"The Power of Suggestion"

[Fazor]

I didn't know what else to call this thread, but I experienced a funny phenomenon last night. Let's see if I can piece this together in a way that makes sense.

The set-up: On the first and third Wednesday of the month, I have a local business referral group meeting I go to. The meeting is only an hour, and is about halfway between my home and my office (all three are within a mile or two of each other, so close proximity.) These meetings are only an hour long, but this time of year I have to consider what it is I'm bringing for lunch, and how it will hold up in the 90+ degree heat.

If it won't survive the heat, I have to wait until after the meeting then swing home and pick it up before heading in to the office. This isn't a big deal, but between the traffic and letting my dogs out, it means I get into the office about 20 minutes later than if I just head straight there.


The set-up, Part Deux: Last night, I was reading more of The Terror. It's a book about an arctic expedition that goes wrong, and at the point I'm currently at, the two ships have been trapped in the ice for over two years. As I was reading the book, I was sitting in the "draft stream" from our window AC's fans, so I was getting a rather cold stream of air.


The point: As I relaxed and read the book last night, I kept thinking about the meeting this morning and what my schedule would be like. And I kept thinking, "At least I can take my food with me and avoid stopping back home. The cold weather will keep it better refrigerated than if it were at home, in the fridge!"

... It's still summer here, with temps in the high 70's to mid 80's ...

But between reading hundreds of pages about men fighting the elements, and the draft from the AC, my brain kept flipping to that "It's really cold outside" mode, even after I realized I was doing it. Every time the thought of the meeting and the food came back to me, my first instinct was, "It will be kept very cold."

[Swift]

Can't say I recall a similar experience.

[R.A.F.]

An insulated bag would keep your lunch at "arctic" temperature levels.

...but that's not the topic of this thread, is it.

[Solfe]

In real life, I have a collection of winter scarves. Most are wool, a couple are a fleece like material and one or two knitted scarves. My children buy me scarves and gloves/mittens for Christmas instead of ties. I didn't intend to have a collection, it just sort of happened.

I carried this collection habit over in to an RPG. Being a fantasy game, my character owns a massive collection of scarves. Silly, I know.

One day, I was getting ready for work and couldn't find the silk scarf I wanted. There is a reason for that, my game character has silk scarves but in real life, I find them impractical so I don't own any. That didn't stop me from looking for it everyday for a week.

[Gillianren]

I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch at summer camp once. (Yes, there are reasons.) This being August in Southern California, it was almost certainly at least in the 80s and probably the 90s. However, I was sitting around shivering. When asked why, I explained, "It's forty below zero in Siberia!" It seems I am very suggestible when it comes to literature.

[Fazor]

An insulated bag would keep your lunch at "arctic" temperature levels.

...but that's not the topic of this thread, is it.

Yep, and we have one. But Tara doesn't have a refrigerator at work, while I do. So I let her use that. And I'm not going to buy one (even though they're pretty cheap,) just so I can use it every other Wednesday. Most of the time, the food is fine sitting in the car anyway. Not *too* much will spoil in an hour's time, even with higher temperatures. But anything with soft dairy makes the extra 20 minutes seem worthwhile.

I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch at summer camp once. (Yes, there are reasons.) This being August in Southern California, it was almost certainly at least in the 80s and probably the 90s. However, I was sitting around shivering. When asked why, I explained, "It's forty below zero in Siberia!" It seems I am very suggestible when it comes to literature.

That's the funniest part - the book is depicting temperatures oft between 40-below to 100-below (Fahrenheit, obviously), so I kept thinking, "It's not *that* cold here." ... No, Steve, it's not that cold here. :-P

[KaiYeves]

A friend of my mother's once described being amused to be visiting a town somewhere in the Southwestern states (I don't remember where exactly) during a spell of unbearable (to a New Yorker) heat and discovering, once she got settled in a place with a TV, that Shackleton was on.

[Noclevername]

I've had nightmares about black holes, to the point where I could feel them pulling on me. I've only read a couple of stories in which people were endangered by them, but they must have made a powerful impression.

[primummobile]

Almost anytime I read a book or watch a movie about a near-future dystopia I'm always mildly surprised when I look outside and see the world not in ruin.

[Swift]

Almost anytime I read a book or watch a movie about a near-future dystopia I'm always mildly surprised when I look outside and see the world not in ruin.

I won't go that far. But I do know reading a sad or scary book at bedtime is not a very good idea for me, if I wish to sleep, even for a very fictional story.

Somewhat on the flip side, I have had numerous times when the emotions from a strong dream will carry into wakefulness, so that a scary dream will leave me feeling anxious for a while after I wake up, even though I know it was just a dream.

[closetgeek]

I've gotten that, too. I read Deception Point, during a power outage, in September, in Florida, which means it's still close to 100 degrees outside. It was like a psychosomatic air conditioner.

[primummobile]

I won't go that far. But I do know reading a sad or scary book at bedtime is not a very good idea for me, if I wish to sleep, even for a very fictional story.

Somewhat on the flip side, I have had numerous times when the emotions from a strong dream will carry into wakefulness, so that a scary dream will leave me feeling anxious for a while after I wake up, even though I know it was just a dream.

Sometimes I awaken furious with my wife over something that happened in a dream. For whatever reason, that anger lingers for a whilr even though I am fully aware it was only a dream.

[Gillianren]

The other day, I had to let my roommate come and be reassured that I was not dying of cancer (or something; I didn't get much in the way of particulars out of her) because of a dream she'd had.

[R.A.F.]

Sometimes I awaken furious with my wife over something that happened in a dream.

I've had that happen, except in reverse.

Not good times trying to explain something I didn't do...

[Solfe]

I had a sick gentleman sit next to me on a flight as I tried to read "The Hot Zone". He was in rough shape and I had to stop reading partly out of alarm and partly because he needed help cleaning himself up. At various points we took turns saying "This isn't happening... this isn't happening..."

[geonuc]

Fazor, having read that book, I'm not too surprised. It's quite compelling in the way it draws you into the harsh arctic.

On the other hand, we all know you're nuts, so this is just another data point.

[LookingSkyward]

... we all know you're nuts, so this is just another data point.

Bwahaha!

Yep, well know to me. I can't read artic exploration stories without a blanket :>

[primummobile]

I've had that happen, except in reverse.

Not good times trying to explain something I didn't do...

Just tell your wife that it couldn't have been you. You were sleeping.

[Fazor]

On the other hand, we all know you're nuts, so this is just another data point.

Yes, quite! Fortunately that's something I take great pride in.

Coincidentally, the point I'm at now, the ever-present cold has at least become reasonable as the summer approaches, but due to the events going on, extreme physical exertion, illness, and lack of sleep have become the main antagonist. So I wake up this morning feeling dead tired, almost gravely hungover even though I didn't drink last night. I think I'm becoming hyper-suggestible. Or, from what I can tell about Dan Simmon's interest in the occult, he's a witch/druid and his book is casting a spell.

[HenrikOlsen]

Books not so much, but games can often put me in hyperalert mode, with conscience of every shadow from which ambush might spring.

[KaiYeves]

I won't go that far. But I do know reading a sad or scary book at bedtime is not a very good idea for me, if I wish to sleep, even for a very fictional story.

Somewhat on the flip side, I have had numerous times when the emotions from a strong dream will carry into wakefulness, so that a scary dream will leave me feeling anxious for a while after I wake up, even though I know it was just a dream.

Same, on both points. Last spring, I had a horrible, horrible dream that an astronaut I had been reading about that day had been attacked by a maniac and had needed to have his arms amputated. Typing that right there, it sounds rather silly and unlikely, but when I woke up in the middle of the night from the dream, I wasn't sure if it had been real or not, and had trouble falling back asleep.

[starcanuck64]

In my early teens I read a book about nuclear war, Alas, Babylon I think it was called. It was summertime and I slept with the window open and there were often thunderstorms, there was also a Canadian Forces base about 50 miles south. I was really into the book and one night while deep in sleep a thunder storm moved in and there was a nearby lightning strike followed by a very loud thunder clap, being woken up by the bright light and then hearing the very loud "explosion" I was convinced the Soviets had just nuked the airbase. It took me a few minutes to put together that there was following lighting flashes and thunder booms and that the airbase was to the south and my window faced north.

[profloater]

I have seen a hypnotised person act completely drunk drinking water with the suggestion it was whisky. That would save a lot of cash. Your feeling cold just by reading should also save loads of air conditioning energy. In fact this suggestion idea could save the planet! A friend at university taught me to relax shoulders in really cold weather and tell yourself it is warm and pleasant. It does kind of work for me. However I am also a nut who believes in the power of self suggestion for all sorts of purposes.

[Chuck]

Sometimes after reading a few chapters of a novel in one sitting, for a few seconds I'll linger in the plot or setting after putting it down. While reading Stephen King's 11/22/63 just after Jake Epping had been beaten up by his bookie's thugs and was having difficulty moving, I put the book down and started getting up and found that I was a little stiff from lying in the same position for awhile. This caused me to stay in the novel for a few seconds longer than usual. It's just weird being a character in a novel. It seems like something's not quite right but I can't immediately figure out what.

[Noclevername]

I had a weird dream last night influenced by a conglomeration of several books, TV shows and previous dreams. But my meds were messed up, so I tend to have weird dreams then anyway. One earlier dream involved thinking that several large planets were spiralling in around Earth, and in the dream I ducked, then crawled, to try to get away from them-- not useful actions were it in real life.