(Part 3) Reddit mentions: The best books about neuropsychology

My main hobby is reading textbooks, so I decided to go beyond the scope of the question posed. I took a look at what I have on my shelves in order to recommend particularly good or standard books that I think could characterize large portions of an undergraduate degree and perhaps the beginnings of a graduate degree in the main fields that interest me, plus some personal favorites.

Neuroscience: Theoretical Neuroscience is a good book for the field of that name, though it does require background knowledge in neuroscience (for which, as others mentioned, Kandel's text is excellent, not to mention that it alone can cover the majority of an undergraduate degree in neuroscience if corequisite classes such as biology and chemistry are momentarily ignored) and in differential equations. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology were used in my classes on cognition and learning/memory and I enjoyed both; though they tend to choose breadth over depth, all references are research papers and thus one can easily choose to go more in depth in any relevant topics by consulting these books' bibliographies.

General chemistry, organic chemistry/synthesis: I liked Linus Pauling's General Chemistry more than whatever my school gave us for general chemistry. I liked this undergraduate organic chemistry book, though I should say that I have little exposure to other organic chemistry books, and I found Protective Groups in Organic Synthesis to be very informative and useful. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to take instrumental/analytical/inorganic/physical chemistry and so have no idea what to recommend there.

Biochemistry: Lehninger is the standard text, though it's rather expensive. I have limited exposure here.

Mathematics: When I was younger (i.e. before having learned calculus), I found the four-volume The World of Mathematics great for introducing me to a lot of new concepts and branches of mathematics and for inspiring interest; I would strongly recommend this collection to anyone interested in mathematics and especially to people considering choosing to major in math as an undergrad. I found the trio of Spivak's Calculus (which Amazon says is now unfortunately out of print), Stewart's Calculus (standard text), and Kline's Calculus: An Intuitive and Physical Approach to be a good combination of rigor, practical application, and physical intuition, respectively, for calculus. My school used Marsden and Hoffman's Elementary Classical Analysis for introductory analysis (which is the field that develops and proves the calculus taught in high school), but I liked Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis (nicknamed "Baby Rudin") better. I haven't worked my way though Munkres' Topology yet, but it's great so far and is often recommended as a standard beginning toplogy text. I haven't found books on differential equations or on linear algebra that I've really liked. I randomly came across Quine's Set Theory and its Logic, which I thought was an excellent introduction to set theory. Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica is a very famous text, but I haven't gotten hold of a copy yet. Lang's Algebra is an excellent abstract algebra textbook, though it's rather sophisticated and I've gotten through only a small portion of it as I don't plan on getting a PhD in that subject.

Computer Science: For artificial intelligence and related areas, Russell and Norvig's Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach's text is a standard and good text, and I also liked Introduction to Information Retrieval (which is available online by chapter and entirely). For processor design, I found Computer Organization and Design to be a good introduction. I don't have any recommendations for specific programming languages as I find self-teaching to be most important there, nor do I know of any data structures books that I found to be memorable (not that I've really looked, given the wealth of information online). Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming is considered to be a gold standard text for algorithms, but I haven't secured a copy yet.

Physics: For basic undergraduate physics (mechanics, e&m, and a smattering of other subjects), I liked Fundamentals of Physics. I liked Rindler's Essential Relativity and Messiah's Quantum Mechanics much better than whatever books my school used. I appreciated the exposition and style of Rindler's text. I understand that some of the later chapters of Messiah's text are now obsolete, but the rest of the book is good enough for you to not need to reference many other books. I have little exposure to books on other areas of physics and am sure that there are many others in this subreddit that can give excellent recommendations.

Other: I liked Early Theories of the Universe to be good light historical reading. I also think that everyone should read Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

> Science has always been a way to understand God better for Christians.

has it? Or have Christians been forcing their 'worldview' on others for 2,000 years claiming to have special knowledge about the mysteries of existence and life after death with no other evidence than a book and their own personal 'revelations'. For most of that time, their claim to absolute truth was absolute and unchallengeable. The advancement of sciences in the areas of physics, biology, astronomy and chemistry, especially in the last 200 years, have been able to explain many of the mysteries that confounded our ancestors, and have transformed our lives in tangibly positive ways. Take leprosy: People in Biblical times thought leprosy was a sign of sin against God, and so you were 'unclean'. Of course nobody believes that anymore (to his credit, it seems Jesus didn't buy into it either). According to wikipedia: In the past 20 years, 15 million people worldwide have been cured of leprosy, which is caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae. It's one example but I'm sure you can think of many more. The church has lost so much ground to science that there are only a few little islands of mystery from which to they try to claim authority and justification for their philosophies, such as:

> the Bible is kind of like an ethical cheat sheet, from an omniscient God who actually knows the answers
> even those who didn't hear about God know what's right & wrong

and you have your own theory:

> God started things off, realized natural selection was a great way to set up a diverse planet, and probably intervened a bit in the ape -> human transition.

Now, you are basically saying that the differences we perceive between a human and a chimpanzee are actually the direct result of a deliberate intervention, at a specific time in the past, by a creator god (from outer space), who engineered the development of our culture, giving us laws, clothing, marriage, and possibly music and mathematics. It's an interesting theory, but whats the motivation?

> man is different from the animals

This is the central issue. Logically, if we are animals than either animals have souls (and we should all be vegetarians, or burn as murderers), or humans do not have souls (and there is no eternal life for believers). This is a catch-22 for a bible believing christians and meat-eaters. Maybe you can say animals do have souls, but God said we can eat them so its OK. This is kind of like saying God is an asshole who arbitrarily makes up the rules as he goes along (which is a solid theological position - just ask Job: the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away).

I think to separate ourselves from the animals is to deny the truth of what science has shown us about ourselves. For Christians, science may be just a way to understand God better, but for the rest of us it is a way to understand reality better. Of course Christians want there to be no conflict between faith in the Bible and reality because no philosophy can exist without being rooted to some degree in reality; otherwise it is just a fantasy.

Let me back up a second. You said you believe the Bible is true and historically accurate, and I won't ask you what evidence you have for believing that. I used to believe as you did, that the Bible is true, and so is evolution but that somehow there is no conflict and the two work together - that somehow there in the whole mix of life evolving naturally, God intervened and sent Jesus to fulfill his mysterious plan so that we can all live forever in heaven. I just didn't want to accept that all those people (including my family) could be wrong; they are obviously sincere in their beliefs. For several years I found various ways to explain it all without accepting a 'naturalistic worldview', and all that implies including a very high probability of there being no life after death. I might still believe in the Bible if I hadn't started reading science books and watching BBC documentaries... yep Attenborough offered me the red pill and i took it.

If you can pretend for a moment you were born in Africa or Asia, in some remote tribe with no written language. You wouldn't have any reason to trust in a book you could not read; everything you know about the universe has been explained to you by those around you, those who came before, those who were close in the beginning. This is the same experience as any animal that learns how to hunt or fly or build nests from their parents.

The book I mentioned, Our Inner Ape documents the social behavior and societies of bonobos and chimpanzees, written by noted primatologist Frans de Waal who has studied these unique primates for decades. It's a fascinating read and may surprise you to see how many behaviors people tend to think of as uniquely 'human' are, in fact, shared by our closely-related ape cousins. In fact, de Waal shows, all major traits are shared, including language, toolmaking, and the full range of emotional states. Within the ape societies, the apes have their own standards of 'right' and 'wrong' behavior that they enforce in the same ways we do: shunning some, rewarding others, punishing the worst offenders. They learn from each other, and pass on skills to their offspring.

Evolution, as I understand it, is the theory that explains how more efficient/adapted forms emerge from the natural processes of entropy and diffusion. The theory explains how natural processes have driven our biological development, and also why men have nipples. Biological evolution is a special case; Evolution itself is a law of Nature, at a more elementary level, in the realm of Physics or Math.

All of our languages, customs, art, music, and every other thinking pattern has evolved through these same natural processes. Basically, I'm describing Memes. Have you ever thought about Christianity as a Meme? Of the Catholic Church as an organism whose main goal is to ensure its own survival? We have been and continue to evolve, quite rapidly, both biologically and culturally. Every individual and every idea wants to survive, but not everything gets successfully passed to the next generation. Every meme and species is only one generation away from becoming extinct. Adapt or die. This is why the mainstream church is becoming warmer to the idea of evolution, why the Vatican apologized for Galileo - survival of the religion is more important than orthodoxy.

The line between science and philosophy and religion get blurred with evolution because it answers, quite elegantly, the 'big' question: where did we come from? For this reason, it is a threat to all memes based on the idea of a 'creator god' because it nullifies this concept directly. Indirectly, it has the potential to erode the foundations underneath many religions. But I don't think the ideas of evolution are really a threat to you, me, our standards of morality, our way of life or anything else. The victims are a literal interpretation of the Bible and belief in a 'creator god'. Why not let it go? If you had never read the Bible, would you really be a less moral person? really? If not for that one book all people would know nothing but evil and be totally selfish to each other? Is this one book worth deliberately lobotomizing yourself? You'll go crazy trying to reconcile it; do you want to end up like Ray Comfort or Ken Ham?

A couple other interesting books you might enjoy if you feel like taking the red pill:

Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind

Your Inner Fish

Sorry for the novel, kind got caught up in it :)

>> This is a significant cop-out. It completely ignores that we have answered the origin of the earth and the origin of the sun and gotten very much closer to the origin of the universe, being just 5.39 x 10-44 second from the big bang.

> Citation needed. As far as I'm aware, we do not know if the singularity was caused or not.

Hence the Planck Time constant that I cited. We don't know anything about that first very brief tiny fraction of a second. We know a metric fuckton about what happened after that. The gap is 5.39 x 10^(-44) second. How many orders of magnitude less than the time it took you to read this paragraph is that?

I'm betting at least 45 decimal orders of magnitude. It's a very short time, a very small gap.

> There are other gaps concerning perception and questions such as who am I.

You can answer that one quite easily. I know I can for myself. I'm a sack of meat with a far-from-perfect meatware computer controlling the works.

> On the other hand, if we're completely baffled by the "why do I see out of these eyes and not those"

Who the hell is baffled by this? I see out of the only pair of eyes that are connected to my brain by their optic nerves. You've got a very strange idea of a gap.

> question despite knowledge of DNA, cells, etc, I think it's reasonable to suggest there may just be some other factor we dont know and can't know.

Why do you think so?

> "It just is that way" is a horrible explanation that would not be accepted in any other context.

It is accepted in other contexts all the time. Why is 1 + 1 equal to 2? It just is that way. This is not a huge metaphysical question requiring gods for an answer.

> Why this perception with this cluster of cells?

I think you first need to demonstrate the need for a why. It is not axiomatic that everything must have some greater meaning behind it.

> As far as I know, we have not answered that and we have trouble understanding the nature of that question.

I'm not sure it's a reasonable question. Can you demonstrate that there must be a greater reason to our existence and our consciousness than simple evolution that produced a generalist species capable of thought as a problem solving mechanism?

> Which we may well find, but there's serious gaps in the "why am I me" question.

I'm not sure you've demonstrated this to be a gap. First you need to demonstrate that we need a more philosophical or spiritual raison d'etre than simple natural causes.


>> After generations of creationists asserting that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, now you assert that it is?

> Creationists assert a great number of things. If anything the fact that what I am saying runs counter to what creationists are saying convinces me further of my own POV since creationists are often...badly mistaken. Creationists aren't stupid, but their heads are buried pretty deep in the sand.

You're confusing "creationist" with "young earth creationist."

> I'm assuming you said this because you pegged me as a creationist or somebody sympathetic to creationism.

You are arguing for a supernatural creator as your answer to why am I me. You are a creationist. You are not a young earther. But, you are a creationist.

Else, why did you think that what you are arguing was a debate point against those who do not believe in any gods?

> I am not. At best, I think creationism is willful ignorance. At best.

I agree. But, I would not limit this to young earth creationism.

> But what you said does raise an interesting point: the difference between no evidence for, no evidence for another position, and evidence against. There is a great deal of evidence against creationism.

Agreed. So what exactly are you arguing for here? Do you believe that the universe was created by a supernatural entity? What would you call that entity? Why did you expect this to be a debate with atheists?

> There is no evidence for invisible flying elephants.

There is tons (literally) of evidence against any sort of flying elephant. The aerodynamics and biomechanics would dictate that anything of that mass capable of flight would most definitely not be anything we would call an elephant. A pterosaur perhaps. But, not an elephant.

> There is no evidence that anything in the physical universe can determine what perception is matched with what body at any point in time.

This makes absolutely no sense. We are wired inside a particular body. There is tons of evidence for why our perception is matched with our bodies. Our perception is a function of our brains that are wired inside a particular body with neurons.

> If there is no reason I see out of these eyes, why can't I see out of your eyes?

There is a reason you see out of your eyes and not mine. So, that is a ridiculous question.

> Or, if the self is an illusion, why the illusion of being this self?

You've got some very weird ideas. Mind is what the brain does. Self is basically just what we call our functioning wet computer.

You seem to need greater meaning than this in your life. But, the universe doesn't care whether you feel spiritually fulfilled. You brain is working. That is your self. I'm sorry that answer does not satisfy you. But, you've demonstrated no real reason why the universe is obligated to provide you with any greater meaning in life than "a working brain is conscious".

Have you seen the results of the AWARE study?

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/aware-results-finally-published-no-evidence-of-nde/

We are highly complex bundles of neurons. There is active evidence that we do not live outside of our brains. We may not yet understand all of the detailed functioning of the brain. But, we do know the answers to all of our questions about our consciousness are there.

Where else could they be?

Have you ever tried to run a piece of software without any hardware? Good luck with that. Our consciousness is our software. Our brains are the hardware necessary to run it. That's why people change pretty radically with certain types of brain damage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

If our consciousness were separate from our brains, it would not change with brain damage.

> And then, if there is no self, what is the point of the illusion of the self?

Self is not an illusion. It's the consciousness that arises in a functioning brain, whether your brain or your cat's. Give your cat a scratch under the chin for me.

> Why can't we just be robots?

There are indeed people trying to make that a reality. How to copy the consciousness from the meatware to the computer is a difficult question. When to delete the original and keep only the copy is a more disturbing question.

> What benefit does me realizing I am me have? Is it just a totally random side effect?

It seems to give a lot of people a will to survive and reproduce and to live and to love and to work together toward common goals.

It seems like quite a survival advantage to me, despite my own presence here as a deliberate Darwinian failure.

> I would like to know why the illusion of control of this body

Why do you call that an illusion. Can you not raise your arm right now? Give it a try. If you're healthy and not paralyzed. You will probably succeed.

> Is there any structure or function that does not or did not help us survive?

Clearly yes there is. You just spent a whole lot of energy typing this garbage. I just spent a whole lot of energy replying to it. There is clearly no survival benefit to that!

> To be clear, I think there is a truly unique part of any one of us and when we say "I" did X that is what we are referring to.

But, that part of us is a physical part of our brain. And, just for the record, we like to think there's this controller thread in our brains that is the real "I". But, there isn't. Our brains actually don't work that way. They're very modular.

https://www.amazon.com/Kluge-Haphazard-Evolution-Human-Mind/dp/054723824X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=kluge&link_code=qs&qid=1563805335&s=gateway&sourceid=Mozilla-search&sr=8-1

> I can incorporate neuroscience into this as well. Patrick Haggard found that inhibition mechanisms inside the brain are separate from mechanisms triggered by external stimuli. This is consistent with Libet not observing a spike in unconscious activity. Activity in those regions sometimes leads to inhibition. Other times it does not. Not 100%. Stronger activity sometimes did not lead to inhibition while weaker activity sometimes did. But It's also unclear what is causing those parts of the brain to activate in the first place if not external stimuli. Do they just light up for no reason? Do the electrons in the atoms in the cells just decide to start dancing?

But, you admit it is all in the brain. So why the crap about you seeing through my eyes or your cat's?

>> Turning your own words against you: "A lack of a feasible metaphysical explanation is evidence for no metaphysical explanation (not proof, but evidence)."
>
> Metaphysical isn't understood by us. How can something not understandable be feasible? Physical is.

You're right! Supernatural is not feasible. Thank you. That is my whole perspective on this. There is nothing supernatural. It is simply not feasible.

Sorry to rain on the parade: While scientific sources, you're positing absolutes here and drawing false dichotomies in correlating what are essentially "before and after" pictures.

I would encourage you to give this book a look Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience - and the video-lecture-talks by the author Scott O. Lilienfeld.

Secondly, you do also realize that psychotherapy has been noted as a form of neurosurgery as well? - it's because of the neuroplasticity of the brain, and its remarkable ability to change. However of course, with a disclaimer, it may be a bit too convoluted to realize for BPD, but obviously many have noted that DBT has improved their symptoms - as you say your own symptoms have improved with therapy.

By my reference and your self-ancedotal notions, it should be fair to say that the neuroplasticity within the brain inherently allocates for change. However, whether it may be the change you would like, it may be too contrived due to the fact that we're dealing with your subjective self-experiences - and that psychotherapy is as much as it can be conducive to neuroplastic change is not an absolute solution as well, because of how subjective the psychotheraputic process can be.

But obviously, like yeah, talking to people and being aware of your symptoms, whilst mitigating the pent-up emotions with a psychotherapist is conductive for actual change - as well as neuroplastic change that goes hand-in-hand with it. Also, a therapist can promote and patronize subjective bias within the therapeutic process as well, despite however well-meaning he/she may be.

You might find some inspiration in this David Chalmers' interview. It's a success story of a math whiz who would, late in his education, switch to philosophy.

>It had always seemed my destiny to be a mathematician and for the most part I didn't question it.  I've always loved computers and I suppose the obvious alternative was something in that area....  I did keep thinking about philosophical problems, though mostly for fun on the side rather than as a serious career possibility. 
>
>...I had still hardly read any analytic philosophy.  I had come across a few things in Hofstadter and Dennett's collection The Mind's I -- notably Dennett's "Where am I?", which I loved, Searle's "Minds, Brains, and Programs,” which was interesting and infuriating, and Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?,” which I found difficult to read but which must have had some influence.  Later on that year I encountered Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons, which I loved and gave me a sense of how powerful analytic philosophy can be when done clearly and accessibly.  I also read Pat Churchland's Neurophilosophy, which gave a nice overview of contemporary philosophy of mind as well as neuroscience, and provided a lot to disagree with.
>
>Around this point I thought that I needed a proper education in philosophy, and I started thinking seriously about switching programs...

You might consider advice from Eric Schwitzgebel regarding MA/PhD:

> Some, including very good, PhD programs will consider non-philosophy majors if they have strong undergraduate records and have background in areas related to philosophy, for example, math, linguistics or psychology. However, even if a PhD program is willing to consider such students, it is often difficult for them to evaluate the student’s philosophical abilities from their undergrad records, letters, etc.

>
>In general, I think it most advisable for students who fall into this first category to consider seriously the MA route.

A very interesting question, and depending on which theory about dreams you subscribe to there are different answers. One theory is that dreams are just random brain activation during sleep that involves past experiences and memories. This would explain why you cannot dream about anything you haven't seen, heard, or felt before. If this is the case, and your brain is just stringing together random memories than it would make sense that if you experienced a memory in which you were surprised or experienced a surprising emotion that same feeling would be recreated. When you're dreaming the more primitive emotional brain is mainly active, the limbic system in particular, while the more recently evolved more logical areas of the brain are inactive. This explains why dreams can take some interesting turns, such as flying or other things that violate the laws of nature as we know them. Some cognitive neuroscientists believe that there is a interpreter module of the brain whose job is to rationalize otherwise inexplicable phenomena that occur unconsciously. This interpreter is thought to be inactive when we are dreaming and thus our dreams can often contain fantastical elements. But when we wake up our interpreter is quick to conjure some rational explanation for what we were experiencing. So what was otherwise just a random recounting of the memories and experiences from the past few days, or years becomes a story about how you finally asked that cute girl to dance, or how you were wandering around in an Escher painting.

Edit: Sources: Nature Review on the neurobiology of sleep and dreams http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19794431
Michael Gazzaniga's book http://www.amazon.com/Whos-Charge-Free-Science-Brain/dp/B00AKQINGM about free will, consciousness, and cognition.

Hello past me! I got my BS in biomedical engineering and now I'm in my first year of a neuro phd program, woo!

Definitely brush up on the basics, maybe borrow an intro neuro textbook from a library (I skimmed through From Neuron to Brain before I started). Yes, you will be taking some "intro" courses the first year, but most of my professors teach the class with the assumption that the students took neuro classes in undergrad, which I did not (plus I graduated from undergrad in 2009...).

If you know what you're interested in and could post it in here, we might be able to come up with some interesting papers or good books to read that are more specific to you. For example, I am interesting in cortical networks and my PI suggested I check out Connectome. I will be honest, I have not read it yet as I have plenty of papers I have to read every week, but I plan on getting to it over the summer.

There are so, so, so many different ways that addiction can manifest in any given person's brain. We're learning more and more about it as time progresses. There's no one, universal explanation of the neuroscience of addiction that can explain the complex patterns of behaviours, cognitions and emotions that we experience on a daily basis. There are a few things that I could point out, though!

The nucleus accumbens is involved pretty heavily in anything that has to do with addiction. Really central in the experience of "wanting", pleasure, and the anticipation of reward.

Another favourite of mine is the orbitofrontal cortex, which is important in the perception of reward saliency, or how rewarding you think a particular behaviour will be.

The amygdala is also pretty central because it is involved in the processing of emotions (and is considered part of the limbic system), and can actually be damaged by persistent episodes of intoxication and withdrawal.

These are just very over-arching and simplified explanations. I highly recommend In The Realm of the Hungry Ghost by Gabor Mate (it's on the pirate bay!). He does a really good job of explaining these anatomical structures and so much more, in the context of his work with addicts in the downtown east side of Vancouver.

Also, if you're into it, see if you can download a first year neuroscience textbook (like this). I've found learning about the neuroscience behind addiction to be really empowering.

A good book to look into http://www.amazon.com/Right-Hand-Left-Asymmetry-Cultures/dp/0674016130. It claims a person's handedness is a combination of nature and nurture. In the past, left handedness was connotated with abnormality and unusualness, thus we are more in a right handed society than left. Since the left hand is controlled by the right hemisphere, I'd speculate that the part of the brain is more active. Left handedness has been associated with creativity, musicality and visual and spatial sense...so studies and the book make claim to some positive correlation between the two, though I don't recall of any strong evidence other than noting very notable creative left handed people.

close. but i think you mean [The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Who-Mistook-Wife/dp/1491514078) I'm glad you mentioned this, because its a great read from a brilliant neuroscientist that is fantastic at communicating his work.

Exceptional post. Thanks for sharing your perspective and experience with the community.

Couple questions:

>It's just that I view the mind as an emergent phenomenon, and as such, likely irreducible to things as simple as "welp, it had a budge in voxens in x,y coordinates.

Who do you think best elucidates on the concept of emergence? Are there certain emergence authors you'd specifically caution against?

In particular, are you familar with Michael Gazzaniga's work, (his latest: Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain)? His perspective helped reshape my prior limited conceptions of the mind and was especially useful in addressing responsibility in a deterministic paradigm.

Also, thoughts on autopoiesis as discussed by the likes of Varla, Maturana, Tompson, etc (e.g. The embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience (1991), or Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (2007)?

I think I already linked you a couple of studies in previous comments but sure. Here is a neuroscience of language textbook that is full of references to various studies that demonstrate what I am saying is true. Here is another introductory neuroscience text that is full of studies as well. Really, a quick google scholar search will get you to articles on the subject if you want to read through the scientific literature like the article I linked you earlier about the evolution of intelligence. But this is a pretty fundamental concept in neurobiology. Since you aren't familiar with the science I recommend you start with those textbooks that explain the concepts first, then try to work your way through the literature. I'm a PhD student and I read journal articles all the time but even I can have a hard time really getting through a paper that isn't in my field of study sometimes. It can take a lot of effort so like I said, start with the textbooks and some online neuroscience lectures.

To your original request- this is very interesting book that is essentially a transcript of a conference between Buddhist practitioners including the Dalai Lama and scientists from several fields including neuroscience and quantum physics. Meditation is discussed quite a bit.

I think you'll find that the scientific evidence around meditation is confusing because meditation is so internal. Even an MRI scan of active meditation can only tell you so much because the qualia of the experience is so subjective and ones internal state of mind is very difficult to describe verbally. It's like studying the effect of music or painting on a persons well-being, even the most conclusive evidence is still based on a large field of unknowns.

I don't think you're going to find a scientifically verified method of meditation, at best you'll find that there is strong correlation between reported well-being and health and certain meditative practices, but even then it's so internal that it's going to be hard to verify how much is the act of meditation itself and how much is the predisposition of people who are prone to engage in meditation, among other possible controls.

It is my opinion that simple mind-clearing meditation and breathing exercises are empirically beneficial to ones health and mentality. It's not a panacea or a miracle cure of any kind and the benefits are regularly exaggerated by dilettantes, but that's common with anything- I know a guy who thinks model trains are the cure to the worlds woes, and, in a way- they're not wrong.

Anyway- if you want a more academic study- that book is a good read, but the real evidence will be in your own experience, so maybe just try a quick 5 minute session with one of those headspace apps when you have a chance.

I can't recall where I originally heard that handedness influenced drawing, but here are some relevant sources that I found:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1418831
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16350613

Interestingly, the second link says that in children handedness did not influence the subjects like it did the adults.

> My hypothesis is not that children (and people in general) see a letter and then spend time flipping it back and forth in the x-z plane, but rather that the mind encodes the memory of the object/symbol in a non-specific orientation in the x-z plane, so when it is recalled, there is a chance that it is seen from "the other side".

This definitely makes sense, and perhaps it is the case for some people? I know that for me, the symbol is encoded in a non-specific orientation, but not in a specific plane. I think that the part of my brain that does symbol processing bypasses my spatial perception - so it essentially all 2D. From a certain viewpoint I might see a pattern in a wall that looks like a face or a letter, but when I change my perspective it disappears.

I do know that symbol processing takes place in different parts of the brain depending on the language the person knows. Chinese speakers process characters differently than people who learned a language with an alphabet. (I know this from the book Proust and the Squid which is fascinating.) So, my thought is there are many factors that might be influencing these mirroring errors, but your theory is definitely a contender.

The Art of Thinking Clearly. It's non-fiction. It's short. It's fun. It is not a handbook. It is a list of cognitive errors that is explained in 3 or more pages. And man, it is so fun to read. It's an easy way to unwind and engage with an un-suspenseful but fun book. Since it's made up of short separate anecdote, you will find it easier to let go. Plus, you get to learn to recognize cognitive errors, which may help you deal with life in the long run.


Also note: read if you want to know about people seeing virgin Mary on bread, and Jesus on burritos. Hilarious.

Very nice. Its nice to see this particular school of philosophy-of-mind getting out there. If you enjoyed this, I would also recommend the fantastic Out of our Heads by Alva Noe, and The Ego Tunnel by Thomas Metzinger.

I was actually looking that up recently but this book specifically:

The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation

I'm just not sure I'd want to try to tackle it because I'd assume that it's full of scientific jargon and probably beyond my ability to comprehend.

I've been following this youtuber recently and I think she's pretty spot on about how CPTSD, Chronic Dissociation(freeze response), and Schizoid are all related. I kind of wish I had these videos earlier as it would've explained things much easier rather than me having to go through a multitude of books.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XXIxPLPWMc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyu3xQHCVGc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X25gKl3QPhU

I'm already happy to share healthy enquiry skills.

​

There's someone posting here as u/not-moses.

I've found this poster's lists, on average, to contain about 50 to 70 % of books I've been drawn to out of sheer intuition for the last ten years. First half of those were five years of increasing meditation and yoga practices as well, not 'seriously', just started, see what happens. Very good things happened and still do, a very rich life.

Back to these awesome lists of books and authors, I have to credit this same poster for introducing me to The Polyvagal Theory.

I'm taking this chance to ask said poster:

besides The Polyvagal, what book/s would you recommend that explains the same, and does it so in a similar depth/reach, but so that'd help someone without much knowledge on the matter still easily understand this whole Polyvagal paradigm?

​

That's how far actual Science is getting to now, we 'CPTSDers' are pioneers and harbingers of this new paradigm. With our struggles, precisely, and all.

​

Two more particular things may be relevant about those times and de-programming:

–Around the third year in it, I remember myself telling a good friend: 'Dude, this year I'm only reading Zen books' (I saw a de-programming key in there, for me anyway, I followed it), straight from the source texts and such, nothing modern; all kinds of varieties of it. Same happened before and after for (indian and tibetan)Buddhism traditions, Huna, Hinduism, Shivaism, Sufis, Gurdjeff, Krishnamurti and plenty of comparable systems, and out of that comparison naturally emerges an intuited framework to relating that will be of your own (more conscious and Self-supporting) creation. I'll remind this went on along a smooth, effortless, goal-less yoga and meditation beginnings. This too was approached in a healthy skeptical attitude I was just then starting to consciously implement -the old 'see what happens' [empty mind/new eyes].

​

–A little thing that happened out of this was I developed the two-bladed habit of re-directing my critic attacks (I'd guess a little previous re-programming was necessary to get here), by dissecting them both ways, and watch it, honestly and closely watch it. 'What an idiot that person!' would turn into 'well, what if the idiot here is the one getting emotionally upset about smth only exists in THIS THOUGHT?'; and the other way around 'Oh I'm such an idiot', became 'Sure as fuck I've learned this constant self-berating by imitation of my parents -masters at this apparently inconsequential habit- so why am I even believing this nonsense for one second?'

​

Patternes became self-evident. Inner critic was silenced for long time, all along it kept away from influencing any aspect of my life. It does require constant update; but I figure most people on this sub would've realized by now, that's precisely the point to life, if there's one. Meaning, it's never 'work', nor 'hard', it's something we do, see what happens (as in opposed to the Consensus Trance-based ASSUMPTIONS/PROJECTIONS-taken-for-knowledge, that we must do, must accomplish, must achieve, must, should, better be, etc, etc)

Brilliant -- a blog post that spends paragraphs talking about how interesting a new book is, but doesn't mention the title of the book anywhere.

To save people the effort, it's "Welcome To Your Brain" and here's its Amazon page:

http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Your-Brain-Puzzles-Everyday/dp/1596912839

Man, I feel you here.
Parent of an abused foster (adopted) 13yo daughter here, whose behaviors are very similar to what you mention (multiplied by 140lb body with hormones and the vocabulary of a sailor).

Three Major Points to start:

A. Try to reduce the frequency of the meltdowns.

There are two books you should buy and read right away. The Connected Child and Beyond Consequences. (Links below) Ignore the fact that they are 'for' adoptive families. They are fantastic for bio families too. The basic idea is to promote attachment, show love, use consistency and help your child learn who she is. I can, in no way, do justice to these books in summary so I'm not gonna try. This does not mean they get away with everything. This does not mean you're going to fix everything overnight. It does, however, mean you're going to change how you parent to a totally new model that might not feel natural at first. The more you do it, the better the bond you have with your child.

The style was once explained to me as "General Patton meets Mr. Rogers". Firm, high expectations, but calm and loving all the time.


B. When a meltdown of your daughter does happen.

Just doing the stuff above, you'll still have plenty of issues. That doesn't mean it's not working.
It all boils down to natural consequences. Break all the crayons, can't color anymore. Trash the house, clean the house. Throw a 5 minute tantrum while I was going to be playing video games, kid does chores I would have done for 5 minutes so I can play video games. Threaten to kill self or kill me? Cops are called.

Un-natural consequences (otherwise called punishments) cause their own problems.
By using natural consequences, you don't enter into a secondary battle for control of trying to impose punishments that the child finds unlogical.

C. When you lose your cool during a meltdown

This will also happen, as parents, we're not perfect.
When things go south - Reconnect Quickly.
Be the one that shows the example of remorse and show how you can make up for it. This doesn't mean the child gets away with what they did, though.



All the other stuff you need to do:

Get Help / Don't be Embarrassed: Realize when you need help. In combat, if things get hairy, you ask for help, you don't just wait until 3/4 your men are dead before telling someone above you that you're in trouble.

This means you must remove any stigma you might have from this situation and put your ego aside. Doesn't mean you're a bad father. There are tons of resources you should pull from.

First, surround yourself with a circle of support. Family and friends are very important.

Second, find resources in your community. Could be private therapy, could be from a county mental health organization. Could be a church group. I promise you that there is help out there that people just like you go to.

Care for yourself / Respite
The harder things are at home, the less patience you have. The less patience you have, the harder things get.

You need time for you (and your SO if you have one).

Find ways to recharge. Kid stays with grandparents, friends (with people you trust can handle you child and understand the situation), babysitters, overnight camps, etc.
You can't care for your child if you're totally out of steam.

Ask yourself, what if you couldn't physically control her.
I've been struggling with this in the last few years. If you can only use your mind to parent, and can't physically touch the child (even just to move them into time out, for example), it changes how you will parent them. Start thinking like that, and then add on the fact you can move them in time out as a bonus.

Lastly, realize you're not alone. There are many families that struggle with this type of problem, and it is possible!



http://www.amazon.com/Connected-Child-healing-adoptive-family/dp/0071475001/
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Consequences-Logic-Control-Attachment-Challenged/dp/0977704009/

Regarding #2: you would probably really enjoy the book (and topic) Neurophilosophy by Patricia Churchland (a professor at UCSD). There is a lot of intersection between cog sci and contemporary philosophy of mind.

Regarding #3 (I guess your program is in France?) the best way to learn a new language is immersion. Move to the country several months prior to the start of your program, enroll in an immersion class, and spend your free time at the bars trying to talk to strangers.

Farnswirth is right - it's one of the deepest problems in science.

If you like popular science books, you should read Christof Koch's [Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist] (http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Confessions-Reductionist-Christof-Koch/dp/0262017490/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412913491&sr=8-1&keywords=christof+koch), which is all about the science of consciousness, and also a memoir of one of the leaders of the field.

If you have a literary bent, you should read Giulio Tononi's [Phi] (http://www.amazon.com/Phi-A-Voyage-Brain-Soul/dp/030790721X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412913611&sr=8-1&keywords=giulio+tononi) - Tononi is a leading neuroscientist who's proposed one of the best modern theories of consciousness. It's a weird, weird book, but very informative and beautiful too..

There are a few different theories as to the helpful benefits of religion (although many biologists/psychologists/sociologists instead believe that it's a side effect or follows its own sort of natural selection-like mechanism.) Dean Buonomano has a very interesting idea.

I see your point, it's just interesting to think about.

As the Wikipedia article notes, there are still many theories regarding the origin of handedness. The book Right Hand, Left Hand addresses the evidence available for different hypotheses regarding this in some detail.

Some of the relevant and interesting facts about handedness that the book pointed out:

• Handedness is a preference, not an innate skill disparity. A right-hander who loses his right arm will be, with practice, able to do tasks with his left hand just as well.
  
  
• Handedness is set very early. IIRC, you see handedness preferences with babies sucking their thumbs in utero.
  
  
• Handedness is not binary. There are many "strong right-handers" (people who do most tasks with their right hands), but few "strong left-handers".
  
  
• Handedness is difficult or impossible to alter.

I recommend that anyone interested in this subject also read Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine. PDF copy.

Delusions of Gender by neuroscientist & academic psychologist Cordelia Fine is the best place to start if you're looking for a rigorously scientific and empirical introduction. It's also very cheap in the Amazon kindle store.

> there are brain circuits which evolved to support other functions

This was one of the central points of Proust and the Squid, by Maryanne Wolf. The book was a little more technical than most books written for an audience of non-specialists, but it was overall very good. The part at the end about dyslexia was especially intriguing.

Altered perceptual stuff like that kinda fascinates me. There are also some pretty crazy stories from neurologists about how brain disorders have altered the perceptions of some of their patients- probably way beyond any drugs ever have.

Great list!

Want to add one more if possible. The Polyvagal Theory! - explains neurobiological basis for cPTSD and how the vagus nerve is central to healing from it.

Undergrad level text books:

• Marie T. Banich - Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology
  
  &
  
  
• Mark F. Barry, etc... Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain
  
  These two are quite to the point. I highly recommend Neuroscience: Exploring the brain. Well worth it. Banich's book feels dated, but still a comprehensive look at cognitive neuroscience with less emphasis on the physiology.

That often happens when people get brain injuries. Their personality changes. Incidentally brain damage, or underdevelopment of the brain, leads to behaviour that seems sociopathic.

I got this book called "Welcome to Your Brain." Pretty interesting stuff in there about how your mind works.

http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Your-Brain-Puzzles-Everyday/dp/1596912839

Dear OP: I have a book recommendation for you!

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks (Amazon link)

>individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; patients no longer able to recognize people and common objects; patients whose limbs have become alien

Understand that, of course, even the authors first impulse is "bullshit".

Then he started doing clinical tests and ... just read the book.

Brains ARE weird.

Phi was pretty cool.

It sounds like what you mean by "how", goes into more detail than the "how" that science offers at this point. A blueprint for arranging neurons such that a consciousness arises doesn't exist yet. Although, there are a bunch of people trying to figure out how to reproduce a consciousness. Connectome was a good read about where science currently stands on the subject circa 2012.

> I came across a book called “The Art of Thinking.”

Was this book one of these?


The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Critical and Creative Thought (7th Edition) (9780321163325): Vincent R. Ruggiero:


https://www.amazon.com/Art-Thinking-Critical-Creative-Thought/dp/032116332X/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=SRFGRFTCAN4D63RVWBV8

The Art of Thinking: Ernest Dimnet:


https://www.amazon.com/Art-Thinking-Ernest-Dimnet/dp/B0000CP60J/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=SRFGRFTCAN4D63RVWBV8

The Art of Thinking: The Classic Guide to Increasing Brain Power: Allen F. Harrison, Robert M. Bramson: 9780425183229:


https://www.amazon.com/Art-Thinking-Classic-Guide-Increasing/dp/042518322X

The Art of Thinking Clearly: Rolf Dobelli: 9780062219695:


https://www.amazon.com/Art-Thinking-Clearly-Rolf-Dobelli/dp/0062219693

Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul by Giulio Tononi. A wonderful story exploring consciousness from both biological and philosophical perspectives.

A good book assessing the pros and cons of evolutionary psychology is: From Mating to Mentality: Evaluating Evolutionary Psychology. In particular, the final chapter: Evolutionary Psychology and the Challenge of Adaptive Explanation.

On the topics of "Cartesian reasoning, separation of organism/environment", you might like these books:

Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience

Beyond the Brain: How Body and Environment Shape Animal and Human Minds

And for "the problems of the "science industry"" you might enjoy this book:

Is Water H2O?: Evidence, Realism and Pluralism

I really enjoyed Brain Bugs.

Two things, (1) I'm going to recommend mostly books and not textbooks, since you're going to read plenty of those in the future. And (2) I'm going to only focus on the area of cognitive psychology & neuroscience. With that being said:

Beginner:

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales By Oliver Sacks

Brain Bugs: How the Brain's Flaws Shape Our Lives By Dean Buonomano

Kludge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Mind By Gary Marcus

The Trouble with Testosterone: And Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament By Robert M. Sapolsky

The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers By Daniel L. Schacter

Intermediate: (I'm going to throw this in here, because reading the beginner texts will not allow you to really follow the advanced texts.)

Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind By Michael S. Gazzaniga, Richard B. Ivry & George R. Mangun

Advanced:

The Prefrontal Cortex By Joaquin Fuster

The Dream Drugstore: Chemically Altered States of Consciousness By J. Allan Hobson

The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning By Keith J. Holyoak & Robert G. Morrison

I don't think the subjective self (what I think you are calling "mind" here) is something separate from the physical brain (standard Cartesian Duality), but rather, is a property of it.

Couple of books I can recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Mind-Search-Fundamental-Philosophy/dp/0195117891
https://www.amazon.com/Neurophilosophy-Toward-Unified-Science-Mind-Brain/dp/0262530856

Yes! There's a book about a study MIT did with him and other monks, using MRIs while they meditated, to see what effect, if any, meditation had on the brain. I very much remember him saying something along that lines in there.

Connectome by Sebastian Seung is good

​

a) My family was supportive of adoption in general, but terribly ignorant about the difficulties that kids from the system have.

b) Do one, do both, do neither. It is your life, live it as you wish ;) Maybe that is glib, but I'm certainly not in the position to tell you how to populate your nest.

c) Kids who come from the foster care system have generally experienced pretty tough things, often from extended periods of time. Ultimately, these kids need a new home, a new family, a forever family because the court has decided that their biological family is unable to provide a safe, healthy environment - AND - that there are no other family willing or able to take the kids.

The training that you receive as a foster partner will hardly scratch the surface of what is required to deal with the kids and their sometimes extensive needs. Just the logistics of it all can be overwhelming. And the behaviors they exhibit can be downright terrifying or just make no sense. Most of these behaviors, in one way or another, can be attributed to chronic exposure to abusive, unsafe, environments. Kids develop ways to cope with these situations that are unsafe, unhelpful or downright bizarre outside of that context.

I would suggest starting down this path by reading a few books, in particular:

Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control: A Love-Based Approach to Helping Attachment-Challenged Children With Severe Behaviors

http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Consequences-Logic-Control-Attachment-Challenged/dp/0977704009

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook--What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing

http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Raised-Psychiatrists-Notebook--What/dp/0465056539/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377749374&sr=1-1&keywords=the+boy+who+was+raised+as+a+dog


Good luck.

I'd recommend this one to start with:

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Consequences-Logic-Control-Attachment-Challenged/dp/0977704009

You might like this book:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat

https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Mistook-His-Wife/dp/1491514078/ref=nodl_

Depending on your girlfriend's preferences, this could be cool:
http://www.amazon.com/Phi-A-Voyage-Brain-Soul/dp/030790721X

not everyone in the scientific and philosophical community completely agrees with your first clause

For a cognitive/neuroscientific/psychosocial perspective on this subject, I highly recommend the work of Lise Eliot and Cordelia Fine. Eliot is a professor of neuroscience and Fine is an academic psychologist, and they have together done an excellent job of demolishing junk neuroscience studies that were conducted with the intent of proving that men and women are intrinsically different, all the while linking these studies back to a long history of scientific/medical sexism and cultural "just-so stories" of why women are inherently inferior to men.

If you're interested in further reading on junk neuroscience (and how it is prejudicially applied to socially marginalized groups), I'd recommend Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience by Satel and Lillienfeld. Or watch this lecture by Dr. Dorothy Bishop on common flaws in bad neuroscience.

That's going to be of limited help with RAD in an adolescent. Try this.

http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Consequences-Logic-Control-Attachment-Challenged/dp/0977704009/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409185480&sr=1-4&keywords=reactive+attachment+disorder

Then you should read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Right-Hand-Left-Asymmetry-Cultures/dp/0674016130

Reminds me of this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0977704009/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

Proust and the squid
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0060186399/ref=aw_d_detail?pd=1

Beyond Consequences by Heather Forbes and Bryan Post.

http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Consequences-Logic-Control-Attachment-Challenged/dp/0977704009/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451913113&sr=1-1&keywords=beyond+consequences+logic+and+control

HoW hAvE wE lEt ScIeNtIfIc StUdY bEcOmE hAtE sPeEcH?????

This is the one I was thinking of starting with. Open to suggestions on which Dennett book to read either alongside Churchland or immediately after.

Tononi's Phi

Giulio Tononi has been claiming something similar for a while now (the book is only the latest incarnation).

https://www.amazon.com/Out-Our-Heads-Lessons-Consciousness/dp/0809016486

On the science front, try Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines---and How It Will Change Our Lives by Miguel Nicolelis, and Sebastian Seung's Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are. I'd also suggest looking into the research on biocompatible materials, but I personally don't know of good books in that area.

Thank you thank you thank you!


Would love to hear more about your trials and tribulations this year if you're interested in sharing.


Can PM or reply here (personally, I felt liberated by sharing mine with the world, but I understand if you prefer to keep it private--though who knows, some day you might be doing what I am right now and putting it all on the table).


Looking back, I can see how every experience I had led me to the moment of evolution, but two of them stand out.


WARNING: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE & SCENARIOS DESCRIBED BELOW


I don't want to glorify the behavior at all, and will do my best to describe it in non-specific ways, but some details need to be included for the story to be told. If anyone can teach me how to add those Reddit spoiler tags, I will cover any of the graphic stuff. Don't want to harm anyone.


Finding DBT, and the death of my therapist


I was in a very passionate, very loving, yet extremely toxic relationship with a girl and it all blew up last December.


I thought I was going to marry her, our families had met and hung out, I had spent the entire summer breaking my back in the New York City heat on a rooftop building a deck just to impress her dad who was a contractor (working 4-6 hours a day with him while also trying to run my online business).


It all blew up, and I went on a crazy bender trying to escape the pain.


I had a ton of extra money from working non-stop all through December selling Christmas trees, and my NYE "party" if you can call it that lasted until mid-January. Much of it is a blur, or lost to blackouts, but the parts I remember were scary because I had completely lost control of myself.


I was hanging out with friends, and doing normal social stuff, but I felt this inner pain and rage that had me acting like a crazy person. Smoking crack, getting in fights, drinking every day, cocaine, molly, and anything else I could get.


At some point, I knew I needed help, and I had been introduced to DBT before briefly in the past--one skill that had been taught to me for relieving mental anguish (and it worked), so I knew I needed to get more of that.


DBT is a scientifically proven method used to treat a variety of mental conditions, including: depression, anxiety, uncontrollable emotions, drug addiction, PTSD, and so much more. I've dealt with all of those listed. It is especially effective in treating Borderline Personality Disorder, which has no known cure (other than DBT), and if I had to pick a label that says "this is what I have", that's the one I would choose (though I'm not a fan of labels, because no two cases are completely the same).


I started therapy with Dr. Victoria Taylor, and walked into her office one day for the first session.


I have never been met with more understand or compassion. She used a DBT technique I would later learn as being called "validating", which is when you acknowledge someone's feelings and tell them it makes sense they feel that way (it might not be a rational feeling, but if you are thinking irrationally, of course it makes sense you feel the way you do).


It felt like I had been on fire and she poured a bucket of ice water on my head. She told me how DBT is scientifically proven (they're doing independent studies all the time) and that if I committed to the work, my BPD could be cured.


I have since come to realize that people with BPD don't have anything wrong with them at their core level. They, like all people are inherently good, but the conditions in their life (usually an invalidating parent) created a set of coping skills that later became problematic.


For example, I learned at a young age to use drugs to fix emotional pain. It worked for a while. Then it stopped working. Then it started causing problems.


I learned to use violence to end emotional pain inflicted by other people. It worked for a while. Then it stopped working. Then it started causing problems.


This cycle is the same for every destructive behavior any person can engage in (over eating, sitting around the house all day, watching too much TV or playing too many video games).


What I lacked were the exact tools DBT provides, which are:

1. The ability to deescalate my emotions when I feel volatile, come back down to earth and make a rational decision rather than an emotional one.
   
   
   
2. A framework, or step-by-step process for dealing with any situation in life as a mature, responsible, self-assured adult, regardless of how emotionally immature or escalated the other person is being.
   
   
   
3. The ability to slow my thoughts down and understand how thoughts create feelings/emotions that we sense in the body. Then step-by-step processes for handling whatever feelings/emotions I have. You can change how you feel by changing your thinking. You can change how you think by changing how you act. It's amazing.
   
   
   
4. So much more, if you're interested, just jump in head first and take the class wherever you can find it. Side note, as soon as I have money I'm going to work on creating a self-help online version of DBT to make it more accessible. It's still young, so it can be hard to find, but do your best and please contact me if you have questions or want help learning the skills, I love teaching them. Same goes to anyone reading this.
   
   
   So there I am, suffering like crazy, still having trouble with drug addiction but trying more and more to work DBT skills into my daily life. Some days I would just cry and cry and cry for hours on end. I would fall asleep on my floor crying and wake up in my clothes, and try to carry on.
   
   
   It was the worst hell I've ever been through. Worse than jail, or prison or anything else. It felt like I was on fire, but I could call my therapist to get advice at any time (also part of this particular style of therapy) and she would show me the appropriate skill to apply. I would apply it, AND IT WORKED. For a bit. Then I suffered some more. But there was always progress.
   
   
   Drugs and spirituality
   
   
   I had stopped using cocaine, and was trying to cut back on alcohol.
   
   
   I continued smoking weed and doing a lot of psychedelic drugs like mushrooms and LSD. LSD never felt good to me, it's just too intense and not intense enough in all the wrong places--if you've done both mushrooms and LSD, you might understand what I mean.
   
   
   Now might be a good time to say that I am as skeptical as they come. I have never believed in God or religion or spirituality. I am very practical in my beliefs. If I experience something myself, I still don't believe it as objective fact, because I know how pliable the human mind is. It has been proven that people can create memories to avoid remembering something painful, or sometimes for no reason at all. So I don't take my experience as objective fact. I wish more people knew and accepted this fact: that you can't every know anything with absolute certainty.
   
   
   If you had told me anything I am about to tell you at another time in my life, I would probably think you're insane. What I'm about to describe needs to be experienced to be fully understood--or at least approached with an open mind. I'll walk you through the logical steps to get you as close as possible to understanding, but you really have to see for yourself some day. If you seek this experience, it will find you at the right time.
   
   
   Your brain is a computer & data receiver
   
   
   Through my experience in life, I have come to believe that our brains are basically computers and receivers -- kind of like a radio -- that receives data from the spiritual plane of existence. Your soul or essence has a consciousness of its own outside of time and space, and is the true seat of your consciousness (not your brain).
   
   
   I'll explain why I feel this way in a minute, so if it sounds whacky, just hear me out...
   
   
   The Universe we live in is purely mathematic. If you're not convinced of that, check out this documentary.
   
   
   Also check out the movie Pi if you haven't seen it, cus it's tangentially related and really f&*ng good :)
   
   
   It has been scientifically proven that our brains are capable of rationalizing and creating a sense of motive behind actions we take, after we take them. I highly recommend everyone reads the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: and Other Clinical Tales. It's a little dense, but find the part about split brain tests and read that if nothing else.
   
   
   Receiving help from the spirit world
   
   
   There are spirits that are not materialized here in the physical plane of existence. I don't know anything about them, except that I have experienced them.
   
   
   Two days before my therapist died an untimely death (she was young, apparently healthy, and seemed well), I had two dreams...
   
   
   I wrote them down on my personal blog because I felt they were premonitions of my own death and wanted people to know I called it (nothing like one last "told ya so" to all the friends and fam snooping through my personal stuff when I'm gone haha).
   
   
   I believe our dream state is the most open state our minds can be in. So we can receive data from the spirit realm--stuff that is drowned out in our day-to-day existence. Your brain takes that data and makes it into something you can understand.