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Man can change his pupil size on command

livescience.com

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Re: Man can change his pupil size on command

#81

Post by dec0dedab0de »

Decabytes wrote: post #63

I've always wondered what the limits of mind over matter were. Like if I practiced every day, Could I learn to move my toes individually or with more dexterity? Could I focus on that random muscle that twitches in my leg and get it to stop, or move it myself?

When someone asks me to teach them how to play drums, I spin my fingers in opposite directions, and tell them that its their first lesson. Someone told me it was impossible in 7th grade, and I spent the next 3 days fixated on it until I could do it. I match it with drums because every step in drums is about having your body to do things your brain doesn't want it to, especially in the beginning.

I like to think of things like yoga, meditation, and prayer as a messy abstraction layer for controlling the parts of your body you normally can not. Created over millenniums of black-box reverse engineering by people of different levels of skill and honesty who are not sharing their results. One of the things guided meditation, and hypnotists will do is have you purposely relax each muscle group one at a time. Though for a specific twitch, that really depends on what is causing it.

I wish there was more skeptical, but open minded research into ancient practices. It seems it's all either people who blindly believe in their flavor of magic, or people who go in assuming it's nonsense and miss the step between the action and the result.

To put it more succinctly, mind over matter is enough of an issue that we have double blind studies to account for the placebo effect.

Re: Man can change his pupil size on command

#82

Post by edgedetector »

Zenst wrote: post #23

Wonder if he is just going into a lucid dream state (day dreaming) and recalling being in the pitch black (enlarging the eye's via muscle memory) or looking at the sun to contract them. Maybe something folks could try - set your phone to selfie - think of looking at the sun/really bright light vivid memory recall event and then do the same recalling an event of your memory in which you was in the total dark (camping…

Lucid dreaming refers to dreaming while aware that you are dreaming. Day dreaming is just getting lost in one's imagination while one is awake. These are two different phenomena.

Re: Man can change his pupil size on command

#83

Post by dec0dedab0de »

zfxfr wrote: post #49

Wow! I did not know nobody could do it. I am personally more impressed by people who can move their earlobe I can't do this but I. can change my pupil size. I just somehow imagine looking farther when in front of a mirror.

When I was first figuring out how to move my ears as a kid it was all one motion with moving my scalp. I just thought it felt neat, and I was doing it all the time. Then I did it while getting a haircut and the lady freaked out because my hair was just moving back and forth, she made me do it for all the employees.

I later figured out how to just move the ears, and would try to control them separately, but never got that working. I feel like I just dug up a 30 year old feature request.

Re: Man can change his pupil size on command

#84

Post by SamBam »

msdrigg wrote: post #66
monitron wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it takes time and is not wholly reliable, it sounds like you might be using one of the "indirect methods" they mentioned in the article.

I can change the focal point of my eyes on command to a far away point or a close one, and I have noticed that this reliably makes my pupil get slightly larger or smaller.

Yeah, the article mentions that as the early way the man learned to do it, before being able to directly control the muscle.

Re: Man can change his pupil size on command

#85

Post by SamBam »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #81
Decabytes wrote: post #63

I've always wondered what the limits of mind over matter were. Like if I practiced every day, Could I learn to move my toes individually or with more dexterity? Could I focus on that random muscle that twitches in my leg and get it to stop, or move it myself?

When someone asks me to teach them how to play drums, I spin my fingers in opposite directions, and tell them that its their first lesson. Someone told me it was impossible in 7th grade, and I spent the next 3 days fixated on it until I could do it. I match it with drums because every step in drums is about having your body to do things your brain doesn't want it to, especially in the beginning. I like to think of th…

> I spin my fingers in opposite directions

Trying to work out why this would be difficult, since it doesn't seem to be, so my first assumption ought to be that I'm doing this wrong.

If I point in front of me I can twirl my pointers in a circle such that they go in opposite directions. This seems to be the most intuitive and trivial, because both are actually doing the same movement (inward and outward at the same time). I can also twirl them so they spin in the same direction, this seems only slightly more difficult, but if I just think of them as tracing the wheels of car it's trivial.

Then again, I've never had any trouble patting my head and rubbing my stomach either.

Re: Man can change his pupil size on command

#87

Post by meowface »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #79
meowface wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that that group apparently also includes me. I had an awful experience during my LASIK procedure. What should've taken a few minutes ended up taking like 40+. It was almost an hour of the doctor and nurses constantly repeating "please keep still", yet from the very start to the very end I was literally making myself as still as possible and from my perspective wasn't moving any part of my body in the sl…

Oh, man, that sounds like a nightmare. As someone with a lot of anxiety I was probably never going to do LASIK anyway, but after reading this there's absolutely no way I'd ever even consider it. And yes, when I find myself in an anxious situation I tend to cope with body movement, some of it I'm aware of, others probably not.

It was pretty nightmarish, but I'm still very thankful I received it. 40 minutes of awfulness in exchange for years of not needing glasses/contact lenses was worth it for me.

Also, I'm guessing this issue isn't too uncommon, because during my consultation a week or so before the procedure, they mentioned that they could give a small dose of a benzodiazepine (I think Valium) beforehand to reduce anxiety. When it was time for the procedure, I think they mentioned it again before it started but they said it didn't seem like I needed it, since I don't think I was showing outward signs of anxiety at that point, and I didn't express (or have) any conscious fears. I think there's a good chance that if I had taken it, all of the trouble could've been avoided.

So, if you make those concerns known and request one, I think you'll likely have a much better experience than I did.

Re: Man can change his pupil size on command

#88

Post by [deleted] »

tsimionescu wrote: post #20

This reminds me of the Bene Gesserit and other schools that sprung up in Frank Herbert's Dune. Once computing technology was forbidden, these schools started research in 'human technologies', learning to control and use their own (or another's) body as a kind of machine. I do wonder if there is any possibility of actually doing things like extending conscious control over more bodily functions, if we were to try at i…

[deleted]

Re: Man can change his pupil size on command

#89

Post by Veen »

lostlogin wrote: post #51
jessaustin wrote: post #42

When dental assisting, it has been challenging to discover how many people have no voluntary control over their own tongues.

MRI tech here: I’m surprised how many appear to have no control over their limbs. Please keep still.

I discovered something similar when my girlfriend cut my hair during lockdown. Apparently I can't hold my head in the same position for more than 30 seconds. It moves involuntarily no matter how hard I try to keep still.

Re: Man can change his pupil size on command

#90

Post by dec0dedab0de »

SamBam wrote: post #85
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When someone asks me to teach them how to play drums, I spin my fingers in opposite directions, and tell them that its their first lesson. Someone told me it was impossible in 7th grade, and I spent the next 3 days fixated on it until I could do it. I match it with drums because every step in drums is about having your body to do things your brain doesn't want it to, especially in the beginning. I like to think of th…

> I spin my fingers in opposite directions Trying to work out why this would be difficult, since it doesn't seem to be, so my first assumption ought to be that I'm doing this wrong. If I point in front of me I can twirl my pointers in a circle such that they go in opposite directions. This seems to be the most intuitive and trivial, because both are actually doing the same movement (inward and outward at the same tim…

Imagine there is a wheel in-front of your chest, in the same orientation the front wheel of a bike would be if you were riding it, but smaller and up higher.

Then point your index fingers toward each other so that they are both tracing the same wheel. They can each go forward or backward. Most people struggle with making them go opposite directions. To the point that they'll do it once or a half of a time, and then switch directions with one hand and not even realize it. It's fun to teach kids.

You can do it with your whole hand, or arm, or just the fingers, with different size circles, each takes a bit of practice once you get over the initial hurdle.

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