Esoterica > The Work

Buffers, Programs and "the Predator's Mind"

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Laura:
Let's talk today about programs - also called buffers and "the Predator's Mind - and how we get them and how they affect us  throughout our lives unless and until we learn about them, examine them, and  deal with them cognitively.

Starting with some basics:

As an infant develops, the nature of its moment-by-moment experiences of its inner world and the world around it changes in terms of intensity (affect/emotion).   During relatively quiet  periods of low affective intensity, the infant absorbs all kinds of  information about its environment - cognitive learning.  This type of learning does not have a major impact on the infant's motivational system. 

At other times, the infant has periods of high affect intensity.  These are  usually related to experiences of need or wish for pleasure or comfort, or a  wish/need to get away from something due to fear or pain. 

These periods of peak affect intensity involve the developing infant in an intense learning experience about its relations to itself and others (including the world at  large), and these are the experiences that lay down heavily emotion-laden memory circuits in the developing brain that can become very problematical "programs" or manifestations of the "Predator's Mind" in later life.

The emotion-laden memory structures in the brain formed under peak affect states are the foundation of the motivational systems of the individual - what the individual considers to be important for survival, how to obtain what is needed for that survival and how to avoid what is  painful or threatening to survival. 

Obviously, the most "ideal" concept of the self and other that an infant can have is a "perfect,  nurturing other and a perfect, satisfied self" and such images form in the infant's mind as a result of satisfying experiences.

Frustrating or painful experiences, on the other hand, form a concept of a depriving or abusive "other" and a needy, helpless self.

This induces great stress on the organism. 

An infant whose caregiver is generally attentive and nurturing CAN  internalize images of a sadistic, depriving "world out there and others in it" because of experiences of temporary frustration or deprivation.  In other words, a child from a good, caring family can "turn out badly". (Excluding considerations of genetics here.)

At the same time, an infant whose caregiver is generally neglectful or abusive may have accidental satisfying experiences at the right moments that can lead to an internal image of a loving, nurturing world and others in it.  That is, a child from a "bad" family can turn out well.  (Again, we are not considering genetics which can play an important role also.)

But, in general, because of the duration of the developmental period, it could be  said that an infant will have a preponderance of one type or another experience and  there can be compensation for the bad experiences that ameliorates them, though even that depends on the genetic nature of  the individual.

Now, let's consider the "many I problem" of the ancient tradition, known in modern psychological parlance as "identity diffusion."

Identity diffusion refers to a person who has a psychological structure characterized by the fragmentation rather than integration of the internal representations of the self and others.

Most people suffer from identity diffusion to one extent or another because they have had varying kinds of positive or negative experiences during periods of high affect intensity as infants (or later in life).  This  problem is the focus of Martha Stout's book "The Myth of Sanity" where she  talks about dissociation and how people do it when they are children as a  sort of defense mechanism, and then as they do it, it gets to be a sort of  habit. 

A person can dissociate at any time in their life when they are going through a rough period that puts a lot of strain on their emotions and thinking - the neurological structures.   Thing is, once you do it, it becomes easier to do it the next time and the  next and next... It sort of lays down a "track" that is easier and easier to follow.   It can be thought of as similar to carbon tracks in a distributor of a gas engine that cause mis-firing of the spark plugs or a skip in a vinyl record. 

Watching television, movies, reading, (yes!), pornography, video games,  whatever, are all common ways of dissociating or dealing with stress.  Remember, stress can be caused by the conflict of drives vs reality.

Identity diffusion becomes a problem when it is persistent.  It can then lead to pervasive feelings of a lack of values or goals or a "central self."  This means that the person is going through life without consistent beliefs, values, goals; they do not have a  clear sense of direction, a clear sense of self, and what is meaningful for them is determined  solely by the situation in which they find themselves.  They are like  weather vanes, whichever way the wind is blowing, they spin and go with it.   If they are with a group that does this or that, they do it mindlessly  because that is what everyone else is doing.  They behave mechanically according to the reactions programmed into them by their early experiences.

I think that all of you can easily see that identity diffusion manifests to one extent or another in just about everybody. In most people, it is mild and most of what is inside them is somewhat integrated, though certainly it is still composed of thousands of automatic programs. 

Now, let's take a deeper look at Primitive Defense Mechanisms, otherwise known as  programs, buffers or "the predator's mind."

Defense mechanisms are the ways we learn to deal with stress or conflict as we develop from infancy to adulthood.  Very often, they are formed by automatic brain functions that activate in response to stress.

Some stresses are caused by conflicts between our drives, our emotions, and  the "real world."  One of the most basic is the early stresses that a child  may experience when they are hungry (drive) and do not get fed.  Or, they  are cold or too hot, or in pain and there is no relief forthcoming. 

Later on, a child may want a cookie (drive) and is told "no, not until after  dinner," and while the child is not suffering from painful hunger, there is a drive for the cookie that is denied.  How does the child learn to cope with this  stress of denial?  However the child copes, that is called the defense mechanism and it can be either  primitive (infantile - the child feels threatened and begins to scream and cry as an infant would) or adaptive (the child is growing up and learns to wait until after dinner for the cookie.)

So, a person grows up with all kinds of competing pressures both from inside  and outside;  pressures from the emotional  states and related drives, the constraints of the reality "out there", and  even internalized constraints when the child has already learned that this or that is not okay and controls his emotions or drives (or tries to) even  though they are in conflict.  (Child wants cookie, knows that eating one  before dinner is bad, gets into battle with self about whether or not to  snitch it... decides that the stress of snitching is greater than the stress of denial and does not take cookie but continues to suffer because it wants the cookie.)

In short, as a person grows up in a more or less normal way, they move from primitive  defense systems against stresses to more mature defense systems.  They  become flexible and interactive with their reality and can use reason, humor, subjugation of drives for long term benefits (including peaceful  coexistence with others, like mother who will not be happy if they snitch  cookie before dinner), sublimation and so on. 

However, in many, if not MOST, people, there are still some primitive  defense mechanisms that get "stuck" in their psyche because they were  imprinted at moments of great emotional susceptibility. (Or imprint vulnerability, as discussed in the Wave, though we are not talking about that specifically right now.)

You can always recognize a Primitive Defense Mechanism by its rigidity and  inflexibility - the fact that it does not adapt to the REAL situation at  hand - and that it divides the world into black and white.

These types of programs originate in the very earliest years of a person's life, mainly the first year, and are a result of the infant attempting to  cope with stresses that arise in its interaction with external reality.

Primitive defenses organize themselves around the simplest structure which  is "feels good, is good / feels bad, is bad."   That's all the infant really can know in its limited state of cognition. 

So, a primitive defense mechanism is when a person continues to organize  things in this way: black and white, good and bad, and so on.

Another aspect of the primitive defense mechanism is that the infant - being  an infant - has no concept of itself.   It is helpless and totally dependent  on someone else to meet its needs. 

So, the infant learns about itself in relation to how the world out there  interacts with itself.   If it feels bad and there is no relief for this suffering, it comes to perceive the world and itself as "bad".  This induces tremendous stress on the organism.

BUT, and here's the biggie: the human instinctive substratum is biologically  set up to DEFEND the organism.   If the infant is having bad experiences  that impact on the brain, putting repeated and concerted pressure on some  neurological structures saying "bad, bad, pain, misery, suffering," etc...  stressing the coping mechanisms via pain, suffering, unhappiness, etc,   the brain will, at a certain point, collapse and go into defense mode. 

A split occurs.

In other words, severe or prolonged stress causes a mental breakdown and  this is a protective mechanism of the human biological brain.

It is theorized that when this happens, it is due to the fact that the brain  has no other means of avoiding actual physical damage to its cells due to  fatigue or nervous stress induced by the intense "coping action".

The human brain is constantly adapting itself reflexively to changes in the  environment and it seems that this is just one of its defense mechanisms  against stress.

The brain basically revolts against abnormal prolongation of stress that impacts any cortical area that is in a state of pathological excitation. 


Much human behavior is the result of the conditioned behavior patterns  implanted in the brain during childhood. People learn to behave this way or that way (positively or negatively) in  the presence of all kinds of stimuli, specific or general.   Some of these neurological structures can persist almost unmodified, but most of them (except in extreme cases that I will come to),  grow and change with added input and the individual becomes able to adapt the the actual environment.

Much of what is known about this mechanism comes from Pavlov's research.    And, the fact is, human brains are not that much different from dog brains  in certain respects.

Pavlov showed that the nervous system of a dog could develop extraordinary  powers of discrimination in creating its "programs" of responses.  A dog can  be made to salivate at a tone of 500 vibrations per minute (food signal) but  NOT at the rate of 490 or 510.

Human beings are no less complex in their ability to unconsciously create such neurological structures (programs) of responses.

Negative conditioned responses are as important as positive conditioned  responses since civilization requires that we learn how to control our  drives almost automatically. 

Emotional attitudes also become both positively and negatively conditioned:  one can learn automatic revulsion against certain types of persons,  behavior, etc as well as automatic attraction.  If these programs are based  on incorrect information, as they often are, there is a problem!  If a person is programmed by an intense experience to respond positively to people wearing blue hats, a psychopath wearing a blue hat will also attract them to their great harm.

But, getting back to the issue of splitting of the personality.

When the brain is stressed (and this can come about in many ways) to a  maximal extent, there comes a point of what Pavlov called "trans-marginal  inhibition."  That is, the stress pushes the brain to the breaking point and  the brain takes protective measures to inhibit further damage. 

This process takes place in stages.

1.  Equivalent phase: this is comparable to reports of normal people who are  in a period of intense fatigue due to stress (as in wartime), who say that  they reached a point whre there was no difference in their reaction to  important or trivial experiences.   The brain is so exhausted that it is  just trying to chug along keep going, but doesn't have enough energy to  distinguish between anything. 

If the stress continues, you then come to:

2. The Paradoxical phase: This is where weak stimuli or trivial things can  provoke more response than a strong stimuli or an important thing.   The  reason for this is that the strong stimuli only increases inhibition (the  shutting down of reactions) while the weak stimulus can produce a response  in the brain that is not inhibitory.

If the stress continues:

3,. Ultra-paradoxical: Positive responses suddenly switch to negative and  negative to positive.  This is something similar to hysteria.  An adult in  such a state is abnormally suggestible and the most wildly improbable  suggestions or ideas can be accepted as fact. 

And so it is that, in such states of internal hysteria, an infant can reverse everything, split, go into a state of Identity Diffusion that,  because of the extreme affect (emotional state), becomes more or less  permanent.

I suspect that you can also guess that such programs can be one time things.   A child can have one seriously negative event in a life that consists of  mostly positive events, and have a serious primitive defense mechanism  (program) that pretty much sticks for life - or until they discover it and  seek the way to undo it. 

In any event, when the infant splits, the brain seeks to protect an idealized segment of the individual's psyche or internal world from the  aggression of the stress.   The separation will be maintained at the expense of the psyche.  There is no integrating that "dissociated part" with the rest of the self-images the child forms throughout life.  Whenever something  triggers that particular part of the brain, some stress that is similar, something perceived as a threat to survival, that program will run and all the learning and cognitive skills of the individual be damned.

Next problem with this type of splitting: since the brain has done this as a  protective maneuver, has more or less "sealed off" the sanctum of this  idealized psychic self,  that program is not amenable to successful cognitive processing of the external reality, nor is it capable of  accurately reading internal processes, including emotions.

This is effectively what happens when we say that the intellect usurps the  energy of the emotional center though that only describes milder states of such conditioning.   

This split off internal idealized self that is "good" (defined that way for  survival), when activated, takes charge of the system and imposes itself (it is very strong because of the extreme stress  and emotion that went into forming it) on the individual's perceptions of  the world. 

And, since it is formed at a primitive level of the psyche, it has the  earmarks of a Primitive Defense Mechanism: feels good, is good / feels bad,  is bad; black / white; self good; other evil; and so on.

BUT, that doesn't mean that this primitive defense mechanism has any rationality to it!  Opinions are strong, but not stable.  Things are good or bad, but what is good or bad depends on the immediate circumstances.

If the person feels that someone close has 'dissed' him in some way, something that activates his "helpless and hopeless" feeling as an infant, that formerly close person will be relegated to the "black list" and everything about him or her  that was formerly perceived as good, will now be perceived as bad.  Patience  will be viewed as weakness, lack of action; strength will be seen as aggressiveness; kindness as weakness, and so on. 

This "good / bad" primitive defense mechanism can totally influence the person's mood.  A single frustration that triggers the program can make  everything in the world "out there" seem bleak, uninspiring, going nowhere,  against the person who is, of course, long-suffering and only seeking the  ideal of love, peace, safety, beauty, etc etc.

So, the clue that one is running an infantile program (that is, one inculcated in infancy) is that it reveals this "good / bad" categorization  of everything, and that there is little flexibility in dealing with the  reality of the moment.  Under the influence of such a program, the  individual is not able to appreciate the subtle shades of a situation or to  tolerate ambiguity.  This leads to distortions in perceptions since the  external reality is filtered through - made to conform to - the rigid and  primitive internal structure of an infant.

Now, everyone has some of these infantile programs - or traces of them -  that get triggered now and again.  It's only when the person continues to use this type of primitive defense mechanism as the PRIMARY defense as an  adult that there is a serious problem.  That can be termed a "personality disorder."

We have witnessed manifestations of this a few times here on the forum and in QFS.  That is, when a primitively organized individual  is confronted with something displeasing or threatening, the "threatening object"  (person, idea, group, whatever), is placed in the "all bad" category where  it is safely segregated from anything with a good connotation.

This is how such disordered people contain their anxiety, the stress of what they perceive as a threat to their survival.  (They want something, need something, it is denied, and that is a threat to survival).  But obviously, as  we have witnessed numerous times, it is at the expense of successful  adaptation which could lead to a fulfilling life for that unhappy person.

Now, here's the kicker: if the displeasing feeling is coming from within the  self - if the self finds that there is rage or anger or hate or jealousy or  pettiness or whatever is considered negative - when a person is operating  from the primitive defense mechanism, that feeling must be denied as part of  the self and will be experienced as coming from "out there."  (Projection.)

We have seen that also.  A person will be questioned about their unilateral assertions and this is perceived as a threat to their survival (their entire structure is organized around black and white, remember), and their fear or anger comes up a bit, but this gets diverted because those feelings cannot be tolerated due to the neurological construct laid down in infancy, and the Primitive Survival Defense program kicks in.

That is, at the moment the person is in active primitive defense mechanism  mode, even if some other part of their brain is feeling angry or hurt or whatever, that other part of the brain is dissociated and those impulses,  feelings, thoughts, are denied, personal relationship with them is  suppressed, and they are projected onto someone else.

That is: splitting can be a primitive form of projection when the denied  part of the self is experienced as coming from an external object (person, group, whatever.)

There are other primitive defense mechanisms that stem from a split internal  organization:

Projective Identification: this is an unconscious tendency to both induce in  another what is being projected, AND to attempt to control the other person  who is perceived as manifesting those characteristics that the split person  is projecting.

That is, a person who cannot tolerate their own feelings of rage and  aggression will unconsciously provoke and frustrate their target in subtle  and not-so-subtle ways that will lead the target to actually FEEL the  emotions that the split person is denying in themselves.

In this way, the split person can have the satisfaction of the expression of  such emotions in a non-threatening way because it "doesn't belong to them,"  and they are, in a sense, "in control" of the manifestation.

This is an important clue to dealing with manipulation.  If you know your  own machine, if you have worked through your own stuff, and are certain of  your own feelings in a given situation, you can pay close attention to  shifts in your own state that are induced by the manipulative person and  understand that what you are being manipulated to feel is what the  manipulator is denying in themselves and cannot accept.  This can give you  data about their internal world.

Now, keep in mind that a person who operates out of the primitive defense mechanism as a primary mode, DOES have alternating awareness of the  different sides of their internal conflict, but denial (and splitting) allows them to  tolerate the state of affairs without anxiety.  They can deny this for this  moment, deny that for that moment. Etc.  They do not have CO-consciousness  of the contradictory material. 

In any event, getting back to more normal manifestations of the problem.  If  there is a strong primitive defense mechanism laid down in the psyche, it can organize itself around a "belief center" of the brain, and the core  belief can be "I'm worthless, helpless, bad," but this has to be projected  onto external objects (the brain defending its survival) which leaves the person in a habitual condition of  expecting aggression or hurt from the outside world.

If a person has MULTIPLE un-integrated self-object programs like this, each  of which determines the person's subjective experience in myriads of  situations, at any given moment, then the person's internal world is a series of discontinuous experiences and that person will have great  difficulty committing to relationships, meaningful work, goals, values, etc.

Finally, there is another situation in which an individual operates from a  primitive defense mechanism: the experience of infatuation, powerful sexual  attraction, "falling in love", etc, wherein the "other," no matter what the  circumstances, is experienced as "all good." 

This type of regression explains why otherwise mature individuals are  capable of extreme and irrational thoughts and actions under the influence  of drives and primitive defense mechanisms.

Now, there's another interesting thing about this.  Pavlov noted that when one small cortical area in a dog's brain reached a state of pathological inertia and excitation, (it was at maximal stress and shutdown), it would generate odd stereotypical movements like shaking or repeated scratching or pawing of something.  He concluded that if this cerebral condition could affect movement, it might also affect thought, stereotypically, and could thus account for certain obsessions in human thinking. 

Pavlov also learned that these small areas of the brain were subject to the equivalent, paradoxical, and ultra-paradoxical phases of abnormal activity which he had previously thought only applied to larger areas of the brain.  Pavlov thought, in fact, that what is called projection and introjection - when a persistent fear or desire is projected outwards or inwards - is a physiological manifestation of localized cerebral inhibition.

Pavlov found that some dogs of a stable temperament were more than usually prone to develop these "limited pathological points" in the cortex when at the point of breaking down under stress.  New behavior patterns would be the result such as a compulsive and repetitive pawing or some form of physical debilitation.  Once acquired by a dog of stable temperament, patterns of this sort were extremely difficult to eradicate. This may be the way a more stable person reacts to such stress: instead of splitting psychically, they instead develop some sort of external, physical action that releases the stress.

During WW II, quite a few studies were done of shell-shocked patients in hospitals in England.  Some of these patients had reached this state of cerebral shut-down and it manifested in gross and uncoordinated, yet regular, jerking and writhing movements which were accompanied by temporary loss of speech, or a stammer or explosive talking.

The parallels between these patients and Pavlov's dogs subjected to stresses should be obvious.

That is to say, these abnormal mental states may be succeeded in human beings as in Pavlov's dogs, by "dynamic stereotypy" - a new functional system in the brain is formed which requires increasingly less work by the nervous system to maintain it just as learning to drive requires increasingly less focus once one has done it for awhile.

The repetitive pattern of movements or thoughts that are formed under these kinds of stressful conditions (and in some people, there are truly extremely stressful conditions in their infancy) do not yield easily to treatment.

But then, in these cases, we are talking about only a statistically small sample.

Nevertheless, Pavlov's findings that severe focal excitation on one area of a dog's brain can cause profound reflex inhibition of other areas of the brain might be a key to the problems of programs, buffers and the Predator's Mind. In a normal person, time and other experiences can disperse the abnormal neurological structure to some extent, but in certain genetically susceptible individuals, it can become a core structure.

But keep in mind that even if one deals with programs and essentially "deprograms" the self from these kinds of abnormal states, sensitivity to what brought about the nervous disruption can persist a very long time in a latent state.  Events will remind the person of the "program," and they will have to struggle with it to some extent again and again for some period of time before it is entirely extinct. (And I have no certainty that total extinction ever occurs!)

Peto:
Thank you, Laura, for this great piece of work. Such clarification and confirmation of esoteric ideas in modern psychology terms are invaluable as esoteric texts tend to present the truth in some sort of mystical language. (Maybe it's done to avoid free will violation?)


--- Quote from: Laura ---These periods of peak affect intensity involve the developing infant in an intense learning experience about its relations to itself and others (including the world at  large), and these are the experiences that lay down heavily emotion-laden memory circuits in the developing brain that can become very problematical "programs" or manifestations of the "Predator's Mind" in later life.
--- End quote ---
I think that many child-raising habits and conditions introduced in modern society artificially increase the amount of stressful experiences that an infant may have, for example, sleep training by leaving an infant to cry to sleep, very early potty training, sending an infant a few months old to infant care, etc. Got to make those programs entrenched in as many people as possible!


--- Quote ---In any event, when the infant splits, the brain seeks to protect an idealized segment of the individual's psyche or internal world from the  aggression of the stress.   The separation will be maintained at the expense of the psyche.  There is no integrating that "dissociated part" with the rest of the self-images the child forms throughout life.  Whenever something  triggers that particular part of the brain, some stress that is similar, something perceived as a threat to survival, that program will run and all the learning and cognitive skills of the individual be damned.

Next problem with this type of splitting: since the brain has done this as a  protective maneuver, has more or less "sealed off" the sanctum of this  idealized psychic self,  that program is not amenable to successful cognitive processing of the external reality, nor is it capable of  accurately reading internal processes, including emotions.
--- End quote ---
I guess this is what Gurdjieff meant when he said the horse doesn't understand the language of the driver. And after reading it, I can't help but feel any hope for getting rid of the programs is so small. Recognizing and observing a program when it kicks in is already difficult. Getting to those "sealed off" areas in the psyche and integrating seem to be almost insurmountable... I guess I just have to keep the faith and continue to work on myself.

Pob:

--- Quote from: Laura ---Projective Identification: this is an unconscious tendency to both induce in  another what is being projected, AND to attempt to control the other person  who is perceived as manifesting those characteristics that the split person  is projecting.

That is, a person who cannot tolerate their own feelings of rage and  aggression will unconsciously provoke and frustrate their target in subtle  and no-so-subtle ways that will lead the target to actually FEEL the  emotions that the split person is denying in themselves.

In this way, the split person can have the satisfaction of the expression of  such emotions in a non-threatening way because it "doesn't belong to them,"  and they are, in a sense, "in control" of the manifestation.

This is an important clue to dealing with manipulation.  If you know your  own machine, if you have worked through your own stuff, and are certain of  your own feelings in a given situation, you can pay close attention to  shifts in your own state that are induced by the manipulative person and  understand that what you are being manipulated to feel is what the  manipulator is denying in themselves and cannot accept.  This can give you  data about their internal world.
--- End quote ---
Thanks Laura this particular passage is a useful explanation of why I'm often left feeling fuzzy and confused after conflict with some people. Developing a greater insight into what emotional hooks are being used should assist in seeing what it is felt is being denied behind the actions, words and anger. - edit - and in gaining a greater composure in my own manipulations that occur when I say things in the heat of the moment that are unconsidered and don't help the situation.

R. Mark Sink:
Very informative, thank you!

This information got me thinking about dogs again, of which they keep popping up lately in my path. If our brains are so much like the 2nd density beings, especially that of dogs, then how do we account for the fact that dogs, and other 2nd density beings, are capable of sensing eminent danger, as seeing in the future, when we are incapable it seems?

The canine can sense these things, even human occurrences that have not happened yet, but humans are mostly incapable of these feats. Is it the programming that is misdirected beginning near birth that blocks these abilities? Wouldn’t it seem logical that humans would also possess these abilities if the education and life experience was altered? And that their level of perception would be greatly enhanced per level of position in density?

Pob:

--- Quote from: OCKHAM ---The canine can sense these things, even human occurrences that have not happened yet, but humans are mostly incapable of these feats. Is it the programming that is misdirected beginning near birth that blocks these abilities? Wouldn’t it seem logical that humans would also possess these abilities if the education and life experience was altered? And that their level of perception would be greatly enhanced per level of position in density?
--- End quote ---
Possibly. But canines are biologically gifted with a far more sensitive nose.
--- Quote from: hxxp://www.animalhealthcare.ca/kidscontent.asp?id=6 ---When veterinary scientists mapped out the function of the canine brain, they found that a very large olfactory lobe had evolved to process a large amount of incoming smell information from the sensitive nose. The lobe is four times larger than in humans, even though our overall brain is much larger! With such a large proportion of their brain devoted only to odour processing, it can be assumed that smelling is a sense of great importance to the canine species. The sensory tissues deep in the nasal cavity also have a very large surface area compared to humans, and the receptors that process the molecules carrying odours are significantly more sensitive than those of humans. Dogs seem to be able to discern a mixture of scents and pull out key traces of compounds of interest to them, and also to follow concentration gradients of the scent molecules. It is estimated that the ability to distinguish between different scents and to pick up scents is about 10,000 times to millions of times better than humans. A typical German shepherd, known to be a top scent tracker has 220 million sensory cells compared with a human's measly 5 million! Cats have about 10 times as many scent receptors as humans, so they also have a distinctly better sense of smell than people, but theirs is not quite as advanced as a dog’s.
--- End quote ---
I would guess that what you percieve to be seeing into the future, dogs are merely reacting to the changes in their detection of environmental odors.

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