Trump Knows About Amygdala, Even If He Doesn’t Know About Amygdala

Dr Keith Ablow hits the nail on the head:

Is the president actually so thin-skinned that he needs the world to acknowledge that a huge number of people turned out to honor him as he was sworn in? Um, no.

So what’s really going on in his mind? Here’s my opinion: Everything Donald Trump does is strategically calculated to achieve a goal. His communication is designed not to simply convey his gut feelings, but to make people focus on one thing — call it a decoy — so he can do six other things while they’re distracted.

Trump has masterfully used the media’s pathetic naiveté and desire to battle him to make them focus on a throwaway battle — his seeming obsession with crowd size (which I can almost guarantee he could not care less about) — while he determinedly does what he does care about: signing orders that resurrect pipeline projects, retooling our broken immigration laws, laying the groundwork for a better health care system and preparing to build the wall.

Trump controls the amygdala focus of everyone around him. He even says things twice, if he wants it to take over people’s minds. And like a hypnotist, he especially focuses on what he does not want people focused on.

One thing I notice about hypnosis – it is all amygdala control through distraction. As you initiate trance and exploit hypnosis, you are controlling what ideas the mind contemplates, with a goal of especially avoiding ideas you do not want to enter the mind – even avoiding-mentioning-to-not-consider them (ie, suppose I say “Do not feel the sensation of your own breathing now.” Of course you read that and immediately feel the air enter your lungs.)

You are even slipping in commands hidden in sentences, in such a way that the amygdala does not flag them for conscious contemplation, so they just slip through to the deeper subconscious. Hypnosis is more about what data you exclude from your patient – and what you focus them on is often merely a tool to divert their focus from something else which would trigger amygdala-focus, and activate the conscious.

Trump is a master of the amygdala, even if he has never heard the name of the structure (though he probably has). He knows what he wants the public to see, focus on, and think about, and that is determined especially by what he does not want them focused on.

Against that cognitive mastery, everyone else is powerless.

Be glad he is on our side.

Tell others about r/K Theory, because you could change the world