Colin Ross and Eyebeams
I don't know a huge amount about Colin Ross. But I do know he's on the front lines of dissociative and dissociative identity disorder (DID) "research". I have read much of the research out there as I am sure many of you do too, including by Bessel van der Kolk and Onno van der Hart. I read the ISST&D Journal.
A friend of mine forwarded this to me and, well, I was kind of shocked. This video shows Dr. Colin Ross claiming he's invented a device which captures his eyebeams.
I don't think he's really "working" on this, as such. I hope this is just a fascination of his. He's obviously not thought much of the ramifications. He is a doctor and, as such, lives in a scientific world and a special community. If I did something like this, I would probably lose my career, or be severely ridiculed, which he is. I know Ross has done many good things, but this action signifies that he doesn't think things through because all this is is simply fodder for those who are against him. If he were my patient, I would say he was being reckless.
For me I take this personally, because I do believe in all forms of dissociation and DID and I do believe in RA/SRA. But many others do not. And since he is a leading voice for DID and RA/SRA, then he is hurting the cause greatly. He has a certain responsibility, and he's not holding up his end. He should let vision/neuroscience people worry about how vision works. Vision does not work the way he says it does. It simply doesn't.
Dr Ross mentions that he has been interested and working on this idea for over 30 years, this gives a great deal of ammunition to the FMS advocates. It could be argued that this work raises questions about all of his research. I'm not suggesting that his research is flawed, but rather anything that can be used to discredit his work will be exploited. A good example of this can be found on the Mail Archive, with it's associated links to the Skeptic's Guide.
I wonder if the dissociative disorders will ever be seen as independent of false memories???
sometimes we have no words to say
Hi Paul,
Well taking up James Randi's million dollar paranormal challenge is asking to be ridiculed. The purpose of James Randi's challenge is to get people to make asses of themselves in a glory seeking search for money. No one has won the money. It is blatantly obvious why. James Randi knows a lot about charlatans and debunking them.
Although I believe in the concept of chi and that humans have an energy field or aura, this stuff of his goes way too far to be accepted by people. He's been working on this since the beginning of college when he knew nothing, hmm, yeah. I'm sorry he is conducting himself like this.
Kate
Certainly, Dr. Ross (of whom I was once a group therapy patient of while staying in a hospital in Dallas, TX) has brought many good things to the multiple community, but that doesn't mean he is the only word out there, thank goodness.
Many other Doctors of high esteem have brought to the table very similar findings that Dr. Ross had, and just because he is leaning toward different/wacky experiments or claims, doesn't mean that his work in the past should be debunked.
I do find this video to be disturbing because the Dallas Observer is almost laughing at his claims. And why not? But many "wacky" experiments have led to some of our largest and most valuable scientific findings.
You cannot assume that all his work is in vain, and anyone that does would be in error, in my opinion.
I think it's just plain silly.
I've had sessions with Dr. Ross and an associate of his in Dallas, TX. He's a good doctor but obviously he's got a crazy scientist side. I'd like to see the crazy scientist guy go hide somewhere.
Austin
I think it's pretty hard to tell what he's doing. If he really has something to show, he needs to get some people who do research to help him find a way to demonstrate this "energy" in some kind of measurable way. He is not doing that here.
Whatever he thinks he can do, it doesn't look very professional the way he is presenting it.
Even so, everyone out there has their quirks. It's too bad if people will look at this and make decisions about his other beliefs based on only this, but some will. That is sad, but we can't do anything about it. People either believe or they don't, and either way it doesn't change my reality.
This is really something and I find this outrageous. Thanks for sharing. This was the guy who had something to do with the treatment of a friend of mine who had DID years ago. It might explain something about how her multiplicity was handled. Thank you for sharing this. I am going to have to stop referring to Colin Ross after seeing this.