(06-25-2013 4:21 PM)nept Wrote: Wow.
I pulled up one of the silent Real Subliminals tracks in REAPER so I could run a spectrum analysis on it using ReaFIR plugin.
I am blown away by how little there is in it. It shows -82db peaks. Its not in a frequency that you can't hear, its at a volume that you can't hear. This can't be much different from the benefit you'd get playing the tracks with your speaker turned off. That's basically what it is.
Normalizing the track makes it audible along with a shit ton of noise(as expected when you apply massive amounts of amplification)- not dissimilar to the typical ocean sounds. You can hear a faint voice but not make it out.
To get this amount of volume increase in normal listening would require something like a high gain guitar amp or the amp from Back to the Future.
What a crushing disappointment. Snake Oil.
I'd buy that subliminals might work if they were audible. I'd buy that they might work if you could hear but not understand them. I'd even buy that they might work if they were at a frequency that you couldn't quite understand consciously but could at least be picked up by your ears. I can't buy that they can work when there is no digital information in the digital file.
First, let me say that I believe wholeheartedly in affirmations.
Every time I use them, I notice profound changes in me and my environment. I'm referring to conscious affirmations.
However, Nept is right. He has a very good point.
You would expect SOMETHING positive to be found
when you load the track in Audacity or Reaper.
Subliminal affirmations may very well work, but there are no such positive, intelligible messages in RealSubliminals stuff.
If Audacity or Reaper cannot translate these warped, misshapen murmurs into English, then your magic 'subconscious' mind won't have an easier time with it (despite what that Deepak Chopra told you).
The person narrating the affirmations sounds like he has Elmers glue in his mouth (RealSubliminals) and not only does he have Elmers glue in his mouth,
but he also has marshmallows and cotton balls stuffed in there, and duct tape over his lips as well.
Here is the audio from Deep Inner Game, for you to hear for yourself such affirmations as, 'I'm dying inside,' 'A penny turns around and a penny turns around,' 'I give women salt,' 'I eat people with salt,' 'Your eggs are done,' 'I see my hands before I go to sleep,' 'Let's crash and burn,' 'I am an ancient vegetarian from the void who can swim in the vacuum of space.'
You want those subliminal affirmations in your head? Not me.
<![CDATA[http://www.youtube.com/v/J0h8b0mLZc8&rel=0&fs=1]]>
I did this with a RealSubliminals track
a while ago using Audacity.
After amplifying it (a ton), you can make out some '
Wah wah sebum wah norwaj dip thong hajee bong, wah wah smegma mecca lecca high knee ho.'
Then I used Noise Removal, and cleaned up the audio so I could consciously perceive the messages conveyed.
I could make out a few of the affirmations. Most of them were horrible.
If anyone here choose to believe that our subconscious is so powerful that it can
1.) Perceive, discern, and understand messages at a decibel level
well-below human hearing;
2.) Remove the static to make the language intelligible.;
3.) Translate the now audible gibberish into English.
4.) Assimilate the 1, 2, and 3 above while you sleep.
Then you are free to believe that.
This is not supported by science, though you would expect some remarkable findings considering subliminal affirmations have been around for many decades. When I say it's not supported by science, I am NOT saying that science has nothing to say on the matter, or that subliminal messages or subliminal influence hasn't been studied. It
has been studied many times on hundreds of participants in placebo-controlled studies.
(06-25-2013 5:03 PM)MangoEruption Wrote: ..
Also keep in mind your Concious mind is not supposed to understand them since they are SUBliminals and not SUPRAliminals which is essentially Concious affirmations. Your subconcious can pick stuff out that you never thought your Concious mind could. If you could hear them, and understand them then they were poorly designed. There's only one way of concluding if they work, try em!
Regarding the 'only one way of concluding if they work, try them!'
That is an unreliable method of drawing conclusions.
You also stated that 'your subconscious can pick stuff out that you never thought your Conscious mind could.' Do you have any evidence for this? Sounds like something I've heard from dozens of people..none of them scientists, psychologists, neurologists, or brain surgeons. Every time I heard that statement, it was from one of the following:
1. A fortune teller
2. A stage performer/hypnotist (for entertainment..I doubt any hypnotist believes that your subconscious can learn Russian by playing Pimmsleur while you sleep..although he might say that during his show to make you more receptive ).
3. A pop psychology author, like Deepak Chopra
In fact, the only studies on this matter show that
CONSCIOUS AFFIRMATIONS work better than subconscious ones.
How do I know? I just did 60 seconds of research.
I googled 'subliminal messages,' and clicked the first link, which was a Wikipedia survey of 'Subliminal stimuli.' This isn't just one study. There have been multiple, placebo-controlled studies and every study concluded that it's equally effective as the placebo.
If you have social anxiety, or a specific phobia..we actually have scientifically supported therapy that works better than subliminals.
It's called Cognitive-Behavior-Therapy (formerly called Rational-Emotive Therapy). Also Systematic Desensitization Therapy works amazingly well for specific phobia (including approach anxiety).
There's even a study where they studied 141 students..gave one group RET, gave the 2nd group subliminals, gave the 3rd group a combo of both.
The RET worked, the 2nd group worked as well as a placebo (placebos are fantastic, btw, if they work for you), and the 3rd group worked as well as the 'only RET' group.
Look at advertising. They've spend tons of money on researching this--whether they can subconsciously, subliminally suggest to audiences to buy a product. Don't you think marketers would gain tremendously if they just made advertisements so that it was just a puppy playing with a kitten? No words..don't worry, your subconscious works all that out and remembers the name of the company!!! Wouldn't that be wonderful! Nope, sorry.
The studies show that overt, conscious marketing works far better than covert, subliminal advertising.
That's why ads say, 'Buy this now! Don't wait!!! ACT NOW!!!' in big, bold letters. No apology.
Add to that the extraordinary power of the Placebo Effect, which, when I was getting my masters, we were taught that The Placebo Effect accounts for up to 30% of reported cures (depends on the sickness). It's real.
In fact, a
red sugar pill :angry:will cure more sufferers than a
green sugar pill.
To me, this explains perfectly why
some of you are raving about subliminals,
some of you are more like, 'Been trying it for months now, I think it might be working..time will tell,'
some of you just got a headache after a week,
and most of the ones that found no effect don't bother writing anything.
In statistics, that's called the
Survivorship Bias. You mostly read about the successes, and you don't read about the failures because they're either fired or dead or moved onto something else or nobody's listening to them anymore because they're story is not as sensational.
Which story do you remember better?
STORY 1: I tried XYZ, and two 22 year cheerleaders stopped me and were touching me and all kinds of crazy kino!! This shit is awesome! Women are looking at me differently and the cashier at Qdoba didn't charge me for guacamole, and this girl that always passes by me without saying hi finally looked at me and smiled like she wanted to fuck me silly!
STORY 2: I tried the ASC and after 5 nights I just got a headache and it was interfering with my sleep. Maybe it's just me, or maybe I need to listen to it for a few more weeks.
If you're like me (human), you tend to subscribe to a thread that has a story like the first one, and you gloss over the sub-par stories like the second story.
So, on the one hand, we have tons and tons of scientific support for survivorship bias and the Placebo Effect..both of which explains why we have glowing testimonials. Just as there are glowing testimonials for tea-leaf reading, homeopathy, iridology, and scientology.
On the other hand, we have stage performers (fraudulent psychics) telling us that we only use 10% of our brains, that every snowflake is unique, and that our subconscious minds can understand English when Rocky Balboa speaks it backwards and in an ultrasonic, sub-human-hearing-level decibel level. (all of the above are myths)
In conclusion, I believe that if you simply rehearsed positive affirmations daily, consciously and with presence (not mindlessly), then that would be more effective than hearing a droning hum of faintly discernible affirmations while you sleep. I believe the former would achieve faster results.
Maybe there would be resistance, but I'm sure it would iron itself out sooner than listening to Shannon's stuff for 6 months (I honestly can't comprehend how Shannon claims to have achieved so many different things with subs when at the same time he advises that they take at least 90 days to start working..in some cases much longer).
P.S. I want to make it clear that I do believe in the 'subconscious mind,' though I'm sure we all disagree on what it is. For example, in psychology, they've studied Priming. You take group A, and group B. You tell them, 'I need you to try to memorize this list of 10 words.' So they believe the experiment is about memory.
Group A memorizes this list:
grey
cane
mud
heavy
molasses
wrinkles
brittle
feeble
etc. etc.
Group B memorizes a list of neutral words
(words that do not suggest SLOW, as the former list did)
Then the scientists/psychologists time the subjects as they exit the building. Group A subjects always take way longer to exit the building than Group B..because they were exposed to the words which had connotations of elderly/old/slow.
However, note that they CONSCIOUSLY perceived the words.
The words weren't translated into Vulcan, then played backwards at an inaudible pitch; nor were the words written backwards and vertically and diagonally on the paper in Font size 6, which would look like this:
grey
cane
mud
heavy
molasses
wrinkles
brittle
feeblewith black ink spilled on top of the words so that only their subconscious minds could work out what the words were under the pool of ink.
No. The words were clear and consciously available.
In fact, they were instructed to consciously memorize the words.
