#sammiesays

[sammsays]

wagever = wag(ging for)ever

[bostonsphoenix-blog]

I forgot about tumblr again. Damn it. I'm back

[ssshhitsok]

If a man sees a baby comin' out of your whoohaa where he normally puts his dang-dang, he's not gonna wanna go back down there again.

Helpful tips from my roommate

[sammsays]

How is this the most impressive singing from a youtuber that I've ever seen . .

[sammsays]

eating a fukging. burger i guess

[sammsays]

how to avoid becoming amalgamation of headmates

tips to avoid the watercolor souls within me from bleeding into my own

tutorial purging viscosity of ideas too dangerous to not consume me

what to do when planet unseen has gravity greater than world i know

ferrofluid pouring through my chakra gates symptoms

[sammsays]

YAY! Got this commission done for my master @coffeeblend108! It's in the style of fabulous beasts, a super underrated Chinese animated show!

Everyone should work with eliot if you want some art, he's really skilled and dynamic ^w^

I hope you like the art!

Just finished this for @sammsays

commissions open, my discord is eliot_sunz

[sammsays]

if your towel was sentient, would you prefer it hate its job or love it a bit too much

[sammsays]

a critical inner voice is the cause of perfectionism, and a very frequent reason that those with ADHD and/or gifted kid syndrome (not a literal medical diagnosis) struggle very hard to form and maintain new habits.

when you consistently face the struggle of being unable to do things in the same way as your peers, you develop a means of self-perception that is polarizing, in a literal sense.

everything is black and white, so you not only need to do things perfectly, but the tasks you need to do become "perfect" in a structural sense.

if you try to do the dishes consistently, you must either do all of the dishes or it is a failure.

even further, you subconsciously remove things that would make tasks easier, because you separate a task mentally from others.

shaving is not within the umbrella of a "wake up routine" or "bathroom tasks", each individual task, including shaving, is treated as conceptually different and whole, which makes each of them more daunting and less approachable.

the means of doing said tasks also must be held up to what is perceived as the ideal societal standard.

it's never thought "maybe I can shave a different way?" because the way that shaving is always shown in media and television, where people almost exclusively see it, is with shaving cream, a hand razor and in front of the bathroom mirror.

i've been able to brush my teeth and shave my face consistently ever since I've started to do it in the shower. i bought a little suction cup mirror and have done it there.

both tasks being contained within the larger task of "shower" in a tangible way makes it much simpler.

if you were to talk to neurotypical people, they have an incredible amount of imperfections in their routines. my mother stops exercising entirely during the winter, my brother uses an electric razor with a specific head and shaves it "well enough" to not be spotted by most people, my sister does the dishes until she feels like stopping.

the difference is that they automatically asssume that the way they do these things is not just okay, but normal and expected.

half-assing is in human nature and it gets pounded out by trauma. we are expected to and often should do things in awkward, tailored ways imperfectly and half-heartedly, for the sake of our basic mental health.

don't let perfectionism make it so you never achieve "good".

"good" is all it takes to have a healthy routine.

[sammsays]

Hello!

This is the dog formerly known as @nocturnowlette!

I made this blog before I knew a lot more about myself, and it has felt for a long time like the owl isn't the right fit for me. I'm a golden retriever named Sam who has a big interest in hypnosis, but also writing, video games, media analysis, youtube, psychology, behavior, and more!

I love love love questions and love answering them even more! Ask anything that comes to mind and there's a good chance I'll give you an answer.

This blog will still have hypnosis content, but to be true to myself, I won't hold back when I wanna post about something else now. Think of this as a general blog with the occasional hypnosis post. If that's not to your liking, I understand if you wish to unfollow.

I'd love some thoughts on the new look and anything else on your mind!

And lastly, have a good day! <3

[sammsays]

i'm not like other conspiracy theorists. i think the earth is even ROUNDER than what we believe. dont trust science unless it agrees with yuo

[sammsays]

at a concert for dogs

"everyone, put your paws up in the air!"

sounds of a thousand bodies hitting the ground

[sammsays]

sighs. wagever

[sammsays]

i've liked one cute sonic x shadow comic and now tumblr has decided to try to algorithmically covert me into a diehard fan of the two. it's . kinda working

[sammsays]

the thing that sucks about metacognition is that you can recognize when you're buying into your own bullshit but still choose to do it because it feels narratively correct

[sammsays]

Which would you say hinders the establishment of operant conditioning more, presenting the stimulus without prompting the desired response or prompting the response and not presenting the stimulus? I’m struggling with getting it to work. For normal reasons.

I would say, "presenting the stimulus without prompting the desired response".

Lengthy explanation of Operant Conditioning and how to use it below!

A common mistake in hypnosis and conditioning would be to give the reward or stimulus in general too frequently. In operant conditioning, we have what are called "schedules of reinforcement", which speak to frequency and technique in the timing of providing stimuli.

Providing the reward every time would be called "Continuous Reinforcement". This is a fine method of conditioning, but it is far from the most effective.

Partial Reinforcement Schedules are any means of conditioning that don't provide the stimuli every single time.

Fixed Ratio & Fixed Interval

Charts used from helpfulprofessor.com.

Fixed schedules suffer from a relatively predictable problem.

Fixed Ratio schedules are when a stimulus is provided after a certain number of behaviors are completed.

Fixed Interval schedules are when a reinforcement stimuli is provided at regular intervals (say, every hour).

The issues with Fixed schedules comes in the fact that we are aware of things (sadly). If a pattern is predictable, then we are both able to anticipate when it's about to happen, lessening the impact of the reward, and we know that right after the stimuli is finished, we won't be getting another one for a predictable amount of time.

Not only are there often lulls immediately after the stimuli, but the conditioning holds far, far weaker than both continuous and the other type of partial schedule.

When the stumuli stops being provided at the regular time (that singular moment being the only time where it feels possible), then its far easier for that anticipation to be flipped on its head and have a very negative impact, very quickly undoing any progress.

As a solution, we have...

Variable Ratio & Variable Interval

Charts used from helpfulprofessor.com.

Variable schedules are deeply, deeply effective. This is how gambling becomes addictive to people, but also how many other things are conditioned into creatures.

The one you should choose depends on what it is that you want to do.

Variable Ratio

This is the schedule you should follow if you want to enforce a behavior that you want to happen often. An example in the hypnosis sphere (most especially my hypnosis sphere) would be getting someone to start barking as part of their regular means of talking and typing.

All that is necessary to do is encourage the behavior initially, start the engines with rewards (either hypnotic triggers or just praise), and to only do it sometimes and at random.

Variable Interval

This is the schedule you should follow if you want to enforce a more continuous behavior that you want to happen steadily. This would be something more like obedience, giving a reward for good behavior at random, but importantly within a reasonably similar range each time.

You can't do it one hour then 48 hours later then 12, you should have something like a range of variance and stick to that, so long as the exact timing is not anticipatable.

This can also be done for singular behaviors like barking, if you wish for the conditioning to be much slower, and also to simply not be related to an amount of times being done.

Both methods build conditioning that takes a very, very long time to undo or fall away. In the case of many behaviors, unlike what is shown in the charts, they can become a near-permanent part of someone's existence, never quite going away without active efforts to do so.

If you get someone to bark consistently, and they do not have a reason for it to stop, it will become a part of themselves in a way deeper than you may ever expect.

As a fair warning, these methods of conditioning, as stated prior, are essentially forming an addictive loop for someone. It is not nearly so strong as gambling in most cases, but with the wrong person, the wrong environment, and the wrong precautions, you can steer into very unhealthy territory very, very quickly.

...it can be quite fun to condition people, though.

So, to again answer the original question: not only is "prompting the response and not presenting the stimulus" perfectly okay to do, it's actually better than doing it every single time.

Follow me for more interesting posts, and do ask me more questions. I'm telling you to do it. Be good and come up with something, okay?

I'll see you later! ^w^