November 19, 2014

November 19, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

This writer woke up from a dream in which he was talking with his wife about their cat. They were discussing the fact that Kayla’s way of walking had become increasingly shaky ever since they picked, her up when she was having trembling legs. Also, their little Chihuahua was having the same symptoms. His legs were even worse than their cat almost to the point it couldn’t walk anymore.

In an earlier dream, this writer had fallen asleep while he and his students were watching video footage on the Harlow monkeys. They had to wake him up and he was feeling embarrassed. He spoke with them about insomnia and that he wasn’t having any good sleep lately. The students were understanding and two of them decided to do presentations so that this author could take it easy.

The aforementioned are typical behaviorological examples. In the dream, Kayla and the Chihuahua were conditioned by the writer and his wife to walk as if they were drunk. These dreams model how parents condition their children. Each time the child gets the attention for the behavior which preceded it, that behavior is reinforced. In the dream it became very clear that because we love our pets so much and pick them up, we condition them to walk as if they are drunk.

This write was reminded of yesterday’s writing, in which he was worried about getting reprimanded again. That seemed like an example of an extinction burst. He is no longer, as he used to as a child, punished again and again for what goes wrong and doesn’t attract negative attention anymore with his nervousness and incompetence. Writing about behaviorology has a reconditioning effect.

Today’s entry happens in paragraphs of six sentences long. It was not decided that way, but it just happened like this by itself. After the first two paragraphs came out that way this write continued with it because it created a certain order in his thinking. This makes this author think about how he organizes his writing. He could decide to write an exact amount of sentences per paragraph each day.