Silver Robot notes and random coolness

First, some random coolness I just stumbled across on Deviant Art. This pic is called "hypnotize." How appropriate, eh? And it looks ten times as awesome when you view it full-sized.

Now, about that Silver Robot program. I've got the two female versions (for use with or without a sex toy) almost finished. All I need to do now is figure out how to pop in the subliminal images, then run the whole thing through once or twice more to find and fix bugs. Once I've done that, I'll zip everything up and ship it off to my co-conspirator for adapting into sessions for men.

But there's one more thing worth noting here. Earlier this morning I answered an e-mail from a friend who's been following my blog. She's very curious about Virtual Hypnotist, but she's also a little concerned about letting someone else mess with her head. I figure there are probably plenty more of you out there thinking the same thing, so let me tell you all what I told her:

1. Hypnosis can't make you do anything you don't want to do.
2. It seems to me that you have to get pretty experienced with it (much more experienced than I've gotten, anyway) to completely lose track of what you're hearing or to be made to forget something.
3. Virtual Hypnotist is totally customizable; and if you like, you can preview any script that comes with the program before you run it. That way, you know exactly what you're in for, and you can even edit out anything you don't like before you run a session.

Now, VH does give you the option to write a script of your own that can't be previewed, but none of the pre-installed scripts have that kind of lock on them; and the Silver Robot sessions won't have a lock on them - though I would suggest, purely to increase your enjoyment, that you don't peek at the script or subliminal images ahead of time. You have my word that no program I write for the public will leave any lasting effects...except, just perhaps, to help you associate hypnosis and your individual trigger with sexual pleasure. But you wouldn't really mind that, would you? ;-P

The President of the United States is a nefarious mind controller!

This is just fucking hilarious...at least until you stop to think that some people actually take this shit seriously.

Where I am and what I've learned

Okay, first, I finally got the Audacity/VH issue sorted out to my satisfaction, although I still have some questions. I'll start this entry by telling you what I've learned, just in case anyone else out there is experimenting with these two programs and could use some advice.

1. If you're using the speech synthesizer to read your VH script, the background audio only plays in the right speaker. Therefore, your background track can't be stereo. That explains why the fine-sounding stereo experiments I created were missing a track when I played them in VH.

2. If you want to mix two or more tracks into a background track for a VH session that uses the speech synthesizer, begin with the separate tracks in .wav format, import them into Audacity, adjust the volume levels as needed, make both tracks mono, and finally export the whole thing to an mp3.

3. If you want to create an audio track of your own to replace the speech synthesizer, and you want to have stereo background tracks, it's even more complicated. You'll have to separately combine the "lead" track with each background track and export the result as a .wav; then import both new .wav's, set one for the left speaker and one for the right, and export the whole thing again as an mp3.

But enough of the tech talk. Where am I now with my sleep program? Well, last night I finally got the background track I really wanted, at the volume I wanted. Plus, I changed the visuals a bit and totally revamped the script imagery to bring it closer to what I personally experience when I go deep into trance. For me, it's like my head fills gradually with feathers that weigh down my conscious thoughts and make my whole mind feel too pleasantly full to move (You'll get more of that imagery in the Silver Robot session I'm working on, when it finally debuts).

Anyway, the end result, these last two nights, has been excellent. I've finally got the Bedtime session just about exactly where I want it. I'm very, very happy.

And now it's time to work on Silver Robot. :-)

P.S.: The woman in the photo is not me. Sorry if that bursts anyone's bubble. ;-P

Seeking advice from Audacity and Virtual Hypnotist users

I still haven't figured out how to combine two different audio tracks into a single track that will play in the background of Virtual Hypnotist. I came close, once, getting "Down by the Sea" to play very loudly over a muted version of the new subliminal suggestion track I've designed; but I can't seem to fix that version of the experiment, and every other attempt has ended with only one of the two tracks audible in VH - even when they both play clearly in Windows Media Player. I could really use some advice here.

Meanwhile, thanks to those of you who've already offered to mix something up for me on your own system. I'm tempted, but because of the sensitive nature of the material on the new subliminals track, I'd only trust someone I already knew fairly well to handle that one - and I'd want to be sure that that someone also had VH and could test the mix they made in it before sending it back to me.

Otherwise, I'd just be grateful for any advice I can get.

EDIT: Just after I posted this entry, I went back and retried one of my old "failed" experiments - and lo and behold, it worked this time! I have no idea what's going on, though, or what I did right with this one that I didn't do with the others. So advice is still very, very welcome. Also, I owe a belated thanks to Callidus for hooking me up with a certain audio file that I declined at first but later went back and downloaded. ;-P

Just pretend there's an image here

Something from Horton Hears a Who - the book, not the movie. I tried to find a little "We're here!" image from Google Image Search, but I had no luck, so you'll just have to imagine.

Yes, I'm here, and insanely busy with work. Have I ever mentioned here that matchbox 20 gave me the official motto for my life when they sang, "I wish the real world would just stop hassling me"?

Anyway, I'm still plugging away with Virtual Hypnotist and that Silver Robot program. A certain partner in crime has agreed to write a male version to go with my female version, so everyone should be happy in the end. :-)

Help yourself - and someone else

If you haven't stopped by Lady Ru'etha's Realm of Bliss yet, now would be an excellent time to check it out. She's just updated her Free Stuff page with some mp3's, as well as Virtual Hypnotist preset packages for her hypnotic CD's. This is the perfect opportunity for you to experience her skill and inventiveness for free. And then, if you like what you see and hear, perhaps you'll want to check out one of her CD's (Reviews can be found on Jukebox's Hypnosis Blog, among other places).

Now, normally, I only recommend free stuff on my blog. It's a decision I made early on, and eventually it became so central to my philosophy that I took down my sidebar links for pay sites like Bianca Beauchamp's and Susan Wayland's. But this case is a little different. As Jukebox notes here, the hospital bills for Lady Ru'etha's loved one are mounting horribly. For those of you outside the US, that's just the way our system works. It sucks. In fact, it sucks so badly that there needs to be a stronger word for it than sucks. Something that implies a vast, festering, Mordor-esque wasteland.

So anyway, if you chose to buy a CD from Lady Ru'etha, not only would you be giving yourself a treat, but you'd be donating to a good cause, as well. I'm just sayin.'

Stream of (sub)consciousness

A lot has been going on with me this week, but I haven't had a chance to write because of work and allergies (It's pollen season here, and by late afternoon, my eyes are too swollen and irritated to keep open very long). So to make up for it, I'm going to take the lid off the storage bin in my brain now and just dump everything out in no particular order.

Let's start with Callidus. He asked me a few days ago if Spy vs. Guy's Brick Logan, with his man-love for Samson, was inspired by Brock Samson of The Venture Brothers. As a matter of fact, I've never even seen The Venture Brothers and only vaguely knew the show by name, but that Wikipedia link definitely piqued my interest. And what a hilarious coincidence! Brock does have a lot in common with Brick, aside from his hair and dress sense, but I didn't base Brick on anyone in particular.

Second, to those of you who had comments and questions about my Safe Driver program: I'm being careful to give myself only positive reinforcement for good driving, no negative reinforcement for bad driving. After all, you never know when you might have a legitimate need to speed, not come to a full stop at a stop sign, etc. Anyway, I didn't get a chance to actually try the program until this morning, but I was unusually conscious of and careful about my driving all this past week, just from taking the time to write the program. And today, after running it for the first time, I noticed some clear results, some things I'd like to build on...all while making sure I don't become so distracted that I stop being the good driver I want to be, if you know what I mean. ;-P

As for my sleep program, I've decided that the best thing to do, at least for now, is to keep using Mary in the Stadium as reader with both "Down by the Sea" and a fade-in version of the babble script running in the background. I'm getting some great results this way, and not using a recorded version of my own voice gives me the freedom to change the wording as often I like without having to re-record. I've gotten the sleep program to the point where it sends me very deep, very quickly - so deep, in fact, that I actually begin to feel a pulse in my head at about the halfway point; and by the end, the straight script and the babble are equally loud and I find myself almost unable to pay attention to either one, which is exactly what I want. I've gone back to Medications A and B (with A at a quarter dose), but I plan to make an appointment with my sleep doctor soon to discuss where I might go from here.

The Silver Robot program is coming along quite nicely, too. Today I plan to experiment with ways to change and increase the subliminal messages, and maybe see if I can throw in some subliminal images, too. I don't yet know when I'll have a public version ready for release (or where I'll host it when I do), but you can go ahead and start anticipating now. ;-)

And lastly, there's this. The two hypnosis shows I saw while in college were a big inspiration for my Willing Subject. In fact, one of my sorority sisters who went up onstage for one of the shows was named Melissa. But the volunteer I'm thinking about at the moment is a frat rat acquaintance named Todd. Todd went onstage for both shows, and I still have a vivid memory of how deeply he went under the second time, just lolling in his chair like an ecstatic rag doll. I've had that same experience myself, now, and it's got me wondering if Todd was a secret hypnofetishist all along. In fact, I'm wondering if perhaps Todd might stumble across my blog one day, or might have already stumbled across it. So, Todd, if you're out there, guess what? You know me! ;-P