How to Heal your Imagination & End Porn Addiction with Senory Deprivation
In an over-stimulated world consumed with visual stimuli and saturated with mind-numbing virtual reality, gaming and porn your innate powers of imagination suffers huge consequences.
The Mind as a Tool
In a culture that has begun to identify the mind as self, we need a shift to understand that the mind is merely a tool. We are not defined by it and we do not need to be controlled by it. This tool can either become your best friend or your worst enemy. During a time when the imagination has taken a backseat to technology, the power of the mind has become a sad, atrophied muscle.
Stay tuned to learn why the imagination is so important and how you can cultivate the power of imagination again!
But first, let’s discuss the effects of this over-sensory stimulation…particularly the effects of porn.
Effects of Porn on the Brain
With the emergence of porn becoming readily accessible at the tip of our fingers, we have become a society addicted to the intensity of pixelated gratification. Whether your are the occasional or habitual viewer of porn, it may be having a greater effect on your life than you know.
1. Negative Emotion Dopamine Release
Huge surges of negative dopamine release from porn are due to
Negative emotions such as: shame, guilt, disgust, embarrassment, anxiety & fear
The drive to seek and search
The excitement of newness and things that violate expectations create emotions of shock, awe, and surprise.
“Many of these emotional states (anxiety, shame, shock, surprise) not only elevate dopamine, but each can also boost stress hormones & neurotransmitters (norepinephrine, epinephrine, cortisol). These stress neurochemicals increase excitement while amplifying dopamine’s already powerful effects. Over time a porn user’s brain can mistake feelings of anxiety or fear for feelings of sexual arousal. This helps explain why some porn users escalate into ever more shocking or anxiety invoking porn – as they need that extra neurochemical jolt just to become sexually aroused, or to orgasm.”
~Sourced from www.YourBrainonPorn.com
2. Coolidge Effect
Another draw that porn provides is the sheer amount of novelty. One can scroll through pages and pages of arousing images and videos. They can have multiple tabs open. They can fast forward to the peak of each video. And they can do this endlessly if so desired. Just think about the unhealthy amounts of dopamine that are surging through the brain during such activity. But the main issue with novelty goes much deeper and can be further elucidated by the Coolidge Effect.
“Here’s how the Coolidge Effect works: The rat’s reward circuitry is squirting less and less dopamine with respect to the current female, but produces a big dopamine surge for a new female. Does that sound familiar?
Not surprisingly, rats and humans aren’t that different when it comes to response to novel sexual stimuli. For example, when Australian researchers displayed the same erotic film repeatedly, test subjects’ penises and subjective reports both revealed a progressive decrease in sexual arousal. The “same old same old” just gets boring. Habituation indicates declining dopamine.
After 18 viewings—just as the test subjects were nodding off—researchers introduced novel erotica for the 19th and 20th viewings. Bingo! The subjects and their penises sprang to attention. (Yes, women showed similar effects.)
Internet porn is especially enticing to the reward circuitry because novelty is always just a click away. It could be a novel “mate,” unusual scene, strange sexual act, or—you fill in the blank.”
~Sourced from www.YourBrainonPorn.com
This effect is having a huge impact on human connection. Driven to seek dopamine through novelty creates higher levels of infidelity, preference of porn over human connection and inability to reach climax with a non-novel partner.
3. Negative Arousal Imprint
With reproduction being hardwired in our DNA as our top job, orgasm is the MOST powerful natural reinforcer that we have. Being so, our brain automatically tries to remember everything associated with this powerful experience, like an imprint. What it is doing is linking that big moment of climax with whatever you are experiencing at that moment and imprints it into your brain stronger than any other day-to-day experience. In the case of regular porn uses it is imprinting voyeurism, endless novelty, fetishes, multiple porn stars, multiple tabs, strange acts, fear, pain, shock, surprise, anxiety, etc.
To sum it up, this is what porn provides you:
A disillusioned version of what sex is and should be.
Unlimited supply of novelty that drives your brain to become addicted to newness.
An elevation of dopamine for abnormally long periods of time creating addiction and depletion in your brain.
A boost of stress hormones & neurotransmitters due to negative emotional states that porn induces.
Negative associations of arousal making healthy intimacy difficult.
Instead…
If not porn then what? Remember that thing we call The Imagination? Remember creating entire worlds and characters with the imagination when you were young? Well if you are lucky enough to have been born after 1995 then you should still have cultivated the part of the brain when you were a child.
In one study it was found that children that were read to often had healthy development in the frontal lobe and occipital lobe, responsible for imagination. However, children that were mainly engaged in screen time showed little to no development in those regions of the brain.
Why do we want to cultivate the imagination?
An interesting consequence revealed by the study showed was that children and adults that do not have an active imagination lose the power of creation. If one cannot imagine a better future, one cannot create it. If one cannot imagine who they wish to be, they will never become that. This ties in very closely with the concepts of manifestation and law of attraction. Think about it!
Sensory Deprivation
The best way to heal the imagination and end porn addiction is to unplug completely. As often as possible experience the amazing healing benefits of sensory deprivation.
The best way to experience sensory deprivation is to remove all stimuli of the outside world and go inward. It is important to use whatever tools necessary to create an environment where you can focus on nothing but your body and inner state. The use of a blindfold and noise-canceling headphones are the best tools you can use to achieve this state.
When to use a Blindfold and Noise-Canceling headphones:
During your meditation practice
During your self-pleasure practice
In our session work together
Benefits Sensory deprivation
Increase concentration and focus
Start to cultivate the powers of sex magic
Builds connection to a higher source
Remove shame and inability to accept pleasure
Reprograms beliefs of unworthiness or low self-worth
Increases the powers of imagination and creation
Increase ability of manifestation
Increases stamina
Increases pleasure
So why not give it a try? If you have been meditating for some time now, if you want to stop watching porn, if you want to feel greater levels of pleasure, if you want a deeper connection with your body, then this practice is for you!
Quitting an ingrained habit can be difficult but the work is well worth the reward and once you have regained the power of your imagination and have seen the gift of sensory deprivation, you will never go back!
