Psychology
-
On the apparent rise in transgender and non-binary identities.
Our culture has changed, but so has the environment, and we need to acknowledge both.
-
On amusement parks, depression, and familiarity with death.
Some types of fun aren’t meant for everyone …
Albert Camus, amusement park, amusement parks, car crash, death, depression, execution, familiarity with death, Fyodor Dostoevsky, gun violence, heroin, heroin overdose, Lauren Hough, Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing, Narcan, overdose, pardon, preventable death, psychology, psychology experiments, psychology of amusement parks, psychology studies, psychology study, Scarecrow Scrambler, Scramblers, self-harm, suicidal ideation, suicide, The Idiot, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Scrambler
-
On meditation and the birth of the universe.
How we compose ourselves is everything.
anti-matter, big bang, biology, birth of particles, birth of stars, birth of the cosmos, Buddha, Buddha meditating, chaos engines, chaos machines, chemistry, composition of matter, consciousness, cosmology, dark energy, drug chemistry, drugs, emergent physics, emergent properties, energetics of life, entropy, expanding universe, false vacuum, goal of meditation, hallucination, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, how to meditate, hydrogen fusion, hyperinflation, inflation, Jesus, Jesus meditating, LSD, mantra, mantra meditation, matter, meditate, meditation, meditation function, meditation guide, meditation practice, meditation retreat, metastable, more is different, nuclear fusion, Odin, Odin meditating, organization of matter, origin of consciousness, origin of intelligence, origin of life, origin of planets, origin of structure, origin of the cosmos, origin of the universe, particle physics, physics, practice, practice makes better, psychedelic, psychedelic meditation, psychedelics, quantum mechanics, RNA world, RNA world hypothesis, sat nam, Shiva, Shiva meditating, star formation, statistical mechanics, structure of matter, teaching in jail, THC, thermodynamics of life, transcendental meditation, tsar bomba, uncertainty, vacuum energy
-
On Constantine Cavafy’s ‘Body, Remember,’ and the mutability of memory.
Would your life be better if you mistakenly believed in past triumph?
addiction, alcoholism, Aliki Barnstone, assault, beer, Body Remember, Boltzmann brain, brain, Brett Kavanaugh, CBT, cognition, cognitive behavioral therapy, consciousness, Constantine Cavafy, drinking problem, episodic memory, Exhalation, failed seduction, Flirtation, incarceration, jail poetry, jail poetry workshop, Kavanaugh, Last Gods, mass incarceration, memory, misremembrance, missed connections, mutability of memory, opiate abuse, opiates, poetry, problem drinking, recovery, recovery from addiction, Remember Body, risque poetry, seduction, sexual aggression, sexual assault, sexy poetry, sultry poetry, Supreme Court, teaching in jail, Ted Chiang, Truth of Fact Truth of Feeling, violative assault
-
On Darwin and free love.
I suddenly saw a link between Erasmus Darwin’s belief in free love and Charles Darwin’s “Origin of the Species”! The only problem? The former was just slander.
affairs, Bargh, behavioral priming, behavioral psychology, brain soup, Charles Darwin, compulsary research studies, Darwin and free love, Darwin belief in free love, Darwin feminism, Darwin feminist, Darwin free love, Emmy Brockman, Erasmus Darwin, Erasmus Darwin evolution, Erasmus Darwin free love, everything from shells, evolution, evolution by natural selection, extramarital daliance with consent, extramarital daliances, Fara, free love, French Revolution, how many neurons in the human brain, I am a scientist, love, love life, many love, many loves, natural selection, neuron counts, Origin of the Species, Patricia Fara, plant neurobiology, plant poetry, Plants Neither Possess nor Require Consciousness, polyamorist, polyamory, priming, psychological priming, psychology research, publication bias, reproducibility crisis, risque plant poetry, romance, Science Is for Me, scientific bias, scientific misconceptions, scientific publishing, slander, supposedly pornographic poetry, survival of the fittest, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, teleological fallacy, teleological misconception, The Human Advantage, The Loves of Plants, theory of evolution, walking speed, was Darwin a polyamorist, was Erasmus Darwin a polyamorist
-
On meditation.
Meditating seems like it’s just blinking for more time … but more is different.
attentiveness, blink, Bob Roth, Buddha meditating, comparative mythology, comparative religion, focus, hallucinate, hallucination, history of religion, how to do mantra meditation, how to meditate, isolation, Jesus meditating, learning to meditate, long blink, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, mantra meditation, meditate, meditation, meditation guide, mental health, mental quiet, meth, methamphetamine, methamphetamines, Midwest Pages to Prisoners Project, mindfulness, mindfulness training, more is different, neopaganism, Odin meditating, origin of religion, pagan meditation, paganism, Pages to Prisoners, psychedelic, psychedelic meditation, religion, religions that meditate, Richard Feynman, sensory deprivation, sensory deprivation chamber, sensory deprivation tank, sleep, sleep deprivation, spiritual meditation, spirituality, stillness, Strength in Stillness, transcendental meditation, why meditate, why we sleep
-
On writing.
By writing, we can prove that we really do exist. But not everyone in jail has access to even as much as a sharpened pencil.
action permanence, depression, deprivation in jail, drug trip, drugs, ego death, jail commissary, jail poetry, medicine, mushroom tea, pencil sharpener, pencils, pencils in jail, Portland, psilocybin, psilocybin mushrooms, psychedelic, psychedelic drugs, psychedelic medicine, psychedelics, PTSD, PTSD cures, Sacred Knowledge, shrooms, suffering in jail, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, trip, trip report, William Richards, writing, writing in jail
-
On drugs and drug laws.
Humans have long restricted access to spiritual sacraments. Perhaps its not surprising that psilocybin is illegal, whereas the drugs that harm other people are easy to come by.
access to drugs, addiction, Against Life, alcohol, alcohol consumption, alcohol is the most harmful drug, alcoholism, antibiotic, antibiotic resistance, antibiotics, antibiotics in animal agriculture, archaeology, Ayelet Waldman, ballot initiative, Bay Area, Brett Kavanaugh, cocaine, Daddy Wake Up, Denver, dimethyltryptamine, DMT, drug crisis, drug laws, drug trip, drug use, drug use in the Bay Area, drugs, entheogens, hallucinations, hallucinogen, How to Change Your Mind, human drug use, incarceration, jail, jail poetry, jail time, Josh Rathkamp, Kavanaugh, magic mushrooms, mass incarceration, Michael Pollan, most harmful drugs, mushrooms, narcotics, opiate addiction, opiate epidemic, opiod addiction, opiods, opioid crisis, poetry in jail, prehistory of human drug use, prison poetry, psilocin, psilocybin, psychedelic, psychedelics, psychedelics as medicine, psychedelics drugs, psychedelics for depression, psychedelics in psychiatry, racism, racist drug laws, selective drug enforcement, selective law enforcement, sexual assault, spiritual experiences, spirituality, Supreme Court justices, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, therapeutic drug trip, Travis Combs, U.S. drug policy, vegan, veganism, War on Drugs
-
On happiness and mind control.
We could change our brains enough to feel happy with the world as it is … or we could use our unhappiness as a motivation to fix things.
abusive research, addiction, America, animal emotions, animal empathy, asylums, bad medical advice, bioethics, biomedical ethics, brain modification, brain parasites, brain stimulation, brain’s pleasure center, Carl Elliott, cat shit, chemically modulated happiness, cocaine, consciousness, conversion therapy, DCS, deep brain stimulation, depression, direct current stimulation, dopamine, drug abuse, drug crisis, drug use, eating cat shit, electrical brain stimulation, electrochemical stimulation of desire, empathy in rats, evolutionary rationale for pleasure, fighting depression, Frans de Waal, free will, happiness, homosexuality, human choice, human free will, Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, induction of empathy, Lone Frank, love potion, Mama’s Last Hug, mind control, nucleus accumbens, opiate use, painkillers, parasites, parasitic mind control, psychiatric patients, psychiatric wards, psychiatry, psychological crisis, psychology studies, psychosurgery, rat empathy, rats free their friends, research ethics, research subjects, review of The Pleasure Shock, Robert Heath, science, scientific ethics, scientific progress, sex in a laboratory, suicide, toxo, toxoplasma, toxoplasmosis, unethical experiments, unethical research, unethical science, United States
-
On storytelling in games.
Of course games can be art! There are certain stories, like tales of moral complicity, that games tell better than any other form of media.
45, Abu Ghraib, atrocities, board game design, board games, Bruce Weigl, computer games, console games, Donald Trump, experiental art, fascism, fighting fascism, following orders, game design, games as art, Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto as art, GTA, Life on Mars, Marco Arnaudo, marcowargamer, Milgram Experiment, moral complicity, moral depravity, moral failure, multimedia art, narrative potential of games, politics, PotUS, psychology, psychology experiments, psychology experiments as role-playing games, Rockstar Games, Rockstar North, role playing, RPG, second person novels, Secret Hitler, Stanford Prison Experiment, storytelling in games, Storytelling in the Modern Board Game, The Soldier’s Brief Epistle, torture, torture in Grand Theft Auto, Tracy K Smith, Tracy Smith, Trump, war crimes
Frank Brown Cloud 