Owner: American Center for Surreal and Paranoid Life URL:http://balloonballoon.blogspot.com Join Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:35:48 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Observation of the surreal as a source of knowledge, and being affected consciously by paranoia. Site statistics:Click here
I need your help 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I'm trying to have lucid or vivid dreams on a regular basis.Do you have any true-blue techniques, mind-sets, rituals, or concoctions of ingredients, that have worked for you?I'd much rather hear about your own personal know-how and experience (but pertinent links are of course welcome).I'd like to find out some ways that have worked for others, and try them out.I would love to be able to dream on cue. I think I'm like most people, I just happen to dream some nights and happen to not dream on other nights.For me sleeping is much more exciting if I wake up remembering or at least half-remembering a dream that I've had.
The waiting room 1970-01-01 00:59:59 . Enter(click on the lampshade in the photo above to continue)
In Your Own Time 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Linda Starlson, aged 32, developed feelings of tension and anxiety related to pains in the right side of her head. (Subsequently diagnosed with (SDW): Depersonalization with pervasive anxiety). It was probably significant that her father, to whom she had been very much attached, had died a few months before having had such head symptoms before his stroke. The patient's symptoms generalized, however, so that at the hospital ward she presented a four-month history of shakiness, loss of concentration, feelings of nausea in the morning and a feeling of fear gripping her stomach. Under these circumstances, she could only use her pencil and drawing paper to literally sketch over three hundred and fifty self-portraits a day. She had difficulty in getting off to sleep and was irritable and constantly keyed up. In this case treatment using hypnotherapy combined with a period on tranquillizers allowed Linda's symptoms to clear.Photo of Linda Starlson (right), and her self-portrait (above left
Is Steve right? 1970-01-01 00:59:59 There are many conspiracy theories about just about everything out there these days. What is the one conspiracy theory that you've heard about recently? Not that you necessarily believe in it. But one that you simply remember hearing about.Or what about your own personal conspiracy theory?Steve
's personal conspiracy theory concerns his parents and his parent's generation. Steve feels that if you can understand now how you handled your parents (or how you should have handled your parents) when you were growing up, then you'll know how to get on properly and successfully in the world today.Steve
Jodi 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Have you ever looked inside a brain? (click on the pictureand look inside this brain)
The Best 1970-01-01 00:59:59 _His and Hers(click on the respective pictures)
Classic 1970-01-01 00:59:59 After Dorothy and her three friends managed to do what the Wizard asked of them -- namely, to retrieve the Wicked Witch of the West's broomstick and bring it to the Wizard in order to have their wishes granted by the Wizard -- the Wizard told them to let him think about it more, and for them to come back tomorrow.Dorothy did the classic thing and said, "Tomorrow? But I want to go home now. If you were really great and powerful you would keep your promises." Read more:Classic
It's that time of the year 1970-01-01 00:59:59 _The office will be closed until August.I and the staff are on vacation for the next few weeks.Please leave something in the mailbox. Thank you.You have options, of course, while you're here. You could click on the clock above and watch some movies. Or you could scroll down and explore some previous posts. Of course, you could do both!(Thank you Shannon for the movies!)
Something to ponder 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Are you the same person you were as a child?What I mean is: if you look at a photograph of yourself when you were 5-years-old and a photograph of yourself now today, would you say they are photos of the same person or are they photos of two different people?The answer seems like it might be quite obvious but on the other hand not.Technorati tags: philosophy, logic, existentialism, question
Al Ain is the center of the universe 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The Preamble Engineering Anomalies Research is the Scientific Study of Consciousness-Related Physical Phenomena:In particular, Remote Perception:The ability of human participants to acquire information about spatially and temporally remote geographical targets, otherwise inaccessible by any of the usual sensory channels, has been thoroughly demonstrated over several hundred carefully conducted experiments. The protocol requires one participant, the "agent," to be stationed at a randomly selected location at a given time, and there to observe and record impressions of the details and ambience of the scene. A second participant, the "percipient," located far from the scene and with no prior information about it, tries to receive its composition and character and to report these in a similar format to the agent's description.Even casual comparison of the agent and percipient narratives produced in this body of experiments reveals striking correspondences in both their general an
Money isn't everything 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I've been living in a dream for the last three years. Money
seems to grow on the trees here in my backyard in Al Ain. I now create things that have a purpose. I play with the concept that everything must have a purpose.I have plans for building a house. A house that's in the shape of, and in the style of, and has the structure of, a mental hospital. I've uplifted this idea so much that it's attracted the attention of a designer. I incorporated the idea so that it went deep into the house, every household item, the furniture, everything.And I plan on transferring my idea to the 15 acres of land I was able to recently buy in Massachusetts. And I plan to stay in the house all the time. The times that I go outside of the house will be in itself an act of art.
Art Act, Number 3 (step 1) 1970-01-01 00:59:59 PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS:1. Print out the following Survey, or series of questions, that you see below the dotted line.2. Distribute this Survey according to the "Extended Instructions" below.3. Collect the results.4. First answer the Survey questions yourself here in the comments section.EXTENDED INSTRUCTIONS:1. Then, (if applicable) walk into all the rooms of your home and ask everyone there to answer each of the Survey questions.2. After that, (if applicable) walk into your work or your office and ask all your co-workers and associates around you to answer the Survey questions.3. Also (if applicable) walk into the school or classes you are attending and ask everyone you meet to answer the Survey questions.4. Finally, stand outside on a street corner in your neighborhood or somewhere in the town or city where you live and stop and ask passersby the Survey questions.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -SURREAL BEIN Read more:Number
Institutionalized but not forgotten 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The next several posts will be a series of children's bedtime stories written by George Johanson, aged 31, an institutionalized patient for the last 2 years at the hospital who has recently taken to writing children's bedtime stories in order to, he says, "Lull myself to sleep, and get my mind off the fact that I'll probably never have children of my own. Nobody wants a loser like me."George was a grade-school teacher and living with his parents, and before being admitted to the hospital he was under some stress at his place of work. He began to find that he had to check that the doors were locked and faucets turned off. This took on a constant and extended ritual pattern, even when he was at home. Over a period of months his rituals gradually became more elaborate and began to interfere with the carrying out of his normal daily activities. Clothes had to be put away and folded in a certain way and the laundry washing had to be carried out for a specific length of time with two appl
Children's bedtime story #1 (segment 1) 1970-01-01 00:59:59 One day, there were two robots. They were fighting and attacking each other like crazy. Like two maniacs, really. If you saw what they were doing, you wouldn't even think they were robots. You would think they were maniacs.That's what made it so strange. They were shaking hands with each other in many different kinds of positions. They shook hands with each other while they stood there. They shook hands while their whole bodies shook. They did a flip while they shook hands. One did a twist, and one did a jumping-jack, while they shook hands. They did hundreds of different handshakes. All in just a couple of minutes. So you could imagine how freaky that looked.There were two strange people controlling the robots. One person was in one country, and another person was all the way in another country. There was one kid in one country, and he was playing a duck-hunting game with a little controller. While in the other country, there was a little kid and he was playing with a remote-control Read more:Children
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Eye on a cultural icon 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Britney Spears is the first popular public figure to make it here onto this bog by the sheer context of her developing psychosis. She does so with this recent act of shaving off all the hair on her head. So what does it mean for Britney Spears to shave off her hair? No, it's not a fashion statement, nor is it an act meant to steer an interested public into a new style or way of living.Simply put, with this act she shows herself as a person who feels completely not in control of herself. In other words, she feels overwhelming controlled by others other than herself. Her hair is the one thing closest to her that she feels is hers, and is also something that's hers and she can (safely) take away at will and effectively say, "See, this is mine, not yours!" We don't know exactly who she's symbolically talking to when she says this.Furthermore, when one shaves off all the hair on their head (making their feelings or state of mind public and out in the open for others to see), and it's n
Children's bedtime story #2 (complete text) 2007-03-01 05:51:00 Before reading any further, please click here and read about the sad and bizarre circumstances surrounding George Johanson, the writer of this children's bedtime story
.There once was a bird flying in the air so high that she was flying above the clouds.She kept on flying higher and higher.So high that no one knew where she was.She kept on flying, and the blue sky turned to black.There were no more clouds beneath her.Only stars around her, because she was so high that she was way out in outer space.She didn’t even need to fly any more, because she was floating, floating and floating.She let her wings rest at her sides.She kept her eyes open and looked around and felt the fresh air around her body.She felt like she was in outer space.She felt like she was a bird, flying so high that she went out into outer space.She felt that way lots of times.She felt that way almost every day.Once a day at least, right before she woke up in the morning.And right before she brushed her hair and washe Read more:Children
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What's on the table? 2007-03-06 12:51:00 Imagine that something or some things are on the table above.Write down (in the comments section) what you are imagining is on the table.
Paris Britney Connection 2007-03-10 08:50:00 Paris' publicists have been vigorously bending over backwards to push away the fact that Paris and Britney
hung out like sisters for a brief few weeks before Britney's meltdown.And Paris' publists are right to state that there is no connection, because it's true: Britney's meltdown has nothing to do with any emotional ties or mishaps that came along while, or because of, chumming with Paris and company.What we see Britney experiencing today are the effects and after-affects of applied mind control techniques. Particular people close to Paris have allegedly used Paris as a conduit to take control of (and thus destroy) Britney and her place as a media and cultural darling and money machine.Paris is tangently aware of this attempt to control Britney's mind, and Paris believes that she stands a better than good chance of filling the cultural void when Britney is "out of the way".I am able to say these things here because of an email I received [after posting my previous post] from a Read more:Paris
Lunar 2006-06-25 20:07:00 I was sitting in my kitchen deciding what to do. Should I have eggs for lunch, or should I have none? There was an impression that after I became momentarily paralyzed there were ruminations about books I wanted to write which were interspersed with memories of long conversations I've had with an old girlfriend named Lisa. How to capitalize on senti-ments?The solution: make a decision, not leave it up in the air.I think most people want to read about a personal or private situation, not necessarily a social or current-issue situation. Although a half and half one would not be too bad, either. How about a family of four?When my parents were young they said, "Listen to the young folk, for the young are where it's at." Now that they're old, they don't think the same way about the young anymore. Now, all of a sudden, everyone should listen to their elders because they know better. Read more:Lunar
Our thing fOr the day; 2006-06-04 08:51:00 this a test. This is only a test. If your television displays real semicolons, please contact your local 401K company.Ask them to emphasize the difference between ideas that are related and grammatically equal.Say, "Excuse me, could you emphasize the difference between ideas that are related and grammatically equal?"And they will say, "Yes, but we generally don't use the semicolon between parts that are not grammatically equal." And, "Your calculator is on too fast."I hung up the phone and stared at the sponge. I turned around and walked back into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator, and then I closed the refrigerator. I stood up straight. I felt proud. I didn't eat anything.I read the newspaper today and saw an article about "Stubbing Out Public Smoking," and I thought, great: I don't smoke. I also don't speed, or do anything else illegal. All these rules have nothing to do with me. Why can't the newspaper write stories about me, about my life, about something that relates to
/=< :-][ "0/ )*( 2007-03-15 04:36:00 What would your caption for this photograph be?(Write your caption in the comments section)
Invisible hospital staff 2007-03-20 04:59:00 Before someone who is recently released from being institutionalized can be expected to make it in the real world, they first have to live for a short period of time in what is called the Trans House. The Trans House is a real house (an old Victorian house) with all the furninshings of a real home, along with its own grounds and garden, and a family dog as well.Our Trans House is located on property owned by the hospital
, and is several miles away from anything or anyone connected with the mainstream population. All the household chores are kept up, and the kitchen is well stocked, by the hospital staff. But the hospital staff must work swiftly and secretly in the night, and they are required to be essentially invisible to the patients who are "living" in the house. One patient at a time "lives" in the house, accompanied only by family members who are willing to live with the patient during this transition time (usually between 2 - 3 weeks).The following is a brief snippet of conversat
Carnival of Medical Surrealism, Issue 01 2007-03-23 02:59:00 The mind body and spirit are working as one organism in the world. Death only gives hope and life to renewal. Anything you do or say is connected to the well being of this organism.TABLE OF CONTENTS:1. The skull can sometimes have to have a hole in it. And sometimes someone in the operating room drops (onto the (dirty) floor) the piece of skull that is supposed to be the cap to the hole. [contributor: Christopher Depelteau at MRI LINKS AND OTHER COOL THINGS ]2. Make-up can help the living and the dead. We see it on live people in real life, and sometimes on live T.V. We see it on the dead at funerals. Make-up can make life worth living. [contributor: [link sent in by Balian] COLLEGEBOARD.COM]3. Sometimes death occurs or arrives at the right time, and sometimes it arrives right on time. We're so busy with our lives, that we can forget that others are about to be busy no more. [contributor: therapydoc at EVERYONE NEEDS THERAPY? LESSONS FROM A FAMILY THERAPIST]4. It's unspeakable and un Read more:Carnival
Hang in there, Kathy Sierra 2007-03-27 11:07:00 Don't do it, KathySierra
. Don't NOT blog anymore. She has mentioned that she may not continue blogging anymore. And all because of some heinous and intense death threats! And coming from, she says, from a source [made up of many] calling itself "meankids". Now isn't that a dead give away? Mean kids. And that's the crux of the reason why I say, "Hang in there, Kathy."Blog Bullying [I have just now coined a new blogging term here] takes place all the time in the blogsphere. Many, many blogs "close down" from the pressure and challenge of conflict. And I'm not talking about the pressure and challenge of being an author and "saying something relevent and exciting, etc., etc." to keep the blog alive. I'm talking about caving in to being personally offended and afraid of (or horribly frightened about) what others out in the blog world say "right up front to your face". Don't chicken out, Kathy.It seems to me that someone (or someones) is trying to run Kathy Sierra out of town. Or try
Updates, Kathy Sierra 2007-04-02 12:26:00 Please take a moment and do the KathySierra
poll you see in the sidebar at the right of this post. Thanks.(See continuous updates on the Kathy Sierra saga below)[UPDATE: April 2, 2007: Now Kathy Sierra says, "Chris Locke and I agreed to publish a statement, together (both in our own words) in advance of the story which will appear tomorrow (Monday, April 2) on CNN, at 7:20 AM (EST) on "CNN American Morning", and throughout the day on other CNN shows...."][UPDATE: April 1, 2007: Here are two links to online articles from Business Week (March 28) and the Los Angeles Times (April1) with their [double-agent: i.e., print media with an online presence] takes on the subject-matter stemming from the Kathy Sierra debacle.][UPDATE: April 1, 2007: Although now Scoble is claiming that March 31 is a date when one is able to say an "April Fool's joke". It's not clear whether the Scoble-on-CNN-with-Kathy-Sierra part is part of the "April Fool's joke" or not. If it is part of the "April Fool's jo
Updates, Kathy Sierra 2007-04-04 07:04:00 Please take a moment and do the KathySierra
poll you see in the sidebar at the right of this post. Thanks.(See continuous updates on the Kathy Sierra saga below)[UPDATE: April 3, 2007: Well, here it is -- a YouTube video of the CNN segment. And it's unbelievable. From watching this video, I would say Kathy Sierra has perhaps lost (or is losing) her mind. And both Chris Locke and Kathy Sierra look like ghoulish cast members of a strange horror movie. Nothing is worth looking like that on television in front of so many people. Was that for real, or did television just do them in?][UPDATE: April 2, 2007: Not much of a big bang after all the CNN hype. See some reactions to the CNN gathering here (read the comments section for some good information), and here (for a micro summary), and here (where Scoble says he was "cut out" of the CNN segment. I guess fate would have it that his appearance on CNN was an April Fool's joke, after all.)][UPDATE: April 2, 2007: Now Kathy Sierra says, "Chri
Shock treatment for the masses 2007-04-07 12:00:00 I'm one of the lucky 3% of people in the world who have benefited from the effects of a condition known as Mythophobia, wherein I have the uncontrollable ability to accurately decipher someone's, anyone's, true personality based only on the words that they write or by the way that they speak.The following are five personality profile blurbs [culled from the section on recent events circulating the blogsphere and beyond] of a just published report containing over two-thousand examples of 100% accurately pin-pointed statements regarding selected individual bloggers on the internet, based entirely on the careful and close reading of their written or spoken words.1. Kathy Sierra -- She is a person who sometimes likes to pretend to not know what's going on around her. Also, she will often use this naive-persona to actively try to move forward with a plan she already has formulated in her head. In addition, she is a person who usually must always bring others into her sphere of life so a Read more:Shock
Updates (Final), Kathy Sierra 2007-04-07 14:19:00 [UPDATE: April 6, 2007: Here are the final results of the one and only KathySierra
poll, conducted here at Surreal and Paranoid Life from March 28 to April 6. Here is the poll question, along with the percentages of the answers:What's the bottom line with this Kathy Sierra fiasco?1. Kathy is working hard with the authorities and will prosecute. = 30.3% (40)2. Kathy is watching the publicity she is getting and loving it. = 25.8% (34)3. Something other. If so, write what it is in the "Hang in there" comments = 22.7% (30)4. Kathy is really offended and will blog no more. = 13.6% (18)5. Kathy is actually one of the "meankids", and they're all having a good laugh. = 7.6% (10)6. Kathy will be killed or harmed by the perpetrators of this mess. = 0% (0)total votes: 132 individuals[UPDATE: April 5, 2007: Well, that's it. The Kathy Sierra story has died down. And everyone, including all the players in the saga, got a chance to construct their own different versions of stories and current-iss Read more:Final
The picture book project, Page 1 2007-04-10 12:03:00 There once was a bird flying in the air so high that she was flying above the clouds._______________________________Check out the author of this picture book, and the illustrator.Technorati tags: art, picture book
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