Reply To: Spider phobia
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Hi Paul and Brian,
Here is my current score in all categories day 30-35:
1) Memories (0)
2) Imagined – Conscious) (0)
3) Photos (0)
4) Video (0-2)
5) Live (0) of small ones
6) Hollywood movies (TBD)
7) Imagined – Subconscious Associations from Wrapper (0-3)
Memories, imagined, and photos are all 0. The feeding video is still getting some reaction, which feels more like disgust rather than phobia. My first attempt at CT live tarantulas was 0. Since they were small palm size, I was wondering if the next step is to seek out and CT bigger live tarantulas. The wrapper allowed me to connect everything at once but also escalated subconscious associations. This triggered new crazy strange tarantula imagery which invaded positive associations to keep the phobia alive. After two days of the wrapper I had a dream where my whole body was made of all tarantulas! There was no me just tarantulas in the shape of a body! Ha! 😮 (BTW I rarely ever dream about spiders, but have a fear that I will if I become lucid i.e. conscious dreaming. This is one of the bigger fears.) I sense an extinction burst on the horizon. I waited on hollywood movies because I sensed it might fuel my imagination which is the biggest issue.
What else? I noticed if I scored between 1-2 it was time to move to the next category. When hundreds of random photos were between 0-2 I moved to video. When video was 0-2 I moved to live. Moving to the next category would cause reduction in the prior category. Live was immediately 0. So that leaves more videos, bigger live (?), hollywood movies, and subconscious associations from the wrapper.
I feel I am in a really great place. Could you offer some guidance on the next steps? When using the wrapper, is it best to CT the video while linking associations from the wrapper? How far does one go to get to 0? I went to a pet store but I am not going to the jungle looking for tarantulas. Do I need to let one walk on me at a pet store? How do you click then? Does one need to go this far? Also the giant insect sequence from King Kong youtube thumbnail has a man’s head disgustingly being gobbled by a giant insect. On the surface some of this feels like putting fuel on the fire. How do you balance getting to the root of the phobia without self generating new phobic patterns that in turn reinforce it?
Thank you both for all of your advice. This work is truly amazing!
Jesse