The Legend of Holy Sword: An Immersive Experience for Concentration Enhancement

One time when I was playing Rez¹ my consciousness seemed to split. There was the me playing the game, and then there was the me observing the me playing, spectating my own gameplay. By the time I had reached that point, gameplay seemed almost automatic. The enemies seemed to practically fly into my reticle, to be shot down immediately upon appearing. I realized I was somehow blocking my conscious focus from commenting on how I'm playing and offering corrections, leaving my unconscious free to actually do the work of targeting and shooting, as well as my conscious mind free to sit back and enjoy the ride. It was an unprecedented experience of total concentration on a task.

A further mindblow occurred when I realized that this is a thematic element in the game. In the upper left corner of the screen is a "system log" that describes what you're doing and names the things you're shooting down, that can be said to represent the mind's "narrator". But you almost never look at it because you're more concerned with what's happening on the screen. Steering your attention to the log means you'll lose focus on the actual gameplay.

Rez is like that. It's almost a metacommentary on the experience of playing it, and experience in general, sometimes. Everyone should play it.

¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rez_(video_game)

You might find the book The Body Has a Mind of Its Own : How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better by Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew Blakeslee very relevant here.

If you go really mystic, there are infinite yogas, so not surprising that you found a different way.

Bit of a tangent, but I recently learned of "quiet eye" and how it is studied to improve aiming in sports.

Yoga is not something magical but merely a empirical discipline with an accompanying metaphysics developed over a long period of time within a cultural context. Tease out the essentials from the cultural context and you have a practical discipline relevant for everybody today.

For example, Patanjala Ashtanga Yoga gives an all-encompassing framework to learn to focus/concentrate and if needed, experience a distinct supra-normal mental state (i.e. Samadhi). But the last is not necessary and you could use the framework to do and feel better in the everyday activities of life.

Here is how to do it;

1) Yama - We are embedded in an environment which influences us. Thus we have to practice restraints w.r.t. the environment to settle on a equilibrium state where we can have some control over how we react to external factors.

2) Niyama - We are active living beings with certain essential everyday needs. These need to be automated away using personal discipline so that we don't have to think and waste precious mental energy on them.

3) Asana - Because "we" are housed in a material Body we need to take care of and maintain the body so that it is healthy, strong and free of diseases leaving us free to work on our mental aspects.

4) Pranayama - The Body and the Mind are linked through the Breath. Hence to control the Mind one needs to learn to control the Breath first.

The above are the four "external" aspects, the four "internal" aspects follow;

5) Pratyahara - In order to focus and concentrate on one thing we first need to "withdraw" our Mind from other things and this is the practice of such withdrawal.

6) Dharana - Now we focus on one thing; it will be momentary at first but with repeated practice becomes easier.

7) Dhyana - Now we hold our attention for long periods of time on one thing. This is commonly known as Concentration/Contemplation. For all normal everyday activities we can stop at this stage.

8) Samadhi - This is the state where the distinction between subject and object does not exist and the individual has "dissolved himself" (called "Laya" in Sanskrit). A good common example is when people laugh and cry (literally) with the protagonist when watching a emotional movie. The key here is to be completely permeated by the experience itself with no other thought/emotion/feeling (Classic example - Orgasm). In modern psychology this can be approximated by the "Flow State" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

As you can see, the framework given by Ashtanga Yoga is eminently practical.

Nothing magical; just front and back of the midpoint between the eyebrows until you settle on a point where you get the sensation. That is why i called it a "physiological trick".

Saggital plane I think

It is very simple, don't overthink it. Go to a quiet place with no distractions, let go of everything mentally and physically, be totally relaxed, don't think of anything (i.e. Pratyahara) but just try to focus on a point within the blackness (i.e. Dharana) and hold your attention there (i.e. Dhyana) when you feel a distinct bodily sensation.

Try and do this before falling asleep in your bed at night and your quality of sleep will improve greatly. You can also do this just after you wake up in the morning in your bed (but before looking at your phone, talking to your spouse etc.) and you will feel more refreshed than normal.

Once you get the trick you can actually use a home blood pressure monitor and see the changes in physiological parameters yourself.

Are you asking about only the techniques or the whole subject of Ashtanga Yoga and its applications to practical Psychology?

In a sense, Yes; it involves Proprioception (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception) and Body Maps/Peripheral Space (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41538392) and related biological/physiological mechanisms.

Plain old concentration meditation with the feeling of breath in the tip of my nose as my object. (this guy calls it "shrinking" : https://fleen.org/fluffy_cloud/shrink/ )

As for the experience. Well, first it gets you high. Then it gets really easy. Then you encounter weird stuff and more weird stuff, vast and deep. And that's as far as I'll go with that line of conversation.

I wanted to share an unexpected experience I had during a yoga class, specifically a class that included pranayama practice, under the guidance of a particular teacher. This wasn’t something I sought out, and it hasn't repeated since, but it left a strong impression.

During the session, I distinctly felt what could be described as the "opening of the third eye." However, the sensation was much more mechanical than subtle, almost as if my forehead was literally opening up. It felt real, but strangely, it wasn’t part of the practice or anything the teacher mentioned. After the session, everything went back to normal; it was just this momentary experience during the practice.

I’ve never come across descriptions of it happening this way in any readings on yoga or meditation. Has anyone else had a similar experience?