Hacker News Reader

Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

If you guys want to go down an unusually interesting rabbit hole, the book Open-Focus Brain by Les Fehmi and (especially) the associated audio exercises, are all about this.

The exercises are something like guided meditations, but unique in my experience, and I never do exercises like that. It's a pity that his work isn't better known*. He died a couple years ago.

* Edit: although HN does not disappoint!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12712532 (Oct 2016)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8721704 (Dec 2014)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8718142 (Dec 2014)

View on HN

Interesting: it sounds like we do something similar with animals (training them not to close down their focus and fixate on things that might well, in a state of nature, be alarming, but don't really matter when living with people in a 21st century environment) but it's kind of hard to say while the Fehmi exercises are still in copyright...

EDIT: the pain relief part seems completely orthogonal to what I was talking about above, but the perception of attention and especially gaps in attention is something that one finds in japanese martial zen...

(for instance, the "3 pwns": the lowest level is to "pwn the sword", where you physically react quickly enough to counter an opponent's action; the intermediate level is to "pwn the technique", where by recognising the start of a technique one can predict where it will end, thus gaining time to counter; the advanced level is to "pwn the spirit", where by recognising where an opponent's attention lies one can predict what techniques they will attempt, thus gaining even more time...)

Belated reply here - I don't fully understand what you're saying but I did hear that Les Fehmi was an accomplished Zen practitioner and used to hang out with Leonard Cohen at Mount Baldy.

Are you still practicing them?

Yes—they're quite remarkable and I've never encountered anything like them. But I wouldn't use the word "practice"—I'm more of a dilettante.

I listen to them whenever I have trouble sleeping. Inevitably one of two things happens: either I fall asleep, or I end up in an expanded state—and either option is fine with me.

I have the impression that Fehmi was disappointed that he didn't win more people over to becoming serious practitioners. People would resort to his stuff when they were stressed or in pain, but wouldn't necessarily practice it every day.

> ...listen to one of them (the 'head and hands' one) whenever I have trouble sleeping

My father taught me an "instasleep" system that may(?) be related: basically you start distally and work proximally, becoming aware of any tension in body parts and allowing them to relax. When I do it I feel "myself" kind of "diffusing" to meet my environment, like fresh and salt water meeting to form a brackish zone, sometimes with a rocking sensation, and I usually fall asleep well before getting to core muscles. (when I was younger, people used to ask "how can you fall asleep on rocks?" to which I replied "you have to choose the comfortable ones", but it was likely more this technique)

The oddest thing about this technique is the source: although it sounds very Baba Cool, he'd been taught it in Uncle Sam's service.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com