Mind Hacks

The Washington Post has an intriguing article on people who believe they are subject to secret government ‘mind control’ technology.

People who experience voices being ‘beamed’ into their heads or forces acting on their bodies, have formed communities on the internet to support each other and to lobby the government to stop what they claim are illegal tests of this ‘invasive technology’.

Critics argue that they are simply mentally ill, and indeed some probably are. In a paper published last year myself and some colleagues reported that some people show obvious signs of psychosis. Despite this, however, they have formed complex and innovative online communities.

Many members of this community are obviously not mentally ill though, and have concerns that might seem a little unusual but are no different from the types of concerns that drive JFK, 9/11 and Princess Diana enthusiasts.

One of the most interesting aspects of this community, in all its diversity, is that it challenges the psychiatric notion of what is considered a delusion.

In one of the more curious episodes during the last consultation for the UK Government’s Draft Mental Health Bill, an organisation called Christians Against Mental Slavery made a surprising submission to the parliamentary committee.

Even if you don’t buy their premise that the government is testing ‘Mind Invasive Technology’ on people, they make some pertinent points.

For example, they suggest that if a psychiatrist is presented with someone who complains of being affected by microwave mind control technology (not uncommon in psychosis), they should put them in Faraday cage to see if their experiences stop, so the psychiatrist can try and test whether they are genuinely delusional.

The fact that delusions are diagnostically ‘false beliefs’ but clinicians largely rely on assumptions (rather than tests) about the truth of a belief, is a point that has also been made in the medical literature.

Indeed, some authors have argued as a result, that the falsity condition should be rejected as one of the criteria in diagnosis.

One interesting point, rarely considered by the mind control community or its critics, is that it is possible, indeed common, to have isolated or restricted psychosis-like experiences that are relatively benign.

For example, someone might hear voices, have unusual beliefs, or experience their thoughts being broadcast or altered from outside, while not being significantly disabled by their experiences.

The fact that someone could have reasonable concerns about ‘mind control’ technology, which governments have certainly tried to develop, while also hearing voices or having other similarly unusual experiences, is often overlooked.

Link to Washington Post ‘Mind Games’.

The University of Washington Neural Systems Lab have created a humanoid robot you can control with your thoughts.

I’ll say that again – a humanoid robot you can control with your thoughts

The future is here. Thank you and goodnight.

The control system is a type of EEG-based non-invasive brain-computer interface and the page has video of the robot in action, as well as a video that describes the neuroscience of how the interface works.

Link to Neural Systems Lab robot info page (via MakeZine Blog).

Sometimes I think there’s some sort of secret competition going on with American mental health professionals to see who can diagnose mental illness in the youngest child.

The BPS Research Digest reports on a recently published case study of ‘traumatic stress disorder’ (supposedly an infant equivalent to PTSD) in a 5-month-old child.

There’s no doubt that young children can become disturbed, but many clinicians doubt that mental disorder manifests itself in the same way in children.

In some cases it hardly seems to manifest at all. For example, psychosis very rarely occurs in children from 10-16 years, and is almost unknown at younger ages.

Although no-one is quite sure why, the typical age of onset for psychosis is about 18-30 years.

Almost all psychiatric diagnosis is made on the basis of a detailed interview in which the patient describes their mental state, guided by careful questioning from the clinician.

Like other diagnoses, the diagnostic criteria for adult PTSD has many points which could only be discovered through interview.

Therefore, the diagnosis of any psychiatric disorder in a pre-verbal child or child with developing language skills would have to be made on very broad criteria.

So broad, some would say, to be highly unreliable or of doubtful validity.

The author of the case study, psychologist Aletha Solter, admits that the adult criteria would be inapplicable, and instead applies diagnostic criteria for pre-verbal children developed by charity Zero to Three (intro online as pdf).

However, despite the fact that these diagnostic criteria do not rely on verbal report, it’s still not clear whether they represent a reliable and valid way of diagnosing problems in very young children.

Link to BPSRD on ‘post-traumatic stress in a five-month-old baby’.
Link to abstract of case report.

A surprising study published last year in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs reported that hypnotism could be used to induce a realistic experience of being high on MDMA (aka ‘ecstasy’) in people who had taken the drug before.

An extended nondrug MDMA-like experience evoked through posthypnotic suggestion

J Psychoactive Drugs. 2006 Sep;38(3):273-83.

Hastings A

This research explored whether hypnotic suggestion could produce a subjective mindbody condition similar to that produced by the psychoactive drug methylenedioxy methamphetamine (MDMA, Ecstasy). Twelve participants received posthypnotic instructions to re-experience an MDMA-like state posthypnotically, similar to one in their prior experience, for one hour. Three separate self report measures and qualitative self reports showed that the posthypnotic condition effectively mimicked an MDMA-like experience, lasting an hour at a stable level. Participant ratings in real time and in retrospect ranged from 36% to 100% similarity to a drug-induced experience. The qualitative reports and rating scales enabled a phenomenological description of the subjective experience. Scores on the Tellegen Absorption Scale correlated significantly with the strength of the posthypnotic condition (Spearman rho .87, p = .0003). The participants successfully carried out various intentional activities during this time (e.g., self reflection, talking with partners about relationships, artwork, walking in nature). Applications for this technique as an adjunct to therapy and health treatments are discussed.

It’s interesting to speculate how this effect occurs. A brain imaging study has shown that in patients with Parkinson’s disease who take regular medication for the condition, a placebo actually causes the brain the mimic the effects of the medication.

Perhaps the participants hypnotised to believe they are re-experiencing the effects of MDMA genuinely re-experience the neurochemical effects of the drug to some degree.

Link to PubMed entry.

There’s an interesting interview over at 10 Zen Monkeys with psychiatrist James S. Ketchum who claims to have been director of psychopharmacology research for the US military when they were testing the potential of mind-altering drugs such as LSD and BZ.

Ketchum has just released a book entitled Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten where he recounts his time working in the labs and the research that was carried out there.

Notably, Ketchum makes a distinction between the research programme he was involved with, and the CIA’s now famous Project MKULTRA, which also looked at ways of influencing the mind and involved a significant amount of LSD research.

The book has been independently published, so make of that what you will (conspiracy theorists, start your engines), but there’s some excerpts online if you want to judge for yourself.

Link to interview with Dr James Ketchum (via BoingBoing).
Link to Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten website.
Link to excerpts.