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First about the survey, I may not have explained myself well. I did only post a link to an IMAGE of what my survey looked like, because the actual website I made it on would only allow ME to see the results instead of the whole community. So I thought I would just put a pic of it as a reference for us to maybe tweak a bit first.
Back to the whole nervous system debacle. The two points I was really trying to make were:
1. There is a distinction to make between the idea of being able to activate the entire sympathetic nervous system versus activating the neural pathway that solely stimulates the adrenal gland. (Whether introduction of adrenaline into the body THEN stimulates the sympathetic system on its own accord is another topic all together.)
2. Let us say that it IS possible to train oneself to have a so called adrenaline attack through some sort of conditioning, using a tangible or even mental trigger (I would say that PTSD, for example, hints at the possibility). Even if this were so and you learned to mimic the ability that we all have, it is another important distinction to make, because I believe what we do is DIRECT, mindful access of... presumably... the adrenal gland. I would compare it to the difference between hitting the sweet spot on your knee to trigger the kick reaction (teaching yourself to surge) versus simply flexing or kicking your leg out because by stimulating the correct muscles (innate surging.)
There's my two cents.View Thread

Here is what I came up with: http://i.imgur.com/TYajX.jpgView Thread

I think you are making a pretty big assumption that it is possible for anyone to just learn how to directly control their entire ANS. We do not, at this point, know for sure whether this surging ability is a complete sympathetic response or if it isolated to mostly an adrenal response. Even if it is the entire sympathetic nervous system we are willing to kick in there is no basis to believe that we all learned to do this. I know personally, that I do not put myself into any sort of state of mind or image a scenario or meditate to achieve my surging. I simply will it to happen like I am flexing some sort of internal muscle, there is no trick involved. Indirectly fooling your body into having a response does not necessarily mean that you are in control either. I can shine a light in my eyes to make my pupils constrict that doesn't mean I learned how to control anything. I can also breathe slowly and think nice calm thoughts to encourage my parasympathetic system to kick in, but that has nothing to do with direct control at all. If it was direct control I would just make it happen without having to breathe slowly, the same way I just make my eyelids blink. As far as we know, this surging ability is a physiological anomaly. It could be genetic, it could be a mutation, it could be a side effect from some sort of condition in which case it is not something that can be taught or learned, it is just something you can do or you cannot do. You could argue that eliciting "voluntary" responses through the use of biofeedback is sort of like learning to control your body in the way that you mentioned, but that is still a sort of indirect trick and not what I would consider true willful control of a system. If we really want to get to the bottom of this, it would behoove us all to stay away from pseudoscience and any talk about chi, auras, or energy manipulation.View Thread

I like the terms "pulser" and "pulsing" that you use to describe our condition.

You mentioned the dilating of pupils. My eyes used to dilate a lot when I pulsed but now they don't do it as much or sometimes not at all. It may just be that your pupils are more sensitive to any light in your environment than they are to the adrenaline rush and so they just don't really dilate, but I don't think it means that you're doing it wrong or differently than everyone else.
I think only a couple people have claimed being able to do the reverse and causing their heart rate to go slower, etc. I've never been able to do that other than just doing slow deep breaths and trying to calm myself down, which isn't exactly the opposite of our 'pulsing.' I don't know if it's something you can learn, just as it's a mystery as to whether others could actually learn to do our adrenaline rush or if it's actually some genetic anomaly that can't be taught.
I would like to also comment on your attempt to describe to others how to do our pulsing. When I do it, it actually feels as if I'm internally accessing the area around my adrenal glands/kidneys (and also maybe a little pressure around my abdomen in the front). It's almost as if I'm sucking up through a straw within my torso as strange as that sounds. I can then feel the rush go to my heart, my shoulders, and then lastly out to my limbs. But honestly, I don't know if there's a good way to describe it to someone who isn't able to do it; it would be like us trying to figure out how to wag a tail that we don't have - a dog would say, you just wag it!View Thread

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