QUESTIONS & ANSWERS Q: How long did it take to write Emotional Mind Modeling? A: It took 18 years to develop the experimental thinking and two and a half years to write. Q: With a background in physics and engineering, you have written a book on the mind? A: Since childhood, I have had an interest in the mind. An uncle, Dr. O. Hugh Fulcher, was a neurosurgeon and told stories of his operations and their effects on patients’ minds. Q: Why did you write a book on the mind? A: I had my only depression in 1977 and knew then I would write a book on the mind. I felt compelled to understand and describe the changes during depression and mania. Q: Where did your uncle practice medicine? A: He was head of Georgetown University Neurosurgery and Fellow at the Mayo Clinic.

Q: Was your uncle important to your writing?

A: He gave me confidence that I could reason about the brain and mind.

Q: What is your book about?

A: It is about one man’s search to understand the brain and mind and to find a cure for manic depression. It expanded into a metaphysical study of science and Christianity.

Q: When did you start to write this book?

A: I took notes during manic times starting in 1977 and wrote from 1990 through 1995.

Q: Tell us about your depression.

A: In depression, the mind continually circles through abuses and failures and eventually degrades. At the depths of depression, I could not remember names of close friends.

Q: Did you consider suicide?

A: Only briefly. Prescribed anti-depressants worked well for me. I was on anti-depressants for only a month or so. After depression, I had several manic episodes. Dream qualities became mixed with waking activities. Insanity is often described as dreaming while awake. On several occasions I was hospitalized.

Q: Was Hospitalization beneficial?

A: Yes, I think so. It removed me from a stressful and unhealthy environment. Medications reduced "fast thinking" with its tendencies to extend into mania.

Q: Was it difficult to cope with manic depression afterwards?

A: Often, there were uncertain feelings of developing manic qualities. These feelings gradually dissipated after years of practicing my healing processes. This is a huge step.

Q: Tell us about Emotional Mind Modeling.

A: Emotional Mind Modeling studies, and experiments with, the stressed mind to stimulate it past old limits. The book includes metaphysics on existence and God.

Q: What kinds of psychiatric changes does the book address?

A: Psychiatric changes are fundamental, structural changes in the brain that produce new awareness. I explain unusual and abnormal sensations stimulated through experiments. Before understanding psychiatric changes, we must discuss being normal first.

Q: Why study about being normal?

A: Unless we have an understanding of what is normal, it is difficult to define psychiatric changes. Our basic mental structure is developed by the age of seven. Normal could be defined as the way things were when we were young or as feeling good with who we are and wanting to help others feel good about who they are. Normal is fitting in.

Q: Who is normal?

A: Anyone accepted by peers or a local society. For anyone to change psychiatrically from his normal patterns of thinking he must experience a significant emotional event.

Q: What is a significant emotional event?

A: It could be a depression or a manic episode. It could be trauma, prolonged emotion, or a loss that shocks the brain into changing neural processing patterns. One example is that I had a flash of my life during what seemed a certain death car accident.

Q: What did you learn from the flash?

A: I learned how incredibly fast the mind is capable of processing. After continued work, I concluded that the flash occurred at the speed of dreams.

Q: Does Emotional Mind Modeling cover dreams?

A: Yes. I analyze dreams and do exercises that enhance hanging between dreaming and waking. This technique is used to analyze the brain. I include Freud’s dream analyses.

Q: What did you learn from Freud?

A: I studied Freud to gain confidence in thinking about the mind. As I understood Freud, I felt free to describe the mind in a simpler fashion.

Q: What is Dianetics?

A: Dianetics is a simple way of studying the mind. Dianetics can be useful to initiate psychiatric changes, but I would not call it a science. Only licensed physicians, psychologists, and ministers should be allowed to charge for direct psychiatric care.

Q: You talk about physics of the brain?

A: I discuss physics of the brain more than chemistry of the brain – especially the shape and form of the brain and its electricity generation. I include neurophysiology, the study of how brain cells work together and how they generate their own electricity.

Q: Why do you include cognitive science?

A: Cognitive science includes the development and understanding of our knowledge. Designing robots to perform various human-like functions helps us understand the large amounts of functions that our subconscious minds perform for us.

Q: What does having a heuristic approach mean?

A: It means learning through trial and error and through exploratory problem solving.

Q: Can you give an example of heuristic learning?

A: We have seen the sun rise each day of our lives. We believe the sun will rise tomorrow even though we might not know the physical laws that describe the earth’s rotation about the sun and its rotation about its own axis.

Q: How can we learn about our own minds?

A: I have included many techniques that assist in exploring the mind. The mind can not psychiatrically improve unless stimulated beyond normal thinking patterns. A significant emotional event can initiate psychiatric changes. I have developed techniques to create simulated significant emotional events that produce daily psychiatric changes.

Q: How do you do that?

A: I practice mental processes that stress my mind to emotional limits and then I calm the mind with meditation and relaxation techniques. I also can hang between waking and dreaming. You have to disrupt normal mental processes.

Q: How do you do that?

A: There are many ways. One method is through conflicting neck and facial exercises. Neck and throat muscles are tensed to limits during trauma. I use this fact to affect nerve cells in the brain by tensing and relaxing traumatized muscles. These traumatized muscles are connected to, and stimulate, traumatized neural networks in the brain. I also use mind models to increase feelings of understanding, and being in control of, mental healing.

Q: Could we have an example of a simple mind model?

A: One is the Tip of the Iceberg. The tip is the conscious mind and the rest of the world is the subconscious mind. This model makes us aware of how large our subconscious minds are. The bottom of the iceberg is that part of the subconscious mind that develops, and communicates to, the conscious mind and keeps it afloat. Other models have more scientific bases, but the feeling produced is very important.

Q: You say that the mind is an intrinsically unstable system?

A: Yes, if the brain were a stable system it would sit there and do nothing. The mind responds to stimuli from environments and attempts to understand those environments.

Q: What are mental constraints?

A: Our minds can only experience and think thoughts that brain cell connections allow us to do. Much of our brain cell connections were formed genetically before we were born. Much of our subconscious minds were formed prenatally.

Q: The subconscious mind was formed prenatally?

A: My model is that the embryo and young baby are aware of their own growing processes. As they grow, they lose awareness of growth processes and become aware of a sensed external environment. Internal growth processes become part of our subconscious minds. My work is directed toward becoming aware of these processes.

Q: If we regain control of our subconscious processes, what benefits might we gain?

A: We gain more control of physical health, mental abilities, and, possibly, aging.

Q: You have modeled awareness in Emotional Mind Modeling?

A: I include physics in many of my mind models. I model conscious and subconscious awareness as resonating electromagnetic patterns within and on the surface of the brain. If a pattern is developed in the brain for only a short period, the process is a subconscious process. If a pattern lasts for a certain time threshold, it becomes a conscious process.

Q: How has your work helped you?

A: My models have helped me explain many of my strange manic-depressive ideas and sensations. Some sensations have been scary, but most have been pleasant. Most importantly my work has given me more control of my mind at its emotional limits.

Q: Do you have plans for additional mind models?

A: I plan to write another book on a mind that is totally cleared of adverse trauma effects.

Q: What are sensations of mental change like?

A: The most persistent sensation is the release of small amounts of energy from the neck, throat, brainstem, and brain. Sensations are like the pops and cracks that occur when you exercise the neck. I model these sensations as localized trauma memories are being converted to more normal, distributed memories. Changing sensations support this model.

Q: What causes these sensations?

A: The sensation is of a highly sprung localized neural network releasing trauma energy.

Q: Can we rid the mind of trauma scars?

A: Yes, we can through psychotherapy and psychophysiotherapy.

Q: What causes a trauma scar?

A: Anything that causes the brain to process beyond some emotional threshold. Telling an excited two-year old child that it is time to go home might cause a trauma scar.

Q: Does the brain handle traumas differently than normal memories?

A: Normal memories are compared to all similar historical memories and distributed throughout the brain. Traumas and high emotions happen so forcefully that a localized neural network is over stressed or "burned" without comparison to similar memories.

Q: How do we rid our brains of this isolated, excess emotional energy?

A: We can do this with psychotherapy and my method using controlled conflict.

Q: What is controlled conflict?

A: Developing temporary uncertainties at emotional limits. The exercise of forcing the chin down with neck muscles while pushing the chin up with a hand is an example of creating controlled conflict to dissipate trauma scars and initiate psychiatric changes.

Q: How are trauma scars removed?

A: Trauma scars are not part of our symphony of normal neuron processes. The subconscious mind can reduce energy of trauma scars that are stimulated to emotional limits. At activation, excess energy of these trauma scars can be dissipated throughout the rest of the brain to create a more normal memory. This process occurs in psychotherapy

Q: What is the benefit of performing these mental exercises?

A: More neural networks will work in symphony to create a more solid mind. There is more confidence and more of a sense of stability and serenity. Feelings of youth pervade the body and mind. Thinking flows easier. Memory is better. There is more self-identity.

Q: What would you like to see happen with the processes you have developed?

A: I have sent my work to several institutions. I hope these institutions and others will continue my methods. Techniques can be useful to manic-depressives and those with stress related disorders.

Q: What are the risks involved with your processes?

A: For example, if a manic-depressive makes changes too fast, he may go too far into the manic state and lose control of rational thinking and behavior. My processes are like a vaccination. Small doses of stress systematically dissipate trauma scar energy from the brain and mind. This reduces out of control stress and mania.

Q: What will be the long-term effects of your work?

A: I hope my work also will be continued and refined by others so that children and adults will purge their minds of trauma scars. Without the limiting trauma scars, our brains will be able to process to genetic limits. Future generations will be more rational and happier.

Q: You sometimes refer to the mind as a machine?

A: The brain is a machine - a thinking machine. All machines have design limits. If they are stressed beyond limits, they self-destruct and may hurt anyone close by. If the manic-depressive brain loses its design limits by being overstressed, it may self-destruct. To be healed a manic-depressive must develop new emotional design limits. With patience, a manic-depressive may widen emotional design limits to genetic limits. Abilities soar.

Q: How does psychophysiotherapy work?

A: Muscles are connected to nerves and nerves are connected to neural networks. During trauma and stressful emotion, neck muscles are tensed. Traumatized networks not only contain trauma memories but also contain memories of neck muscle tensions. By exercising the neck with conflicting tension, we can stimulate and activate trauma scars so the normal part of the brain can become aware of and dissipate the excess repressed trauma scar energy. An example of conflicting tension is to exercise the chin down while pushing the chin up with a thumb. This conflict stimulates and dissipates trauma scars.

Q: Do the energy release sensations change with time?

A: Changes are extensive. Trauma scar energy release sensations have lower energy with time and release times become slower. Release sensations migrate to various locations throughout the brain and throat with time. Most sensations occur within the brainstem and throat. Much of our mental processing is in the throat.

Q: What are you theories of thinking?

A: Emotional or high-energy thinking is low-level thinking. When we are emotional we can only think of a few defensive thoughts and actions. When we meditate, the energy of the brain becomes lowered and we can think of many creative options. Low-energy thinking is high-level thinking. The brain and computers are much alike. The lower the energy for each operation the faster and better they can process.

Q: Why does dreaming occur much faster than waking awareness?

A: When awake, minds must control slow moving arms, legs, and bodies. The amnergic cluster produces a slow resonance for our minds to control the body and to process external sensations to navigate environments. The dreaming brain does not worry about controlling arms and legs to confront the environment and processes like lightning.

Q: Much of Emotional Mind Modeling is devoted to manic dreams?

A: Yes, I dream of an existence before God created the universe and make models of God. I also describe manic and insane times. I attempt to give the sensation of a reader being inside a manic and insane mind.