It was the consensus of my sergeants that l should probably be discharged for unsuitability. Little did l know l was diverted into a “special program” being developed by the military, to see if visualization techniques could help enhance my abilities and turn what was otherwise a substandard recruit into an exceptional one. It was also designed to help retain those recruits who might otherwise “wash out” out of training and save the Army money it woulenlistment cotherwise train someone else. Here I am pictured here in basic training at Ft. Benning, GA 1984.
In the US Army I underwent some of the most arduous training imaginable, boot camp, infantry school, airborne school…etc.
I also served in one of the toughest units within the 82nd Airborne Division – the 2-508th Airborne infantry (“Devils in baggy pants”). Needless to say I would have never survived it without a certain degree of “mental preparedness.”
Mental preparedness is that ability or practice that allows you to exceed your physical limitations. This was especially true in basic trading and airborne school.
In basic it looked like l wasn’t going to make it- either physically or emotionally. I repeatedly fell behind on runs and marches and I had trouble learning basic skills.
It was the consensus of my drill sergeants that l should probably be discharged for unsuitability. Instead l was diverted into a “special program” being developed by the military, to see if visualization techniques and meditation exercises could help enhance my abilities and turn what was otherwise a substandard recruit into an exceptional one.
It was also designed to help retain those recruits who the US Army already had a substantial investment, who had committed to a three year enlistment contract and who might otherwise “wash out” out of training if additional help and training was not given.
At the time it was all pretty “hush hush”, but l worked with a drill sergeant who also had a “Masters degree in clinical Psychology” who was hired to specifically work with us in this rather unique program funded through DARPA ( Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) who were a bunch of “brainiacs” at the Pentagon.
There was a lot to this program I found out later, and we actually had to sign a “confidentiality agreement” going in.
The sergeant helped us meditate, do complex visualizations and what they called “battle proofing.”
It was also called “enhancement.”
It involved spending a few hours on the weekends with the sergeant and his team of doctors. At night we listened to tapes while we slept loaded with subliminal messages which would repeat itself over and over again in cycles in specially designed pillow speakers.
It actually sounded a lot like a Youtube video I ran across recently:
See video:Remote influencing/Remote Viewing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5aAY_2Jitc .
A lot of what we did was highly confidential. I was told not to repeat it or even discuss it, even among other members of the program. This was way back in the mid 1980’s, during the height of the Cold War and we faced the real possibility of war with Russia, then called: “the Soviet Union.” . All we knew at the time is that we were receiving additional help and “remedial help.”
Part of the training involved concerted thought experiments and making elaborate “mental notes” of the particulars of a given place.
Then trying to recall it in vivid detail later on, under strict test conditions.
They referred to it as creating “mental movies.”
Within these mental movies, we had to play out various scenarios in our mind from start to finish, focusing on what to do during various life and death scenarios. It was sort of like problem solving and “what if” scenarios.
Such as being lost in the woods, being captured by the enemy, undergoing extreme stress type situations..etc. It also had to do with “mission planning” ( “pre-planning” might be a better word for it) while achieving certain objectives and set goals, focused on basic skills.
We would begin by “visualizing” a certain task with a set of very specific instructions.
The term visualization referred to:
1) Mental images
2) Creative visualization (sports visualization) – a popular method nowadays to enhance performance standards.
In most cases we visualized the equipment we were to use, the weather, time of day…etc. l would play out various contingencies in my mind in advance of preforming the actual task. Learning how to pause our mental movie, rewind it, take pictures within my mind and replay it on command.
I would then practice and rehearse what l visualized, so l could recount it in detail to the doctors.
They called it “pre mental cognitive preparation.” It was based on cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT.
They suggested the techniques would better enable us to implement the visualization methods we were being taught that would somehow create and train muscle memory. This would allow us to better physically preform those tasks in advance of being tested. Which, frankly speaking really didn’t make much sense to me, to tell you the truth.
It was all pretty strange if you ask me, but we went along with it, knowing if we failed we could be discharged from the military and sent back home? Many of us were poor people, who barely graduated high school in many cases.
I think we all were trying to escape poverty or difficult circumstances at home. Many of us knew we could never make it in college or university or compete in an advanced academic environments.
The idea was that repeatedly practicing and rehearsing our mental movies, and listening to the tapes at night we were creating enhanced memory. Oddly enough this reflected in better outcome on tests.
I practiced a lot of this with weapons, like the M16 assault rifle, mentally practicing taking it apart, visualizing each part in my head, like the firing pun, receiver assembly and putting together it again in my mind. We were told the enemy did the same thing, only they could preform their task on an AK-47 assault rifle while blindfolded. We actually watch a video clips of that on a projector.
Through this practice of visualization and listening to the tapes at night, that repeated certain phrases, such as “your not confined to your physical limits”- I actually felt l was growing smarter, absorbing more information. I was later retested on my ASVAB (“Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery”) and achieved a much better score without actually undergoing any formal education classes?
Oddly the only scores that didn’t improve were those dealing with mathematical ability and aptitude, but my reading comprehension improved by over 10%. They actually retested me twice to insure this wasn’t a fluke of some kind. How exactly this happened I have no idea – I somehow went from reading at around an 8th grade level to reading at college level during basic training?
Today I am a veracious reader of books averaging 2 a week.
In this respect the program was a definite success. It was like something in those tapes at night was making me more intelligent.
With regard to mental preparedness specifically one of the most important things l learned during this training was creating a mental “trigger.” A mental trigger is used to help soldier get through stressful situations in combat
In order to do that the doctors made me dig deep down in my psyche and identify the single most important thing in the world to me at the time and make a mental picture of it in mind.
The trigger is that thing that makes you want to live no matter what comes your way! In my case it was a girl l was in love with since grade school.
For most single men, it turns out that is a girlfriend or sweetheart back home. For a married man it is their wife and kids…etc. For others it was a polaroid of their newborn babies…which they would pull out and look at during breaks. One guy used to kiss the picture of his young wife and newborne baby…
That image then become their “trigger” as it were.
In my case it become my most important “memory file” – my ultimate motivation tool, that helped me get through hardship and difficulties going forward. For me it also helped me undergo and complete basic training and airborne school…
In a life and death situation or stressful situation – we were instructed to mentally “pull that trigger!” I actually used it to overcome my extreme fear of heights. But it could be used in almost any life or death situation. Including controlling pain if shot or wounded.
Being determined that you “will live through any situation” is the key.
The only draw back that I saw to the strange training, besides the headaches was that it made me hyper sensitive to some of the training I was undergoing in infantry school.
I also began to realize I was being , to a certain extent “brainwashed” or desensitized to make it easier to kill people (something I was averse to doing in the first place and it took everything inside me to resists that ). It seemed it made me more willing to follow orders without question, which of course could be dangerous.
This bizarre traing caused me trouble later on, and made me more prone to having symptoms of serious mental illness, post traumatic stress disorder, depression and social anxiety, because I tended to “over-think” things to death. Especially about events that hadn’t happened yet, such as the possibility of terrorism and nuclear war breaking out. In fact I still dwell on such possibilities today.
See article: We live in a very dangerous world! https://groundreport.com/we-live-in-a-very-dangerous-world/
See article: Advice on how to survive a nuclear blast https://groundreport.com/advice-on-how-to-survive-a-nuclear-blast/
See article: The power to destroy the entire world fits into a black leather covered metallic Halliburton suitcase https://groundreport.com/the-power-to-destroy-the-entire-world-fits-into-a-black-leather-covered-metallic-halliburton-suitcas/
Today l still use visualizations and meditation exercises to help center myself, but at times l get extremely paranoid and anxious. While others concentrate on mundane things, l obsess on national security problems and situations.
See related report: Remembering my time at the US Army Infantry School at Ft. Benning, GA https://groundreport.com/remembering-my-time-at-the-us-army-infantry-school-at-ft-benning-ga/