we already have a decent model for depression, in 'learned pessimism'. This model works for animals as well, and has been corroborated through numerous experiments. It also lends itself well to treatment through CBT.

Also Bipolar disorder is probably the only mental illness that is believed to have biological/ chemical origins.

And then you have ergot poisoning which is believed to cause a number of mass hysterias in different cases in Europe and America.
L K Tucker
Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2010 | 06:32 PM
OK... you are making the same mistake everyone else does. You assert the "disorders" of the DSM as if they actually existed as diseases. They don't. They are names given to observed and grouped behaviors. The experts don't known how they are related or where one stops and another begins. For instance panic attacks happen with too many of the "disorders" to be there by random chance. But the "connection" is not known.

Stop! Forget everything you think you know about psychology and mental illness. WHY? It was all developed without the knowledge that Subliminal Distraction exists. There has been no research about SD.

Look at PTSD. Someone with trauma gets a PTSD diagnosis but the same symptoms without trauma get some other diagnosis. Nonsense! The behaviors and symptoms are the same. There is no mechanism that would cause remotely experienced trauma to reemerge to cause symptoms.

Army Engineers building the ALCAN highway in 1942 had mental breaks while driving bulldozers. True to form the mental events were blamed on isolation and the rigors of primitive living conditions without any evidence. Similar episodes for combat soldiers were blamed on the stress of combat. Nonsense!

Your evaluation starts with a behavior and tries to work backwards to find a cause. I start with a feature of physiology known to cause mental problems and work forward to explain behaviors.

The next step is to gather evidence through cases to argue that hypothesis.

A simpler solution is to inform college students of the problem and allow them to make a personal informed decision to implement Cubicle Level Protection.

This would cost nothing and would quickly lower the mental health problems in college as well as suicides. Isn't it worth a try?

I have written Virginia Tech twice, the Governor of the State of Virginia as well as others. The usual response is that since this phenomenon is not recognized by the APA they have no duty to investigate it.

Would you want to admit that you missed a problem discovered and solved forty years ago and thus cost the lives of 33 people. The death toll is much higher across the country.

Let me ask: In all those studies and papers was Subliminal Distraction eliminated as a factor. Did any study control for it?

The studies and models fail to take everything into account. Most of them could be considered invalid.

(I am having a dental abscess problem with pain and cannot think to night.) Go to the new Drug page under construction and link to the drug studies arguments.

Experts believe because there was improvement with the application of a therapy the therapy must have caused the improvement. Failure to include and control for SD invalidates those conclusions.

It's not too late for you or anyone else to participate to investigate this phenomenon.
Steven Loring, Ph.D
Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 | 04:51 PM
This is sad. It's clear that the author of this particular string of stream-of-consciousness rants is himself paranoid, at the very least. In fact, I'd wager that he meets criteria for a psychotic-spectrum diagnosis, rendering all this nonsense at least a little bit ironic.

I'd kind of like to see him "go public" about this emergent threat to the world's sanity by way of some public demonstration, so that he might be compelled to receive the treatment he so clearly needs. LK, have you seen the film "A Beautiful Mind?" You remind me of its depiction of John Nash. You clearly are unaware that your "theories" are deluded, just as Dr. Nash could never be certain whether his friends, colleagues, and jobs actually existed.
L K Tucker
Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 | 07:02 PM
My information is from psychology lectures. Subliminal Distraction, a normal feature in everyone's physiology of sight, is basic course material in psychophysics.

Cubicle Level Protection has been used for forty years.

You, like others posting here, have not bothered to pick up a phone and call to determine that what I am telling you is true.

With my health problems I may not live to complete this project but someone will.

If you have access to your university psychology department I am searching for a text book reference for Subliminal Distraction. It is usually in lecture material not text books.
Steven Loring, Ph.D.
Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 | 09:36 PM
By what standard would you determine the point at which your "project" is "complete?"

Incidentally, I am a recently retired psychology professor who taught hundreds of hours' worth of psychology courses. While my primary area of focus was/is clinical psychology, I have kept abreast of the research in sensation and perception, and yours are the only references I have ever heard to "Subliminal Distraction," "Cubicle Level Protection," and other such concepts.

That's not because you're a revolutionary thinker whose ideas are too cutting-edge to have been accepted by the scientific community. It's because those ideas are nonsensical, conspiratorial, and ludicrous.

Good luck with your ongoing "project." The fact that you're discussing it here, on an Internet forum devoted to hoaxes, essentially says it all.
L K Tucker
Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 | 01:09 AM
I have encountered your position from other long term psychology instructors. What I cannot understand is the attitude these people demonstrate. They have a degree, one or two years experience, then a twenty year career of repetition. That somehow qualifies them as experts.

I sat in class in 1990 and heard this phenomenon explained at Shelton State Junior College. They had the contract for the nurse's training for Druid City Hospital. I was attempting to recover from multiple spinal fusion operations and total disability. That course was identical to the one at the University of Alabama. They used the same textbook. I took the course so I would have something to do for an extra hour in the afternoon before I picked up my wife from work.

I got the term 'Cubicle Level Protection' from a designer/engineer working for Church & Stagg, the Steelcase dealer, in Birmingham Alabama.

He claimed not to know the correct term for the problem. He checked with Steelcase and said they didn't know what it was called either.

A design student in Australia emailed me for permission to use my site in her thesis. She supplied the term "Subliminal Distraction." She too saw the potential for serious outcomes from exposure.

My original contact with it was in the mid 1960's. I read a newspaper story that an office worker had "gone crazy" because something was moving behind her. We argued all day about it. Our computer instructor that afternoon, FORTRAN on a mainframe, said it was true because he remembered when it was discovered, 1964/68.

It has appeared on TV magazine type programs more than once. My barber in McDonough Ga. said she had seen it on a medical show on Dish Network in about 2005.

Designers see only the limited exposure in business offices. They believe it can only cause a harmless temporary episode.

When my wife had a psychotic break thirty days after her office was changed eliminating Cubicle Level Protection it was three weeks before I remembered it and realized what had happened.

This is not secret information but it is closely held. You may have to phone several designers before you find one willing to discuss it with you. They apparently do not want to be the "go to" person for information to be used in a suit against a customer or employer.

When I began I posted a question on an architecture site, 2002, and that page is linked on my Home page. I was accused of being an attorney trying to get information for a suit.

When will the project be complete? I could give you a long answer but I would be happy if I could get a major university involved in the investigation.

I would consider it a success if I could get a warning given to college students and a warning on every computer and piece of software sold.

I probably won
yn
Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2010 | 03:44 AM
This is an interesting article on a related subject: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/928/subtle-distractions-more-annoying
The extraterrestrial who abducted L K Tucker in 19
Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 | 10:39 PM
Am I reading your rambling, incoherent website correctly? Do you seriously think blind people are "immune" to mental health problems?

L K, L K, L K. My alien overlords and I implanted far more plausible conspiracy theories in your head than this one. What a disappointment.
L K Tucker
Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 | 01:29 PM
The completely blind or blind from birth do not have schizophrenia or panic attacks.

If you can find cases list them. One site claims there have been only two such cases in all the history of investigation literature.

There are cases where someone had mental illness and went blind but not the other way around.

That does not include low sight or legally blind or loss of central sight. It means full loss of all sight.

It would not include behaviors caused by drug or substance abuse either. There are diseases that can cause mental problems such as Creutzfeldt
Allison
Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 | 10:49 PM
The author of this suggestive site is doing what many who wish to brain wash others do--supplies factual information without supplying the full content, thus distorting the cause of the event to suit his own theory. Case in point--the Alaskan expedition he cites as an example does not give the full explanantion and he poses that the insanity was caused by his SD. In fact, this expedition was featured in a documentary on PBS, and the ship's food stores were contaminated. They ate from canned food, and the method and metal used in the canning caused a real physical illness resulting in hallucinations and death, apart from the death caused by freezing and starvation.
L K Tucker
Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 | 07:06 PM
The case you attempt to cite was Antarctic not Alaskan. The source used for the page Astronauts & Insanity is Fredric Cook's book "Through the First Antarctic Night."

Dr Cook blamed the constant darkness and isolation until the spring brought around the clock sunlight. The cases of insanity got worse. Then he blamed that situation, constant sunlight.

The return of sunlight would not have made conditions worse if the problem was food contamination. The general condition would have stayed at a constant level not gotten worse.

The crew survived on food they hunted and killed. The hunts were organized by Dr. Cook. Late into the expedition they would have run out of canned food. But, again, the insanity got worse for some crew members late into the expedition.

Dr Cook ate the same thing everyone else did and he was never effected. How is that possible if the problem was food contamination?

Dr Cook was the only crew member who kept up with his regular duties instead of sitting around doing nothing. (The scientists did things like rewriting their journals and experiments, knowledge work.)

The crew returned to normal when they worked out side chopping the ship out of the ice.

These mental breaks have happened for over a hundred years. Admiral Byrd took one casket but twelve straight jackets on his expeditions.

Yes, experts have blamed a variety of things including poor quality people used because they had the training to exist in the conditions of the expedition.

If you can cite the program or a DVD of it I will try to investigate but I can't promise anything.

If Subliminal Distraction is a serious problem evidence exists. It would have to be in plain sight and available to anyone with the key to understanding what to look for.

That is the point of the pages such as Culture Bound Syndromes. These mental breaks happen around the world and have done so for centuries. There was no canned food when Ghost Sickness appeared among plains Indians or when Windigo Psychosis appeared in the Northern US and Canada natives.

It is the totality of the site that argues this is a serious problem unknown by anyone in medicine or psychiatry.

Others are slowly moving to the conclusion that drugs used for psychiatric treatment do little or nothing. Visit the new Drug page.
crumpet
Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 | 06:55 PM
I think LK Tucker has an intriguing idea that needs a further research and work.

For some reason people get angry and jump to dismiss it because his website layout is not professional or because the wording is not precise
Remember he is not a trained psychology scientist and perhaps doesn't know how to rigorously formulate his hypothesis.

His ideas do sound crazy, but that's how anything new starts. They may be true, they may be false.

Like any theory it needs to be supported by evidence and experiments, aka the scientific method, which the LKT may not have the means/time/ability to perform.

I wonder if anyone to date has scientifically looked into LK's hypothesis and if they stopped the research what was the reason.
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