Project:Hypnoeyes-hypnosis/member contributions/Hypnoeyes

Summary

Not much to say right now.

pages

Trance - So what is a trance?

Depth - What do you mean by depth of hypnosis?

Induction - What is an induction?

Somnambulism - What is somnambulism

Hacking the mind (story)

Having that keen desire to manipulate things, touch what you aren't supposed to and discovering how fragile things are; Exploring the art of hacking - and putting it to good use.

It starts out by not knowing anything about a specific environment, punching away at the keys or perhaps shorting out components on a circuit board - the situation is not of significance, it's all about the intent. To understand in excess of the norm for any given subject/object/situation and exploiting what you know in order to smash through boundaries, especially those that are arbitrary and intrusive.

I believe the hacker mentality is about freedom, willingness to explore and not settling for the sheltered life of the rest of the population.

Any of the old text that I have read, especially texts from periods that have long been forgotten had a few common components to them - all of which fueled my enthusiasm and acted as a source of intense inspiration; I wanted to be a part of those phreaking days so badly, the best I can do is look back on the time I was arrested for beige boxing but yet I still feel like I experienced the core of the scene vicariously through those ancient texts. For all of you that explored and were able to document the scene to us that came after, A big heartfelt thank you goes out to you from me.

You may notice I hop between so called scenes, hacking, phreaking, cracking, whatever.. That's because myself and the people that I mixed with back in the day often would speak of all of those fragments as a whole - we didn't just break into computer systems nor did we just limit ourselves to exploring ways in which to gain free calls or free Internet. We were a community based around one common ethos and a passion for learning - hopefully learning just that something more than each of our peers.

I started consciously hacking when I was 3 years old, I began already at that age to explore the insides of electronics and while quite obviously rudimentary, I still knew more about electronics than my own family at this time. It didn't stop there for me, I figured out how to wire mains plugs and had already electrocuted myself about 5 times, taken apart so many toys and poked a screw driver around inside of a whole range of things before I even saw a computer. Later on I had read my brother's school books on physics and been given as a gift one of those 200-in-1 electronics kits by my parents which I enjoyed immensely. I recall having my IQ tested when I was around 7 years old and being told I had an IQ of a 16 year old - it's a shame my home environment wasn't conducive to supporting a child genius and more about stifling creativity and installing self-loathing.

More than 20 years have gone by for me, so many that I have lost track of everything that has ever been a part of my life during that time. One thing that has remained has been my desire to learn and understand as much as possible about topics of great importance to me, computers have been for the best part of 7 years just a way of communicating and expressing certain creative aspects of my personality - I saw them as an obstruction to life itself and consequently brainwashed myself into thinking the devil was somehow involved in creating them. Thankfully I'm realising that isn't the case and all I really needed was to learn a balance, it is fantastic to find the enthusiasm and motivation to delve into the depths of a computer system but not so cool forgetting to shower or give your partner attention and when I realised this I totally dropped computing from my repertoire in order to make room for the 'real world'. I partly regret this decision because there was so much I could have given during this time that was wasted, wasted on dealing with life and the installed fears and misconceptions I mentioned earlier, I had to learn to hack my mind and quite frankly that was the hardest challenge of all.

We all initially see computers as being a black art, the general public can't even begin to comprehend the basics, ask them to convert decimal to binary and you will see my point.. Yet, the beauty of computer systems in my opinion is that there is a set structure to them, the rules are written and we have an opportunity to try and bend those rules - if we so desire. In contrast, life also has a set of rules to it, but they are always changing based on context, culture, which family you were born into, income, outlook on life.. There isn't really a one model fits all and this is where the problems arise, as I see it, with being a hacker (who is probably on the autism spectrum) and trying to get through life moderately comfortable. To me the world made no real sense, I learned at around 15 years old how to be cool and mix with teenagers who liked to fight, drink and have sex - which is great, but it isn't entirely useful and I had a lot more to learn. I learned how to become depressed, suicidal, how to treat other people bad, how to break hearts, how to do many things that in one way or anything hurt someone else and all at the same time my intention's were to be good - how is that even possible?

Situation, conditioning, programming and a true lack of comprehension.

If you are skilled at something in any given area, it's likely that you can see your own failings, aware of what else you need to know and probably able to predict the future with a moderate degree of success. As an example, I was always aware of my lack of graphical design skill, I could write shit hot back end code to things but representing the information in a stylistic fashion just wasn't for me and to this day I'm only really just about OK and designing graphics. With life I don't believe it is too obvious, especially when young what you need to know in order to do well in life - at first you bash some keys, short out some components, burn some bridges, hurt people you love, try killing yourself and generally feeling utterly confused about what is going on. I wasn't born with what I would call a decent understanding of the world, I was a blank slate and could only act and do as I was instructed - until the hacker mindset started to show through and most people were unable to recognise it and took it to mean I was unable to concentrate, I was destructive, etc. So really, I guess I learned computer systems to a degree that I was happy and 20 years later I know the world in a similarly intricate detail.

I can finally see what I am lacking, the areas in which I need to learn more in order to push myself towards certain goals that I have and how to be happy, happier than anyone else I know.

That's how I know I am a hacker.

I didn't stay entirely bound and gagged by the programming my family installed upon me, if my father had his way I would believe I am entirely useless, unable to achieve anything and in his own words a 'donut'. I was born into a messy family situation, my brother Douglas died when I was around 2 years and he had been fighting cancer for 10 years, my father has been verbally abusive and often opted to smash the home up while blaming one of us for his temper - like it was our fault he was incapable of controlling how he felt. 20 + years of his temper, mixed in with my brother dieing, 4 of my brothers going in and out of social services and care homes and general life stuffs meant that I was in for a bumpy ride.

Women were my biggest downfall, I hadn't a clue in the early days how to interact with them and relationships were always a failure and that only made all of the verbal abuse I received even more powerful - maybe I was a failure, useless, stupid and worthless etc? Sure, while I believed I was worthless I certainly acted that way and let myself be manipulated and used by people constantly - I even learned to like feeling bad. I had designed ways to make myself feel even worse than I already did, I could make physical pain appear as a result of the emotion and would torture myself on purpose without really knowing why but I never stopped myself from doing it.

What has all of this got to do with hacking?

I was going through life blindly, from experience to experience without really knowing how to look deeper within the situations and understanding anything meaningful about them - likewise this is how most people are when using computers. Instead of just accepting how things are, we as hackers do everything we can to understand and see things in unconventional ways yet somehow I forgot this for so long when going through life itself that looking back now I feel like I may have let myself down there.

Today it's different, I see the world in structures and can spot personality traits in people without needing to try, I can see when people are lying to me and I can see hidden meanings and they view of the world without really trying anymore. I see things with such clarity, understanding and keen to explore the world and the situations it presents to me - once again I am a hacker.

If I don't like the way I am being treated, I have options, a selection of choices and the freedom to invent new ideas on the spot which I may find useful at the time - this is powerful. I can change how I feel in a heartbeat, In fact I can control my heartbeat, my breathing, my thinking and do the same to others - even covertly if I wanted to but luckily for the world I am an ethical hacker.

Oh it is so much fun saying phrases like, ethical hacker, knowing that I can see myself in a way in which I once saw the hackers before me and hopefully I have been able to leave a small mark in the consciousness of our world by inspiring others to aim for whatever it is that they desire.

So what was it that inspired me to write this particular document and what is it that has motivated me to do so with such passion and determination?

Well, prior to my escaping the computer scenes I had written some tutorials as a part of a vision I had, I wanted to create a selection of software reverse engineering tutorials which would take the reader from beginner to pro. Some of the beginner tutorials were chucked into a PDF and seeded out into the world via bit torrent and 7 or 8 years later the PDF is still being seen in some unusual places, I saw it last night in amongst a 'useful resources' section provided by a university professor for his students studying computer security. This led me to think about what it was that had me fired up and willing to spend the time to document methods in which the reader could manipulate software, learn from it and I guess ultimately steal it but that wasn't really the goal - the goal was to have fun while learning about computer systems.

So years later I see my ebook, realise I haven't shared anything else since and felt energized by the idea that someone, somewhere, is reading through my tutorials and seeing a glimpse into my soul - since I put my heart and soul into these things I assume it is possible to get a feeling for who I am. I admit it's not entirely true that I have shared nothing, I have mentored friends who needed programming advice for university or their place of employment and debugging someone elses code - either way there I have given back but not in the same magnitude as my tutorials anyway.

This does bring me squarely in line with what I did during my absence, in the real world and trying not to get distracted by computers..

I was met with a situation that truly shook my entire being, right now I don't feel the need to go into details but the function of this situation was to push me into studying hypnosis with all of my attention and energy. I was needed to help someone who I was extremely close to and it hurt like hell, made me so angry and had me thinking about taking a life but I was swiftly taught that whatever I felt was irrelevant and in order to help this person I had to forget about how I felt about the situation and focus on making things better. I guess I was quite lucky because my father, a magician, an entertainer, a professional and someone who dabbled with the tools of hypnosis, opened my eyes to those spiritual non-scientific aspects of the human mind which once I had grown up became the very tools I needed to fix myself and anyone around me who wanted it. I became a hypnotist, a damn good one and did everything he could in order to get clean, safe, reliable results and yet still find time for fun and playfulness.

Penetrating the mind is comparable to penetrating computer systems, if you can fool an intrusion detection system into thinking you are acting normally and yet you have readied a method of penetration along with it's payload.. then you can liken this to the mind and how easy it is to manipulate how someone thinks. Sure, you can talk about not believing hypnosis and that it's just an advanced placebo but clearly you are missing the point of what it is about..

Ever watched a movie about hacking and screamed at the TV because it is so utterly obvious to you how Hollywood got it all wrong and you know for a fact that it isn't done that way? Likewise hypnosis is demonstrated in a thrilling, creepy and mind-controlling way in movies and TV that anyone who knows hypnosis intimately is screaming about how Hollywood got it all wrong and they know for a fact it isn't done that way.

So, yes, we agree, hypnosis isn't at all like that what you thought it was and it is so much more powerful when used in the right context.

I enjoy telling stories of how I can just snap my fingers to execute a command and it's there and very real for that person. It isn't just about being a big head though because it's similar to when people ask you if you are really a hacker.. they want to know which banks you have hacked and if you have broken into NASA, people like to hear a story and you are doing them a disservice if you haven't got one or two to share.

Truth is anyone can do it, which is a good reason why we should all be capable of using these kinds of techniques and especially be aware of when it is happening to us - which it is, all day every day, everywhere we turn we are being re-programmed covertly. Sound like a conspiracy theory? Maybe.

It is in the best interest of our government to suppress us, to keep us safe as long as we follow their rules and give them our lives - we are born into slavery like the matrix but without the cool fighting scenes. Okay, that's touching on being a bit too far out there for me, I don't enjoy thinking this way but I hope it's clear that my intention is to remind you that everyone is trying to manipulate you and probably have had great success without you even knowing it -yet, you probably still don't even believe hypnosis is possible and I can respect that. I can also respect that you need to wake up and start taking notice of what is happening around you and not just inside your head.

Those of you that know about social engineering, the skill in which you can gain access to things that were supposed to be kept secret from you, will probably notice the similarity between the things I mention and how you have learned to get your own way. Likewise, you can protect yourself from similar fraudulent activity by paying attention to what is going on and not being ignorant to the possiblities. If you think you can't be manipulated then you are probably not even trying to protect yourself from it and thus are left wide open.