The therapeutic coma
The ancient
Greek word ‘coma’ translates as sleep (or deep sleep). Sleep is
usually and vaguely defined as a psycho-physical activity during which an
individual appears to be non-responsive to, meaning not conscious of,
external stimuli. It is common
experience that ordinary
sleep functions as a therapeutic coma. Sleep appears to have
evolved as an ‘on standby’ operation that serves to restore, i.e. repair and
reenergize humans to maximum (personal) survival capacity. Without sleep (for
instance when people are tortured with sleep deprivation) humans rapidly
disintegrate mentally and physically and die rather quickly. Every night
I sleep between 6 and 8 hours. I (often) go to bed mentally and physically
exhausted, and sometimes ill, sometimes depressed. Then I wake up the next
morning mentally and physically fully functional, fit as a fiddle, my
batteries recharged/elated and my illness miraculously gone. So how do
brain and body recover full operational capacity during sleep. Well, no one
knows! There are plenty of guesses. When I’m
asleep (i.e. in a mild to medium coma) I appear not to be aware (but in fact
am, to some as yet unknown degree) of what goes on outside me (in much the
same was as during a barbiturate induced medical coma). I wake up by becoming
aware of external contacts. Usually, I have amnesia for whatever went on
during my 6 to 8 hours ‘on standby’ in unawareness (but of actual high neural
(albeit low brainwave frequency), chemical and physical activity). Being
aware means: generating a running mental (albeit virtual = pretend) map, a
sort of systems status display of both external and internal contacts. Or, as
the fully awakened (meaning: fully aware of none) Buddha first observed: “Awareness arises from contact.” .. more.. Which begs
the question, “Awareness of what?” And the answer is, awareness of the
current contact (as acute stressor). So, I’m aware only of the
contact/stressor I’m processing (i.e. responding to) in my brain and not
aware (hence asleep, i.e. in a coma) in relation to all other contacts (=
data) that I’m not processing. So how does
all that relate to flooding my brain with benign Forest contacts/stressors
and entering a green coma? If all I am
aware of is forest ambience contacts/data because I’ve blocked contact with
(hence am comatose in relation to) all other data, then the benign forest
contacts alone determine my mental, physical and emotional states, thereby
putting all three into benign states. The upshot is that by focusing on
(meaning, selecting) benign forest data to the exclusion of all other data I
induce a partial unawareness, meaning: a partial coma. It’s during my partial
coma (hence ‘on standby’) state that my brain, body and emotions can recover
full functional capacity, the more so the selected focus (as initial
distraction) instructs (as placebo) my brain (operating as blind auto-pilot
or Bio-Nav) towards self-recovery. Example: Supposing you’re a pilot and need to fly your
Airbus 380 to New Delhi. There are of course a zillion airports you could fly
your plane to, meaning that your autopilot as such is fundamentally, meaning
initially, blind to all airports. So how to you get to New Delhi? You select
and then punch ‘New Delhi’ (actually a pair of coordinates) into your
autopilot. That (dominant) instruction blocks (i.e. puts into sleep or coma
mode) all other destination instructions thereby deciding the flight path, meaning,
it gives actual awareness (a dominant, hence deciding on-going contact = quasi sight) to your autopilot. From
there on your autopilot will disregard (i.e. remain unaware, i.e. unconscious
of) all contacts/data not relevant to New Delhi until the journey (i.e. its
primary outcome) is completed. In short, to get to New Delhi (or to any
destination or outcome of your choice) you have to induce and maintain
selective awareness in your autopilot (meaning in your own BIO-Nav).
Obviously your autopilot will register all other planes it encounters and,
since they are not going to New Delhi, will mark them ‘insane’. One of the most important mental and
physical selective awareness (hence mild, sometimes deep coma) states most
people experience is the annual holidays and which help them regenerate for
another year’s slavery in their preferred salt mine. Idem a visit to pub or
coffee shop (as altered (selective) awareness states). So, by
selectively focusing fully on, meaning flooding my brain with ‘forest data’ I
sleep (i.e. go ‘on standby’) in relation to all other data and can thereby
benefit from the therapeutic action of my partial sleep state. Interesting diversion
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