3 down, 47 to go
The novelty has worn off now. I know what to expect during a session. I sit in the egg chair while the doctor glues electrodes to my head. Snapping the headphones to my skull I slump back into the chair and await the first-person video game on the wide screen television in front of me.
The doctor asks what I would like to do today, fly or drive. “Are there any other choices?” He replies, “there’s a train, but that’s more for little kids.” It’s my third session and I’ve already done a ‘flier’ and a ‘driver’ so I opt to do another driver. I pick the dune buggy this time and start the course selections top of the order.
I start down the course rather bumpy. The car bucks and slams into other cars. The screen fades to various levels of gray as I attempt to control the movement with my brain waves. I want desperately to control the movement of the car by my conscious thoughts but I can’t find a pattern of intent that is predictable. On either side of the screen are gauges that indicate whether my brain is on task and my vision wanders to the sides to try and control motion by meter. No luck there either.
When I’m in ‘the zone’ a blue vapor trail escapes the rear of the buggy as it races through the middle track of the course. When off task, the vapor turns to red, and/or the car slows or stops. I only experience momentary states of flow throughout the entire 30 minute session.
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I felt more irritable than usual after this session. However, I have to place blame on a project at work that has made me frustrated the past couple days. What should have been a quick bug fix took nearly two full days of code study to figure out how the application was working. I get irritated when I spend so much time on something that should only take a few minutes. Until further reflection indicates differently, I’ll blame it on OPCC (Other Peoples Computer Code)
Even though I have a cause, I need to note that 2 out of my 3 sessions thus far have resulted in unusual stress and a headache later in the day that required Excedrin treatment. Whether the therapy was causal or coincidence remains to be determined.
In: Depression · Tagged with: Depression, irritation, Neurofeedback, unable to concentrate