During the past couple of weeks, I've systematically experimented with something I've found out a few years ago by accident. Back then, I was listening to a very calm trance track on my bed. I set the cd-player to repeat that single song endlessly. Then I fell asleep, and about 10 hours later (the track was played all the time), I felt incredibly calm like never before in my life. And I stayed that way throughout the entire day! So, during the past weeks, I've had quite a lot of work to do, and since the days became more hectic, I remembered above described effect. So, I decided to experiment with different music. I've specifically used some Indian classical music and very calm ambient sounds (sounds of nature). The results were amazing: after a whole night with rather fast Indian sounds, I felt quite confused on a subconscious level for the entire day. But after I experimented with ambient music, the next day I felt like many noisy voices from my subcionscious mind totally disappeared. Llike an incredibly calm and rational machine! It's very hard to describe the effect - I've smoked pot regularly a few years ago, and although the effect is totally contrary, I can state that the extent of the change upon the conscious mind is similarly strong. I basically feel like a calm magnifying glass for an entire day after a night with ambient. I've never read about this anywhere else, so I decided to post it here. Cheers! Edit: The ambient tracks I'm referring to are from David Miles Huber, from his series "relaxation & meditation with music & nature"
IMO, you have discovered a corollary to meditation. I am not sure of the relation of sleep to meditation, and whether in fact you can also meditate in your sleep! I do know that "quieting" that voice that constantly seems to be running in our head judging everything etc, is a very powerful technique that leads to undiscovered feelings of exaltation and seems to connect us to everything. This may be what you experienced. The subconcious and all of the workings of the mind in general are the last great frontier in science imo. nitro
Sleep has a well defined and broad purpose. Harmonizing with that is a very good idea; twarting the purposes gets you in trouble as you are reporting to us. If you are a trader it is best to be at your peak intsead of on either side of the peak as you report you are finding your self.
ive posted threads on psychology that were loosely related to trading but they were moved to chitchat. the moderators worship backtesting. too bad the market begins to behave differently as soon as the arb is discovered. consider schrodinger's cat in the box.
I've always been curious about the following: If enough people find out the fact that psychology (mastering the internal demons) really is the holy grail then would we then have the efficient market academics believe in? Akin to an arb strategy that if enough people use will soon disappear - will enough people soon master their own psychology such that markets no longer provide the opportunities we have today?
Ambient-schmambient. Try getting really well laid before you go to sleep. It's what comes out of your head that counts, not what goes into it.
I dont think so, most people dont have the willpower or determination to make these life altering changes to their own thinking. The few that do, I am sure will benefit enormously in trading as well as life. Plus, I think the majority of people are under the illusion that learning more about the markets and different strategies and technical indicators is the way to "conquer" the markets. Usually traders blow out before they learn that its themselves that need to be altered.
I've read about 5 top ten lists for calming new age music. From there I've bought about 50 cd's. Let me distill it down for you, two names: 1)Novus Magnificat by Constance Demby. 2)Structures from Silence (I don't remember the musician - and I'm standing in an Apple store). Second one is hard to find but well worth it. Very calming. First one is calming and slightly energizing.
mike, the information we perceive is of a lower grade than it's true form. this is because we would need infinite senses for an infinite data set. for example the light that reflects off an object, we see as colors. there are many colors we cannot interpret because we cannot sense all the frequencies of lightwaves with our eyes. even if we used computers to detect Xrays we only interpret that data through the computer itself. this information is a reinterpretation of an interpretation. isnt this information further from its true form? (or is it?). think of the color purple . to some people it looks like dark blue. when information is discrete it can be clear, but when it is continuous like a blend of blue and purple it can be murky. to get even more technical, energy is lost in the transmission process. when light reflects off the object and into your eyes, energy is lost. would the color change if we saw 100% of the energy? if so by how much? now can we really fully master the concept of "colors" when we cannot sense them all? it is like how the fraction 1/3 = 0.333333~~~ can you -really- divide something into precisely 1/3 in real life? not really. because the decimal repeats forever. therefore 1/3 only happens in the abstract "construct" of the mind. this is perhaps why people meditate. to experience the TRUE precise fraction of 1/3 it can only happen inside the mind.