A book of experiments to astonish yourself

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/07/a-book-of-experiments-to-aston.html

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Ah, yes. Those blissful seconds before waking up fully; where you can successfully pretend that you are not you, but someone else, or maybe your cat.

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I do this on a daily basis without even trying.

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Yesterday I woke up in a motel room and I didn’t know where I was, who I was, how old I was, what kind of work I did, or where I lived.

@frauenfelder There’s something so delicate about such states of mind! Like a water-drop suspended from a spider’s web, there’s this exquisitely ephemeral moment that can be banished with less than the force of an eye-blink. So worth noticing and enjoying!

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  1. Watch a woman at her window

don’t know, think that could get one in trouble

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I have “a bad time” with needles. On those rare occasions where it will be necessary to stick me with one, I do try to warn everyone beforehand. I once had the head phlebotomist at a local hospital tell me “You do the best vasovagal I’ve ever seen!” I’ve also had a doctor tell me that my blood pressure was “78 over why bother”. Anyway, the reason I’m telling you this is because, when recovering from one of these “events”, I tend to have extended experiences of “who am I?”, etc It’s interesting to me that the “memory recording” section of my brain comes back on-line before the “memory access”. Also, vision and hearing come back on-line before the ability to interpret them. I end up with some incredible synesthesia in my memory.

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I’m doing this right now.

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But are you astonished?

I’ve added this to my list of “books to get at some point in the eventual future before I die if at all possible.”

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So would this be a comfort to you, or like the worst thing ever?

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Yes! I think to myself how could have I misplaced something and I don’t even know what the something is?

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Does the book only have these gnomic suggestions, or any actual experiments?

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I looked at the Amazon link, and you can look inside the book. I skimmed it to make sure there was more substance than just the things listed, and there are. Then read some reviews. It seems interesting.

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