As I listened to the text of my writing, it was clear that the writing style was similar to the strange, descriptive prose from my earlier experiment. The phrase "Beware the disjunction" was not at all something I would normally say, and it was not something I would normally emphasize in my trading. Indeed, I wasn't consciously aware that there was any "disjunction" between financial stocks and the broader list of stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average. When I checked the charts, however, it was clear that the financials—especially the brokerage stocks—were in a downtrend, even as the broader averages stayed in a narrow, flat range. My writing, it seemed, was alerting me to the theme being developed in the market, which cast financials as possible harbingers of the next move.
For better or for worse, I felt that I had a strategy going into the day's trading. I also had a sense of calm certainty that was unusual for me in trading. The observation of the breakdown in the financial stocks, which had escaped my normal attention to that point, convinced me that the altered mode of experiencing had opened me to new ways of processing market data.
Before the market open, I again invoked the quiet, relaxed state. My mind was still as trading began. The volume was fairly low for the opening minutes, and the market was relatively flat. I closed my eyes, taking it all in without forcing any conclusion.
That's when it happened.
A random thought popped into my head. But it was not simply a thought or even my thought. Distinctly, in my head, I heard the voice, in its clipped, British tones, say, "Master the disjunction." That was all. It was a simple phrase, but it came to me as if it had been read from the "Naturally Speaking" program.
I returned to my screen and noticed that the sector index for the brokerage stocks ($XBD) had broken down. The overall market was weakening, with waning TICK, but the Standard & Poor's (S&P) still appeared flat. Calmly, I placed my trade, going short. I was never so sure of a profit, never so certain of my target and of my stop points.
Minutes later, I covered for a profit.
At Friday's lows.
I had no feeling of success or elation whatsoever. There was no ego in the trade at all. In fact, I had the strangest feeling that I hadn't placed the trade in the first place. There was no doubt that the order was placed by me. But I swear: I didn't make that trade.
CONCLUSION
Earlier, I mentioned Ari Kiev's idea of "Trading in the Zone": achieving complete immersion in our processing of market data and acting on it. The case studies of neurologists Oliver Sacks and V. S. Ramachandran; the large body of split-brain research; the commonalities of experience among mystics in differing eras and cultures: These have convinced me that people, indeed, have many zones—more than people commonly recognize.
You might sometimes hear the (misguided) assertion that people use only a small portion of their brains for thought. The reality is a bit more complex. The average individual only accesses a fraction of his or her possible consciousness—as Gurdjieff pointed out, like someone who occupies a single room within a mansion, blind to its many splendid rooms. Creativity in any field of endeavor—whether it is trading, parenting, or counseling—comes from the ability to see the world afresh, from the vantage point of those different rooms. I know it sounds hopelessly mystical, and you know how I hate new-age speak. But I cannot deny the conclusion reached by Norretranders: There is more to myself than my self.
I believe that this is the greatest frontier of trading psychology. In learning to expand your radio dials of consciousness, you gain the potential to process market data in new and profitable ways. As the next chapter will make clear, you can perceive and know things in one state of mind that completely elude you in another. It is as if you contain multiple internal databases, but with restricted access to each. In cultivating the ability to trance-form the mindscape, you increase your access and become able to trade from a wider base of information.
In the spirit of the research of Andrew Lo and Dmitry Repin, I believe that biofeedback holds significant potential for the development of traders. Although traditional psychology—including much of this book—can formulate meaningful hypotheses about trading success, only hard research will validate or disconfirm these hypotheses. The great advantage of biofeedback is that it transforms subjective variables—emotionality, focus—into objective readings that can be submitted to statistical treatment. Biofeedback takes the Galtonian ideal of counting and applies it to personal experience.
Will trade stations of the future come with integrated consoles for measuring heart rate, skin conductance, muscle tension, and body temperature? Will traders practice their craft with wristband units for measuring pulse and blood pressure, much as professional athletes do? To the extent that trading is a peak performance sport, you can expect to see ever more sophisticated tools for the trader, just as you are witnessing more advanced software and hardware for trading. In ways that even Ayn Rand could not have envisioned, the pursuit of profit may accelerate your highest evolutionary strivings.
Chapter Ten
The Coat in the Closet
Demons risen make for fallen angels.
Although there is more to us than we normally assume, it would be a mistake to conclude that human nature is infinitely plastic. I sincerely doubt that any person could feel confident and successful if all they had experienced was failure. A lifetime of abuse and neglect will not suddenly give way to feelings of joy and fulfillment. New experience cannot be woven out of thin air. Ultimately, in self-development exercises, we are activating facets of our personalities that are latent and submerged, but present in some form nonetheless. To frame the issue in terms of our earlier metaphor, counseling takes signals on the radio dial of consciousness that are weak and systematically boosts the volume. Perhaps it is not so much that we create new frequencies as that we become ever better receivers for the faint signals that are out there for us to hear.
In this chapter, we will explore how traders can improve the reception of their mind's radio receivers by boosting weak but valuable signals. Instead of becoming lost in the programming at any given frequency, we can identify with the hand that controls the knob and changes the stations. Once on a new spot on the dial, it is remarkable to see how much more we can see and experience. What we know is truly a function of our states of mind and body.
STOPPING THE MORNING FRENZY
We were running late. Every morning, I see my wife off to work and get my children, Devon and Macrae, ready for school. And, sure enough, it seems as though every morning, something conspires to hold us up. Devon can't find her hair band; Crae is missing the favorite item he wants to take to school. All the while, I cajole, implore, and tear my hair out. Somehow, some way, we make it on time.
On this day, however, we were really late. I hustled the children along, reminding them at regular intervals that they needed to finish their breakfasts, comb their hair, put on their shoes, and make sure their homework was in their backpacks. After feeding the cats and preparing my lunch, I looked at my watch. We only had a few minutes to spare. Alarmed, I gave my customary bellow: "Let's go!" Devon and Crae tumbled down the stairs and dutifully began to put on their coats and boots, steeling themselves for yet another chilly, sleeting Syracuse morning. I did the same, reaching into the closet for my raincoat.
It wasn't there.
I looked across the row of coats on the left side of the closet. No raincoat. Very odd; I always put the coat there. I opened the right side of the closet. No coat. Time was truly getting away from us. I started to feel frantic. The children needed to be at school, and I had an important morning meeting. Worse still, my car keys were in the coat pocket. No coat, no car.
Now, more quickly, I returned to the left side of the closet and scanned the jackets and coats. One at a time, my eyes targeted the contents of the closet. No raincoat. Devon and Crae seemed to sense my mounting frenzy. They were unusually quiet, refraining from their normal morning bickering.
I glanced at my watch.
We were late.
For a moment, I was enveloped in turmoil. I could sense the tightness in the muscles of my forehead, the racing thoughts, and the mounting panic. It was almost as if a voice were screaming inside my head: This can't be happening. The coat has to be here. I was dimly aware that my reaction was excessive. At some level, I knew that the world wouldn't collapse if we were a few minutes late. But it didn't matter: My body had decided that this was an emergency.
Then I stopped.
It had happened only a few times before: Suddenly, often in the midst of an emergency, I become eerily and unnaturally calm. I fix my vision, slow my breathing, and all at once the roiling waters become still. It's not at all gradual; more like flipping a switch. It happens automatically. And it's spooky. When I am stopped, I don't feel like myself.
I never recall having the stopped feeling as a child or a young adult. It has only occurred since my experimentation with the Philip Glass music and the altered states. It appears to be a relatively new spot on my radio dial.
STOPPING ON THE WAY TO NEW YORK
It was not the first time I had felt this way. Several months previous, Margie and I went for a short vacation to New York City. We had just crossed the Syracuse town line, heading south on Interstate 81, when we noticed the car in front of us drifting to the right. It was very early in the morning, and my immediate impression was that the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel.
That's exactly what had happened. As the car touched the rough edge of the road, the driver seemed to awaken and realize what was happening. He swerved the vehicle sharply to the left, impulsively trying to avoid veering off the road. It was the wrong move. The back end of the car fishtailed outward, as the car entered a skid. The driver tried to compensate by jerking the wheel back to the right, but it was too late. The car spun wildly in the middle of the highway. Not a single other vehicle was in sight.
It was strange watching the car careen out of control. It was like watching a movie; I was distanced from the unfolding events. The scene is implanted in my mind, an unusual occurrence because I rarely think in images. I didn't feel worry or concern. I simply touched the brake and stayed sufficiently far from the car that we would not become involved in the pending accident.
The car continued its leftward spin and careened off the highway, tumbling down a gently sloped embankment along the median. It tipped and landed softly on its side.
I turned to Margie as we pulled off the road. She seemed concerned, but didn't say anything. Faintly, I could hear voices from the rolled car. I placed my hands on the steering wheel and took a long breath. I had stopped.
In an unnaturally calm voice—a voice that didn't at all sound like my own—I explained to Margie that she should stay in the car and remain on the lookout for help. I would check out the accident.
I didn't feel a thing: not fear, not anticipation, not adrenaline pumping.
Nothing.
I calmly walked to the car. There were two adults in the front seats and two children in the rear. The children were upset, but no one looked hurt. In an abnormally even voice, I explained to the mother what had happened. I calmly observed that their car had little damage, that the children looked okay, and that there was no sign of gasoline leakage or other danger. It was as if I were dictating a report into a transcription machine or perhaps were a machine myself. I felt no emotion: only the task demands of the moment.
As I turned toward our car, I observed that another vehicle had stopped. The driver had noticed Margie and offered assistance. He explained that he was a paramedic and indicated that he had summoned help on his cell phone. Within a few minutes, the help arrived. Everyone was safe.
When I returned to the car, I explained to Margie what I had seen. As I talked, I suddenly realized that the family could have been killed, that their car could have been filled with blood, and that the vehicle could have blown up. It was a car accident! As if a dam had broken, releasing pent up waters, I began to shake. I was a nervous wreck.
I had returned to being Brett.
KNOWING MORE THAN WE KNOW WE KNOW
As I surveyed the coat closet, I knew that this stopped feeling was exactly the one I had experienced on the highway. If I believed in spirits, I would say that I had become possessed. Occasionally, articles in the tabloids will describe people who say that they have been abducted by alien beings. Some people with a condition called Asperger's syndrome actually believe that they are aliens or can communicate with them. They realize that they are unlike everyone else and cannot explain the difference in any other fashion. That is how it feels to be stopped: as though a robot-alien has taken over. Perception is unusually clear at those times; there is no clouding of thought by doubt, desire, or fear. I feel like an efficient, accurate information-processing machine.
I turned to the children and very calmly explained, "I'm just going to be a minute. I need to find my coat." My voice seemed flat, a bit slower than usual, and as if it were coming from a great distance. Neither Devon nor Macrae seemed to notice anything amiss. They continued to wait alongside their backpacks, petting their multicolored, feline friends Ginger, Gina, and Mali. They didn't care if we were late to school.
More slowly than usual, I turned to the left side of the closet. Without hesitating—and with no prior thought or planning—I searched for the raincoat between the other garments. In a moment, the search was over. The coat had fallen from its hanger and had become trapped between two winter coats in the overfilled closet. I calmly put the raincoat on, retrieved the keys from the pocket, and gathered the children into the car.
As I drove to work, the clear, quiet mode persisted. It was a pleasant, calm, unruffled feeling, a bit distanced from the world. I pondered the question: Was the coat really lost?
At one level, it most obviously was. I searched high and low and couldn't find it. Yet at another level, I knew exactly where it was. Once I had stopped, I went to the coat with no hesitation whatsoever. The coat was lost to Brett, but not to the robot.
How much else might I know and not know that I know? How many market patterns go unnoticed by my conscious, frantic mind because they are caught between the usual indicators?
JOAN AND HER INNER VOICES
Joan was a bright, attractive woman in a challenging medical school program. She was the envy of her peers: successful, attractive, and popular. School was stressful for most of her classmates. They spent countless hours worrying about failure, cramming for the next exam. Not Joan. It seemed as though she could read the material once, absorb it, and pass with flying colors. In other people's eyes, she had it all together.
The reality was far different. Joan felt that she was a failure. She believed that she was "gross," "disgusting," and "fat." She had an eating disorder, a blending of anorexia (self-starvation) and bulimia (binge eating and purging).
In our first session, Joan made it very clear that she shouldn't feel this way. She knew that she was popular, bright, and successful. At one level, she even knew that she wasn't overweight. "But I feel fat," she insisted, giving voice to her multiplicity. "People tell me how wonderful I am, but I don't believe it. I feel like an imposter. They don't really know what I'm like."
For the greater part of the academic day, Joan experienced few problems. Her focus was on her work, and she genuinely enjoyed learning about medicine and helping others. Indeed, that was one island of self-esteem amidst her negativity: Joan realized that she was a caring person and knew that she worked well with patients. She described the time when she spent an extra hour with an uneducated immigrant man who complained vociferously about his "family problems." He had been admitted to the hospital for complications related to heart disease and high blood pressure. The physicians on the service either dismissed his family-related complaints or indicated that he would be referred for family counseling after his medical problems had been addressed. Only after truly listening to the man did Joan figure out that these family problems were sexual ones. The man was experien
cing erectile dysfunction in reaction to his blood pressure medication. Joan's face lit up with pride as she described the man's joy on learning that the problem was with the medication, not his manhood.
Once the working day was over, however, and Joan returned home, her focus turned inward and became unremittingly self-critical. She spent hours weighing herself, trying on her clothes, measuring her food portions, and standing in front of the mirror, all in the desperate hope that she could lose weight. At other times, she would lose all self-control, attempting to drown her disgust with her body in quarts of premium ice cream, cookies, and brownies. Her bingeing episodes left her even more despondent about her inability to lose weight and more disgusted with her body. Evenings thus became an endless cycle of self-loathing, attempts to lose weight, and efforts to soothe herself with food. She felt totally out of control. If positive reinforcement alone really did govern behavior, Joan should have been a paragon of self-esteem. She had experienced no lack of successes, no absence of acceptance and praise. She described her family upbringing as supportive and harmonious. Her parents were achievement oriented and clearly pushed their children to excel, but there were no abusive recriminations if grades, athletic performances, or piano recitals didn't work out well. Indeed, Joan mostly remembered receiving praise from her parents when she brought home good grades.
None of those positives seem to have been internalized, however. It seemed as though she clung to her negative self-image no matter what happened in her life and despite what others said or did. This, of course, was tremendously frustrating to those few people who knew about Joan's problems and wanted to help her. Sensing their frustration, Joan did her best to keep her eating problems a secret. In a desperate effort to keep her problems to herself, she avoided truly close friendships, only allowing people to see the competent, confident exterior. This further accentuated her feelings of isolation, failure, and worthlessness. By the time she came to counseling, she was seriously depressed.
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