Acoustic Waves, Battery, Fukushima, Nuclear Energy, Frequency Monitoring, Story 1, Story 2, Story 3, Carly's Story, Jesus, Dragon,

Dana's Story 2 - Copyright Richard Collins, 2011, All Rights Reserved.

[Friday] [School] My eighth grade homeroom is noisier than I remembered.  Everyone is talking and laughing really loud.  I guess I am used to a quiet house, and I spent most of the summer with adults.  In the last week I had also gotten used to wearing a tailored wool suit, so I almost felt uncomfortable in a matching skirt and blouse.  I miss my sister Patty, she is off to college now.  We were partners in helping people in hospitals, we helped blind people to see, we helped firemen to see where people were in a fire, we helped deaf people to hear.  We helped set up a nonprofit organization to promote the science of mind speech and mind mapping.  We worked together as consultants to government and industry.  It was a very busy summer.

I closed my eyes and looked around the room at everyone.  There were several people who were bright from mind merging.  The rest were the usual dark blobs of people who had not learned how to mind merge.  Paul was in the center of a group of kids that had learned how to mind merge at his house.   I had helped him teach the groups of students - mostly kids from our middle school.

"Dana, what are you doing?"  Paul mindspoke to me.

"Just looking around.  How many people did you teach to merge this summer?"  I sent to him.

"About forty.  Some people came to more than one training session.  There are twenty who can merge on their own and some people haven't quite learned how."  he mindspoke to me.

"Where were you the last couple of weeks?"  he sent.

"I was sick for almost a week with a summer flu, and then I was off doing some consulting work in Washington DC."  I sent.

"What were you doing?"  he sent.

"Nothing much, just teaching some people how to mind merge.  Patty and I worked together.  A few dozen people all in all.  Pretty straightforward for the most part.  We did not get into applications very much, they just wanted to know mindspeech, merging and blob mapping."  I sent.

"We call it mind mapping now."  Paul sent.

"I started calling it blob mapping when I first discovered it.  I guess I got in the habit of calling it that.  I think it is more correct to say blob map when you are looking at blobs.  There is a lot more going on in the mind, then just the blob map.  We really do not see a mind map, just a map of blobs of people."  I sent.

"OK,  I guess since you invented it, you can call it what you like."  he sent.

"Well, since the Mindmapping Association was set up, I am getting used to people calling it a mind map.  Most people are calling it a mind map now, so it doesn't matter what I think."  I sent.

Paul had dropped out of a merge to mindspeak privately with me.  I could tell that there were kids around him who wanted him to join back in.

"I've got to go, talk to you later."  he sent. "Bye"  I sent.

One of the advantages of mindspeech is you can do it across the room or across the country, without other people listening in.  So our private conversation was just that - private.  One of the problems with mind merge is that all of the people in the merge hear everything that gets said.  It is great when you want to talk to a group of people.  And, it is great when you want to share an idea or look at something together.  I was still learning all the things it was possible to do in a mind merge, even though I was the one who discovered it.  Paul and I were the first people in the world to mind merge.

Now there were probably thousands of people who could mind merge, and mindspeak.  Once we first merged, it was easy to teach others how to do it.  It grew like wildfire.  The Mindmappers Association is running training classes all over the world, or at least has plans to do so.  Patty and I taught classes in mind merging and mindspeech to one of our Senators, and to the Secret Service.  We also helped introduce it to the FBI Hostage Rescue Team.  I was probably going to have to teach other classes on the weekends.  Mom had my schedule and made all my arrangements, usually.

The bell rang and the homeroom teacher called us to order.  She had roll and room announcements.  We listened and watched the video of school announcements.  My first class was gym, so I was thinking ahead to where I had to go, and what I needed to do.  I had my gym clothes in my backpack.  I would leave them in my locker after today.

The bell rang and everyone spilled out into the hallways.  I stepped over to the side and closed my eyes.  There were many people in mind merges.  I could tell because their blobs were almost as bright as a bright.  Brights were people who were naturally bright and detailed when you looked at them with your eyes closed.  It was a skill that anyone could learn - looking at others with your mind.  I still called it blob watching, since the pictures of most people look like blobs.  I saw some of the people I had taught this summer, but no one I wanted to talk to.

I stepped back into the rush and got to the girl's gym lockers.  We were only going to have orientation today, so we did not suit up.  When we lined up in the gym, a blond headed girl stopped next to me. 

"You are Dana, aren't you?" she said.  "My name is Theresa.  I met you at one of Paul's parties where you taught us how to mind merge."  she continued.

"Hello."  I said, without making any commitments.

"I wanted to practice mind merging but I don't have anyone to practice with.  I am new to school this year, and I really don't know anyone.  My mother knows Paul's mother, that is how I got to his party."  she related.

"Let's see how school goes.  Do we have any classes together?"  I asked.

I had Math, Science, English Language Arts, Humanities, Health, Art, Social Studies and gym.  We checked over our schedules and found that we had three classes together.  The school wanted to scramble us into different classes.  Maybe they did not want everyone in the same classes all the time.

I noticed several people I had shared classes with the previous year.  I nodded at them but did not have time to talk.  I wondered how many of them could mindspeak.  That would be much easier than trying to talk out loud.  We could even do it while the teacher was talking, if we needed or wanted to.

Science was my third class.  When I came into the room, there were three students arguing with the teacher already.  I sat down near the back, luckily we did not have assigned seats.  From what I could hear, they were saying that lots of kids could mindspeak, and the teacher was saying that was a lot of lies and misconceptions.  I got angry at what the teacher was saying, but did not say anything myself.  I did not realize there were people who did not believe in mindspeech.  Considering the whole Mindmappers association was only a few weeks old, I was not surprised that everyone did not know about it.  Even though I had discovered it in the first place, I was not about to get into a shouting match with a teacher on my first day of school.

I had taught many people to mindspeak.  Not all of them were prepared to understand it.  I would say that everyone I taught had reservations before I could show them.  It is only natural to doubt something you had not seen or experienced on your own.

"But Dana taught us how!  She is an expert on it.  Do you think she would lie?"  One of the students shouted.  Uh oh.  Now they were dragging me into it.  I tried to shrink myself so no one could see.  I had my schedule book open, and was trying to drill a hole in it with my concentration.  I did not want to get involved in a fight about mindspeech.

"Ms Freehurst.  Do you have anything to add to this?"  The teacher spoke, so I could no longer pretend I wasn't listening.

"What are you talking about?  I was busy looking at my schedule."  I said in a reasonable tone.

"These students say that you taught them how to be telepaths.  Is that correct?"  he asked.

"No, that is not correct.  They probably know mindspeech but I doubt they can read anyone's mind."  I said, keeping my tone reasonable.  All my practice teaching adults was coming in handy.  I had after all given national news interviews and spoken to our Senator.  I walked toward him so I would not have to raise my voice.  I stood just in front of him.

"What is the difference?"  he asked, with a quizzical look on his face.

"When two people are in a mind merge, they can usually see the minds of the people around them.  When two people are in mind merge they can often mindspeak to each other."  I explained.

"Are you interested in mindspeech?"  I asked the teacher.

"Well, maybe.  I have heard something about it on the news, but it seemed rather farfetched and stupid."  he said.

"Here is our business card.  The website has plenty of detail on mindspeech, mind mapping and various applications.  It is really hard to get training in mindspeech right now, only priority organizations are getting preference.  I gave a talk to the Secret Service Wednesday and yesterday.  They had priority, and they paid a lot of money for me to teach them."  I said as I handed him my business card.  I guess I had on my presentation face, because he took the card, looked at it, and then said thank you.  I went back to my seat.

The students who had been arguing a minute before were quiet now.  They had watched my interaction with the teacher.  Class had not started yet, so they came to stand next to my desk.

"That was cool."  one of them said.  "Can we have one of your business cards?"  I only had a handful with me.  "Here is one.  You can make copies or you can just remember the website, Mindmappers.org.

"We learned how to merge and how to do mindspeech, but we do not know how to teach others how to do it.  Could you teach us."  another one said.

"I do not have time before class starts.  Do you remember learning how to "send"?"  I asked.  "Two of you need to merge, mindspeak a new person, teach them how to send, and then have them send you their mind map.  When they send their mind map to you and you send to them, it will form a merge."  I relayed quickly.

The bell rang to start class.  "Read about it on the website.  It is there under forming a merge."  I said, and then turned to the front.

When the bell rang, I stopped by the teachers desk.  He was staying in the room for the next class. 

"Our church has classes to teach mind mapping.  They are to teach volunteers to help the blind, and to help people in hospitals who are on breathing tubes, traches or in comas.  If you do not want to have to pay to learn, you could volunteer."  I explained to him.  I gave him my mother's name and phone number.  He wrote it on the back of the card.  "She is in charge of volunteers, she can help you get signed up."  I said, and then hurried to my next class.

There was no shouting in my English class.  A small group of students came to my desk and asked for cards.  I explained that I only had a few and asked them to remember "Mindmappers.org".  They thanked me, some of them covering their mouths with their hands to hide their smiles, and went to find their own desks.  Several sat near me.  I was running a little late, so there was no time to talk to anyone.

When class started, the teacher turned to the class with a little smile on her face.  "In spite of rumors, we will not be teaching mindspeech in the English class."  she said.  Everyone laughed.  The students who had sat down next to me looked around at each other.

I briefly closed my eyes to look at those students.  Three of them were in a merge.  I could not tell if they were all talking to each other, or if they were connected to students in other classes.  They were fairly advanced or they would probably have to keep closing their eyes.  I think they were crossing their eyes to put them out of focus, so they could pay attention to people mind speaking to them.  I did not think they were able to send images to each other or they surely would have their eyes closed.  They dropped out of merge as the class started, I was happy to see.

The English teacher gave us a short quiz to see where we were on grammar.  She assigned reading homework for us on the first day.  Since school had started on Friday, she felt we would have time to read over the weekend.  I hoped I did not have to teach this weekend, even though Mom said that the money was all going into my college fund.  I was probably going to have to work on my biography though, the ghostwriter had some more material prepared for Patty, my sister, and I to go over.  Scheduling and homework was just going to get more complicated.

I was happy to have an art class this year.  The teacher looked competent, at least she seemed to be in good spirits as we came into her class.  When the class started, though, I got a shock.

"I hope you all had a good summer.  How many of you know that Dana Freehurst discovered mind speaking this summer, and has started an organization to teach it, and to find applications for mind mapping?  That it her there.  Dana would you stand up?"

I slowly stood up.  Thank goodness I did not have to say anything.  The teacher let me just sit down again, and went on with her introduction.  Why did she single me out?  She must have been following what I did over the summer.  Maybe she had gone to one of the mindspeaking classes.

"Dana, do you have a moment?"  she asked when the class was filing out after the bell rang.  "Yes"  I said with some hesitation.

"I just wanted to say how proud I am of you for all the work you have done.  I know Dr. Acres, and he told me how you were responsible for several people coming out of comas.  He had high praise for your help in talking to people on traches and breathing tubes.  He mentioned that his hospital staff were all going to learn mind speech and mind mapping so they could better treat patients and people in emergency situations."  she said.

"How do you know Dr. Acres?"  I asked.

"He is the brother of a very good friend of mine from college.  I have been hearing all summer about what you are doing."  she explained.

"Patty and I were happy to help the people in comas, and those who could not speak because they were on tracheotomies or breathing tubes."  I said. "Those were some of the first applications of mindspeech that we came up with, and it could not have happened without Dr. Acres interest and support."  I continued.

Time was running out for me to get to the next class before the bell, so I left hurriedly.

Social Studies class was terrible.  The teacher seemed nice enough, but he went on for fifteen minutes about the new discoveries that were being made in mind mapping and mind speech, and how that was going to be changing society as we know it.  He kept looking at me and smiling.  I wanted to crawl under the desk, or just disappear.

Finally the day was over, when the bell rang for the last class.  I was mobbed by students in the hall.  I gave away the last of my business cards.  I needed to remember to make up a lot of them.  I was also going to put down the church number on the back with a note about volunteering to help the blind.

"Dana, do you need a ride home?  My brother is picking me up."  Paul mind called to me. 

"No, I am ok, I rode my bike."  I sent back to him.  "See you later."

The bicycle ride seemed to clear up my head.  I had gotten skirts that were a little longer, I guess because I was meeting so many adults.  They were fine around school, but a little troublesome on a bike.  I managed.  School seemed to gradually fade away, and I was feeling OK when I got home.

[Living Room]

"Dana, are you settled yet?  Could you meet with the teachers from Father John's blind classes tonight?  I already mind called Patty and she said she could be available to merge with you."  Mom said when I came downstairs.

"I guess I can help.  Do you know what they need?"  I asked.

"They are OK with mindmapping and boosting, and they can merge, but they are not sure how to teach a new person to merge.  Most of them have been shown how to do it, but when they tried to do it themselves they could not."  Mom explained.

"All right.  What time are they coming?"  I asked.

"We are meeting them at the church at 7 o'clock.  One of the classrooms."  Mom said.

"Is there anyone new, who does not know how to mindspeak, that we can use to show them?"  I asked.

"There are going to be 6 teachers and 6 new people to practice with."  Mom said.

"Ok"  I sighed.  That was a lot of people for one evening.  It was not hard, it just took a lot of patience and care to get it right the first time, every time.  There was not much room for error, when there was a deadline.

[My Room]  I read my English assignment, and I worked on some problems from the math homework.  I was pretty good at pre-algebra, but I did not want to get behind.  I was going to leave the rest of my homework for Sunday afternoon and evening if possible.

The ghostwriter had emailed some draft chapters for me to look at.  I read them through carefully, and made a few corrections.  I used the "Track Changes" feature in Word to show her the changes I suggested.  Those changes were under my name.  I sent the drafts on to Patty and she would look at them and make her own changes and suggestions, before sending them back to the ghostwriter.

I felt that I had gone from childhood directly into adulthood.

[Church]  We got there a few minutes early, but everyone was already there.  I had just had dinner, so I got a cold drink and sat down near the front.  Mom was talking to everyone,  I was preparing myself to teach the class, as fast and efficiently as possible.

"Patty, can you hear me?  Are you ready to merge for the class?"  I mind sent to Patty.

"Yes, I am here.  Let me get myself settled in a comfortable chair, and set my drink somewhere.  How long is this going to take?"  She mind sent.

"I expect it to take at least two hours.  It depends on how good these people are."  I sent.  Patty and I started sending each other our mind maps, and then we slipped into a mind merge.  I closed my eyes briefly to look at the classroom.  There were no natural brights in the class.  Just ordinary mind blobs, brightened and enhanced because I was in a merge with Patty.

I could see the teachers and the new people separating themselves out into two groups.  Everyone had something to drink, everyone had a name tag, it was time to begin.  Mom pointed to me and I stood up to face them.  I dragged my chair closer to them and turned it around to face them.  I wanted to be able to read their name tags.

"Hello my name is Dana Freehurst.  I will be teaching this class with my sister Patty.  When we get started I am going to sit down and face you to be comfortable.  This is probably going to take about two hours.  I want to take a break in the middle. Is everyone OK?"  I explained.

There were murmurs of acknowledgement and agreement. 

"Patty, my sister, is in her college room right now.  She and I are merged already.  First I want to extend that merge to include all the teachers,  Then we are going to connect to each new person.  We will mind speak you first then we will ask you to send a mind map to us, then we will merge with you.  The teachers will be able to watch and listen as each new person is added to the merge.  When we are done merging there will be fifteen of us (I am going to include my Mom).  We will than browse on our common mind map and look at the city around us."  I explained.

"Mom could you join us?"  I mind spoke to Mom.  I remembered to whisper because when two people are in a merge, their combined power it something like ten times stronger then a simple mindspeech between two people. 

"I am ready."  Mom sent.  Mom already knew how to merge, so she started sending her own mind map to us, while we sent our combined mind map to her.  It took less than a minute for us to feel the familiar feeling of merging.

I pointed to the first teacher.  I could read her nametag. It said "Suzy". 

With my eyes closed I could locate her blob.  It was in a place corresponding to where she sat.  I could tell it was her because her face, to my mind sight, was the same as her face to my eye sight.  "Suzy would you merge?"  I sent to her.

Suzy knew how to merge and jumped right into it, sending us her mind map as we sent her the collective mind map.  In just a few seconds she had merged into our group.

I pointed to the next one, and he immediately started sending.  He merged into our group.

Until all the teachers were in the group.  At this point there was Patty, me, Mom and six teachers.

I pointed at the first newcomer.  A newcomer is someone who has never seen blob maps (mind maps), who has never mindspoken, and who has never merged.  Someone with no mind skills.

The first newcomer was John.

"John, Hello."  I mind spoke John.  Ordinarily one person trying to mindspeak a newcomer does not have enough power to get the message through.  And a newcomer does not have enough power to send an answer.  What we were doing with a merge of nine people (two would have been enough) was to overcome the weak signals that a newcomer could produce and talk to them directly by mind.

"Hello.  This is John.  What do I do next?"  John sent and the group listened.

We sent John a picture of his mind map, greatly enhanced.   A newcomer could see images, including images of blob maps from another's mind, that the group sent to him.

"John do you see this mind map?  It is a picture of this room showing the people in it as you see it with your mind.  This is your mind map."  I spoke to John by mindspeech and I spoke out loud for the benefit of the other newcomers I was going to tell the same thing.

"Yes, I see it.  It is beautiful.  What do I do now?"  John sent.

"John, here is the common mind map and I showed him the common mind map we all held.  Please try to send your map to join ours.  I want you to try to send your mind map to the group.  You will have to try different ways to send.  We will tell you when you get it right.  The easiest way is to keep this mind map in your mind, and then try to throw it to us with your mind."  I mind spoke John, and said it out loud as well.

John tried several ways to send the mind map to us.  It was his own mind map that he was sending.  We had only enhanced it for him to see.  Finally.

"That is it, John.  Try that again."  I said to all of them.

"John tried it again and it was the proper way.

"Now, John,  Start sending that to the group until you merge in yourself."  I said to everyone.

"Just keep sending?"  he asked.

"Yes, you will see it get brighter.  You will need to send the brighter image to the group.  When it gets brighter still, then send that,  Just keep sending."  I explained to everyone.

John started sending his mind map to us, and we sent our combined mind map to him.  When we sent ours to him, it caused his map to get brighter.  When he sent his map to us, ours got a little brighter.  Even now after doing this so many times, I was not sure how the merge was created this way.  But shortly he merged into the group and his mind map now was the same as ours.  There was only a common mind map in the merge.

I figured that we had take about ten minutes to merge John into our group.  John had his eyes closed and I could guess that he was looking at all the detail in the common mind map.  It really was beautiful.

"Ellen.  Hello.  Here is your mind map.  Here is our mind map.  Please try to send your mind map to the group."  I mind sent to the next newcomer. 

Ellen had been listening when I talked to John.  She was ready to try.  I could feel her trying different ways to send to us.  Some were partially successful.  I was waiting for the strength to come up to a certain point.  She got it in a few minutes.  She merged in quickly.

In this manner we merged all of the newcomers.  I think the trick was to send both mind maps (theirs and the common one) right away.  It was possible to emphasize an image so when we said "this map" or "that map" they would be highlighted.

The first hour was up, so asked everyone to take a break and to ease them out of the merge.  Sometimes it was hard to break out of a merge.  That was why we practiced it.

Everyone took a pit stop, and then got something to eat or drink.  Someone had provided cookies, bagels, muffins and donuts, coffee and soft drinks.

When everyone settled down after the break, I quickly reformed the teachers' mind merge.  I had each one of the teachers go through the steps with each of the newcomers.  Everyone's mindspeech was clear and loud enough without being too loud.  The instructions were clear and consistent.  All of the newcomers were back in the merge in less than thirty minutes.  Then we just spent time looking.

A common mind map for so many people was an amazing thing.  Usually one person alone would have a mind map that showed the people in the same room, the people in the same building, or the people in the neighborhood.  My own map only showed me a couple of blocks in every direction.  It showed a blob or a dot for every person (or mammal) in that area.  The common mind map of fifteen people stretched over many tens of miles, and showed every person (or mammal) as a detailed three dimensional image of that person.  Each person represented had arms and legs and body and head.  They glowed a golden color usually, with color highlights.  It was possible to tell from looking at a person's blob (that part of a mind map that showed a single person is called a blob of that person). whether they were awake, asleep or unconscious.

We could see the Mall in the map as a bright area with hundreds of people moving around.  By bringing emphasis to the image I could point out different areas, or I could zoom in to show detail of a particular area.  So I showed the Mall, and the local hospital.  I showed people sleeping, and people who were unconscious.

Finally I had to call it an evening.  I suggested that the same group get together soon and practice on their own.  That way everyone would remember what they had just learned, and practice it.  They could merge in various combinations.  I recommended that everyone get used to working in pairs, as that was one of the most effective approaches to the volunteer and teaching applications we had developed.

I thanked Patty and let her go back to her studies.  She had received the drafts on our biography, and was going to get them done tonight.

I grabbed a final donut and then we left to go home.  Everyone had thanked me so much, I was tired.

[Saturday]

[Kitchen]  I had started to drink coffee, if it was weak enough and had enough milk and sugar.  Mom got me up fairly early.  Dad was sleeping in.  It was hard getting used to Patty not being there.  I am so used to going into her room to talk with her.  I know she is only a mindspeech away, or a cell phone call away, but it seems so final.  Her college is only in Northern Virginia but it seems like a long way away.

The Secret Service had left a message on our answering machine last night while we were teaching.  Patty and I had taught 24 of them earlier in the week.  Apparently one of them or some of them had a question they needed answered this morning.  They did not leave a message that they needed to merge or mindspeak, so I guessed that a simple phone call would be sufficient.

[Living Room] 

"This is extension 2453.  Please state your business."  Kind of a cold answer when I called.

"This is Dana Freehurst.  I had a phone message from Max Williams that he left last night."  I said.

"Oh, Hi Dana!  Do you remember me from the class this week?"  he said.

"Yes, I do remember you.  Did you have some questions?"  I asked.

"We are running classes for newcomers this weekend.  We are starting this afternoon.  We are getting so all the people you trained this week can merge, see mind maps, and mindspeak without much trouble.  We are running into problems bringing in newcomers.  Do you have any suggestions?"  he said.

I had to laugh. "Ha ha!  That is what I was doing last night at the church.  They ran into the same difficulty.  Do you want me to tell you what we did last night, and then you can ask questions?"  I said.

"Yes."  he said.

So I went over the steps we had taken - merging us, then the teachers.  Then mindcalling each newcomer, sending them our mindmap, sending them their mindmap, and then asking them to send to join the merge.  Then breaking the merge and letting each teacher give the instructions to the newcomers.

"The hard part is feeling them send, so we know the newcomer is doing it right."  Max said.

"Yes, and sending them clear images of their own mind map, and the common mind map."  I said.  "When we first started doing this, we were taking like half an hour to link in a newcomer.  Now we are doing it in five minutes or less some time."  I continued.

"That bit about holding their mind map in their mind and sending it like throwing something is a good instruction.  We will try that."  Max said.

"If you really get stuck, give me a mind call.  Do you remember my blob?"  I said.

"Yes, I remember your blob."  He mind sent.

"What are you using this for?"  I asked. 

"I can't tell you most of it, but it is mainly for team cohesion, good team communication, and situational awareness."  he said.

"I thought that was what you were going for, from your brief comments before.  Have you thought ahead to when group merges get sensitive enough to screen newcomers for their thoughts"  I asked.

"What do you mean?"  He said.

"Well, when a pair or group is sensitive enough, we can read someone talking to themselves.  We do that with every newcomer, just so we can hear their reply when we mind call them.  But with more power and sensitivity, it should be possible to read their words even if they are not talking to themselves.  We do that with people in deep comas.  We can read their words even when they are not aware they are talking.  I do not know the ultimate limit, but I have been wondering about images and feelings as well.  I have only a limited experience with pain in hospital settings.  I am sure there is more that can be learned."  I explained.

"So if we had a sensitive team in a mind merge, we could read the minds of people standing in line somewhere?"  He asked, hesitantly.

"You might get to the point where you could sense words, images and feelings.  It is just an idea that I had, but I think it will work.  I wanted to try it with Patty, but she is starting her new school now."  I said.

"Thanks, talk to you later."  he said.   "Ok. Talk to you later."  I replied.

[My Room]  I was thinking about mind calling Paul.  I am of two minds about him.  He is pretty nice, and he is good looking on the one hand, but has gotten really involved in mind speech.  He probably says the same about me, that I spend all my time promoting mind skills.  Maybe I just think he has too many friends, and they all want to learn mind skills, and that is what they want from me.  I sometimes, often, get tired of teaching.

Paul was the first person I mind merged with.  As far as I know that is the first time in human history that anyone has mind merged.  That seems kind of special.  Yet we seem to be avoiding each other.  Or maybe I think he is only running mind skills classes, and he wants me to teach.  I just wanted to spend time with him, and maybe blind dance.  I was tired of all the people around.

It would be nice to have a mind merge partner for school.  At least for school.  I can't keep calling on Patty during the school day.  It takes almost no effort at all to mind merge with Paul.  It seems really natural.  I want to see how far a merge can go.  What I was talking to Max about feelings and images from a strong merge pair.  I would like to try that.  But it is kind of intimate.  It is intimate when you are really close mind to mind.  We had tried sharing images.  Could we read images from a newcomer?  Could we read feelings from a newcomer?

I must be more tired than I thought, I fell asleep thinking about Paul.

"Dana, this is Paul.  Can you talk?"  Paul mind called me.

He was just calling me a second time when I answered.  "This is Dana.  What can I do for you?"  I sent to Paul by mindspeech.

"Oh, nothing special.  I was just thinking about you and wondered how you are doing.  Do you have any mind classes scheduled for today?"  he sent.

"No, nothing scheduled.  Are you giving classes at your house this weekend?"  I asked by mindspeech.

"No. Just a quiet day.  I was wondering if you might like to go somewhere?"  he sent.

"I guess so.  Where did you want to go?"  I sent.

"Have you ever been horseback riding?"  he sent.

"Not since I was a little kid."  I sent.

"A friend of my Moms runs a riding school.  They have offered several times for her and me to come riding, but I never did.  My Mom says she will drive me there if I want to go.  Would you like to go riding this afternoon?  he sent.

"What time?"  I sent, looking at the clock.  It was almost eleven.

"We would leave in about an hour, and get back before dinner.  It is only about half an hour from your house."  he sent.

"What do I need to wear?"  I sent.

"Just wear jeans and tennis shoes.  It is warm enough still we won't need a jacket or anything." he sent.

"I will check with Mom and get back to you in a few minutes."  I sent.

Mom was OK with me going horseback riding with Paul and his Mom.  I told her the name of the stable and she said she had heard about it.  The drive to the stable was perfect, the day was beautiful  I was a little concerned since I had not done this in a while, but I remember doing it when I was young, and that had been fun.

I ended up wearing a pair of riding boots that the owner leant me.  She and Paul's Mom were going on the advanced course, Paul and I were on a meandering walking path.  I had one of the mildest mounts in the place, a little black mare with white feet.  Paul was riding a tan colored gelding just a little bigger.  We started out at a walk, and sometimes went at a fast walk, but mostly we were riding around a circuit on the horses.  It was mild enough for me.

Paul and I went into a merge soon after we started on the trail.  He sent his mind map to me, and I sent mine back to him. When he sent, my map got brighter, so I immediately sent it to him brighter.  Then him back to me.  It was a method for building up two fairly weak individual minds, into one much stronger one.  When we had settled into the merge, we were surprised to see that our common mind map contained the two horses.  They were fairly bright.  Not nearly as bright as us two, but significantly brighter than we would see on our own - outside the merge.

"Horses certainly don't talk, at least I do not think they would talk in English."  Paul sent.

"They probably think in images, smells and feelings."  I sent.

"Is there something that we could send them?"  Paul sent a question.

"I have an apple in my saddlebag, could we send an image of an apple to one of them?"  I sent.

"OK, let's try it."  he sent, and we stopped both horses on the trail.

I sniffed the apple, held it so that Paul could see it and sniff it as well, then put it back in my saddlebag.

I brought up the image of the apple in our common mind map.  I narrowed down the image so that it was all we could see.  I could smell the apple through the memory.  I brought up the mind map of his horse.  When all that was ready, we "sent" together to his horse.

Immediately his horse started chewing motions with its mouth, whinnied and started walking forward at a fast pace.  "Whoa, Whoa, Whoa!" Paul said and tried to calm down his mount.

"That was certainly a strong reaction."  Paul sent.  "Let's try your horse."

So we brought up an image and smell of the apple in our common mind map.  We brought up the mind map of my horse.  Then we "sent" to my horse as strong as we could.

My horse started chewing motions with her mouth, and kind of jumped forward.  I was a little nervous and anxious, so I held on and brought her to a halt fairly quickly.

"Do you think we can reach the horses over there in that field?"  Paul sent, and pointed.  "Let's just keep it to one horse."  I suggested.  "The one closest to the fence on our left."

Again we prepared ourselves, and then sent the image to the horse we had chosen.  That horse chewed and jumped just like mine had.

"It could take years to learn a horse's vocabulary."  I sent to Paul.

"But it seems like they do respond to mind calls."  Paul sent to me.

We went back to our ride.  We rode twice around the path and then we checked with Paul's Mom.  She was having a wonderful time, the day was so beautiful, she missed her friend, and she missed horseback riding.  Paul and I were content, so we rode around two more times.  I was starting to hurt from the riding, so we finally stopped and drove home.

Paul left me at my house well before dinner.  I took a long hot bath to ease the pains from riding.  I stretched muscles I did not know I had.  I was walking kind of bowlegged.  If felt like I was still on the horse.  I remembered sending the apple image to the horses, and their reactions.  Maybe it was time to go back to the zoo, now that we could mind merge.

[My room]  I wrote up my experiences of the day and sent them to Craig for posting on the website, and I sent a copy to the ghostwriter.  She might find this interesting.  She had not quite decided where to end the biography, so I guess we could keep adding to it.

Max Williams from the Secret Service left a message while I was out.  It said that the classes went well, and thanks for the help on starting newcomers.  I had my cell phone while I was out.  He left the message on the house phone so there was probably no urgency.

I was tired, but awake, so I did some more home work.  It would just be my luck if I got called on an emergency and did not have time to finish my homework.  Would that be a good excuse?  "The Secret Service called and they had an emergency that only I could fix."  Lol!

===== End Sept 25  7,200 words  about 15 pages.

[Sunday]

[Church]  We came to the 11 o'clock service.  When we came into the lobby we ran into Father John.  Mom talked with him for a while about the volunteer classes he was  running to teach people how to help the blind.  A volunteer can merge with a blind person, and then provide a clear mind map of an area.  The volunteer can also send images to the common mind map, so that the blind person can see.  Patty and I learned how to send mind maps and images to blind people, before we knew how to mind merge.  It was just possible, and the mind maps were limited.  But even then the mind map gave the blind person a way to see the people around them.  When observing traffic, the mind map shows people in the cars.  In a mall, the mind map helps the blind person to navigate around people.

Father John had offered classroom space for training volunteers.  We had been running classes in our home, and that was getting to be too much.

Edith, Jerry, Susan and Frank Sanders were there, so we all decided to sit together.  I met Edith and Jerry early in the summer before I learned how to mindspeak.  Their cousin, Jack, is the first bright I found.  It was because of finding him that I was able to discover blob watching (mind mapping) and mind speech.  Edith's family were all mindspeakers now, and they could all mind merge.  Susan was active in helping coordinate volunteers for coma patients, as well as for the blind, and for firefighters.  Jack's family were all mindspeakers and mergers as well.  His mother, Karen, and his sister, Carly, were both brights as well.  In their whole family, only Jim, the father, was not a bright.  With mind merging, it was not as important to have brights as when we first began to teach people to mind map.

The service was very nice.  There were several baptisms of small children, as well as some older children.  I enjoyed the singing and the sermon, which was on the importance of helping others.

After the service, I talked to Edith for a few minutes.  I told her about my experiments with the horses yesterday.  She thought that was very interesting, and said she might go to the zoo to see how a merge pair could interact with the animals.

[Living Room]  No emergency messages, so I was not going to have to go anywhere today.  The volunteers were mostly talking care of the blind, and trained teachers were working under contract to teach newcomers for various organizations.  The MindMappers Association had gone from completely volunteer, to mostly contract work, in a few short weeks.

Paul mind called me to see if I wanted to do something.  Did I want to go to a movie?  I said that I did, I would ask my Mom to drive.

"Didn't you just go horseback riding with him yesterday?"  Mom asked.

"Yes, Mom."  I said.

"Are you just going to the movie, or are you going to hang out at the Mall?"  she asked.

"I think we are just going to the movie.  We both have school tomorrow.  We can wait at the front doors and you can pick us up there."  I explained.

[Mall] 

Mom dropped us at the main entrance to the Mall.  We made our way to the movie theatre, bought our tickets and then waited for the movie.

"Do you want to mind merge while we are watching the movie?"  Paul asked.  "It might be interesting to see what happens."

I have been in mind merges with many people.  I have never tried to watch a movie while merged.  I did not know if it would be any different than just watching alone.

When we went in and sat down, we sent each other our own mind maps.  When I sent mine to Paul, his map got a little brighter.  When he sent his to me, my map got a little brighter.  By continually sending the brighter maps, both our maps grew quite bright.  Finally, there was a stretching sensation and the maps merged into one map.  My individual map showed the people around me as gray blobs, with some detail of arms and legs, but hard to see.  After the merge, the map showed all the people around me like 3D photos.  There were arms and legs and heads and faces.  The individual people were no longer dark and gray, but a bright golden color.  I could see everyone in the theatre, everyone in the nearby theatres, everyone in the Mall, everyone in the city around us.  Merging vastly improved the range and the detail of a mind map.

One of the questions I still had about mind merges was whether it was possible to read the feelings of a newcomer (someone who had never mind mapped or mindspoken).  When I was merged in a pair (or triplet or larger number) I could hear with my mind what other people were saying to themselves.  I could read minds, if the other person was saying something.  I was able to send eye images to a blind person, or to a newcomer, when I was in a pair.  I did not know how to read images from a newcomer, nor did I know how to read feelings from a newcomer.  For that matter, I had only limited experience reading feelings from the people I was mindspeaking, or merged with.  Feelings seemed to come across, but I did not know how to read feelings deliberately.

Paul and I watched the previews, and ate our popcorn.  I had plenty of money these days, since I was working under contract when I taught mind skills.  My Mom put most of my money in an educational fund for college.  That was like five full years away still.

Paul looked at me now and then.  He was not saying much through our common mind link.  Every once in a while he would say things like, "Whoa!  Awesome! All right!"  when he saw some unusual action scene.  The previews were pretty violent and loud.

I decided I would watch the movie through his eyes, so I mind sent to him, "Could I watch the movie through your eyes?"  "Sure."  He sent back, with some hesitation.

I closed my eyes and focused on our common mind map.  It was mostly taken up with the images from the screen.  I was surprised to lose the image when he blinked, but I soon got used to that.

It actually takes an effort to separate a mind merge, so I was not worried about him losing the link between us.  I had access to his mind through the link.  At least I had access to our common mind map.  The map could have anything on it that we each might think of.  There was a shared responsibility for what got displayed.  It took a little effort on my part to see images from his mind, but once I started it was easy.

The movie was the last Harry Potter movie.  I was surprised that they did not have mindspeech in the movie.  It seemed like a natural skill for a wizard.  If wizards could join their powers, they would be stronger.

I noticed some feelings coming through with the movie.  After I got used to seeing the images, I noticed that I would feel little tugs on my feelings.  There were some sad parts in the movie, and I was sure that the sadness I felt was from Paul, not from me.

We came out of the theatre blinking.  Me more than Paul, since I had my eyes closed all the way through.  It was different.  I am not sure I would do that again.  The little bits of emotion and feeling colored the experience.  Probably not again.

Mom's car was sitting at the front entrance.  She had only just gotten there.  We dropped Paul off at his house, and I thanked him for inviting me.

[My Room]  Doing contract work and teaching classes makes you very professional and careful in your work.  I finished up my school work, and then read ahead on all my classes.  I did not know when I might have to take a day off from school.

Mind merging does allow access to emotions and feelings.  I wanted to mind merge with Patty and then see if I could feel the pain of people in the hospital.  I mind called Tracy, a male paramedic at the local fire station.  He and Patty and I had met at the local emergency room to see if we could read feelings from patients.  We ended up translating what unconscious people were trying to say to the doctors and nurses.  That was part of the reason why Dr. Acres was going to have all the hospital staff learn how to mind merge, and how to read newcomers.  It was very useful to be able to read what a person on a trache (tracheotomy) or with a breathing tube was trying to say.  Otherwise they were mute and could not talk to the doctor or their family.  Patty and I discovered how to read the words they wanted to say.

"Tracy, this is Dana!  Do you have a minute?"  I mind sent to Tracy.  I sent three times before I got an answer.

"Hi Tracy.  I was just finishing up something.  What's up?"  he sent.

"How is your merging going?"  I sent.

"Fine, I can merge fairly easily now.  I have one partner at the fire station that I normally merge with for fire work.  I have another partner at the hospital, when I am there,  Of course, distance does not matter much, so I could merge with either one, or both."  he sent.  "Why do you ask?"  he asked.

Have you merged with any of the patients at the hospital, or any of the people you help as a paramedic?"  I sent.

"Well, in an emergency situation, there is not time to merge with a newcomer.  It takes too long and the patient kind of has to know what is going on."  he sent.

"When I have been teaching people how to merge with newcomers, I am usually doing it so the newcomer can learn how to merge with just one other person.  I am trying to teach the newcomer how to become a partner for a blind person for instance."  I sent.

"Ok, so what does that have to do with how long it takes?"  he sent as a question.

"A merged pair could probably merge a newcomer, even if the newcomer does not know how to mindspeak, send or merge."  I sent.

"That would mean that we could merge with an emergency patient.  Wouldn't it?"  Tracy sent.

"Yes, it would be completely on the part of the merged pair to create and maintain the merge with the patient.  It would mean that we could also merge with someone in a coma or unconscious."  I sent.

"Do you want to try it?"  he sent.

"Yes.  I would like to.  I mind called you to see if we could set something up."  I sent.

"I am already at the hospital.  I was delivering a patient here from one of our ambulance runs."  He sent.

"Sorry to bother you when you are so busy.  I did not know."  I sent.

"If I had been too busy, I would have sent you a message that I was too busy.  I have a few minutes here while the driver finishes their paper work.  Do you want to merge and look around?"  he sent.

We merged our two mind maps.  There was a feeling when we merged of a snap or a stretch.  The more I did it, the easier it got.  I sent him my mind map and he sent me his, in some process we did not completely understand, the two maps merged, much brighter and stronger then the individual maps.

"It is much easier to mindspeak in a merge."  he sent quietly.

"It sure is.  You only have a few minutes.  Did you have someone you wanted to look at."  I sent.

"There is a young boy who was struck by a car.  He has a head injury and is partly conscious."  he sent.  He guided the common mind map to one person, the young boy.

"We have lots of energy from our merge.  We should be able to take his mind map and superimpose it on ours and form a new mind map that is common for the three of us.  That is like having him send his map to us until he merged.

It took us several minutes to find the right balance.  Trying too hard to merge seemed to make it less likely.  Tracy and I had to have about equal share in our common mind map, and we both had to have the boy's mind map in our individual minds.  There was the sensation of merging, but it was very mild.  The merge did not brighten as much as when someone was actively merging, but it was still bright enough to power the merge we wanted.

We kept our common mind map as still as possible.  The boy's mind map was dark and spotty.  We sent our common map to the boy.  That helped to stabilize him and wake him up slightly.

We took the boy's map and sent it to him.  That was also helpful in waking up someone from a coma.

Suddenly there was a shift in the mind map.  The boy was holding onto the common mind map.  We felt pain and confusion.  I felt a pain in my head that was shocking in its intensity.  I let go of the mind map!

"Sorry, it was hurting too much to hold on."  I mind called to Tracy.  "Are you all right?"  I sent to him.

"Yes, I am fine.  It was just a little shocking.  I think I could have held on, but it surprised me."  he sent.

"Do you want to reconnect?"  I asked by ordinary mindspeech.

"Yes, we are trying to learn."  he sent.

We merged again as a pair, balanced our mind maps, and then merged the boy.  We could feel his pain and sense his confusion, but it was somewhat muted.

"I think he must have just woken up and felt all the pain when we connected to him.  We should have just held on and it would have been ok."  I sent.

"You are probably right.  We definitely can feel the pain he is experiencing.  Do you feel some problem with his back?"  Tracy sent.

"Yes, there is something wrong with his lower back.  He might have twisted it when he was struck."  I sent quietly.

"I have to go now.  I think this was very helpful.  I will tell the doctors about his back."  Tracy sent.

Tracy must have seen his driver, or realized it was time to get going.  We had pretty well shown that a merged pair could connect to a passive newcomer.  He disconnected and we lost our connection to the boy.  I had some lingering sense of the pain the boy was feeling.

I wrote up this experience and sent it to Craig Clarkson, the press contact for the Mindmappers Association.  I copied it to Karen, Susan and my Mom since they were all involved with hospital volunteers and training.  I also copied it to Patty and the ghostwriter.

Tomorrow was school, I better get ready.

[Monday]

[School]  Homeroom was a zoo, everyone seemed to have forgotten something, they were chattering back and forth, so it was hard to hear anything from all the noise.  Once the bell rang it was quieter, but there was a feeling of desperation as people tried to remember schedules and homework assignments.  Probably in a few days, this would all become routine.

We suited up for our gym and went outside.  I was kind of out of shape, so the run around the track was tiring.  We ran far enough to get tired, but not far enough to get a runner's high.  We did our exercises, and the teacher talked to us about the coming week.  I had time to say hello to a few friends from last year.  No one said anything about mind skills.  I did see Theresa, who wanted to practice mind skills, but she did not approach me.  Maybe she was as busy as everyone else.

When I went into Science class the teacher motioned to me.  "I have been reading the Mindmappers.org website you recommended.  There is an awful lot of information there.  I saw some of the videos you made over the summer that explained mind mapping and how it can be applied.  You did a very good job.  It also said you are available for speaking engagements.  I saw how much they charge.  I would like to have the students know what you have learned.  Is there some way you could teach them?"  he said.

"Maybe you could show one of the introductory videos."  I suggested.  "We made those videos to introduce people to basic concepts.  They have been edited and reworked to make them clear and effective."  I continued.

"How did you ever come up with all of this?"  he asked.

"It took most of the summer and many experiments to discover the basics.  We are still finding new information almost every day.  I write up my findings and they get published on the website.  My sister and I have a ghostwriter helping us to write a biography of the two of us over the summer.  It should capture a lot of the early days and how we discovered everything.  We are busy writing that right now.  Reading the biography will probably be the easiest way for someone to learn how this all came about." I explained.

The bell rang and let me sit down at my desk.  I took out my book and my homework.  I hoped I was not going to have to teach all the teachers, one by one.

When I arrived at my next class there was a message from Max Williams that he wanted me to call him right away.  There was a permission slip that would let me go to the office and make a call, so I nodded at the teacher and went to the office.  There were several people there and I did not want them listening in to my conversation, so I mind called Max.

"Max Williams, this is Dana.  Can you talk by mindspeech?"  I sent.

It took only a couple of calls and he answered.  "Hi Dana, is mindspeech better for you while you are in school?"  he sent.

"Yes it is good for privacy, and it is good when you have a short message.  Today I am happy to have you call and get me out of class so I can talk to you without interruption."  I sent.

"I wanted to follow up with you about your suggestion of having a pair read a passive newcomer."  he sent.

"Yes.  I tried it last night with Tracy, the fire station paramedic.  We worked out how to do it.  And, we were able to get feelings and pain sensations over the link."  I sent.  "Do you have someone who wants to try it?"  I asked.

"There is a research group that is working on new applications.  They would like to talk to you."  he sent.

"I can send you a copy of my notes from last night which describes how to do it.  The trick seems to be balancing the mind map evenly between the two in the pair, and then building a mind map of the person you want to connect to.  When the two unique mind maps are held together for a period of time the mind seems to automatically connect in the passive newcomer."  I explained.

"I will pass that along.  Can you take time to talk to them?"  he sent.

"Could I wait until after school.  I am home by 4:30, I could talk then more easily and I can send the email notes at the same time."  I sent.

"I think that will be fine."  he sent.  "Talk to you later."

"Talk to you later."  I sent.  I made my way back to the class that had just started.  I was going to have to find a way to communicate with the various groups during school hours.  Maybe I should start carrying around one of the smaller laptops.  I could at least email people, and I could forward emails.  I would not have to wait until I got home.

People kept coming up to me during the breaks to ask about mind skills.  One girl said her father was a volunteer at the church.  Several people said they wanted to learn mindspeech.  Some people began mindspeaking to me as I walked the halls.  I usually cut those short, as it was hard to talk to a stranger and walk at the same time.  I guess I would get used to it in time.

Lunch came as I was getting a bit frazzled.  So many people had been talking to me.  I was thinking about my classes.  I was thinking about mind merges and what I was going to say to the mind research group at the Secret Service.  Besides the usual hassles of school, I had a professional life I was trying to live.

[My Room]  I forwarded a copy of my email to Max Williams.  It was the one I sent to Craig updating the Association on what I had learned with Tracy about merging in a passive newcomer.  I felt it was a very important advance.  At exactly 4:30 I got a mind call from Max.  He was in a merge with Jean and Richard from their mind research group.  They had a passive newcomer there to experiment with.  I introduced myself briefly, and then gave them a summary of what Tracy and I had done.  Then I showed them how to merge in a passive newcomer.

"Since there are four of us in this merge, the common mind map is pretty stable.  I want you all to hold the common map in your mind, and then take the mind map of the newcomer.  Just hold the two in your minds and try to merge them.  You can see places where they overlap, see if you can force them to merge.  Jean you see if you can force a merge on your own.  Take the common mind map, and the newcomer's map, and try to merge them in your own mind.  I think that will cause a merge with the group."  I sent to the group.

The two mind maps drifted towards each other and then there was a physical tug and the merge was completed, and there was only the new common map.

"Now try to reverse the merge.  Concentrate on the newcomer's map and visualize it as a separate map."  I sent.

That did not work very well.  We finally had to break down the whole mind merge and then recreate it.  I said that in ordinary working situations, the merge would not have so many people probably.

We reformed the merge and brought in the newcomer.  When we all tried to visual the newcomer's mindmap as a separate map, the newcomer was ejected from the merge and we remained intact.  So the trick of separating was for everyone to visual the map.  But one person in the group could cause a merge with a passive newcomer.  The newcomer said that her mind was filled with the common mindmap after the merge.

"I think that over time a merge group is going to learn these sorts of things and do them fairly naturally.  We are struggling now, because we are so new to it, that everything we try is new.  Don't be discouraged."  I sent to the group.

"We are very happy with the progress here.  Thank you very much for your help, it really made this a painless experiment."  Max sent.  And then I disconnected from the group.

I was going to start my homework, but I first wrote down what we had just learned.  I sent it to Craig for posting with our research results, and I copied it to Tracy and Patty.

I did not finish my homework before dinner time. I still had some reading left.  During dinner, I told Mom and Dad about my call with the Secret Service.  Mom said their agreement with us was for eight hours of consulting for this kind of troubleshooting and follow up.  So I could expect to be called for another 7 hours of consulting.  I was supposed to round to the nearest quarter hour.  So if I got a five minute call that would count as fifteen minute.  If it took 20 minutes that would round to a half hour.  I also told Mom about the call at school.  She said I handled that well.  She suggested that Max text me on my cell phone when he wanted to talk.  It seemed like just after school might be a good time for them to call, like today.

Max mind called me about 7:30 and asked if I could work with another group connecting to passive newcomers.  He thought it would take another hour since it would be similar to our earlier session.  They were working late and on a crash schedule it sounded like.  They wanted to integrate mind skills into their ordinary work as soon as possible.  Already the basic mind speech and mind mapping skills were being used by the people Patty and I had trained.  The trainers we had trained were training their whole Service in basic mind skills.  It sounded like the advanced research group was trying to move into new areas.

He was already in the mind merge when he called, so after quick introductions, I went through how to merge passive newcomers.  This time it went very quickly, and we were able to disconnect the passive newcomer without breaking the merge.  There were several newcomers to experiment with.  We merged them in, and let them out without too much problems.

One problem I raised for them was that the newcomer was going to see a boost in their mind map, if they happened to have their eyes closed, and happened to be thinking about people around them.  I said that this might alert a passive newcomer that someone was looking at them.  I said that working in pairs, rather than such a large group would help prevent this.  And it might be possible to have tone down the map intensity somehow.  I asked if they wanted me to look into this, or if they would like to experiment with other groups of newcomers some other time.  They said they would like to try several groups of newcomers, and they were going to work on them blind - where the people did not know they were being looked at.  Then they would interview the newcomers to see if they feel anything when they are being watched.

We made arrangements to have two more sessions like this one, tomorrow after school, and at 7:30 again.

I made notes about the time I had used off their contract.  I sent Max a brief note indicating what I had done today, and the hours that were going to be charged.  He replied in about ten minutes and said, "Great!  Thanks for all your help."

I finally got around to my reading homework.  I had chapters in three books to read.  It took me about an hour and a half.  There was one chapter of the biography to edit.  I sent that to Patty with only a couple of minor changes.  Another few weeks and it would be done, I think.  The ghostwriter was taking our emails from earlier in the summer and weaving them into a story.  It was pretty interesting to me and I lived through it.

[Tuesday]

[School]

Homeroom was as chaotic as yesterday.  It quieted down after the bell, and we heard the announcements.  Among the announcements was a note that one of my videos was going to available to classes during second and third periods.  It said how important it was to keep up with latest scientific developments in the mind sciences.  And, oh by the way, Dana Freehurst is a student at our school...

If I thought my hallways were complicated before, they were now impossible.  People stopped me every few feet and either asked me how to learn to mindspeak, or just congratulated me on the research I was doing.  I had a pretty good idea that the Science teacher was responsible for the videos being played over our internal network.  Sure enough, I had to watch myself in a video during Science class.  I later heard there were several classes that watched the same video.  Some teachers gave handouts with links to that video and other ones online, for individual viewing over the internet.

It was a zoo after that class.  I could not get from one class to another. I was late to three classes that day, but the teachers did not mind.  They congratulated me on my work.

I found a seat at the window side of the table at lunch.  That way people could not stand around talking to me.  Theresa from gym class sat next to me, and Paul sat across from me.  They were trying to protect me.  I was already tired, and I had the Secret Service training sessions to do when I got home.  I sat with my eyes closed, and tried to rest.

[My room]  Somehow I finished my classes at school, and then raced home to be there before the 4:30 training session.  I had twenty minutes for a power nap, and I grabbed a coke and some cookies to see me through to dinner.  I made a last pit stop, and then Max mind called me at exactly 4:30.

The training session for merging passive newcomers went even more smoothly than the last two.  There was a room next to the merge group where there were ten people lined up on chairs.  These were the volunteer newcomers.  I had the group merge with each one, listen for any mindspeech, feel for any feelings, and then disconnect.  One of the volunteer newcomers must have been prepped, because she was broadcasting anger and resentment.  That came through very clearly.  Our hour rolled to a stop, just as we were finishing.  Max thanked everyone, and thanked me, and then I disconnected.

I read my homework assignments, and then grabbed some dinner.  I ate part of it with Mom and Dad, but was running late and had to break for the next training session.

This was the same setup as earlier. There were two ringers in the row of passive newcomers.  One was swearing to himself, and another one was just acting nervous.  We could pick up nervousness.

I finished the training session and my homework.  The math problems were easy, but I did not want to get behind, so I took my time and did the extra credit problems.  I read ahead in several of my classes.  In Science class we were just reading through the first few chapters for discussion.

[Wednesday]

[School]  When I came into the homeroom, the teacher handed me a stack of half page papers, with copies of the links to the Mind Mappers website and to various videos that I had done.  Someone had made them for me to hand out during the day.  I guess someone realized how much time it was taking me to answer all the questions and to talk to people in the halls.  I handed out a few in homeroom, and they were gone before lunch time.  I got a note from my homeroom teacher excusing me from Science class and directing me to the main office secretary at that time.

When the bell rang before the Science class period, I made my way to the main office.  The secretary gave me a message from Max that I was to meet with him in a few minutes.  There was an empty office for me to use.

I quieted myself and just rested my eyes before Max called.  He mind called precisely at the time he had planned.

"Sorry for the short notice.  We have a live exercise planned here in a few minutes.  There is a group of visitors coming to the White house,  We have checked them out ahead of time, but we want to use them as passive newcomers to see what this would be like in a real situation."  he explained.

Max was already in a merge with a group of six, including himself.  Once I merged, I followed their mindmap to see where the passive newcomers were located.  One of the merge group pointed out the group of newcomers, and we started merging with them one by one.  We found people who were tired, one person was angry because they had lost luggage the night before, one person was kind of sick to her stomach, one person was really excited to see the President.  A mix of people all coming to visit the President.  We had time, since this was one of the groups I had already trained, to go through the newcomers individually, several times before they went in.  We followed the newcomers as they met the President, and we kept track of their surface thoughts and feelings while this was happening.

We were done in about 40 minutes.  Max was saying goodbye to me, when I asked him if he could mind call me privately.  He said he would get back to me in a few minutes.  I had time before my next class, so I just waited quietly, thinking about what I was going to tell him.

"Dana, this is Max."  he mind called.

"Hi, Max.  Thanks for calling me.  I just had something I wanted to pass by you.  Maybe I am being paranoid, but let me tell you, and you make up your own mind."  I sent.

"Ok, What's on your mind?"  he sent.

"First, that is the first time I have seen a mind map with the President in it.  Anyone who can see the President's map can form a pair and listen into what he is saying to others.  Second, if you can track the President, you can track and listen in to the people around him."

"That is a very serious problem.  I did not realize that was possible.  But from what we are doing, I can see that it is possible."  he sent.

"That was the good news."  I sent to him

"What else?"  he sent.

"This is speculation.  I do not know how large a group we could make if we merged as many people as possible.  We might be able to get hundreds of people in a merge.  The power grows roughly according to the number of people in the merge.  Could a large group attack the President and hurt him mentally?"  I sent.

"Why do you say that?"  he sent.

"Many people who are contacted by a merge group are literally shocked when they are first contacted.  It is surprise to them when the group calls out to them.  Also, when someone is calling from a merge group, it is very loud.  It can hurt your mental ears, it can cause pain."  I sent.

"Anything else?" he asked.

"This is pretty gruesome.  When Tracy and I were merged with the boy in the hospital, we were shocked and felt serious pain while we were merged with him.  If someone was merged with the President, and that person died violently, could that hurt the President?  I sent.

"I made notes as you were talking.  I think you have put them in priority order already.  It would be a serious breach of national security if someone could listen in to the President.  A terrorist group could easily train hundreds of people to merge.  We do not have any scientific basis to judge whether someone could be hurt by mental attack, like you suggested.  But it is not something we can ignore.  That last one is pretty gruesome, but there are dedicated terrorists, and just crazy people out there, who might try something like that."  he sent.

"Is there anything you can suggest for how to shield the President from intrusion?" he asked.

"Do you by any chance have a scientific group looking into the physical basis of this mind merging?"  I sent.

"There are several national labs who are talking about it, but no one has any solid evidence about how it works."  he sent.

"Maybe if we knew how it was transmitted, we could find a way to block it.  Also, could a group monitor and shield the President using mind merge techniques?"  I sent.

The class bell rang in my background.  I sent to Max, "My class is about ready to start.  I better go.  I will be thinking about these things.  Tell me if you want me to work on this in any way.  I am going to think about a shield for the President.  I think any public or major figure could be a target for snooping." 

"Thanks."  He sounded distracted.  "We will not have a class this afternoon at 4:30, nor one at 7:30.  Talk to you later."  he sent and disconnected.

I made my way to my next class.  I was listening to all my classes during the rest of the day, but I as worried about how to shield the President.  I could not even tell anyone about it, since just knowing it might be possible might make it more likely.  And what did I do about the gruesome alternatives?

As I was making my way to the bicycle rack, I noticed Paul and Theresa at a card table near the entrance to the school.  It was set so that kids leaving school would see it.  They were handling out information on mind skills.  It looked like that half page sheet that I was handing out earlier.  I waved to them as I walked by, and a whole crowd of people waved back.

[Living Room]  I had the day off from Secret Service work, so I was going to veg out for a couple of hours, and then tackle homework after dinner. I like watching the movie, "Independence Day".  I do not know why exactly, maybe because Dad likes it.

Mom was at the hospital as a volunteer today.  She was helping with some of the families.  Sometimes she did babysitting for parents there.  Sometimes she did paperwork.  She got home in time to make dinner.  I helped and chatted with her about her day.  I couldn't say anything about my discussions with Max, but I did say that I helped them during the day and did not have anything planned for the evening with them.

After dinner I started on my email.  There were no new chapters for the biography, but there were a few emails from Craig.  We still had a lot of technical questions for the Mindmappers Association, that only I could answer.  Many of the new techniques were things that I had discovered.

I sent an email to Max about the hour I had spent today.  I said I had some private thoughts, but those would wait until he gave me the go ahead.

I mind called Tracy, but he sent back that he was too busy to talk, maybe tomorrow.

I finally got down to homework.  I did my reading, and the math problems.  We were going to have a Social Studies quiz on Friday.  I think it was just to get us used to tests again.

Max called me at 9 o'clock on my cell phone.  He asked me if I could be at a meeting tomorrow starting at noon at the National Academy of Sciences. It was a small meeting of about 25 people, from various national labs and universities.  They were going to discuss the physical basis of mind speech and the mind merge skills.  They wanted me there to answer any questions.  There were going to be five people there from the Secret Service, to merge with me if I needed to do any demonstrations.  He had a police car coming to take me to the airport in the morning, and then someone would be meeting me at the airport when I got off the plane.  I would be back home before midnight tomorrow.  I ran downstairs and checked with Mom, and then told Max OK.

I laid out my clothes, set my alarm and then got in bed soon afterwards.

[Thursday]

If this goes on much more, I am going to have to buy another suit.  I had a clean blouse to wear with it, but I was wearing my one suit when the policeman drove up the street.  It was going to get kind of rumpled after the airplane rides and the meetings.  Mom had got up with me and helped me with breakfast.  I just had toast and my weak coffee.  I was kind of nervous.

The ride to the airport was uneventful.  There was an airport official waiting for me where the policeman dropped me off.  They took me immediately to the airplane and let me wait on the plane.  I was in the first row in first class.  During the flight they had a nice breakfast, so I ate.  The stewardess came to me just before we landed.  She said she would take me to someone who would drive me to the National Academy of Sciences.  The limo into the city was quiet and fast, the driver gave me an information packet about the people who were coming today, and the agenda.  There were some background materials for the participants.  So I had reading material while he drove me there.  I was met by a young woman in a business suit, she was an assistant working there at the Academy.  She was going to stay with me all day.  I thanked the driver and brought my material packet, it fit in a nice leather portfolio with an embossed seal of the Academy.  I was going to take that to school some time.

There was plenty of time.  We had almost an hour before the meeting was scheduled to start.  When I came into the room, I was surprised to see Max there.  He immediately met me and offered to introduce me to people.  Beside the meeting participants, there were officials from the Academy.  I was greeted by them with politeness and sincerity.  Max introduced me to his mind merge group that he had brought.  Some were people I had met in the training sessions, but surprisingly there were several that had received their training from people I had trained.  Nancy was the young lady who was going to be with me all day.  She introduced me to each of the meeting participants as they came in.  She seemed to know them all, and had no difficulty remembering all of their connections and accomplishments.  She introduced me as "Dana Freehurst, inventor of the mind merge technique, a special consultant."  Most of the people gave me their cards.  All I had were my MindMappers.org cards to hand out.  These had my cell phone number on them.  I felt like pretty small potatoes.

We were in a small auditorium.  I was placed in a seat in the front row where I could listen and see the speaker.  There was a screen for slides already down,  The first speaker was one of the Academy officials. His talk was general, talking about cooperation between the federal government agencies and the Academy.  He introduced Max and some of the people who would be speaking today.  Then Max gave a very concise talk about mind skills, roughly in the order as Patty and I had discovered them - blob watching, mindspeech, helping the blind using blob maps, helping people on traches and breathing tubes to speak, helping bring people out of comas, helping firemen and search and rescue teams.  Then the discovery of mind merging and how it revolutionized mind sciences.

Max introduced the speakers today.  They were going to cover some of the experiments they had made to try and discover the physical basis of mind speech and the other skills. 

Over the next couple of hours I heard many speculations about how the process worked, but attempts to measure it had all failed.  The entire electromagnetic spectrum had been tried, and no one got a positive connection with mindspeech.  Various types of shielding had been tried.  Lead, steel, concrete, and other things had not blocked it.  Maybe a copper cage or magnetic shielding blocks it, but those tests had not been definitive.  There were functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of people while they were mindspeaking that indicated no specific area of the brain was active during speech.  There were magnetoencephalography studies of people who were mind speaking.

We had an afternoon luncheon break for people who might have missed lunch.  I grabbed a sandwich and talked with the people who had done the magnetoencephalography studies.  I mentioned what I had done with horses.  I felt like I was able to demonstrate that horses could respond to this.  I asked, is it only mammals who have blobs?  Is there some minimal size animals that would have a clear response to mind speech, or mind images?  When I talked with the shielding experimenters, I was somewhat sharp.  I told them that I thought it should be easy to check for shielding.  Put one member of a merged pair into the shielded room, leave the other one outside.  There should be some effect that the partners could see.  If not, no shielding.  Put a person inside and observer their blob from outside.  I noticed Nancy writing down everything I was saying in a kind of shorthand.  When I talked to the people doing the shielding experiments I asked if they had tried to follow the mind map and negate it.  I told them about my experiments with white noise, and said that the noise helped to concentrate better, that many of the early experiments we had to have people listening to white noise.  Again Nancy was writing down what I said.  There was no mention of large scale mind merging that day.  I did not know if Max wanted to keep it secret, but it did not come up.  When I spoke to the people doing the functional MRI, I asked them how fast they could take images.  They said it depended on the instrument, and there were some experiments with very high frame rates.  I asked them if there was anywhere there were two fMRI machines in the same room.  When they asked me why,  I thought it would be interesting to see if the fMRI of two people with the same mind map would look similar.  This caused a small flurry of conversations.  I finally said that it would not matter if they were in the same place. Since you could mind merge people in several cities and then watch their fMRI or MEG to see if there were similarities.  I said that I had experimented with image sharing during merges, and mentioned how I had taken an image of a lion and shared that with a large merge group.  The image had taken on more detail, and then we also got sounds and smells to go with it.  I though that sort of detailed image would be a very specific pattern in the brain.  Again Nancy was writing down what I said, and what people responded to it.  One of the staffers from the Academy asked me about mind merging.  I said I thought they were going to have some demonstrations, and the Max would know.  Someone asked me again about the fMRI experiments, and I said that during a mind merge the people saw exactly the same thing.  That might be a way to compare data from one person to the next.  Nancy wrote this down.  Later I found that my comments went into the meeting notes exactly as I said them.  It turned out that they did the fMRI experiments and used them to calibrate brain models across different machines and experiments.  Labs started looking for the smallest neural net that would support mind speech or image receiving.

After luncheon there was a demonstration of mind merging.  Max put up slides to show what was happening.  He had had an artist go into a merge and then do drawings of the mind map that he saw.  That was the first time I had seen a picture of a mind map.  It was really very beautiful and eerie.  Ten people from the audience who had not been in a mind merge were selected at random.  They were brought into a passive merge by the group, so they could see the mind map.  Five people were taught to send and to merge and were merged into the mind group.  Max put up paintings the artist had done earlier of the region as seen by the common mind map.  He showed the blob of a person in a coma, and one who was asleep.  The artist had captured the maps and blobs very well.  I wondered if we could use pictures like that in our biography that would soon be coming out.

At the end of the day, Max talked about the need for the ability to shield or block mind speech, to amplify it by artificial means, or to record and play back mind images.  He did not mention national security or the safety of the President.  He must have already been asking the labs to do this kind of research.  I think this was his way to find out what they were doing, and to help point them in the right direction.

My trip home was almost the exact reverse of the one coming.  I went by limo to the airport and was escorted to the plane and immediately put on the plane in first class.  I had a great dinner on the plane and then was met by airport staff when I got off.  They took me to a police car and I was driven home.  I had a long day with many memories.

[My Room]  It was late when I got in, so I was not going to get any studying done tonight.  I just hope I could get caught up Friday and over the weekend.  I wrote a brief email to Max, saying that I thought it might be possible for one merge group to try and cancel another.  It would be hard to do, but it might be partially successful.

==== End Sept 26  15,800 words  about 31 pages

[Friday]

[School]  I got some understanding of the reach of Max and his friends, when I came into homeroom, and was handed a stapled sheaf of papers with notes from all my classes on Thursday.  I might have been scared to death, but they made my day yesterday a pleasant and memorable experience.

Friday seemed like a normal day all day.  I did well in my quizzes and I was prepared for the discussions.  I read the notes in spare minutes during the day.  I did not think about the President at all during the day.

[Living Room]  Mom was home when I got home, so we talked about Max and the meeting I had attended.  Mom said she got a call from Max saying that yesterday counted as an extra day they would pay me for.  They still wanted to use the hours for troubleshooting and training.

Max mind called and said his merge groups were working more closely with the shielding experimenters.  Most of the groups had worked right through the night. Max provided human guinea pigs to test rooms with various types of shield.  He said that passive magnetic shielding seemed to damp the signal a bit.  Steel walls seemed to damp the signal a bit.  Lead and copper had almost no effect.  Stone, brick, plaster and concrete had no effect.  It seemed to be a complex magnetic signal.  Max said that they had already tried two members of a merge group in separate fMRI machines.  There was definitely correlation between the signals when the people were locked in a common mind map.  He thanked me for my help yesterday.  They really appreciated my comments and suggestions.

Tracy mind called and said he had some time this evening, and he was going to be at the emergency room.  Did I want to merge and look at some patients?  I said yes and we planned for 7 o'clock.

[My Room]  I checked my email.  There were three questions from Craig, and a copy of the Mindmappers Association newsletter in my email.  Nothing from the ghostwriter.  I answered the questions as well as I could.  I think that I got the hardest questions coming to me, things that everyone else could not answer.  The newsletter showed how large the association had grown in just a few short weeks.  There were short notes on each of the applications, and those stretched for two pages.  I saw that work with mutes was extended, that blind training was shifting more to having the blind person become a full mind mapper, able to train other people.  Someone realized finally that the blind person does not have to be physically nearby to help, so there were volunteers on call to help various blind people when they were going out, or in difficult situations.  There were thousands of people now who could mind merge, most of them could mindspeak.

Tracy mind called and we went into a merge.  He was at the emergency room.  I kept my eyes closed and followed his eyes as he moved around.  He had to specifically send the images to me, I could not just read them from his mind.  We passively merged patients in the emergency and ICU.  Most people had some sort of pain, or were sick and disoriented.  There were several patients asleep or drowsing, none of them was deeply unconscious.  By merging with so many different people, we were getting a sense of what feelings and emotions would come through the merge link we held with the patients.  One woman seemed to have a heart attack, there was a great deal of pain around her heart.  Tracy did not have to go into any rooms, we could see the patients from their blobs and then passively merge with them. At that time we did not consider this to be an intrusion, since we were trying to read their minds and feelings to learn how.

I wrote up what Tracy and I had done, and sent it to Craig for filing.  I sent a copy to Max, FYI.

[Saturday]

[Paul's House]  I was going to tell Paul no when he asked me to help him train new people, but I was curious about his training technique.  We met with a group of 20 students.  Paul had eight people who could merge and who were providing the training.  It was crowded even in his large living room.  The trainers, in pairs, mind called the students, taught them how to see the mind map, taught them their own mind map, and then taught them how to send the mindmap to the group.  Finally they taught them how to merge.  As they were done with individual training each student joined Paul, and I, in a general mind merge.  So at the end there were thirty people in the mind merge.  I suggested that we teach everyone how to share images, so we took various things and shared them - animals, objects, cars, people - a topic image would be brought into the common mind map, and then everyone would contribute information and feelings associated with it.

We tried to focus on individual people and found that the combined interest of 30 people was rather intrusive.  The people we took for guinea pigs came into the common mind with great detail, including current feelings and emotions.  Tracy and I were able to merge with one person and read that person's surface thoughts and feelings.  Thirty people dissected the person in great detail.  The people who were the focus of the attention were sometimes overwhelmed, since they were also part of the mind merge.  They could see themselves internally as individuals, and they could see what the group saw.

I did not draw any conclusions about a group this size.  It did make me more concerned about the President's privacy.  Here we added 20 new mergers in a couple of hours, then used them as part of a large group.  It was going to be easy for a terrorist group, or just a group of curious kids, to browse through people's homes and offices looking for interesting blobs to listen in on.

[My room]  I wrote up my experiences with Paul, telling how we trained 20 new people in a couple of hours, and how we had just browsed around looking at people and ideas, using the entire group.  I sent this to Max.  No one else.

I wrote another note to Max titled "Human Supercomputer" in which I outlined an idea of using large groups of mind merged humans as a kind of supercomputer to work on difficult problems.  I thought things we did with supercomputers, like weather prediction, might be possible with a human supercomputer.  Before I sent the email, I got an email from Max with an attachment.  It was a program to run to make changes to my computer so that I could send encrypted messages.  I saved the file and started the installation.  It checked my computer for viruses and found none.  I only had to answer a few questions.  When I was done with the installation, I finished my note about human supercomputers, and tried sending it as an encrypted message.  It seemed to send without any particular problems.

I worked on homework since I had lost a day, and I was pretty sure I might lose more days.  Just a hunch.

Paul mind called with a question about math.  We went over some questions in a mind merge, and it made me happy I had sent a note about supercomputers to Max.  Humans were much better working in groups than they were alone.  How large a group was something else.

[Sunday]

[Living room]  Max mind called just after we got home from church.  I thanked him for the encryption software, and he said the message I sent came through OK.  He was going to schedule a time for all of his people to merge into a single mind, sometime this week.  Would I like to join in to see how it goes?  Probably on Tuesday morning for a couple of hours.  I said that would probably be fine, and thanked him for the school notes after my trip to DC.  I asked him what he wanted his people to do when they were merged.  He thought he should have them focus on a passive newcomer for one.  I suggested he have them try some simple math problems, including some algebra problems and geometry problems.

Paul mind called from his house.  He was teaching another group of 20 students from our school.  He did not have anything to ask me, he was just calling during a lull in the training.  I suggested when they merged that they try to do some difficult math problems as practice for the common mind.  He called back again later when they were merged and I watch them solve a very difficult algebra problem from a college text book.   The merge felt very strong, and it was hard to break out afterwards.  When minds were merged and solving common problems, they acted like a single mind, and they did not want to break apart.

[My room]  Homework and then an email for Max describing the mind merge today.  I cautioned him about getting people locked into a merge.  I suggested that they might want to use the technique used for passive newcomers to disconnect each member of the merge when they were done.  It might take a while, but people could get out of the merge for sure that way.

[Monday]

[School]  There are five people in my homeroom in a mind merge, they are going over math problems together.  I doubt they will be allowed to take tests in merge, so I hope they are individually learning how to solve the problems.  There was another group of three just browsing blobs around the school.  I doubted they knew the method for merging people passively, but they could certainly get a closer look at people.  I expected it would be a matter of time until they learned passive merging.  I could pick up their common mind maps by closing my eyes and concentrating on any one person in the merge.  All the merged people were bright.  I could not see details or merge myself in, just as an individual.  I was going to have to learn how to identify people in merges.

In Math class almost everyone was in a merge.  I could see the brighter blobs of people who were merged.  It took some looking to figure out who was in what merge.  There was something unique about blobs in merges, other than their brightness.  I felt that with experience I should be able to identify the people in merges.

Walking the halls, there were lots of people in merges just mindspeaking each other.  People standing with their eyes closed were probably mindspeaking.   I got a few mind calls from various merges but I politely refused to merge while in school.  It was a distraction while I was trying to get to all my classes and to learn what I had to learn.

In Science class almost the entire class was in a merge, including the teacher.  I do not know where he got his training, but I could see his blob was bright from a merge. 

"I would like to run this class entirely in a merge, do you think that is possible?"  he asked me when the bell rang.

I mentally looked at the class to see there were only seven people not in a merge.  I stood up and asked the class if there were any merge teachers in the class.  Four hands went up.  They merged in pairs and then trained the remaining people.  The entire class merged.  I formed a mental image of the common mind map, and an image of my own map and sent it to the group.  Soon I felt the familiar tug that signals that a merge was created.  I looked, and the entire class was in the merge.  There were even a couple of people from other classes listening.

The teacher went through the lesson like usual, lecturing to us.  But the students were taking images related to what he was teaching and exploring combinations and impacts of the information.  The common mind map was like a screen on which were projected the common thoughts of the group.  There were a lot of people whose attention wavered and I was pretty sure they were not getting the common information.  It took effort to get information from the common mind, even if you were in the merge.  It was eerie to see the teacher talking to a whole class where most everyone had their eyes closed.  The information was being conveyed mind to mind.

Toward the end of the class, before the bell, the teacher asked us if we thought that was a worthwhile way to teach a class.  Two thirds of the class raised their hands to agree that it was better than the usual way of teaching.  I said that it was going to take practice to learn how to use this effectively for teaching and learning.  I said that most of the class was only just getting experience with mind merges and there was a lot to learn before it became a practical technique.

The rest of my classes were regular classes.  Only a few people were in merges, and they broke up when the bell rang.

[My room]  Max mind called just at 4:30 and told me he had scheduled a merge of 35 of his people at ten am tomorrow.  There were 70 people who had been trained by myself or the people I had trained.  We were going to try merging half of them first, and then maybe more later.  I went over some of what we had done at school.  I suggested that he have a written agenda for what they were going to do.  That was a lot of people to mind speak at once.

[Tuesday]

[School]  My homeroom teacher gave me a pass to go to the office at 10 am for two hours.  There was an empty office for me to use.

[Empty Office]  Max mind called me exactly at 10:05.  There were already a dozen people in the merge and about half of them were working on passive merges of newcomers, one application of a merge.  New people were actively merging into the group.  It took fifteen minutes for all the people to merge.  We had three or four people who had been passively merged, and most of the mind merge was focused on them.  We could read surface thoughts and get feelings from the passive newcomer, our guinea pigs today.  Everyone was silent.  Max mindspoke to the whole group and directed them to different problems.  There was a lot of inertia in the mind map with so many people tugging and pulling in different directions.  I suggested to Max that he send an image for everyone to connect to.   I suggested the blob image of one of the passive newcomers.  I sent that to him, and he tried to make it the focus for the entire group.  That did not work.  Finally I sent the image to the group and everyone connected into a common map.  There was almost a snap when the common map was formed.  There was some level of connection when people were connected to the merge, but there was a next level when their minds were connected to a common thought or image.

It was possible for the merged group to do many things at once.  Individual members of the group could monitor passive newcomers in a room set up for them.  Others could patrol the halls by scanning the mind map for people's blobs.  It did not seem there were any unique problems for which the whole group was needed.

Someone had a math book with complex integral and differential problems.  I used their eyes to send an image to the whole group.  The problem seemed to hang in the air, and then portions of it began moving on their own.  The steps for the solution of the problem wrote themselves out.  The combined mind was able to solve problems by drawing on the experience of everyone in the group.

I sent a picture of a car.  The image soon morphed into a specific late model car, and then details of the car and its engine were visible.  It was like watching one of those 3D engineering drawings.  But it was being formed by the common knowledge of over thirty people.

We broke up the group just before noon.  Max thanked me for my help.  I said that I would write up my notes from the experience when I got home this afternoon.

[Lunch]  I had a lot on my mind because of the merge I had just gone through.  There were endless applications of mind merging.  It was hard to know what to do first.  It seemed that math was a natural or easy application of mind merges.  If the people in the group have enough information to solve the problem, then their common mind will come up with the answer.  I  doubt that a group of eighth graders would be able to solve those integration problems -- they just would not have the common experience to solve them.

Paul and Theresa sat by me at lunch again.  They must have seen how distracted I was, they kept everyone off of me.  Paul was in a merge, probably with Theresa, and probably with many other people as well. 

"Paul, what do you think about these merges?"  I asked.

"They are very handy for mindspeaking.  They seem to be helpful when you are looking for an answer.  We are using it like some people use the internet -- to get quick answers to questions.  Some people seem to get feelings and emotions across the link.  There is some interest in that as a way of getting closer to others.  We basically just started doing it without a lot of guidance."  Paul replied.

"I have been staying in merges all day at school.  Even while I am doing other things, I can tap into the merge if I need to.  Lots of times I am just connected but not doing anything."  Theresa said.

"The other people in my merge are listening to this conversation.  They have to keep track of all three of us, even though Theresa and I are in different merges and you are not in one right now.  Everyone is practicing whatever comes up."  Paul said.

"There is some cheating going on in the classes, you can link to someone else in your class, or link to someone outside who can look up the answer.  But not as much as you would think."  Theresa said.

"We are all going to have to get used to this way of working together.  The world is changing and we need to keep up."  Paul said.

"My parents want to know what we are doing in the merges.  They do not know what to think about what we are doing."  Theresa said.

"Lots of people are doing blind dances.  They enjoy music and merging and dancing."  Paul said.

Theresa said in a whisper. "Some kids want to have sex in a merge.  Just two people."

That was something I did not want to know about yet.

That seemed to call an end to our conversation.  We could see the merges happening, but we did not know what was going to happen next.

[Home]  I wrote up my notes about the merge at the Secret Service today, and I added a few comments about the merges at school.  My comment was that we needed to keep up with what was happening.  I did my homework and then vegged out with an old movie.  Mom and I watched an old western. The stunts were really funny.

[Wednesday]

[School]  Paul and I spent a lot of the day in a merge.  We were better able to see other merges, and we could listen in on conversations easier.  When we looked at the mind map for the school, we could see all the merges going on at the same time.  A lot of people were bright from merges.  Almost half the school was in a merge.  We found out by looking at them that most merges were twos and threes.  It was just too messy to go into a larger merge when you were in different classes, hearing different things.

In Art class I tried to do a painting of a mind map, but it did not come out very well.  Ginger, one of the better artists in my class, saw what I was trying to paint, and offered to help.  So I merged with her and gave her the picture I wanted to paint.  She did a beautiful job, and I offered to buy the painting to put in my book.   She said she did not need money, but I could put her name in the book.  We talked about it, and I said I might need several pictures.  We agreed to talk later.

In Social Studies I was thinking about other countries.  I wondered how many people there were in foreign countries who could mind merge.  I knew that you could not mindspeak if you did not know the language.  If I was going to talk to someone in France, I would have to mindspeak in French.  Same in other countries as the language changed.  But what we could do is share pictures, sounds and feelings.

Just after school Paul brought a girl, Sherry, to meet me.  She was a seventh grader.  I merged with them and he said to listen to what Sherry was doing.  She then went through a series of emotions and sent them to me.  They were powerful feelings.  She could make you feel mad, or sad, or confused, or angry, or depressed, or happy.  There were more shades of emotions than I had names for.  I thanked her and him for the demonstration.  I thought that was very important.  I asked her how she sent the emotions.  She said she got the feelings working in her own body and then sent them like she had learned to send images.  Sending was not so hard as trying to come up with strong and unique feelings.  Very impressive.

[My room]  When I got home, I mind called Patty.  I had not talked with her in a few days.  She was not busy so we caught up.  I mentioned the picture for the book, and she thought that was a good idea.  I told her how Max had some pictures for the demonstration at the National Academy of Sciences.  She asked me how that was going.  She said she had no free time from school and homework.  She was glad that I could continue to help them.  I asked her if she had been in any merges lately, and she said no, there were not a lot of people in her school who knew how to merge.  I told her how almost everyone in my school was merging and that about half the school at any time was in a merge.  She felt kind of bad that she was not in the thick of things, but she had to go to school.  We chatted about the biography.  She said that the book was probably going to be out in a month or less.  There was a lot of interest in it, and they were going to do a fast printing. The book was almost done.

Tracy mind called.  He was at the hospital right now.  There was a patient, a woman, who came in from an auto accident.  Could I help him look at her?

I merged with Tracy and we looked at her.  We opened ourselves to the feelings from her, and found pain in the head, neck, shoulders, and chest.  Both legs were very painful.  She was drifting in and out of consciousness.  Tracy sent that the doctor wanted the patient to be awake to determine if there was any brain damage.  We joined together and sent her mind map to her amplified.  This had the effect of waking her up.  Tracy was there by her side.

"What is your name?"  he asked.

Tracy and I could hear her mental reply, "Justine Alton" she sent.

"Do you know what happened to you?"  he asked.

"I was in an auto accident.  I hit my head and I think both my legs are broken."  she sent.

"That is about right.  Do you remember how it happened?  How is your memory?"  he asked.

"There is no problem with my memory, I am just is a lot of pain.  Is the doctor going to give me something for the pain?"  she sent.

The doctor must have been there too.  He asked Justine if she could see all right.  "Yes, I can see clearly.  My left eye is kind of swollen but I can see clearly."  she sent.

The doctor must have given her something to sleep just then because she rapidly faded out.  I guess the doctor was satisfied that her mind was OK, and could let her sleep.

"Thanks for the help."  Tracy sent.

"Glad I could help you."  I sent.

I finished my homework and then checked my email.  There was a new chapter of the book ready.  I checked it and sent it on to Patty.  It had some notes about merging in it, I did not add new information that I had learned recently.

[Thursday] 

[School]  School went ok.  Tracy called me with a patient problem in the middle of Science class.  The teacher was lecturing on things that were in the book, so I closed my eyes and helped Tracy for a few minutes.  If the teacher noticed, he did not say anything.  He knew that I was consulting with different organizations.

[Home]  I  just got home from school and Jake called me from the Senate Office Building.  He was our Senator's chief of staff.  I met him when Patty and I taught his staff to mind merge and mindspeak.  He said that they were doing really well and it was making a difference to have a private means of communication that did not depend on radio and phone equipment.  He wanted to know if I could teach the staff of other Senators who had learned about what his staff was doing.  I said I could probably help, but had he met Max Williams at the Secret Service?  I said they had staff members now who could teach mind merging quickly and effectively.  I enjoyed helping, but Max could probably get it done more efficiently.  Jake said he would be interested  to talk to Max, so I gave him Max's number.

Max mind called me a little later.  He had talked with Jake and agreed to help him train the other Senator's staff.  Max said there was a lot of jockeying going on to start some kind of organization in the federal government to take the lead on teaching mind merge techniques, and to centralize research and development.  I said that we might come to the day where the majority of people would know how to mind merge, just like they knew English or math or social science.  I reminded him that half our school was already able to mindspeak and many kids were in merges every day.  I doubted that you could put it into some bottle and keep everyone out.  It would be better to start an organization like Mindmappers.org where they could keep track of the many applications and share that with the public.  Max said there were secrecy issues for a lot of the agencies.  The military services were likely to be working on this already.

Tracy mind called me from the hospital with another patient.  There were a lot of accidents during rush hour.  I helped him, and then disconnected.

I mind called Dr. Acres.  He had gotten to be a much better mindspeaker after Patty and I first introduced him.  Luckily he was not busy at just that moment so he could talk.

"How are you doing?  We have not seen you around very much since school started."  he sent.

"I have been busy with school and with consulting.  I have been helping out Tracy, the paramedic from the fire station."  I sent.

"What are you doing with him?"  Dr. Acres sent.

"When Tracy comes to your hospital he usually helps the people in the emergency room to talk to the incoming patients.  I have helped him with several patients in the last few days."  I sent.

"We have plans to have a merge team in the ER soon.  Maybe he could help train them.  Then there would be someone in the ER to merge with him when he came, and there would be someone constantly in the ER who could talk to patients."  he sent.

"I think that would be great.  The real need seems to be for the incoming patients who need to be checked out when they first get there.  Many of them cannot talk but they can mindspeak to a merged pair."  I sent.

"I will see when the merge team is supposed to start.  Maybe I can hurry them along.  We have volunteers from the church helping with our regular patients who cannot talk for various reasons.  But they cannot be here 24/7. "  he sent.

"That would help a lot if you can hurry things along."  I sent.  "I think that Tracy is getting a little frazzled trying to do it on his own, in the short time he has here."

"Maybe we could train more paramedics and drivers, to that each emergency team that gets sent out can form a merge team and talk to patients when they are first picked up."  he sent.

"The time it takes to train new people to mind merge keeps going down.  But it takes a while to train people what to do in emergency situations, or to know what to do to help people talk when they are semiconscious.  I can do some training, but there might need to be a special organization to focus on hospitals and emergency rooms, and to teach how to deal with situations."  I sent.

I promised to come visit the hospital soon to see what they were doing with volunteers and training staff members in mind techniques.

I wrote a note to Craig and copied it to Jim, the Director of the Mindmappers Association.  I summarized my talk with Dr. Acres and suggested that a handbook or textbook for Emergency situations would be a great help to the medical and emergency services communities.

Craig mind called me shortly after that and we talked about the hospital and its needs.  He said we had a lot of the information needed to write a textbook.  He thought we could offer a course and certification for mind methods in hospitals and emergency services.  Craig said that Mindmappers were going into hospitals across the nation, and some internationally, to help with people in comas and traches and breathing tubes.  But this emergency room application was new.  He, Craig, would see that it got in the works.  He was going to talk to Jim about it in the morning.

[Friday]

[School]  There was a practice fire alarm at school today.  Volunteer mergers kept track of all the people in the school, and guided them safely outside.  They caught a few stragglers and brought them out of the school.

While we were outside, I mind called the fire Chief and told him what we were doing.  He was going to recommend that each building that had regular fire alarm practice should also get merge pairs trained to monitor compliance.  He said hello to me, and he was happy to hear I was doing OK.  He thanked me again for Patty's and Jerry's and my help in training his people.

Paul asked me if I would like to go to the zoo tomorrow.  I said I would ask my Mom to see if it was ok.

[Home]  I wrote up my notes about the school fire alarm practice, and the help of student merge volunteers.  I sent it to Craig for posting among the fire fighters applications online.  I copied it to Susan, Karen and my Mom since they were helping with volunteers.  They could possibly see to it that schools received training for emergency volunteers.

Mom said it was Ok if I went to the zoo with Paul and his Mom.

I did all my homework today for the weekend.  I felt that it was going to be busy, and I did not want to get caught without everything done.

[Saturday]

[Zoo]  We arrived before the zoo opened so we were some of the first people in line.  Paul's Mom and Dad both came.  They were going to walk around together, they had not been to the zoo in a long time.  Paul and I would walk around together wherever we wished.  We all had cell phones, and Paul's parents could both mind speak.

Paul and I merged before we started walking.  We went to each new exhibit without any particular plan.  We just walked and looked.  Because the paths turned back on themselves, we had to consult the maps now and then.  I did want to look at the reptiles and birds a bit more closely.  When I came before I could not see any blobs for birds and reptiles and small mammals.  With the power of a merged pair, I hoped to see more detail on these animals.  I did not expect anything to happen with insects, but we were going to check them as well.

All of the animals larger than humans certainly had mind maps, ever in they were simple or blank.  We could see blobs for every animal along with the place where a mind map would be in a human.  There were horse and zebras in the zoo.  We sent images of apples to the horses and got response, but did not from the zebras.  Paul had the idea of sending a picture of a lion to the zebra, to see what would happen.  We formed a clear picture of a lion in our merged mind, and then sent it to the zebra.  There was a startled jerk and the zebra went running across the enclosure.

The snake house had a lot of different snakes.  I could see a faint tiny blob for each animal.  Almost like smoke.  It was there, but not much detail at all.  The crocodiles had larger blobs but no details.

Birds were a lot like the snakes, not much at all in the way of blobs.

The elephants had well developed blob maps.  I looked at Paul, and he looked at me.  We both grinned.  He knew what I was thinking.  We decided to try a passive merge with the elephant.  Treating the elephant like a person.  We balanced our minds and held onto our common mind map.  We each got a picture of the elephant's mind map.  We held them all together until we felt the merge.  But nothing happened.  We did not expect words.  We had our eyes closed but we could not get anything from the elephant's eyes.  We covered our ears but we did not get anything from his ears.  We formed an image of an apple and sent it to the elephant.  That seemed to get a reaction.  The elephant turned its head back and forth.  We tried pictures of a lion and the same reaction, the elephant would shake his head back and forth.  We tried a picture of a ball, same reaction.  When we quit sending to the elephant, it stopped turning its head.  When we started sending anything, it turned its head.  I wondered if we were causing some feeling inside the elephant's head.

The dolphins were supposed to have big brains and to be like humans.  They were supposed to be able to talk in their own language.  We tried a mind merge with them but got the same reaction as the elephant when we merged -- nothing.  We felt the merge, there was a mind map for the dolphin, but no images or sounds.  It might have been that the dolphins were in constant motion.  Only one time when the dolphin was "talking" to the trainer did I hear a sound in my mind.  I think it is going to take years of study to learn the vocabulary of animals.  I think it should be possible to communicate with elephants using your mind, but it would have to be in a new language, something the elephant would understand.  Maybe some of the images were getting through.  Maybe the images were just causing some feeling in the animal's head.

The chimps had mind maps that were very simple, but they had a mind map of the chimps around them.  Paul and I took one chimp with a good mind map and we sent that map to it, in order to amplify the map in the chimp's mind.  This is what we do when we are helping a blind person to see, or an unconscious person to come out of a coma.  The chimp's face expressed surprise.  We went one step further and tried a passive merge with the chimp.  We got the merge feeling, and there was some kind of flickering images.  We had our eyes tightly shut and we covered our ears.  There was definitely a reaction.  We tried to send a picture of the chimp to itself.  We took our eye image of the chimp and shared it between Paul and I.  This improved the detail.  We sent the enhanced image to the chimp, and opened our eyes to see..  There was a definite response.  The eyes widened and the chimp kind of ducked, the arms came out in a protective motion.  We were in a merge.  We were sending a clear picture, there was a response.  We did not get a mental response.  There were no images we could pick up from the chimp's mind.

We got much the same response from the apes.  They would accept a passive merge, but no images or sounds.  Maybe we have to spend much more time with them before we can learn some common language.  We could get some kind of response from the larger mammals.

Finally, we were walked out.  I bought us ice creams and we sat outside the gift shop.  We were there about twenty minutes and his parents came walking up, hand in hand.  They got us all something to drink.  We sat there just looking at people and visiting.  Paul seemed happy.

Paul's Dad asked me if I would join them for dinner.  He said he would call and ask my parents if it was Ok.  We were going to an upscale Italian restaurant from what Paul told me.  I was going to dress nice.

They dropped me off late in the afternoon.  We had spent the whole day at the zoo.  No messages.

Mom came outside and talked to Paul's parents before they left.  They told her which restaurant we were going to, when they would pick me up, and when they would bring me home.

After they left, Mom told me that the restaurant was a really nice one, and that I needed to dress up.  She suggested I were the skirt from my suit, and a nice blouse.  It fitted me very well and it looked good, so I said Ok.

They picked me up around 7:15, we had reservations for 8.  It took about twenty five minutes to get there.  They were all dressed nicely and they used the valet parking.  We walked  in and our table was ready for us.  Paul's folks ordered a bottle of wine, and I ordered Perrier with lime, something that Mom had suggested for me.  Paul had the same as me.  He liked it too.  Paul's Dad ordered for all of us.  We had salads, two kinds of bread, veal, vegetables and three kinds of pasta.  The food was served like at home, and everyone took what they wanted.  I tried a little of everything.  I liked the grilled bread and the linguini.

"I understand you are a consultant on mind methods."  Paul's father said finally.

"Yes, I discovered a lot of the basic skills over the summer and it just kind of grew before I knew it.  I have only a few clients.  I also helped the Mindmappers Association to get started, and they track a lot of applications.  As I discover new things I usually keep the Association informed as well as my clients."  I explained.

"Do you work with private corporations?"  he asked.

"Mostly hospitals, churches, emergency services and government agencies."  I said.

"What about research and development?"  he asked.

"Mainly the national labs and universities.  No private corporations."  I said, wondering where this was leading.

"I run an investment firm.  We provide entrepreneurial financing for high tech start ups."  he said.  "We are considering whether there are some investment opportunities in this mind merging area."

"Do you have something in mind?"  I asked.  My mind was racing like crazy.  I was thinking about the human supercomputer note I sent to Max.  He had thanked me for it, but did not have anything planned along those lines as far as I knew.  I had experimented with problem solving in the classes I taught at Paul's house.  I had used Max's group to solve some math problems.  I would like to know how far one could go in using combined minds to solve problems.  Could it be used in research and development?  What did corporations do with research and development?  What was entrepreneurial financing?"  I think it was just a fancy was to say money.

"I watched while you were teaching the kids at our house.  (He had been there.)  You seemed to know exactly what to do to keep the group working together smoothly and efficiently.  I liked the way you were able to get the group to solve problems that the individuals themselves could not solve."  he said.

"Yes, that is something I am very interested in.  I would like to know what large groups could do working together in a mind merge."  I said.  I was still thinking furiously if there was any conflict with my contracts with the Senate or the Secret Service.  I did not think so.

"Perhaps you could teach a class of researchers, and then lead them to solve some complex problems."  he suggested.

"I am still only in the eighth grade.  The only problems I could help solve are those where the group working on the problem has the basic knowledge to solve it.  I could not lead a group of eighth graders to solve problems in nuclear physics."  I explained.

"But if you had a group of experts, you could help guide them to working together."  he suggested.

"If there was a group of nuclear physicists and they wanted to learn how to merge and solve problems, I could help them merge and mindspeak each other.  I could take a problem from one person and give it to the group to solve.  I could help hold the solution steady while people wrote down the answer.  It might take a while to teach adults to mind merge and to share their thoughts.  I had more trouble with adults merging than with kids merging."  I said,

"That sounds like what I had in mind."  he said.

"What kind of problems do you want to solve?"  I asked.

"We were thinking about topics in energy storage, possibly nuclear energy."  he said.

"I am going to school right now, could we work on the weekends?"  I asked.

"Most of the people only have free time on the weekends.  We could have workshops on Saturday and Sundays."  he explained.

"My government clients probably have priority.  They mostly work during the week.  And my Mom has to agree."  I said.

"That sounds reasonable.  Let me see what I can set up.  I will call your Mom and discuss details."  he said.

Paul was sitting there with his eyes really round and wide.  He was not used to seeing me talking with adults.  When I talked with adults I told the absolute truth.  However I did not mention that I was also going to check with Max.

"The only thing we did not discuss is how large a group."  he said.

"That is easy.  You want the smallest group that will have all the knowledge you need to find a solution.  If you have a lot of people with bits and pieces, then you can put them all together and solve a problem, even if none of them could solve it themselves.   If you get experts together, they should be able to solve the problems with fewer people.  As a practical matter, I find it hard to coordinate more than 35 people at once.  If you needed more than that, I would see about breaking the problem into parts.  If you need hundreds of people, that will take lots of preparation and testing."  I said, in explanation.

They drove me home, it was very late when we got there.  I thanked them for taking me to the zoo today, and the wonderful dinner.

Mom was waiting up for me when I got it.  I said that it turned out to be a business meeting and Rick Carson, Paul's Dad, was going to call her about contract details for some weekend workshops.  I also said that I needed to buy another suit and some nice clothes for the evening.  Mom said that would be fine.

"Also, I think I would like to have a credit card so I can take people to restaurants myself."  I suggested.

"I'll talk with you about that later, but I think that might be Ok."  she said.

"Good night."  "Good night."

[Sunday]  [Church]  I went to the 9:00 am service this morning.  I had not seen a lot of kids from Youth Ministry over the summer.  I was so busy myself, and there were not a lot of things scheduled.  Jerry and Edith were there.  They are a bit older than me and they ended up in a group of kids their age.  I did get to say hi though.

We were singing various worship songs this morning.  It sounded really nice.  I was thinking that a mind merge manager was like a conductor - keeping all the parts in harmony and keeping it all flowing.  Is that my job now - Mind Merge Manager?  Lol!

==== End Sept 27  23,600 words about 47 pages

[Living Room]  Mom talked to Rick, Paul's Dad, today and worked out the details of a contract.  We will officially start with a workshop next Saturday, but he wants me to meet a few people on Monday evening at his house.  Mom said she would set up a credit card for me, but she wanted to spend some time talking to me about credit and spending.  I had quite a bit of money already, but it is easy to spend a lot if you are not careful. 

[Mall]  Mom took me to a woman's store to buy some professional clothes that are not suits.  We stuck with wool blends and solid colors.  We found some blouses in complementary colors.  If I have to go to another business meeting I won't feel like I am wearing little girl clothes.  I can't wear one suit all the time.

[My Room]  Craig called.  I asked him why he is working on Sunday.  He said that there is so much to do to run the Mind Mappers Association that he ends up working a lot of weekends.  He had some questions about mind merging that he wanted to ask.  He was going to write them in an email, but he had not talked to me in a while and wanted to just chat.  He said that most of the people at the Association - staff and volunteers both - spent much of their time in mind merges.  If made it easy to talk to anyone in the building, and you were ready to handle calls from people needing help. They got a lot of calls from trainers with specific problems of how to mind merge, how to teach someone to pull someone out of a coma, how to help the blind - that sort of thing.  Craig said that the Association had many people out on contract now, training at various organizations.  They had a lot of federal contracts, as well as police, fire, search and rescue, hospitals.

"Have you gotten a lot of calls from research and development companies, universities, federal labs?"  I asked.

"A few.  That seems like a growing area of interest - applying mind merges to research, applying research to mind merges."  he said.

"I met with some federal labs and universities who were doing research on mind merges.  They still have a long way to go.  I was thinking that there should be more activity with people trying to apply mind merges to research."  I said.

"I will keep an eye out.  Did you want to do something specific in that area?"  he said.

"No, but I would like to know if it happens."  I said.

"I will call you if something comes up."  he said.

"Did I answer all your questions about mind merges."  I asked.

"Yes, I think so.  Talk to you later."  he said.

"Sure. Talk to you later."  I said.

[Monday]

[School]  In homeroom, before the bell, I was helping a merge group to solve some math problems.  I was explaining that the merge could solve the problem, but it did not necessarily tell you all the steps that were used in solving it.  Depending on how the problem is presented to the group, it could get solved almost instantaneously like a giant intuition.

I was in the merge with the people in my homeroom.  I helped them solve some algebra problems they were having difficulty with.  The problems were not that hard, but the merge group had tried to apply merge solving to it before the individuals in the group had tried to solve it themselves.  I suggested that the group break up and the people try to solve it on their own.  If they were going to solve the problem in a group, then they needed to solve just a step at a time, hold that step in mind, write down the step on paper, then move onto the next step.

The way they were trying to solve the algebra problem, there was a lot of tugging and pulling as different peoples' minds suggested different solutions or steps.  There was no one in charge of solving the problem, so it kept getting torn apart and started all over again.

Finally, I took pity on them and took over the solution.  I held up the first step and let one person work on it.  They got a partial solution.  I asked for a volunteer to take the next step.  That person moved the solution forward.  I asked for a volunteer to do the rest.  No one offered.  So I put the intermediate problem to the whole group, and it got solved.  It helped to have a partial solution, rather than trying to jump directly to the solution.

[Math]  Apparently my method of solving that algebra problem had gotten around the whole school.  It was an obvious thing for me to try, but it was not clear to most people why it worked.  I was looking at the problem not as a math problem, but as a mind merge problem.  Organizing the people in a merge is a mind merge problem.

As I watched the teacher introduce new material, I was thinking about how to use mind merges for various problems.  I wondered how the evening would go, when I met some of Paul's Dad's friends.

[Paul's House]  I went home and changed into one of my business outfits.  I had an hour to do homework before I left.  Mom dropped me off at their house and was going to pick me up in four hours.  I could have taken a cab I guess.  I will have to start thinking like a business woman.

"Dana, how are you doing?"  Rick asked.  I was going to have to get used to using first names for adults.  I kept wanting to call him "Paul's Dad".

"Fine.  Just another day at school."  I replied.

"This is Matt, Sarah, Jacob, and Marion.  They are associates of mine.  I have known some of them since graduate school.  We wanted to meet with you tonight to see how to apply mind merges to advanced research.  Matt has been in a mind merge, but the others have not.  Can you teach everyone how to merge, and then we will have some dinner.  Then we will try to apply this to a problem after dinner."  he said.

Paul was there as well.  I was familiar with him when we were teaching mind merges.  I first merged with Matt and Paul, then we took each of the other three and taught them how to see mind maps, how to mindspeak, how to send, and how to merge.  Rick had merged before, but was not very good at it, so I taught him again and we had everyone in a merge.  Paul wanted to stay merged to see what we were going to do, but Rick told him he had to do his homework.  The merge went quicker than they had anticipated, so I suggested we look at their first problem.  I did not want to try to solve it for them, but they needed some practice in working together.  I was watching what they were doing in the merge and they were all over the place, mindspeaking to each other, looking at mind maps.  I let them play, it was a quick way for them to learn.

We went through the introductions again.  This time I had each person talk a little about their work and their background.  As people talked I concentrated on the images in their minds and brought those into the common mind map for everyone to see.  Once the information was in the common map, everyone's mind worked on it a bit, so that we could see changes in the image detail.  Usually someone would mention something like nuclear energy.  Their mind would have pictures of things like nuclear reactors.  I would grab the image and force it into the common mind map.  Then everyone's mind would think about reactors and add detail.

It was still before dinner, and I had finished their introductions.  I took a few minutes and introduced myself, talking about the work I had done with mind skills.  I showed people in hospital beds on breathing tubes.  I showed their families desperately trying to talk to them.  I showed firemen at an office building fire and the mind map of all the people in the building.  I showed a blind person and the mind map they could see of the people around them and talked about how they could now navigate.  I talked about sending images to blind people, and sounds to deaf people.  I did not mention my work with the government.  I mentioned the work of the Mind Mappers Association in teaching thousands of people across many applications.

"How many people will come to the Saturday Workshop?"  I asked.

"There will be 10 people and myself."  Rick said.

"Could Paul teach them how to merge before they get there?  Then we can go directly to your problems."  I suggested.

"I would rather you taught them how to merge, if that is OK."  Rick asked.

"We can teach merging, and do introductions in the morning, and then problem solve in the afternoon."  I suggested.

"That will probably work."  Rick said.

We stopped then and had a light dinner.  It was buffet style.  We sat in the dining room and chatted.  I kept everyone in the merge.  For practice I had everyone, one by one, think of a fruit.  When I took the image from their mind (or supplied one myself), I put it in the common mind map, and then let everyone's mind bring up associations and detail.  The banana we tried first seemed like the essense of banana, and the smell was very strong.  Everyone was surprised at the detail that comes with a common image everyone is working on.  Since we were still eating and everyone had tried a fruit, I suggested that we look ahead to what they were going to talk about after dinner.

Sarah said that they were trying to invent a new kind of battery, and they were just not able to make any progress.  They would try one design and work on it a while, but could not make a major breakthrough.  They were looking for some kind of battery that would store a lot of energy for a long time.  I asked her how she knew when they had a good battery.  She said something about ampere hours and kilowatt hours per kilogram, but I did not understand.

"Do you have a picture of a battery you are working on?"  I asked.

"Here is a diagram of one battery we tried."  She showed me a diagram from a report she took from her briefcase.

I took the diagram as an image and placed it in the common mind map.  I asked everyone to look at it.  The change was surprising.  What had been a drawing on paper became a living, real picture of a battery.  I waited for the new, detailed, image to emerge.  All six of us were now looking at the same image. We had all contributed to the detail about the battery.  When the image was stable, I asked Sarah what the kilowatt hours per kilogram depended on, being very careful to say back to her what she has said before.  The image of the battery changed to zoom in on one of the parts of the battery.  I asked Sarah, what is this part?  She said it was the membrane.  "So whether this is a good battery or not depends on the membrane?"  I asked.  "Yes." she answered.

I made the membrane the center of the common mind map.  I waited for everyone's mind to contribute to the new detailed image of a membrane.  I had only a vague idea what a membrane was myself, but I could see all kinds of detail these people knew about membranes.  I noticed that two areas of the membrane information were highlighted.  "What are these two things that are highlighted?"  I asked and I increased the highlighting on those images.  One was a chemical symbol and the other was a chart of some sort.

When I put up the chemical symbol, there was a huge amount of information that came into the common mind map.  But I noticed that there was only one area that was stronger than others.  I brought that up and held it steady.  Again everyone contributed detail.  I went back to the chart that was there before.  I held it while everyone contributed new information.  I had the chemical symbol detail, and the chart together.  The detail was about these two.

"The conductivity curve goes back up at high temperatures for the chromium!"  Jacob said. "Let me copy down this information"  he continued.

Marion said, "The chromium acts like a catalyst for the reaction.  For all of the other catalysts the conductivity goes down as the temperature rises.  For some reason chromium is different."

"Matt, you know something about the catalyst, can you put up an image of that for us to look at?"  Marion continued.

Matt came up with an image in his mind.  I did not know what it was about.  There were chemical symbols, charts and mathematical equations.  I simply put it in the common area and let everyone go at it.  After a few moments the image stabilized.

"Look, there is a side chain on the organic catalyst.  We could work with that.  That is probably why the temperature curve is different."  Matt said.

I was totally lost.  I had an idea what they were doing.  At least, I had an idea how they were working together to solve some problem, but I did not know much about the problem.  I just helped to bring their minds together.

"Can we look at what will happen to the temperature curve when we change the side chain?"  Sarah asked.

I helped bring up the temperature curve again.  Sarah had an image of a lot of chemical symbols.  I guessed those were side chains.  I brought those images into the common area.  Nothing happened for a long minute.  Everyone was expectant.  But the image did not change.

"I think that means that this group does not have enough information to solve this particular problem."  I said.  "If someone here knew the answer, it would come up.

"We have really narrowed down the problem to just this one area though."  Marion said.  "We might have to actually run some experiments to see what happens with the side chain, but that is pretty straightforward.  I think there is enough here to move ahead."

"Was that the problem you wanted to work on this evening?"  I asked.

"No, that was a related problem where we had given up."  Matt said.  "But now that we know where to focus our attention, we might be able to revive that one.  We were just going to write off that whole area of research, but now we can move ahead.  This is amazing."

"How did you do that?  Do you know something about batteries?"  Rick asked me.  But he already knew the answer. 

"I know how to change the batteries in my cell phone."  I said. "I was taking the information from your minds as you were talking, putting it in the common area for you to look at, and then letting the common brain work on the problem.  It seems to get rid of a lot of useless information, and concentrate on just the important parts.  I was just managing the mind map for you."

"I was going to have us move into the living room to work on the problem this evening, but I think the dining room table is good for this kind of work.  We can lay out our papers and work here."  Rich said.  "Let's clear up the table.  Matt, you are going to take the lead on the new catalyst?"

"Yes, I have enough information now.  I will have them try all the side chains."  Matt said.

"The problem we want to work on this evening is to see how we can improve a molten salt fuel cell."  Marion said.  "I have a diagram of how this works and our basic assumptions ..."

We followed the same basic pattern as before using Marion's diagram as a starting point.  Very quickly we ran into a dead end where no new information was being added to an image.

"That probably means that the people here do not have enough information to move ahead, or you  are asking the wrong question."  I explained, after the image stayed frozen.

"What are you trying to do?  What is a good battery?  Who will buy the batteries when you are done with them?"  I asked.  "Jacob can you provide a starting point for us?"  I asked Jacob.

Jacob brought up a diagram that talked about various industries and markets.  It looked like an image from a report that he had read.  When I put that in the common area, there was a lot of rearrangement and shifting.  Finally the image stabilized and there were three areas highlighted.  One was railroads, one was military applications, and one was ships.  I wrote those down on a pad Rick had provided. 

"Can we take each one of these in turn?"  I asked.  Then I took the molten salt diagram and placed it next to the word "railroads".  When the diagram settled, I saw there was an area of the diagram highlighted.

"That is the fuel we are using."  Sarah said.  When I asked for a list of fuels, I took it from her head and put it with the new diagram.  There was the usual shifting, and it settled down.  There was now a chart that dominated the common image. 

"What is that?"  I asked.  "That is a price forecast for fuels we had considered for railroads. See the highlights on it?"  Matt said.

Indeed there were two curves on the chart that were highlighted.  One was for natural gas, and one was for something called synthetic diesel.

"That means that our investment is going to work if we use natural gas for the fuel."  Matt said.  "This is not a technical problem, since we can build these kinds of fuel cells.  The important factor is price and market.  Our problem was we were trying to build just one cell for all the markets.  What we needed to do is break up the markets and produced different cells for different markets."

Matt had a picture in his mind of a chart.  I brought the chart out where everyone could see it.  It showed supply, demand and size of cell.  Everyone looked at it and added their own information to it.  The chart rearranged itself and showed an intersection along a line where the product would be successful.

We had been working for some time and I was starting to look for a clock.  It was getting close to the time Mom was going to pick me up.

"We have a workable solution, and we can look at the breakeven point for these other markets on our own.  Let's stop here for tonight and then prepare for a workshop on Saturday." Rick said.

"This mind merging really speeds up discussions and decision making."  Sarah said.

"Yes, you were very helpful.  I was shocked when we went over the catalyst information again."  Jacob said.

"Is there anything we can do to prepare for Saturday?"  Marion asked me.

"If you could merge and try to look at common images, that would help.  I was able to control most of the images tonight.  I think it would go faster and easier if you could compare images between pairs in the group.  So try merging in pairs this week."  I explained.

Mom came to pick me up at 10.  We were just breaking up when she came to the door.  I shook everyone's hand as I left.  Paul stuck his head in just as I was leaving and I waved to him.

[My Room]  I wrote up my notes about the evening but did not send them to Craig or Max.  I was going to have to see how this worked out.  I was happy that we were able to find a technical solution for them, as well as an economic solution.  I was going to have to think about the kind of research they were doing.

[Tuesday]

[School]  School seems kind of silly and very simple to me.  After seeing a real world example of research, I was shocked at how little they were teaching me.  I wondered how I would ever learn as much as those adults.  I was worried that even the adults were going to have to learn new ways of thinking, now that there were mind merge techniques to use.

I mind called Max during home room.  I told him what I had done with the group of researchers.  I wondered if he might want to do something like that with his researchers.  I thought that the shielding problem might be solved that way.  He said he would look into it.

At lunch Paul sat down next to me, but we did not talk very much.  I was still thinking about the evening before. 

"Did you have a good time last night?"  he asked.

"My mind got stretched a bit."  I said.  "I am wondering how Saturday will go.  We are going to have a dozen of us.  That might be hard to coordinate.  I do not even know what kind of problem they are going to bring up.  I had a hard time understanding the problems they had last night.  Will I be able to manage a merge when everyone is doing stuff I don't understand?"  I continued.

"You will probably do fine.  My Dad was really impressed with what you did last night."  Paul said.

"I am glad.  I just applied the basics, and the people were new mind mergers.  I do not know how it will go with more advanced mergers."  I said.

We had a library period today and I got on the Internet.  I looked up research on molten salt fuel cells.  It was way beyond me.  I looked up fuel price forecasts, and I could barely understand them.  Yet I had helped solve two problems where the experts were stuck.  Maybe it was worthwhile, even if I did not understand what they were doing.  They seemed very grateful.

[My room]  I really miss Patty today.  I was so used to having her around.  I never would have made so much progress with mind skills if she had not been there patiently helping me.  All those weeks of experiments we did when we really did not know where we were going.

I mind called Patty.  She was just getting out of a late afternoon class.  She had a few minutes to talk and then she was meeting some people.

"I met with some people last night doing research on fuel cells and batteries.  I was able to help them with their mind merge and we were able to solve a couple of problems they could not solve on their own.  I was wondering if you and I and maybe some others could work on the theory of mind merging, or its physical basis.  Could we merge and try to solve problems related to mind merging?"  I sent.

"Didn't you help those researchers at the National Academy of Sciences recently?"  She asked.

"I made a few comments, but I did not use mind merge to help them.  It is going to take them a long time to come up with stuff on their own.  I would like to help them."  I sent.

"You are probably going to have to wait for Max then.  If anyone can invite these people to work together, it will be him."  she sent.

"Then I just have to wait for Max then?"  I asked.

"I think so."  She sent, and then she had to go.

"Thanks!"  I sent.  I was just going to have to wait for Max.  But I was not patient.

[Wednesday]

[School]  I got to school early and started asking merge groups that came in to work on the problem of the physical basis of mind skills.  Was there any way to make a device that would be sensitive to the mind?  I did not expect a bunch of middle schoolers to be able to solve this problem, but I thought it was an interesting experiment.

What happened is that all the merge groups started to merge so that more and more people were connected.  People in the library were checking out websites on fMRI and MEG and magnetic sensors.  I stayed connected with the largest group.  I would take ideas from individuals, or from other merge groups, and put them in the common mind area.  These would get worked on and new information would come up.  Internet searches were becoming more specific.  There were references to mu-metal, a kind of magnetic shielding material.  There were references to femtotesla and attotelsa and femtotesla per hertz.  There were references to active shielding, millisecond response time, and broadband.  There were references to phased arrays and evoked fields.  As people found references during the day, I wrote them down at odd moments.  It was hard paying attention to the common area of the merge group, and my classes at the same time.

The general impression I formed of what the group had found is that the mind signal was a complex signal, probably low and high frequency, very low field strength magnetic fields.  The brain was responding to signals as a whole, so that the entire brain was part of the detector.  The magnetic fields could be attenuated, but were leaking through most shielding materials because they were too complex to filter.  The brain was extremely sensitive.  I did not know what most of those words meant, but that was what the common mind said, or seemed to say.

Near the end of the day, I mind called Max and told him what I found out.  He asked me to repeat some of the words.  I promised I would write them out for him when I got home.  He said you really need a laptop at school.  He seemed really excited when I mentioned phased arrays and evoked fields.  He must have heard that from someone in the research groups.  When I asked him if the researchers were finding any of this, he said yes, but they were not finding it all.  Max said he would get back with me about bringing all the people together to mind merge and solve the problem of how to measure mind fields.

[Living Room]  I had just gotten in the room when Max called on my cell phone.  He asked me if I could get to the local technical university this evening.  He had arrangements with someone there to test a magnetic shielding.  Max wanted to know if there was any weakening of the signal inside the shielding.

Mom could not take me, she had previous engagements.  Mom went to the bank and got me cash.  I would take a cab there and back.  Max said he would have someone meet me and make sure I got a cab back.

The cab came around 6:30 and drove me to the university medical engineering department. Dr Gregory Allen was waiting from me.  I paid the cab and gave them a small tip.  Mom had told me to do that.  I got some change back so it would be easier to give a tip later.

Dr. Allen introduced me to Sally and Chad, two graduate students.  We went down the hall, up the elevator and then across into a brightly lit lab.  I was overwhelmed with all the equipment and wires.  I did not recognize anything.  Dr. Allen explained that I would be going into a magnetically shielded room.  He said that the room was composed of mu-metal (aha!) and aluminum layers that were supposed to block electromagnetic and magnetic signals.

I mind called Max so that I would have a merge partner.  I went into the tiny room and sat on a wooden chair.  I could still talk to Max.  I could see the blobs of the Dr. Allen, Sally and Chad.  When they finally closed the doors, there was a drop in the intensity of the blobs. When I tried to talk to Max, I had to raise my mental voice to have him hear me.  There was definitely some reduction in the signal, but it wasn't completely shut off.  I could see the blobs of the people in my mind. Normally a merge pair can see ten times better than a single person.  The blobs looked about twice as strong as when I looked by myself.  So I estimated there was a five fold reduction from being in the shielded room.  I told Max that.  I asked Max to visualize an apple.  Then I put that image in our common area.  The detail was not as good as I remembered, and it seemed to take a little longer to form.  I told Max that I thought it took longer to get details in the shielded room.

In just a few minutes they opened the doors again and let me out.  Dr. Allen said that he was on the phone with Max while I was in there.  Max told him that there was a five fold reduction in the mind signal and that images took longer to form.  With lower signal it took longer to send an image, but the image still got through.  Max hung up.

I had my notes from earlier in the day.  I went over that with Dr Allen.  He knew what most of the terms meant.  If this was true, he said, then the brain is much more sensitive detector than he had imagined.  It would take a much more complicated shield to stop those kinds of magnetic signals.  And it would take a lot to reproduce the sensitivity and specificity of the signal the brain picked up.  Those were his words.

It was only about 8 o'clock.  I asked them if they wanted to learn to mind merge so they could test this themselves.  They said "Yes!!"

I mind called Patty at school  Luckily she was free and said she could help me.  We merged and then passively merged with Dr. Allen.  We showed Dr Allen how to send, and then we had him actively merge with us.  Then we merged in Sally and Chad.  Then each of them could see mental images of each other when they closed their eyes.  The blobs were clear and bright. Then I had each of them go into the shielded room and close the doors.  They all could tell the difference when the doors were shut.  I could see that the blobs of the people inside the shielded room were fainter than the ones next to me outside the room.  I tested each of them to see that they could merge with each other.  I said to call me if they were having trouble merging and I would help them again later.  I handed them a business card, and suggested that they read some of the materials on the website that talked about blobs and mindspeech.  I said we might be able to get a volunteer here to help them learn mindspeech better.

We finished up around 9:30 and they took me downstairs.  I called the cab that had brought me there and I waited about 15 minutes for the cab to come.  They waited for me to get safely in the cab, and then waved a happy goodbye.

[My room]  I wrote up my notes about the evening, and added the notes from the mind merge at school.  I mentioned that it might be able to time some image transfers inside and outside the shielded room to see if there was any difference, and how much.  I sent these notes to Max and copied them to Dr. Allen.  He had given me his business card with his email address.

I was fairly certain the brain signal was a complex magnetic signal.  It sounded like you would need a detector as complicated as the brain to send and receive similar signals.  There were lots of brains around, so I guess we could wait for an artificial mind that could send and receive brain signals.  At least we knew of one way, probably a pretty expensive way, to partially shield a brain signal.  I wondered about active shielding.

I wrote an email for Mom to say that Patty had spent an hour and a half helping me with the Secret Service contract.  I wrote down my hours and what I did.  That duplicated what I had already given Max, but it would help keep thing straight.

[Thursday]

[School]  I wanted to share what I had learned last night with the merge group that had helped me with research yesterday.  But I did not want to share what I learned from Max's contract work.  I did contact several of the active groups and told them how happy I was they helped me, and I hinted that the brain signal was probably a complex magnetic signal.

Health class was going over bacteria and cell cultures.  I wondered if a cell culture could detect brain signals.

My cell phone buzzed during lunch.  It was Dr. Allen.  He was having trouble connecting to Sally and Chad, even though Sally and Chad could connect to each other fairly easily.  I found Sally and Chad and merged with them, then I watched as they waited for Dr. Allen to merge.  They were not holding the merge pattern stable.  I showed them the common mind map and asked them if they could see it OK.  Then I asked them to hold it steady in their minds.  Then I asked Dr. Allen to try again.  This time he connected after about a minute.  I told him that the merging was not instantaneous.  I showed them an image of a cat, and asked them to hold it in their minds.  The common map got hold of it and added detail so that it was animated and had sounds.  They were impressed, but I did not have time to do more just then.

That seemed to be all they needed so I hung up and went back to eating.

There was a text message from Max to say thank you.

[Living Room]  Paul mind called me and asked if I wanted to do anything.  I said that I had missed an evening because of work and I needed to catch up.  I was also worried about Saturday and wanted to have all my homework done and to be rested before I started that.

Mom was home.  I asked her if I could get a new laptop for work and school.  The one I had is an old one of Patty's. It was really heavy, had a short battery life, and was one of the old 17 inch screens.  Mom said that Dad could take me to the store that evening and he could help me find a new one. 

[My Room] After dinner Dad took me to the computer store.  I looked at the smaller laptops and tried them out.  I liked the Sony models for small screen, style, battery life and weight.  I got one in white and a nice slip cover so I could open the laptop with the cover on. The cover was like leather in light blue.

Dad helped me move my files from my old computer to a thumb drive.  Then we moved the files onto my new computer.  Once I was connected to the wireless network, the computer automatically updated itself.  That took about half an hour.  I was happy with my new computer and looked forward to showing it to my friends at school.  It would fit in my backpack so it would not get bumped or dropped.  I found the attachment on the file that Max sent me.  I ran that program and reinstalled the encryption program.  That seemed to be working Ok, so I sent a note to Max explaining I had a new computer and I was testing my email encryption.  (He answered the next day and told me it was Ok.)

Mom said she could donate my old computer to the church, there were some students who did not have the money for a computer.

[Friday]

[School]  Most of the school has wireless access.  I connected the wireless and got access to the Internet through my new laptop.  It was nice to be able to get to Google and Wikipedia from anywhere.  While I was waiting for homeroom to finish, I was checking out links on magnetic shielding.  I found some six and eight layer magnetically shielded rooms.  I did not know how to compare their shielding with the shielded room I was in.  I copied the web addresses into an email and then sent a note to Dr Allen, asking him if these six and eight layer rooms were better than his and by how much.

At lunch I checked my email and had a note from Dr. Allen.  He said that the six layer room was better than his by a factor of three or four.  He said the 8 layer room had not actually been built.  The six layer room used active shielding as part of its approach.  Dr. Allen thought that the six layer room might actually shield to where it would be hard to see blobs through the shield.  He thanked me again for helping him learn how to merge.  He said they had people coming from the Secret Service to teach them how to mindspeak and to use the merge better.  The teachers were going to be there this afternoon.  He had copied Max on his reply, so I did not have to inform Max.

[Living Room]  I did all my homework as soon as I got home.  I was caught up, (ahead), on most of my reading.

[Saturday]

[Paul's House]  Mom dropped me off first thing this morning.  Most of the people came in last night and stayed at hotels nearby.  They were all going to be here by 9.  I was invited to the breakfast beforehand and that is why I got here so early. I brought my laptop, and I was dressed in my wool skirt and a silk blouse.

Paul came to the door to greet guests and take them into the living room where everyone was gathering.  The breakfast was laid out in the dining room.  I got a plate and then sat at one end of the dining table with Matt and Sarah and Jacob.  I guess Rick was still upstairs or in another room.  There was two maids putting out dishes and helping people.

Matt said that they had already run some of the side chains and were getting some good data.  They had a regular brainstorming session at the lab and came up with a list of side chains to try.

I listened politely but most of this was going over my head.  If we were in a merge, I could take the images our of their minds and kind of see what they were talking about.  But, here, sitting over breakfast they were using a lot of jargon that was too much for me.  I suddenly had a bad feeling about the day.  I hoped I could help them with their problem or problems.

Rick came in as they were wrapping up what they wanted to tell me.  I mostly got that they were very happy.  I think I saved them a lot of money, and got them in a position to make a lot more.

"Good morning, Dana, how are you doing?"  Rick said, as he came in.

"Fine.  Matt and Sarah were just telling me about their new result.  It sounds like they are doing really well."  I said.

"Yes, they made a lot of progress this week, because of you." he said.

"I am a little worried about today.  There are more people to try and coordinate, and I still do not know the problems you want to solve.  It really helps to prepare."  I said to him.

"We can introduce everyone this morning and teach them how to merge, and then tackle the problems in the afternoon."  Rick said.

"What are the problems you want to solve?  How many problems are you going to tackle?"  I asked directly.

"We have two problems we want to solve.  One involves a new type of nuclear reactor that can be shut down quickly.  The other also involves nuclear energy, and asks how to use nuclear energy in the chemical industry."  Rich said to me quietly.  I guess he did not want the others to know ahead of time.  But I was going to have to help them.  I wanted a little idea what we were going to do.

"Do you want the whole group to work on each problem in turn, or do you want to break the group into two or more smaller groups?"  I asked.

"I thought the whole group would work on one, and then the other, problem."  Rich said.

"I would like to plug in my laptop and have it available when we are talking, to take notes, and to look up things on the Internet."  I explained.

"There are going to be twelve of us, eleven and you.  We can probably all fit in the dining room and have place for computers and notes."  he said.

It was a big dining room.  There was a long table there.  It looked like it would hold 12 people.  I counted ten chairs already.

Rick introduced me to people as they came in.  Some people had eaten before they came, and they got coffee or tea.  Everyone was talking like crazy.  I did not understand most of what was said.  There was a lot of talk about nuclear stuff.  I knew the word, but they had very detailed knowledge about it.  This was going to be an interesting day, if I did not crash and burn.

People left their bags in the living room.  Some of us drifted there to make room for the ones coming in to eat breakfast.  I was talking with a person who worked in a university, and worked as a consultant to industry. 

"Do you enjoy consulting?"  I asked. 

"It makes my university teaching more interesting.  I get to meet a wide variety of people, and I get to work on interesting problems."  he said.  "I understand you are going to help us to mind merge and then lead us into a kind of brainstorming session."  he contnued.

"I am not sure what a brainstorming session might be.  I am going to merge all of us into a single group.  Someone will lay out a problem, and I will help hold that problem in the common mind area, until we see what areas are highlighted.  I will take those areas and present them to the whole group, and we will see how the common mind changes it.  Mostly my job will be to manage the common mind merge area.  I joke that my job is "Mind Merge Manager"."  I said.

"That sort of makes sense, but I do not know what a 'common mind' is."  he said.

"It will make a lot more sense once we have all merged and I can show people some basic images.  I am still learning how to best organize these groups.  I will have to see how it goes."  I said.

Someone came to talk to him and I wandered off.  It was almost 9 and I wondered if we would get started soon.  Paul was still downstairs.  I asked  him where the bathroom was, and he led me down the hall and pointed to a room on the right.  I had time to grab a weak coffee with lots of cream and sugar.  I was holding the cup in my hands, carefully sipping, listening to people talk around me, when Rick started calling people to order.  He asked us to come into the living room, so that the maids could clean up and lay out things for the meeting in the dining room.

Rick stood in the front.  There were chairs for everyone with two couches, several arm chairs and some folding chairs.  The folding chairs were padded, I sat on one towards the side.

"Welcome to a workshop in nuclear energy.  You all pretty much know each other, except for Dana."  He motioned for me to stand up.  "Dana is an expert in mind merge techniques.  We met recently to discuss the possibility of using mind merges to amplify the abilities of groups doing research and development.  On Monday this week we met with her, she helped us form a merged mind, and then we solved two problems that we were absolutely stopped by.  One problem we had even abandoned, and we were going to write off the whole investment.  She helped us find a new way of looking at the problem;  we have revived that research and are making progress even as we speak."  He motioned for me to sit down.  I was a little intimidated and shy with this group.  It was not like Monday at all.  I was happy that Matt, Jacob, Sarah and Marion were all there.  At least I had some people here who had done this before.

I was sitting next to Sarah.  I whispered to her, "Do you have a diagram or something I can use for people to focus on?"   She gave me a report turned down to a complicated chart.  I wondered if this was something they was part of the problems they wanted to solve.  "Thank you."  I whispered to her.

Rick continued talking about the purpose of the afternoon session.  He introduced the two topics and said we would spend about two hours on each one, starting after lunch.

"Right now, I will turn this over to Dana so she can merge us into a single group mind.  Once we are merged, we will do some mental exercises, and then we will break for a light lunch.

I stood in front of the group.  "As Rick said, I first want to merge us into a common mind."  I started.

There was an immediate interruption.  Someone was whispering in a fierce voice. "I won't do it.  This is crazy.  She's a little girl."  I had not really talked to this woman.  She clearly was upset.

"Can I help you?"  I said to the woman. I stepped a little closer to see her better.  She was behind someone else.

"What are your going to do?  This sounds like mumbo jumbo."  She said, still is a sharp whisper.

"I have been helping groups to learn how to merge their minds.  I have acted as a consultant to the US Senate, and to the Secret Service.  I am still helping the Secret Service.  If you have had a chance to look at our website, you will find a lot of information about the Mind Mappers Association.  Thousands of people have learned how to merge minds.  The benefits of merging minds is the ability to speak from mind to mind, the ability to see people through walls and at a distance, and for us, to help share images and information in a group mind.

"Is Paul still here?  Could he help me get people merged?"  I asked Rick.  In a few moments Paul was there beside me.  I nodded and we merged.  I indicated the woman who was worried about this, by pointing to her in the common mind map.  I mindspoke to Paul, "She is afraid for some reason.  Let's send her a very bright mind map so she will see it right away, and then let's passively merge her."

"Would you please close your eyes for one minute."  I asked the lady.  She was hesitant, but closed her eyes.  "Now!"  I sent to Paul, and we sent a strong image of her own mind map to the lady.

"What did you do?!"  the woman said in surprise.  "We sent you a copy of your own mind map so that you could see it.  We are able to greatly strengthen it and send it to you.  If you will keep looking at it, we will explain what you are seeing.  Do you see the people in this room?  Good.  Now we are going to merge you into our group, so there will be three of us in the merge."  Paul and I balanced our common mind map, and then brought her map nearby.  After a moment there was a tug and she was merged in. 

"Can you hear me clearly?  What is your name?"  I mind spoke to her.  There was a moment of confusion on her face, and then she answered out loud. "Yes, I can hear you.  My name is Ellen."

"You can answer silently and we will hear you.  Just say the words, but do not open your mouth or make sounds."  I mind spoke her again.

"Is this Ok?"  She sent in reply.

"Yes, that is fine.  Would you take a look at the following image while the rest of the people are merged in."  I sent to her.  And I sent her a copy of the picture image that Sarah had given me earlier.

"I will merge you in, one by one.  I am going to use a passive merge for most of you, so it will go faster."  I said out loud.

I nodded to Paul.  We then merged in Matt, Sarah, Rick, Marion and Jacob.  They were all active mergers.  As I merged in each one, I sent them the common image that was forming and asked them to look at it.  I was vaguely aware that the image was changing, but was too busy merging people in, to pay attention.

We merged in the remaining people, one by one, and passively.  I mind spoke to each one as they were merged and sent them to the common image.  By this time I realized that the common image had grown considerably.

I opened my eyes to look at the group.  I was stunned to see they were all sitting frozen with their eyes closed.  There was not a flicker of motion in the entire room.

I closed my eyes and took a look at the common image.  I saw the original image sitting in a corner, but it had grown and grown, in detail and in content.  If you were to try to print out a picture on a piece of paper, I guess you would need a wall 20 feet long and ten feet high.  I gently looked at a part of it where I could see some activity.  There were charts and diagrams.  I do not know what they were about. But the charts were animated and changing slowly.  I saw pictures that looked like something through a microscope.  I could see things that had to be batteries.  I saw animated diagrams. I looked at a different part of the common image. Every part seemed to be changing bit by bit.  Whole sections were drifting.  Some parts were getting brighter and others getting darker.  I did not know what it was all about, but apparently they did.  I would wait for Rick or someone else to interrupt.

I opened my eyes.  Then I left the entire group looking at the common image for about 10 minutes.  Then Rick seemed to stir.  He opened his eyes and looked at me.  Slowly, as though waking from a dream, each person opened their eyes, until finally Ellen was the last.

"That is absolutely beautiful!"  she said.  "How did you do that?"  she asked, looking at me.

"That is the common mind image.  When you leave an image in the common area of a merged mind, all of the minds that are connected work on the image to improve it, to add detail, to add information.  Since we left the same image running in there while I merged everyone, that image grew and grew as each person was added.  Apparently there was a lot of information for you all to contribute, so even after we were all merged, the common image kept changing for 15 minutes about."  I explained.

"Where did that first image come from?"  Rick asked.  I held out the chart that Sarah had given to me.

"This is a chart showing costs and power density for all kinds of batteries and supercapacitors."  Sarah said.  I was going over it this week.

"The common image we were seeing had data on each type of battery.  It showed manufacturing costs. It had chemical process detail.  There were cycle efficiencies.  There were applications.  There were hundreds of pages of information in that image."  Matt said.  "We lost all that, when we opened our eyes."

"No, close you eyes and relax a moment.  You will see it again.  It might have continued to change after you opened your eyes, but it should all still be there, until I erase it."  I said.

Most of the people closed their eyes and went back to seeing the battery data.

"Now is the time you usually want to ask a question.  This is just data.  We need to have a purpose for this."  I said.  "Maybe you want to ask which battery is the best for some purpose.  Maybe you want to ask what is the battery that will earn you the most money if you make it."  I continued.

"Could we ask which batteries are going to have the largest market share?"  Rick asked.

"Is that what you want to know?  We are going to lose this image when I try to ask that question.  Do you have an image in your mind about market share of batteries?  What are you going to do if you find which batteries will have the largest market share."  I said, struggling to say, "largest market share" clearly.

"We should invest in the batteries with the largest potential market share."  Rich said.

"Why do you want to invest in them?"  I asked.

"To make the most money!"  Matt said.

"So what do you want to ask?"  I asked Rick.

"Which batteries should we invest in to make the most money?"  Rick said.  Matt and Sarah nodded.

I wrote out that question on a piece of paper and added its image to the common area.  When people heard that question, they started thinking about what it meant. Unconsciously their minds examined the alternatives and push forward ideas into the common area.  At least that is what I thought was happening.  I took the image from Rick's mind about market share, and added that to the common image.  The common image was much larger than I could see.  It was changing.  I saw a whole area get hightlighted and disappear,  I saw new areas grow up and take over space in the image.  Finally things seemed to settle down.  I could see three areas of the image that were highlighted.  I went back to the small image in the corner where this had all started.  There was the list of the kinds of batteries.  Only one was heavily highlighted, and two others had some.  Supercapacitors was the thick one, and lithium ion were the other two.  I wrote down which ones.

I took that image and sent it to Rick.  "What do you think of this?"  I asked him.  "Show it to Matt and Sarah."  he said, quietly.

I sent the small image to Matt and then to Sarah.  They were surprised when their view of the main digram was covered. 

"The answer we got is there are two lithium ion batteries that are pretty good investments, but the main focus should be on supercapacitors.  This diagram is too big to write down.  I think we should move on and try our other questions after lunch."  Rick said.

"If we are done with the main diagram, could I do an experiment while we are all connected?"  I asked.

There were nods and sounds of agreement.  I took the original diagram with its highlighting and peripheral notes.  I grabbed that an sent it to the common area.  The whole detail map disappeared and we were left with just that one part.  As soon as everyone had this as their common image, it began to change.  It grew, but not too much.

"It shows the engineering details, and there are some notes on chemicals."  Jacob said.  "I think it is showing us what the companies needed to do to make money."

People were writing down bits of the new diagram, and then closing their eyes to get another piece.  I let that go on until everyone had settled down, and then said, "I am going to leave you all in these common merge until we leave.  It will be easier than starting over again.  I will start with a blank slate after lunch.  But for now I will leave the common image."

It takes an effort to separate out of a merge.  I did not worry that people would disconnect on their own.  So I just left things as they were, and we had lunch.

I had just eaten breakfast not that long ago, so I was not real hungry.  I took a pit stop and then made myself a sandwich at the buffet along the walls in the dining room.  I found a comfortable chair in the living room, and then sat down to rest a bit.  Jacob followed me in.

"Did you know that we were going to get an executive summary when you started that last image?  Jacob asked.

"Not for sure.  But I am getting a sense of how the mind merge works.  Each of the individual people have their own separate memories and minds.  You can have images in those minds.  The common areas seems to be something separate from all the minds, but made up of all of them.  It is kind of like the common intuition.  I can move things into and out of the common area.  When I copied that image into the common area, I was really just blanking out the other areas.  We did not lose any information, it just got rearranged."  I explained.

"That was truly amazing."  he said.  "That was quite an interesting demonstration."

"I am not sure how to tackle these afternoon questions."  I said.

"Why do you say that?"  Jacob said.

"Well they are not phrased as questions.  They are very general.  We can start off with some particular image and let it grow like this morning, or we can try to find several images and combine them to start.  The growth of the common image is fast as long as people are looking at it, and it grows even when people are not looking at it."  I said.

==== end Sept 28    33,600 words, about 67 pages

After lunch, when I checked the common area, I found that it had shrunk and the information was hardly usable.  I was wrong about it staying in place when people did not look at it.  Probably they needed to be looking at it constantly to keep it fresh.  I did not know for sure.  I was going to have to find someway to record these common mind maps, so the information would not be lost.

The first question was whether to invest in an "accelerator reactor".  I googled that term and found a wikipedia article on "subcritical reactor".  There was only one diagram in that article, a very simple one that "proton accelerator", "heavy metal", "subcritical fissil material", "electrical power generator" along with protons, neutrons, heat and electricity.  I wondered if this simple diagram was going to cause people to think of enough different things for them to make a decision about this problem.  I sent the diagram to the common area.

People were all seated around the dining table.  Most of them had their laptops open and paper beside them.  They had their eyes closed now and they were looking at the new diagram that I found.

As soon as the diagram hit the common area, it was available to everyone.  While they looked at it, their brains added detail and information.  The simple diagram quickly became a complex diagram showing an accelerator and detail on the labeled parts of my diagram.  Since this was supposed to be about investments, there were notes on prices of electricity, prices of oil, construction costs and more.  Rick was talking to Jacob, even though they both had their eyes closed.  There were small conversations all down the table and across.

The diagram and related information was highlighted now.  There were key areas that were coming out.

I can have a general sense of the common area even with my eyes open.  I wanted to monitor the people so I was watching them.  Rick opened his eyes and looked at me. "Could you take the highlighted areas and make them fill the common area?"  he said.  I nodded and closed my eyes to clearly see what he was talking about.  I spoke out loud for everyone to hear.  "Rick has asked me to change the common image."  I took the highlighted material and copied it back over the common area.  When I looked, there were some faces that showed annoyance, but others showed interest.

People were writing down things on paper, some were typing.  Jacob had a large sheet of paper and was copying part of one diagram.  He was working quickly, perhaps he was worried the diagram would change again.  He had a smile on his face, though.

Rick wanted to add information on investment rates.  I asked him if he had that in his mind.  I found an image there, and highlighted it.  "Is this what you want to add?"  I asked.  He nodded and I added it to the common area.

I took highlighted areas and made them the central common image twice after that.  Each time I announced that we were going to change the image.  The last time, Jacob and Marion asked me to wait until they finished copying something, then I was allowed to change the image.

I did not understand the problem.  I did not understand the information in the common area.  I did not understand who the brains of all the people there were working together to produce such an image.  But I seemed to be helping.

Finally, around 2:15, Rick said that he would call a halt in a few minutes.  He asked everyone to write down what they could, we could leave the information there for a while yet.

When we discussed the project, I did not understand what they were saying.  Jacob mentioned several engineering problems that he had a better handle on,  Rick talked about investments.  Each person seemed to have focused on a different part of the information.  Rick said that it would be a good investment, but a lot depended on whether the people who built the plant would be efficient.  Sarah said that if the engineers who designed and built parts of the plant were working in mind merges, they might be able to produce a very good plant.

People got up an walked around.  Some went into the living room or down the hall.  There was coffee set up in the living room.  I made myself a cup with extra water, cream and sugar.  I was only just getting used to the taste of coffee, and theirs was really strong.  I added extra water.

Rick seemed to be very happy with the results of this experiment.  Apparently the group got a lot of new information they could use in deciding about whether to invest in this thing.  A mind merge of 12 people was pretty powerful.  It was like a human supercomputer.

At 3 o'clock, we started on the second problem.  This was a really vague question, at least to me.  It asked what investments in nuclear energy would be best for the chemical industry.  I wrote the three terms on a piece of paper, "investments", "nuclear energy", "chemical industry".  I was going to use that for my starting point if no one else came up with something first.  A simple thing seemed to be better as a starting point.  That detailed diagram this morning stirred up too much information, it was too much for individuals to absorb.

Rick did not have an image to start with, so I used my three terms and placed them in the common area.  There was that large area, and just those three tiny terms.  They sat there on that blank common image and nothing happened, for a minute.  Then two minutes.  I thought nothing was going to happen, when all of a sudden several charts and diagrams were added, then quickly other information.  Again, there was little that I understood.  I was looking at the whole problem and not any particular piece of it.  There was a pause, and then a heavily highlighted area was added and shifted to the center of the information.  It said, "heat sources" and there were several diagrams.  There was another one that said "hydrogen".  I saw Jacob writing things down.  Most people at the table were writing or typing in their computers.  I could see a few people googling.

I was asked to make pieces cover the common area twice on this problem.  I announced I was going to change the image.  Each time I had to wait until everyone was ready.  There was talking going on across the table, but it was generally quiet except for whispers.

This problem went more quickly I guess.  By 4, Rick was suggesting that they stop at 4:30.  Everyone said they could probably get their information out by then, so they continued working on the common area.  I think that when someone was looking at a piece of the information, the other brains would contribute suggestions for related material.  That would show up in the diagram in a nearby area.

At 4:30 Rick announced a stop, and people began discussing what they had learned.  There was a lot of interest in something related to "remote sites", nuclear, "heat sources" and cogeneration.

Rick asked if there were any other questions.  No one spoke, I guess everyone was tired.

Paul reconnected with the group and then helped me disconnect everyone.  Some people had lost looks on their faces.  Already they were used to having a common area to work with.

They were all going to have drinks and talk about the day.  I was pretty much done.  Rick thanked me for my help.  "We could not have done this much without your help."  he said.  I suggested that if they were going to use this everyday, they might want to learn mindspeech and how to merge themselves.  Everyone was too tired today to do that.

Mom came to get me and I was glad to go home.

[Living room]  I was really tired.  I sat down with a cold coke.  I did not know what to think about what had happened today.  I was frustrated that I did not understand what the people had done.  I could see clearly the steps I took to help them move forward.  I could tell when people were tired or wanted a change.  I wasn't playing an instrument myself, but I was conducting.  And Rick was making the decision about when to change the images.  I needed an expert to try to lead the group.  Maybe different people could share in leading.  I would have to think about it.

Mom was in the kitchen starting dinner.  She just left me sitting and did not try to talk.  I appreciated that.

Finally Mom came into the living room and sat down.  She was drinking a cup of tea.  She must have known I was about ready to talk.

"How did it go today?"  she asked quietly.

"Paul's Dad thinks it was a great success.  We solved three very difficult problems.  At least I think we did.  I did not understand any of what they were talking about.  I knew I was helping them, but I am not an expert in what they were doing.  I think that what we were seeing in our common mind area was beyond what most people there knew.  It was kind of like eighth graders solving an advanced algebra problem.  No one of the people there could do it, but the whole group, working together, could."  I explained.

"Paul was a real help.  I could not have done it without him.  I had no partner to merge everyone, and he and I were able to disconnect each one fairly easily."  I continued.

"Do you like him?"  Mom asked.  From the way she asked I could tell she wanted to know if I was serious about Paul.

"Yes, I like him.  But not that way, Mom."  I said.  "I am too young.  I have too much to learn and hardly enough time to do everything.  I don't have time for anything more."

The phone rang and Mom answered.  She nodded her head a few times, and then said "Ok. That's fine.  Thanks for calling."

"That was Rick, Paul's Dad.  He wanted to thank you again for all your help today.  They would not have gotten nearly this far without you.  They want to have another workshop next Saturday.  He wants to just concentrate on learning how to merge, how to mindspeak, and how to see blobs.  They will probably try a question or two, but people want to learn how to merge on their own." she said.

"Paul's Mom invited you to go horseback riding again tomorrow.  Would you like to go?"  she continued.

"I guess so.  I am really tired right now.  I don't want to think of anything."  I answered.

[Sunday]

[Church]  I saw a lot of friends at the 9:00 am service.  It was good to be around young people.  Yesterday most of the people were as old as my Dad.  It was intimidating to be the only young person.

[Horse Farm]  I ended up going riding.  The weather was beautiful and I had enjoyed the last time we were out.  The leaves were starting to change and there was a light wind to keep things cool.  We rode the same mare and gelding as before.  Paul sent an image of an apple to his horse and got the same reaction as before.  Then we gave both of the horses an apple apiece.  They really seemed to enjoy it.  My mare danced a little when we started out again.  I don't know much about horses, but these were nice.

We rode around three times today, and then went inside.  Paul's Mom was talking to her friend.  She handed us cokes to drink.  We sat in a living room that was all leather and wood.  Everything seemed to smell of leather and horses and dust.

The drive back was pleasant too.  All in all, a great day.

[Dining room]  Mom had dinner ready when we got back.  We were eating early so she and Dad could go out to visit some friends of theirs.  I was going to be home alone for the evening.

[My room] I was done with my homework, but I read ahead anyway.  I might be called out on an emergency or for consulting any time, so I wanted to stay ahead.

I wrote up what I had done this weekend and filed it.  I did not send it to Craig, and I did not send it to Max.  I was not sure what to do with what I was learning about human supercomputers.

[Living Room]  I watched an old movie, Armageddon.  It is a science fiction movie.  It is really funny too.  I do not get tired of it.  I wondered if the engineers at NASA who invented the shuttle had been able to mind merge, would they have found something much better?  When I was in a merge, the blobs were ten times brighter.  Were people in a merge ten times smarter than not?

[Monday]

[School]  There was a little coolness in the air this morning as I was riding my bike to school.  My back pack was heavy because I had most of my books in it.  I have a basket on the back where I can fit it.  I had my new computer in its cover.  I liked my new computer, it was cute.

In homeroon, I listened to the announcements and watched a short video from the Board of Education.  I was thinking about when schools would start teaching mind skills as regular classes.  If mind merging was going to be the way people tackled complex problems, then kids should probably learn how to do it.

I would say that about two thirds of the school could mind merge now.  It seemed kind of a waste to not use it for something.

In Science class, after the bell had quieted everyone down, I asked the teacher how people at NASA were able to make things like that.  Were we going to go back to the moon?  This started a long discussion that had nothing to do with our current assignments, but it was interesting.  The teacher was really interested in space.  He was kind of mad that NASA was hardly doing anything on the moon.  I suggested that maybe all the engineers needed to be working together in mind merges.  The teacher did not say anything to that, but he got a strange look on his face.

In Art class I tried to remember what the common area had looked like while we were working.  I tried to paint a picture of that.  I got sort of an abstract picture that was close to what I had seen.  I would have to keep practicing to get better at Art.

[My Room]  I did my homework right away.  I was well ahead in the reading, so I put my books into my backpack with a feeling of satisfaction.

Max called me on my cell phone.  I asked him why he was working so late.  He said the research we had started was going quickly now that his groups were using mind merge.  Max wanted to talk to me about human supercomputers.

I suggested that we switch to mindspeech, there were some images I wanted to show him.

We merged and then started talking.  He showed me images of some of the equipment people were using to try to measure the brain signals.  He said that the most progress seemed to be in magnetoencephalography (MEG).  Since I had helped show there was shielding for brain signals in magnetically shielded rooms, he said people were making progress.  He did not expect a practical shield for brain signals any time soon, but the latest versions could probably dampen out the signal to where someone would have a hard time seeing blobs, or mindspeaking.

"My team is teaching all the individual scientists and engineers how to mind merge.  And we are teaching them enough so the scientists and engineers can teach others."  he said.  "We have an ongoing training program so researchers can learn mindspeech, mind mapping, boosting, merging and other useful skills."  They were using the textbooks that I had helped write over the summer in lots of what they were doing.

I explained to him what I had done over the weekend with about a dozen scientists and engineers.  I carefully repeated the topics we tried, and he was impressed with what we had accomplished.  I could not tell him what we had discovered, but I told him that Rick and the researchers were happy with what we had accomplished.

"I would like to do something like that with the people who are now working on our project.  Could you help us to bring everyone together in a general mind merge?"  he asked.

"How many people are you talking about?"  I asked in return.

"Probably between thirty and forty."  he said.  "And you probably want yourself and your Secret Service trainers involved too."  I sent.

"You are probably right.  There are closer to fifty, because my people would like to watch and learn how to do this.  They are good teachers, and they have added a lot of new people who can merge, mindspeak and mind map."  he sent.

"When do you want to do this?"  I asked.

"We were hoping to do this later this week.  Maybe on Thursday.  And probably in the afternoon, since we want to have people from the west coast as well."  he sent.

"Do you have people in your group who know all the ones in the research areas?  We will need their blobs to know who to invite to the merge."  I sent.

"I have a real problem with everyone wanting to merge into one large merge."  I sent.

"Why is that?"  he asked.

"Well, if we use the common mind area, it will probably be so far ahead of the individual researchers that they will not be able to understand the result.  They will see the answer, maybe, but they might not know how it was found."  I said, and then related how I had eighth graded solving advance algrebra problems.  "They could understand the steps and the answer, but none of them, individually could do the problem.  I sent.

"That is not so bad.  We could write down what we learn and then go over parts of it." he sent.

"What if we had the leaders of each group merge, and tie each of them into their own work group?"  I asked.

"But we want everyone to see what every other one is doing."  he sent.

"What are you trying to accomplish?  What are you trying to do?"  I asked.

"We want people in the different groups to merge their common knowledge.  And then we want to try to look ahead to the things we need to do."  he sent.

"Could we try merging two merge groups.  I think I know how to do it.  Then we could start with merge groups for each work group, and then merge them all.  We would not have to bring them all in as individuals."  I sent.

"We can try that tomorrow.  I think that would speed up things a lot."  he sent.  He had quite a bit of practical knowledge about mind merges, but they had not been using the common mind area very much.  I think he was going to be shocked when he saw how the human supercomputer worked.

"Do you want to work on merging groups tomorrow then?"  I sent.

"Yes,  I will call your school and have them let you go to the office right away."  he said.

[Tuesday]

[School]  There was a note waiting in my homeroom for me to go to the office.  When I got to the office I was directed to the empty office.

Max mind called me soon after.  He had three teams of five ready for the test.  He introduced me to the first team leader, Max was in his group.  I merged with them. I sent our common mind map to the common area, and then brightened it for everyone to see.  Max sent to me, "How did you do that?"  So I explained it slowly for everyone in the group.  I was glad they were all mindspeakers.

Max sent me the blob of the next team leader. I merged with that group as an individual.  I was now part of two groups.  I took the mind map of the second team and sent it to their common area and brightened it.  Now I was like a bridge between two groups.  I sent them each the map of the other.  When the two maps were in the common areas, there was a brief delay and then the feeling of merging -- the two groups were now one.  Group maps tend to be more stable than individual maps, it was actually easier to merge two groups, than to merge two people. It took more time to set up a group merge.  I explained what I had just done to the two combined groups.

I got the blob of the next team leader from Max.  I merged into the third group as an individual and went throught the same steps to merge that group into the large group. It went smoothly, and I explained to the whole group what I had just done.

We had trouble disconnecting the large group, so we broke down to individuals.  The three groups merged separately again.  Then the team leader of groups one and two lead their teams in a merge of the two groups.  That larger group then merged with the third group.  They got it on the first try.

While we were all connected (I had stayed with Max in his group during this.)  I explained about the common image area.  They had seen it and did not know how to use it.  So I sent some images of magnetically shielded rooms to the common area and brightened it so everyone could see.  The common area started growing immediately as peoples' minds contributed new information.  In just a few minutes there was considerable detail about mind merging, mind signals, mind speech and mind maps.  I let everyone see that for a while.

"What are we seeing?"  Max sent.

"This is the common image area for this group.  Each group has a common area where they can share information.  I think that the common area is a shared area where information is taken from each brain and shown in a graphic way.  Are you all done with looking at this?"  When Max answered yes, I cleared the common area and put up a picture of a horse.  Very shortly the horse took on color, smells, sounds and animation.  "This is how the common image area can be used.  The detail is coming from all our minds."

"You can leave groups connected all the time, and then put new information into the common area.  If people look at the common area, their brains automatically contribute new information.  It is a way to solve complex problems."  I mind spoke to all of them.

I said that I would leave them so they could practice.  If they needed me they could mind call and I would help them.

The bell rang for the end of the second period, so I did not lose much of my day.  The secretary said that I could keep the pass and use it any time I needed.  Any teacher would let me out of class, if I just showed them the pass.  I could come here and use the empty office whenever I needed to.

[Lunch]  Paul and Theresa were in their usual place.  They were talking about a school rally that was going to be on Thursday.  I realized I would miss it while I was helping the research teams.

During Art class I made arrangement with Ginger to paint some more pictures.  I merged with her and she painted a picture of two groups as they were merging.  Mom had given me a budget to pay Ginger for each picture.  We would use some in the biography, I wanted some for my wall in my room, and some were going to be for when I was consulting.

[Kitchen]  Mom left a message that she was going to be late, and I was to eat leftovers.  There was plenty of sandwich stuff in the fridge so I made a sandwich for after school, and I would eat a little more later.  I was feeling hungry a lot these days.  I must be growing.  Not much, but enough to start to notice.  I was glad most of the clothes I bought were for women, so I had some room to grow.

I mind called Tracy.  He was riding in the ambulance leaving the hospital, so he had time to talk.  He said that the hospital had hired two people to help with patient communication.  They had been trained by the Mind Mappers Association.  They could merge and mind speak and they were pretty good at reading patients who could not talk.  Tracy said that he merged with them while he was at emergency locations, and was able to talk to injured people that way.  He said that it had already made a difference.

He thanked me for all my help, and he thanked me for bugging Dr. Acres.  I said it was nothing really. I did say that I missed being able to help at the hospital.

[My room]  I did my homework.  I was well ahead in the two classes I missed.  I would get notes about what I missed in the morning.

[Wednesday]  Just a normal school day.

[Thursday]

[School]  I had my hall pass already, but I stopped by the main office to check that it was Ok that I was going to be using the empty office during the afternoon.  They said that would be fine.

I ate lunch quickly and went early to the empty office.  I had my backpack, and my computer.  I plugged in the computer and got google ready for the merge session.  It was still going to take us a while to merge before we actually started our meeting.

I mind called Max early and asked him what the research topics were going to be.  He said "signal generation", "signal detection", "shielding", "weapons".  I wrote them down carefully and said I was ready when he was.  He had some more things to do, he would mind call me soon.

When I merged with Max a few minutes later, he was already part of a group consisting of key headquarters staff.  There were about fifteen people.  Max sent me the blobs of the research team leaders.  The teams were already merged.  I helped each of the merged teams to merge into the larger group.  I was really happy that the common mind maps of large groups were so stable.  I was able to get most of the team members focused on the merge.  The teams merged even when some of the members were distracted.  In half an hour I had all the teams merged.

I sent a picture of an monkey to the common image area and brightened it.  There were over fifty people in this merge.  The monkey was immediately animated and enhanced.  Then there was a troupe of monkeys.  I grew quickly and started to fill the common image area.  I blanked the common image area, and let Max talk.

"We are going to try to use this merge of fifty six people to tackle the problem of artificial mind signalling.  We want to know if there is a way to build a machine that can communicate the same way we do when we are mindspeaking.  We would like a mechanical blob detector.  We would like some way to read images from individuals or groups, and to make electronic copies."  he mindspoke to the group.

"Most of you have not used mind merges for scientific research.  You have been using it for mindspeech, and you have been looking at mind maps for various purposes.  Today we will be using the common mind area for the first time to bring all of our minds to bear on these common problems.  We suggest you all have your computers where you can get to them, and paper and pencils ready.  We have no way to record what we are doing right now, so pay attention and try to remember or record what you see.  This is the first time we are doing this, it will not be the last.  If we make mistakes, we can try again."  He sent.

"Where should we begin?"  he sent to me privately.

"How about we start with blob detection?  It is a good starting point when we are teaching, it might be a good way to begin searching for new methods."  I sent to him privately.

"Ok." he sent to me.

I placed the words, "Blob Detection" on the blank common area image and brightened it so that everyone could see it.  There was a pause.  Nothing was happening.  Then images, diagrams, charts and videos started playing in the common area.  I zoomed in to look.  I could see various pictures of blobs.  I also saw various charts the showed, "signal strength" and "frequency".  I saw a diagram of some kind of piece of equipment.  There was a video playing with streaks of color and lines.  I did not know what these things were.  There was a jump and more information was posted in the common area, almost filling it.  Parts of the diagram were highlighted and shifted.  The equipment diagram grew and expanded, while other infomation faded away.  There were videos of blob maps, that looked like images from my own mind.  The piece of equipment had labels -- power supply, computer, phased array generator, magnetometer array, hardware inverse solver, display memory, and more.  It looked like an engineering drawing.

I wondered if it would work.  The basic diagram for the piece of equipment was stable now.  There were changes going on at the edges, but the core settled down and was stable.

Max sent to everyone, "Does anyone know what this is?"

"It is a finished drawing of a blob detector."  One of the team leaders spoke to everyone.  There was a hint of awe in his voice.  "We are copying down all of the parts."  he sent.

"Would teams three, four, five and six try to write down what is in the north, east, south and western sectors of the diagram.  My team will also try to copy the central section."  Max sent.

"Can we keep this image here?"  he sent to me.

"It should stay there until the group breaks up, or we change the central image.  Notice that it is still evolving.  I can see changes on the east side of the image."  I sent to him.

We kept the image there for two hours.  Everyone wanted to continue.

"Let's go on to another topic."  Max said.  I guess he was leaving it up to me.

I put the words "signal generator" into the common image area.  There was the usual delay and then detail started appearing.  There were 3D pictures of the brain, there were blob maps, there was a simplified version of the blob detector.  This one seemed to grow more quickly that the first one.  It reached the size of the common image area, and then started to divide and simplify.  The whole surface of the image seemed to be moving at once.  I recognized miniature pictures of the magnetically shielded room.  I saw videos of MEG signals.  There were more images of the brain.  One of them was twirling around with different parts of the brain linked to another chart where there was equipment shown.  More blob detectors.  There was one section of the equipment labeled "speech generator", and another one "image generator"

It took fully forty five minutes for the diagrams and information to stabilize.  While I was waiting I mind called Mom and told her I would be late, I got hung up helping the Secret Service.  She said Ok and Dad would come get me when when I called.

The teams took another two hours to write down the detail from this image.  There were parts that were similar to the first one.  Every person had pencil or computer and was writing.

I had an apple, a power bar, and a bottle of water in my backpack.  There was a teacher's rest room that I could get to.  I could see it getting dark outside, and I turned on the room lights where I was.  Teachers and school workers poked their heads in now and then as they were leaving.  I said I would be Ok, my Dad was going to be coming later.

None of the researchers wanted to stop.  They asked if I could put up the magnetometer array on the common image map.  I said that I would, and Max agreed, so I did.

When the words, "magnetometer array" were entered, an immediate copy of the diagram for that part came up.  This expanded quickly.  I saw two large diagrams come up,  One was labeled Josephson junction array.  And the other was "Atomic Magnetometer Array".  It looked like someone (or many someones) was linking the two diagrams.  There were equations scribbled all along the edges of both diagrams.  The diagrams became detailed images.

"Oh my God!" someone mindspoke to the whole group.  I doubt they realized.

Other people mindspoke as well.  They were saying thing like, "Of course!"  "Right on!" "Cool!'  and some swear words.

Things got quiet then, both the people mindspeaking the group, and the common image.  It was time to copy down as much detail as we could.

They were going to be in the mind merge for at least two more hours.  They were not going to change the image until then, so I had time to get home.  I called Dad and he said he would leave in two minutes. I got my books and computer ready, turned out the lights and then shut the door, making sure it locked.  I went to the front door of the school and waited inside.  We would get my bike when Dad came.

I was still in the merge, and could see what they were working on.  I did not know what they had found, but it must have been important.

[Living room]  When we got home, I went to my room and dropped off my things.  I got my dinner from the kitchen where Mom had kept it for me.  I zapped it a little in the microwave, and then sat in the living room to eat.  I had a pad next to me and some marking pens. I wondered what their next topic would be.

Max called me before they finished copying down the information.  "We are just about done with the copying.  This is fantastic stuff.  Are you doing Ok?"  he sent to me.

"Dad came and picked me up from school. I am at home now, waiting to change topics again."  I sent to him.

"Many of the people in the merge want to continue working, all night if necessary, to get all the details worked out.  We got detailed drawings of a design for a blob detector, and signal generator.  When we asked for detail on the magnetometer array, things went crazy.  It solved this in the context of mindspeech for humans, and gave us a drawing for what might be an artificial brain.  We are copying out the details now.  The next topic is likely to be 'array manufacturing'.  Are you going to be able to stay awake?  This is likely to go on another few hours."  he sent to me.

"I might need some sleep, but I only need to be there when the topics change.  I think it is too late for me to teach someone else how to handle topics.  Sometime I want to teach your group how to handle topics in a mind merge, but I am too tired tonight and I might make mistakes.  If some people have to leave and do other things you can leave the rest as a core group to keep the  common mind area open.  You could add people to it as well.  I will stay awake for the next topic change, and then I can get some sleep.  If you call me on my cell phone, I can wake up to change the next topic."  I sent to him.

"That sounds fine.  The next topic will change in about ten minutes I think, they are just finishing up."  he sent to me.

"Fine,  I will be ready."

I did a quick pitstop and then grabbed a coke.  I needed some caffeine.  This was going to be a long night.  I got my pillow, sheets and a blanket from my room and made up a bed on the couch.  I put my cell phone right on the coffee table next to where my head was going to go.  I had "array manufacturing" on my notes.

Max mind called me a few minutes later.  He confirmed that the next topic was "array manufacturing" and I went ahead an cleared the common area and added those words.  People must have been waiting for the topic, because there was no delay before a simplified version of the array was put on the common area.  There seemed to be two arrays made with very similar techniques.  The manufacturing showed various pieces of equipment.  It was almost like someone was drawing a room with all the equipment needed.  There were some diagrams and some charts.  There was one on "Statistical Error Correction". 

Max mind called and said the next topic change would be in a couple of hours if I wanted to get some sleep.  I sent my alarm for an hour and fifty minutes, and then closed my eyes to sleep. 

The alarm woke me and I turned it off quickly. It was kind of muffled, but I heard it Ok.  Hopefully I was not disturbing Mom and Dad.

Max called me on my cell phone and said the next topic was "artificial brain".  He said people had gone home and left the merge.  They were now coming back from their various homes to join in the next topic.  In the national labs there were people with engineering drawing skills, some of them were being trained to go in an write down the details of these drawings.  Max had people from his own staff who were copying out parts of the material square by square.

"We are now changing to the next topic."  Max mindspoke to the whole merge.  There were about 65 people in the merge.

I posted the next topic on the common area - "artificial brain".  There was some delay, and then detail started coming in.  I saw the models of the brain again.  I saw the magnetometer array, but it was now labeled simply "brain.". 

I wasn't going back to sleep right away.  I wanted to be sure that everything was all right.  Luckily I did, because in a few minutes the image came to a stop.  Something was wrong.

The image was incomplete, at least to my mind.  There were things that were there before but were not there now.

"Some of the people with key information probably went home or are sleeping."  I sent to Max.

"We had a role call not long ago, and there are fifteen people not in the merge right now who were there earlier.  I think you are right."  Max sent to me.

"Rather than try to force this to work tonight, we can either wait until everyone can gather again, or we can switch topics to something that people can work on."  Max sent to me.

"Without the key people, we might be wasting time.  I could get the drafting people ready and look over what we have done, then wait until tomorrow."  Max continue.  He seemed to be talking to himself.

"What time do you want to start in the morning?"  I asked.

"We have a lot of people on the West Coast.  We should probably start at 10 am our time and let people get some rest."  he sent to me.

"Do you need me?  I can help you merge the groups again and I can help you with topics.  Do you want me to work with your people on topic management?" I sent.

"This is too critical to try to change right now.  Do you think you could start again around 9 am and get us merged?

"We are going to stop this topic and start again in the morning.  We will start merging again at 9 am EST and will begin a new topic as soon as everyone is merged."  Max mindspoke to the group.

I set my alarm for 8:30 and dragged all my stuff up to my bed.  At least I could sleep in my own bed.

[Friday]

[Living room]

I wasn't planning on getting to school today.  I knew they would want to do at least three topics, and I was not going to be able to concentrate on classes.  I called the school and talked to the principal's office.  They said there was a note about me and it was Ok.  They appreciated hearing where I was and what I was doing.  My teachers were all going to have notes ready for me.  Good luck!

Balancing consulting and school was beginning to be a problem.  I think that it is worthwhile, what we were doing with the research.

Max mind called me at exactly 9 am.  We were merge into a group.  I merged the three groups he had ready, and then I started merging the remaining groups as they were ready.  I let the Secret Service Team Leaders do most of the group merging this time.  It went pretty smoothly.

When we had the whole group merged there were 87 peole in the merge.  I posted the first topic, it was "artificial brain".  As I was putting the topic in place, I explained to the Team Leaders how I was changing the topic.  Several of them got it, and probably could have changed the topic.

The response to the words was instantaneous.  Models of the brain were added, there were videos of MEG again.  There was a lot of detail from the magnetometer manufacturing.  There were subsystems for blob detection and signal generation.  It was building a brain that could communicate by mind!  They were building a computer that could mind merge!  There was a section on signal storage. There were manufacturing details.  I saw something that looked like a string of robots.

They kept this topic in the merge for three hours.  Much of that time was spent writing down the details.  There were 30 people doing nothing but drawing and writing down the details in the common area.  I had time to fix breakfast and to get dressed properly.

Toward noon they were getting ready to move on to the next topic.  It was "brain manufacturing".  Max wanted to move right into the topic, but I suggested that people might need to eat and take a break.  He allowed 30 minutes, and we left the old topic up there.  When it was time to enter the new topic, I let one of the Team Leaders try to clear the common area, enter the new words, and then brighten it so that people could see the new topic.  He did fine.  A little slower than me, but no problem.

Brain manufacturing went quickly.  It seemed fairly straightforward.  I guess most of the technology was stuff that people were already using for todays computers.  There was a section labeled "arrays manufacturing".  This topic also stayed on there for three hours.  We took another 30 minute break and left the old topic there.

"The new topic was "blob shielding".  Another one of the Team Leaders placed this in the common area, and the detail started drifting in.  This was very complex.  There were lots of images of blobs, and there were shielded rooms.  I saw a diagram of a helmet with "active shielding" on the label.  One area was very active and very bright.  It was labeled "artificial structures" and had "THz response".  I wrote down those two terms.  I think we were going to get a request for those based on the highlighting.

This topic only stayed in the common area for two hours.  Either it was itself a simpler problem, or the people needed to do something about it were missing.  I think it was a combination of the two.

As I suspected, the next topic was "artificial structures" but the term next to it was "Exahertz response".

Another Team Leader posted this topic.  He ended up putting the words in two pieces rather than as four words.  It worked Ok.

I gathered this was kicking up a lot of excitement, because people were mindspeaking things, including some curses, to the whole group.  They seemed happy.

This topic only needed 2 hours and then Max called it a day.  He asked all groups to write summaries of their experiences and expected a report by next Tuesday from each group.  There were general cheers by mindspeech to the whole group, at the end.

Max thanked me for my help, and said he would get back to me next week.  He apologized for making me miss school.  I said it was OK.  I sent to him that I thought it turned out well.  He sent, "Well beyond our wildest hopes."  And with that I disconnected from the group.

I had dinner with the family for once, and then took it easy for the evening.  I had done all my school work while I was waiting for the topic changes.  I made sure that Mom knew how many hours I worked for the contract.  She had a record of what I was doing.  She and Max compared notes often.

[Saturday]

[Paul's House]

===== Sept 29   41,400  words about 83 pages

There are three more people here than last weekend.  They are all newcomers - no experience with mind skills.  Paul and I merged and teaching each person how to mindspeak, send, and merge.  We want them to become independent mergers - able to get into a merge with someone else without our assistance.  It is going slow.  I think that adults take longer to learn mind skills.

By lunch time we have everyone merged, and they have all merged actively, but I want to be sure everyone understands how to merge independently, so I take an extra hour to take pairs and have them merge.  This puts our schedule back a bit, but I do not want to repeat the whole exercise.  I also make sure that everyone can send and receive mindspeech.  We did a lot in a few short hours for this many people.  I hope they appreciate it.  Paul certainly is tired, and I did most of the work.

After lunch everyone is in a merge.  Most of us are in the dining room with note paper and computers ready.  The extra people are comfortable in the living room with their computers and paper.  We want to be able to capture the results of this session, so everyone is ready to write down what we find.

Rick has not told me the topics for the day.  I am getting used to his waiting until the last minute to tell me.  I like being prepared, but this is his workshop.

"We will start with the topic - Where should we invest in the nuclear industry?"  Rich sent to me.  He was one of the better ones on mindsending.  I just hoped he would remember how tomorrow.

I cleared the common mind area, posted the question we were going to try, and then brightened it so that everyone could see.  I looked around then with my eyes open, and saw that everyone had their eyes closed.  I closed mine again and watched the common area to see what would happen.

The common area remained empty for a full minute before new material was posted.  This was not a question that these people had tried to answer before, at least I thought so.  Then there was a table posted that had a list of nuclear plants.  Then mines and transportation.  Then military applications.  Then chemical applications from the other day.  Then foreign countries.  Then medical applications.  I did not know these categories then, I am relating what Rick told me later.  As each new item was posted, there were people watching.  The brains of those people provided associated information.

The common area was getting full, when there was some rapid highlighting and rearranging.  Some material disappeared altogether, and some new information was added.  I saw several diagrams with different kinds of nuclear reactors shown (I learned later what they were).  One diagram had lots of activity.  It grew and the others minimized.  The diagram became engineering drawings and images.

The whole common area became nearly constant, except for changes in that one diagram.  And then the diagram area activity stopped.  It was time to record the results.

"It is time to record the results and then move on to another topic."  I sent to Rick.

It took him a moment to realize that I had sent him a private message.  Then he sent to the whole group, "It is time to record the results.  We will spend as long as necessary to write this down."

Some people had been actively writing since the image first appeared.  I saw that Jacob had his large paper out and was copying the diagram of the reactor that had been highlighted.  He had a smile on his face.  He would look at the paper and draw, then close his eyes to get some more.  Sarah was helping him.  She drew on the larger sheet, and she made notes on her own pad.

We spent two hours writing down the details.  While I was waiting, I spoke to Rick about the next topic.

"I suggest that we make the next topic, how to manufacture this new kind of reactor.  There was a lot of activity on that diagram.  If you make that the new topic, then you can get specific details of how to make it happen."  I sent to Rick.

"You sound very certain."  he sent to me.

"This is what I spent the last two days doing.  The activity in one area means there is a lot more information available on that area.  Making the highlighted area the main topic gives us the room to learn more about this specific area."  I sent to Rick.

"Were you helping somone else to do this same sort of thing?"  he asked me.

"Yes, totally different topics."  I sent to Rick.

"Ok.  Let's take the highlighted area for the next topic.  We only have time for a couple more topics at this rate."  he sent to me.

"Your people seem to think that this is worthwhile.  Is the merge showing you things that were not obvious before?"  I sent to him.

"Yes, most of this is new material.  I knew some of the pieces, but mostly it is new, and beyond what the industry is doing now."  he sent to me.

Rick opened his eyes and started making notes.  I could see dollar signs on his notes.  I think he was copying down what this was going to cost.

When the two hours were up, people from the living room crowded into the dining room.  Rick asked if everyone was done.  When he heard yeses and no nos, he continued.  "We are thinking about making the next topic, how to manufacture the reactor that is shown in the highlighted area."  he said. 

Jacob immediately said, "Absolutely.  It is a wonderful design.  It requires onl half the reactor parts and a quarter of the remainder of plant.  It seems to be intrinsically safe in its design."

"Did the design of the accelerator reactor show up?"  I asked, being very careful to say, "accelerator reactor" properly.

Rick and the others looked at me.  "No, it did not."  he said, hesitantly.  He looked at me rather sharply and then said, "Shall we go on with the next topic then?"

There was general agreement and some smiles.  I cleared the common area except for the highlighted area showing the new reactor.  The response was immediate.  New information started filling the common area as soon as I posted the new topic.  The diagram became more detailed, then it suddenly divided into two parts.  One was very simple and seemed smaller.  The second was still much less complex than the regular nuclear plants.  There were chemical symbols,  there were pictures of large vessels and pipes.  It kept growing and simplifying.

Jacob was saying under his breath, "Yes! Yes!  Yes! ..." on and on.  He had started two new large sheets of paper.  He was copying the smaller and the larger reactors.  Jacob saw me looking at him.  He mindsent to me privately. "It is a type of nuclear battery that can be used in industrial applications, and there is a much simplified reactor and plant for generating electricity.  This will change the industry if we can get it built."  I watched him close his eyes again and go back to the diagram.  He still had a smile on his face.  He was very happy.

I took a break to make a pit stop, and then got myself something cold to drink.  I wished I had more to do.  I thought about copying some of the material from the common area, but I did not understand any of it, and I did not want to make a mistake.

After about an hour and a half, people were saying they were done.  Rick was sending to me, "We have time for one more topic.  It can either be the simplified reactor, or it can be the nuclear battery.  What do you suggest?"

I was flattered that he would take my opinion.  "Either one will be fine.  You will find more information, so that you can build either one of them.  Has anyone ever built a nuclear battery?"  I asked.

"No one has ever built something like what is shown there."  he sent.

"Are the people here experienced with nuclear batteries?"  I sent.

"No, they are not.  They are more experienced with the traditional reactors, like the second one."  he sent. 

"You should probably form a new merge group to work on the nuclear battery.  They should have the background to work on all the details."  I sent.

"That makes perfect sense.  So we take the second, simplified reactor as our last topic." he sent.

I posted the new topic about ten minutes later.  We spent two hours on it.  Jacob had more paper to fill.  He seemed very happy.  I saw that Matt was writing down lists of things.  I think he was working on what parts went into the reactor, and how much they would cost.  At least there were dollar signs and he kept referring back to the drawings for things.

Rick had made dinner reservations for a local restaurant.  We were met there and were guided to a private room.  Someone had chosen the menu ahead of time, for which I was thankful.  I hated choosing things from a large menu, especially if I did not know what all the items were.  We had small steaks and shrimp, a salad, breads, some vegetables with a yummy sauce, a small baked potato.  There was a dessert wagon.  I had chocolate mousse.  Everyone else was drinking wine.  I had my Perrier and lemon.  Paul was not invited to dinner.  I thought he deserved a treat, he had done a lot of work today.  I hope his Dad pays him.

Paul's Dad dropped me off at my house.  Most of the rest of the people were going to stay the night in hotels.  A couple of people stayed at Paul's house.  They had extra bedrooms.  It was a pretty big house.  Some of the people were going to meet again tomorrow.  I was not planning to attend, they could mind call me if they needed help.  I figure Paul could merge with some of the more advanced ones, and then he could help them connect.  Paul knew how to introduce a topic, but not how to cut out highlighted areas and make them new topics.  He was going to call me if he got stuck.  That is where we had left it before dinner.

[Sunday]

[Church]  I had been thinking about blind people, and so I was happy to see George and Father John standing together in the lobby when we came to the 11 o'clock service.  

"Father John, George, good morning!"  I said as I came up to them.

"Good morning."  George sent to me by mindspeech.  Father John also said, "Hello" by mindspeech!  I did not realize that they were both mindspeakers by now.

"I wanted to talk to the two of you about something.  Do you have a moment?"  I asked out loud.

They could tell that I was going to use ordinary speech, so they said, "Sure" and "OK".

"You are still running classes for partners for the blind aren't you?  How many people are involved?"  I asked.

"We have about fifty blind people in the local area and about the same number of volunteers trained or going through training."  Father John said,

"There are thousands of blind people around the country who are waiting for a partner."  George said.  I could tell he was not happy about that.

"How many of your local volunteers are good mind mergers?"  I asked.

"There are fifteen that are really good.  They make good partners for the blind."  Father John said.

"If you created merges of ten or twenty, then one volunteer could help many different blind people at once.  The merge will give ten times the brightness and detail of the simple boosting.  The blind could stay in a merge constantly."  I explained.

"I do not understand."  George said.

"I could merge with you, and we can passively merge all of the blind people in this area into a single merge.  Every one of the blind people would gain the ability to see blobs about ten times better than in a single volunteer was helping them.  All of the blind people in the merge would be able to mindspeak each other.  I do not know whether you would use that capability.  There are other benefits as well."  I explained.

"I have to go help with this service", Father John said.  "Could we talk about this later?

"This sounds really important.  Could I have some of my friends hear this too?"  George said.

"Can we meet here at the church at about 2 o'clock?  That will give me time to talk, I am pretty busy until then.  I think Susan and your Mom should be hear too."  Father John said.

"We can do that."  George said.

"Can we have one of the good mind mergers come too?"  I asked George.  He said yes.

[Living Room] I had time to get home, change and get something to eat.  Mom was free and was going to drive us back to church.

[Parlor]  We met in the parlor, there was enough room for all of us.  Father John introduced everyone, even though most people knew each other.  I met three friends of George's who were blind, and on the volunteer committee for the blind.  There were three volunteers with good mind merging ability.  Mom and Susan were volunteer coordinators.

"Since I was last working with you all, I have found new ways to merge groups, and new results when the merges are created.  When I was last working with you, we found that volunteers could help boost the ability of blind people to see.  The method we worked out required one volunteer for each blind person.  That is how the training is set up now.  But it is also possible for one volunteer to merge many blind people, and to give them stronger ability to see blobs, after their initial training one-on-one."  I said.

"George, you are pretty much independent now aren't you?"  I asked George.

"Yes, I worked with volunteers for a while, but now I can see blob maps on my own.  I can see the map of people around me.  I have experience with watching traffic, I can see the cars because I can see the blobs of the drivers and passengers.  I have experience in malls, I can see where to walk by seeing where other people are walking.  I can avoid collisions while walking by seeing the blobs of people around me.  I can mindspeak because you showed me how to focus on a blob and mindspeak it.  I have heard about merges, but I have not been in a merge.  Or I was merged but did not know what that meant."  George said.

"I am going to merge with Mom right now, and then I am going to merge with the rest of you, one by one."  I said.

Mom and I merged by focusing on each other and creating a common mind map.  I merged in George passively by balancing the common map against his individual map.  Our minds caused the merger when that information was all there together.  Then I merged in all of the rest of the people.  Everyone (not blind) closed their eyes to see the blob map (mind map) of the people around us.  The merged map covered most of the city and the region around.

"This is much brighter than I saw when I was working with the volunteer.  It is more detailed too and goes much farther."  one of the blind people said.

"I can show blind people how to merge like this.  To get the visual details on the blobs, you might want to also have sighted people in the merge.  This image we are seeing is take from the common knowledge of all the people in the merge."  I explained.

"Let me understand this.  A whole group of blind people will merge with one or more sighted person.  Do you have to be close to each other for this to work."  another of the blind people asked.

"No, you can be any distance apart.  The volunteer could be in their home and you will get the benefit of brighter blobs.  We can also teach you how to mindspeak.  We can try this out near traffic and in malls or other busy places.  It might be that there is enough information from the blob maps alone to be able to navigate.  The blind person does not need a volunteer right next to them."  I explained.

"Let me try an experiment.  This will take me a few minutes.  I am going to disconnect everyone but myself and the blind people here."  I started, and then I disconnected everyone.  It did take a few minutes because I was passively disconnecting each person.  "Now what do you see?"  I asked them.

"This is still as bright and clear as before.  There is just you and us blind people""  He said with a laugh.  George stood up and walked around.  One of his friends did too.  Then they made their way back to their seats.

"Now I am going to disconnect from you and leave you in a merge of just blind people."  I said.  I disconnected myself from the group of blind people.

"There was a little dimming, but not much.  The blob map (mind map) is just as bright as before.  It is much better than we were getting with the volunteers, and we are doing this by ourselves."  George said. "How do we get out of the merge?  Or can we just leave it running?  How do we get back in a merge once we are disconnected?"  he asked.

I am going to merge in with your group and then disconnect you.  I will have to teach you how to actively merge.  I think some of these volunteers might have seen this kind of training.  Maybe they can help to teach you how.  For now, would you like me to teach you all how to actively merge?"  I said.

"How long is this going to take?  We have the parlor for a couple more hours. Would that be enough time?"  Father John asked.

"Let me train as many people as possible."  I said.  "I am going to disconnect the blind people from each other so we are all starting out independently.  You have all had some experience with blobs and blob maps."  Everyone said yes. 

I started with George.  "Do you have a good blob map in your head?"  I asked.  "Yes."

"Would you try and send it to me like you were going to mindspeak.  Just try to send me the image.  I will tell you when you are getting it right."  I explained.

George tried several things, and then he got the right way to send.  I could tell because there was a brightening of my own blob map.

"I want you to keep sending me your blob map, and I will send you mine.  When I send to you, yours will get brighter.  Send me the brighter maps back, and I will keep sending to you.  Try it."  I said to him.

George sent his blob map to me,  I sent mine to him.  Mine got brighter and I sent the brighter map to George.  It was more like a continuous sending.  In a few moments there was a tugging feeling and we were in a merge. "Did you feel a kind of tugging sensation?"  I asked him.  George answered that he had felt something.  "That is a sign that the merge is successful."  I said.

"To disconnect, focus on your own individual blob map.  When you have it firmly in mind, then you should pop out of the merge."  I said.  "That worked!"  he said.

I took one of his friends, Francine.  "Francine try to send your blob map to me, like trying to throw it at me."  I said.

She got the hang of it quickly and we merged.  I disconnected from her and had her merge with George.  They were able to do it without any trouble.  I left them in a merge and trained two more people.  I left them in a merge.  I went around the room training individuals so they could merge.  In about an hour and a half, I had everyone in pairs.

I asked everyone by George and Francine to disconnect.  They did that fairly easily.  Then I had each person merge with George and Francine.  It was a variation on connecting to an individual - connecting to a merge group.

With a few minutes to spare, everyone was in a common merge.  "You should all be able to disconnect and reconnect now.  Do you think you can all remember how we did this?"  I asked.  "Those of you who have mindspeech teach the rest how to mindspeak.  If you want to mindspeak to one person, then focus on their blob.  If you want to talk to a whole group, then focus on the common blob map."  I finished.

"Thanks for all your help, Dana."  Father John and the others said.  "Yes, thank you.  Thanks!" other said.

"When you have all of the blind people in the area mostly trained so they can merge into a single group, let me talk to you again.  The people can all be in their homes and part of the group merge.  I can talk to the whole group and teach them some new thing to do."  I said to everyone.  "Likewise, if all the volunteers or any group is merged and wants to learn some new skills, I can talk to them as a group and show them new things."  I said.

[Living room]  There was a message from Paul.  They had gone riding again, but we had already left for church.  I do not know why he did not mind call me.

[My room]  I wrote up my notes of what I had done with the blind.  I suggested that the blind, as a community, should be a constant merge.  I said that deaf people could too.  I sent a note to Craig, Mom, Karen and Susan.

[Monday]

[School]  I had some notes from teachers about things I had missed.  I checked with friends in homeroom and found that I had missed three quizzes on Friday while I was out.  I would make them up today.  From what people told me they were mainly review.  I ended up getting hundreds on two of them, and missed one part on another.  My extra reading was paying off.  And keeping up routinely helped.  I generally paid close attention in class.  So much had happened in four days - the Secret Service on Thursday and Friday, the investors on Saturday, and the blind on Sunday.

I paid close attention in Science class, we were going over how the atom worked, and some about nuclear energy.  I was reminded about the new reactor design the group had found Saturday.  I wondered if it was really going to be built.  An image that struck me during the teacher's talk was some people working on computers.  They had diagrams and such on their screens and they were working with pens on the computer.  I wondered if that could help Max or Rick.

During lunch I connected to the Internet and wrote a note to Max.  I described how I had seen men working on diagrams on the computer and suggested that if a group of people like that were merged, they could make changes that would probably show in the common map.  If they were working on different parts of a common piece of equipment, then their mind merge would take care of the differences.  If they were going to build the artificial brain or some of the other things we had discovered last week, then they could take people with all the individual parts and merge them.  I said if he wanted to try it, I would be glad to help.  That message was sent encrypted.

In Social Studies, I was wondering how the development of all these mind skills was going to change society.  Ideas in the past had changed countries.  Could the ability to merge and solve problems like we were doing have a big impact on our country, on the world?  I wondered how we were going to have mindspeech in a world with so many different languages.  There was so much to learn!

[Living room]  There was a message from Craig to call him, so I called back.  He had gotten my email about the blind and wondered how this would affect the volunteer programs.  I said it would mean that many more people could be helped who were blind.  It did not take a long time to teach a blind person to merge, so they could teach each other.  I said that the basic sending, merging and mindspeaking course I gave each one on Sunday would be fine for blind people and their volunteers.  I said that when the blind people were just starting out, it would probably be necessary to teach them how to navigate using blobs.  That would probably mean volunteers.  Once they got the idea of how to navigate with blobs, then they could simply be merged with each other, or with volunteers.  I said that the big payoff would be when there were large numbers of people merged constantly.  I did not see any reason the blind could not be merged all the time.  (I had an idea something new would happen).

When we were done talking about the blind, I asked Craig how he was doing with teaching mind skills internationally.  He said we had contracts for teaching in dozens of countries.  The problem of mindspeech was still bugging them - when people were speaking different languages they could mindspeak, but they could still not understand each other.  I suggested that this could be made a topic for a merge study among the staff of the MindMappers Association and key supporters.  I had to explain what a "merge study" was.  He took my word for it, and said it might be something to bring up the next time Jim called a general meeting of the Association.  There was going to be a staff meeting on Friday, but it would be a while before a general meeting.  Would I like to talk to the staff on Friday?  I said yes, and asked if Jim, Karen, Frank, Susan, and my Mom and Dad could be invited.  They could all attend via mind merge.  They would have it in the evening on Friday so everyone could attend.  I thanked him.

[Tuesday]

[Kitchen]  I got a mind call from Max before I left for school.  I was happy to hear from him, I wondered how his research was going.

"I am going to be changing organizations but not jobs"  he sent to me.  "Our contract is going to continue just as it is, but it will be with a new organization."

"I guess that is good news.  How did this come about?"  I asked.

"Your contract to this point has been with the United States Secret Service.  We are in charge of protecting the President as well as other duties.  We contacted you because we heard about a new method of coordinating special teams, as well as an ability to see blobs of people in buildings.  We expanded that to include mind speech and the possibility of reading minds, as part of protecting the President.  Because of this new research we have been doing, however, all sorts of changes are going on. In order to coordinate development and application of this new technology, we are setting up a working group, in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, under the Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs.  We have a vastly expanded budget and the responsibility to direct new research and development of mind technologies."  he sent.

"Do I need to do anything differently?"  I sent.

"No, you will still interface with me, and we will continue with the things we started.  We will not be as closely responsible for protecting the President and key staff, but we will support the Secret Service and the other offices and agencies of the US government."  he sent.

"It sounds like you are reading this."  I sent with a smile.

"Actually I am reading parts of it, since I have a new contract for your Mom to sign.  By the way, we are giving you a big raise, because of all your help to us."  he sent.

"Thanks, this is mostly going into my college fund."  I sent.

"By the time you get to college, it will not be the same.  And, because of the work you are doing now, there will be no end of organizations, including universities, who are going to be bidding for you to join them.  I do not think you have to worry about money for school."  he sent.

"How is the research going now on the artificial brain, the blob detector, and the signal generator?"  I sent, being careful to say the words right.

"There are people working around the clock.  We have merge teams in a dozen locations working on details.  The engineering is coming along very quickly. Which reminds me, we do want to try the method of getting people in a merge using CAD (computer aided design) programs on their computers.  Our teams say that will really tie down the engineering drawings more quickly.  A few people have tried it, and they say it will probably work.  We would like you to sit in on one of the sessions if possible.  We might be able to do something on Saturday, can you be available?"  he sent.

"Yes, I am still free on Saturday.  My last two Saturdays were filled, but this weekend looks free.  I would really like to see how that goes.  If it works there might be other problems that could help on.  Do you think I could see one of the CAD computers?"  I sent.

"Yes, we will probably have you go to the university where Dr Allen does research.  His group does not use CAD, but there is another department that does."  he sent.

"I better get going if I do not want to be late to school."  I sent.

"Sorry, I just wanted you to hear the latest news."  Max sent.

"I'm fine, I was up a little early anyway, I am glad to hear everything is going well."  I sent.  "Talk to you later."

"Talk to you later."  he sent.

[Homeroom]  There was an odd announcement during homeroom.  It said that if you are going to be in a mind merge, please watch out where you are going.  There were several cases where people almost fell down stairs because they were mind merging and not watching where they were going.  "Stop to merge" was the slogan.  And here I was wondering if school was going to be changing. Lol!

While I was waiting for homeroom to be over, I mindcalled Edith.  She is in high school.  "Are a lot of people in your school mind merging?" I asked when she said she could talk. 

"Most of the school is in a merge at any given time.  Mostly two's and three's.  Some people are using it for math problems, but mostly for mindspeech."  she sent.

"Ok, thanks a lot."  I sent.

I mind called Patty at her college.  She had just a minute, but she confirmed that many people in her school was in a merge at any given time.  They were using it for mindspeech exclusively.  I told her about using it to solve math problems, but she had not heard of anyone doing that.

The bell rang and I went off to gym.  The air was a little cooler already.  It was pleasant running.  It cleared my head.

I had a minute during lunch to send off an email to Dr Allen.  I asked him if the students at his school were using mindspeech and merging.  When it came back later, he said that no one in the school, except for his group, was using mindspeech.  He thought some of the undergraduates might, but there were not many.

[Living room]  There was a package with the mail from the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).  Mom had already opened it, it must be my new contract.  I glanced at it, but it was mostly legal terms.  I would have to leave it to her to sort out.  I trusted Max.  There were forms for applying for a security clearance.  I guess I would have to help Mom with those.

Rick called and left a message.  He wanted me to help them on Saturday again.  I called him and explained that I was already committed to helping someone else on Saturday.  I said that Paul was really good at helping people merge now, and he could at least introduce new topics.  If they really got stuck, they could call me on me cell phone or mind call me, in that order.  I asked him how things were going.  He said that they were fantastic. The new reactors looked good and he had several new items for investors.  Since he was raising money, and not doing the engineering, he was not sure who would build the new systems, but they probably would be built.  I asked if he was going to work on the nuclear battery.  He said they did not have the people lined up for that yet.  I said I would be very interested to help them with that research.  I mentioned how people with CAD systems could be merged to help speed up the engineering work.  He asked me how that would work and I explained briefly.

[My Room]  I read my homework and did my problems for Math. I was two or three chapters ahead now, but I went ahead and read each textbook carefully.  I am learning to memorize stuff the first time I see it, and to link it into other things I had read or seen.  I wonder if this is what college students do.  It was not so much that my brain was different, but I was paying a lot more attention to each thing.  Since I had more time, I googled and wikipedia'd several topics.  I was interested in OSTP and the Secret Service.  I noticed that there was a Science and a Technology associate Director, but I was not going to be under either one of them.  I was under National Security and International Affairs.  I think that Science and Technology were both going to be affected greatly by these merged researchers.  Imagine scientists and engineers in vast networks of merged minds.  If we made that much progress on brain science and nuclear physics in a few short days, what would it be like after a few years?

George mindcalled me fairly late.  He apologized and said he was working late with a group of his friends.  He was teaching as many of them as possible, how to merge and mindspeak.  He was wondering what other things were possible with a mind merge.  I suggested we merge and I would show him.  He said he was still in a merge of five blind people, could they watch?

I merged with the group and then placed an image of an apple in the common area.  That was the first time two of them had ever seen an apple. They had been blind from birth.

"What I want you to notice, is not so much the apple, but the smells."  I sent.  "Do you smell the apple?"  There were gasps of astonishment from the others.  Yes, they could smell the apple.

Now I sent them a picture of a monkey, and explained I was sending them a picture of a monkey.  I let them wait, and then pointed out the sounds and smells that were connected with the monkey.  As I expected, the picture did not get clearer or animated.  The only other minds in this merge besides mine were blind people who had never seen a monkey.  They had smelled and heard them.

"I do not see any reason a volunteer could not send images to groups of blind people, so you can actually see images of things in the world."  I sent.  I suggested that two or more sighted people in the merge would make the pictures more vivid and animated.

I asked them if there was anything they would like to see.  They said they were interested in cars.  So I googled cars and then clicked on images.  I went through the images one by one and sent them to this group of five blind people.  I explained a little, but they seemed happy to see the images without comment.

Finally, I told them to contact me if their volunteers had problems with sending images.  It was just like mindspeech or the sending you do when you merge.  I suggested they send the apple image to each other for practice, later.  If they had any images of their own, they could send them to each other, or to a sighted person.  One way to swap images.

[Wednesday]

[Kitchen]  Mom said that she would fill out security clearance form for me.  She had all of the information already.  It was mostly things I did not know anyway like where we had lived before.  She said they were asking for it soon, so she would try to do it today.  Max was anxious to get the papers, but he said he was not concerned about her ability to get a clearance.  They were going to have to get an executive clearance anyway since I was under age.  Since the President was personally interested in me, there would be no problem.

I asked whether I was going to need a winter coat to go with my new clothes.  She said she had seen one online that should suit me.  It was a Calvin Klein white double breasted wool.  They had it in my size.  She could order it, and then have it tailored if necessary.  We looked at it on the Internet and it looked Ok.  There were few choices in my size, so I said go ahead.  White might be hard to keep clean, but it would go with everything.  Could I get a jacket for everyday school too?  I was outgrowing stuff, and did not like to wear Patty's old stuff any more.

I told Mom what Max had said about universities bidding for me.  She said maybe, but she wanted to be sure I was covered, so all the money would be going to the school fund, except for what I had to spend for business expenses.  She did say that the raise I got was substantial.  She seemed impressed.

[School]  When I was putting up my bike, Theresa was there.  She said that she was in a merge of about 30 students.  She said they were stuck on solving a problem, could I help them?

I merged into her group, and looked at the common area.  There was a math problem there but there was no solution.  I recognized the problem because Patty had told me about it when she was going through algebra.  I mindsent to the whole group, "This problem is called Fermat's problem.  It does not have a solution in integers except when N is equal to 2.  Someone gave you an impossible problem to solve."  I changed the equation so that it was a quadratic, and then showed the solution for a 3,4,5 triangle.  Immediately other possible solutions like 5,12,13 started showing up, until there were dozens of possible answers.  Then the words, Euclid's Formula, came up with some equations for finding solutions.  The students were all interested in that information, so I just disconnected and went into homeroom.  I think some of the students were on wikipedia by that time, so they could find more if they wanted.  The combination of mind merge and computers was powerful.

===== End Sept 30     48,200 words  about 96 pages.

[My Room]  I finished my homework right away when I got home.  There was an essay for English class to write.  All the writing I have done for the Mind Mappers Association, and for these contracts, has been good practice.

George mind called me.  He wanted to have me meet with his friends when they were in a mind merge.  Could I help them this evening?  I said yes.

[Living Room] Mom and Dad talked to me about college.  I am still worrying about middle school.  With all the changes in the world, is it going to be the same anyway?

[My Room]  George mind called, and he is in a merge with almost 20 people.  There are about 10 blind people, and their spouses, and a couple of volunteers.  He has been teaching everyone he can find, how to mind merge.  I had promised him I would show them more ways to use mind merges, if he would get the people together, so that is what George did. 

I sent an image of the Mall to the common area and brightened it.  I used an image from the upper court, down the excalators to the lower area when the fountain is located.  When I sent the image, it was sketchy and slightly wrong.  When the other sighted people added their information, the image took on detail.  None of us was there at the moment, so we did not see images of people there, but we could see memories of the place.  Our common blob map extended to the Mall, so we could put blobs of people into the picture.  "This is a picture from the Mall."  I explained.

Most of the blind people had been there, but, of course, they could not see these kinds of detail.  "When you are merged with two or more sighted people, you will be able to see lots more detail about the world around you."  I explained.

I sent an image of a horse to the common area.  My image was sketchy and dim.  When the sighted peoples' minds got hold of that image, they quickly added detail, animation and smells.  What we saw now was a herd of horses moving across a field at a gallop.  There was sunlight and green grass and trees.  "You can see places that exist only in memory and imagination."  I sent to the group.

I sent a simple algebra problem to the common area.  The problem was solved and there where charts showing curves.  "Kids in middle school use mind merge to solve difficult math problems."  I sent.

I sent a part of a map of the city to the common area.  The map was updated and improved from the connected minds.  The blobs of people were placed on the map.  "There are maps of most areas.  You can have a sighted person give you the map, but then it is in your common memory.  This could help you in navigating."  I sent.

I sent a picture of the diagram of a car engine to the common area.  There was a pause and then more detail and animation was added.  "Some engineers and scientists use mind merge to solve problems that individuals cannot solve on their own.  This included engineering and scientific problems."  I sent.

I had my computer open and I sent images from a google image search on trees to the common area, each image I sent was highlighted and enhanced by the other sighted minds.  "You can see images sent to you by your sighted friends.  These are just pictures of trees."  I sent.

"These are pictures of dogs."

"These are pictures of people."

"These are pictures of cars."

"You will notice that in every case where I place an image, then it is improved automatically.  That is because you are merged with sighted people.  One sighted person can be merged with several blind people, or several blind people can be merged by themselves.  If blind people are merged by themselves, then their common information helps to improve images, sounds, and smells of things they have experienced."

"Are there any questions?"

"How are you sending these images?"  someone sent.

"The same way you mindspeak to someone, you can form a picture in your mind, and then intentionally send it to someone else.  The volunteers should have training in how to send images, or they can get training, and help you.  It is much the same way you "send" to merge into a group."  I send.

"Can I get a map of my house and the area around it?"  someone sent.

"Ask a sighted volunteer to look at a map, and then send you the images.

I took George's blob map from his mind and sent it to the common area.  "This is a blob map from George's perspective just as he is right now.  Notice how there is detail of the room, hallways, chairs, furniture and other things in the room where he and his wife are sitting.  When a blind person's blob map is matched with a sighted person's memory, then the blob map takes on detail that is a lot like sight."

"That is my room!"  George said.  "Is the reason I can see the walls and such because my wife is sitting here with me?" 

"Yes.  You are able to see that because you are in a merge with a sighted person.  When you are walking with a sighted person, you should gradually be able to see through their eyes. It works better when you are still, since there seems to be some delay in forming the detailed images.  But if you are sitting together or standing together, you should be able to get some common information from your sighted partner.

"What can I use the mind merge for?  I work in a computer firm."  someone sent.

"You can mind merge with your coworkers at work.  Whatever things you are doing at work will be enhanced in the common area.  As you work together in a merge, you will automatically get information you need about what you and the other people are doing.  It is another source of information about what is going on around you."  I sent.

"I notice that as I was merged in this group, and talking about certain things, I would get sounds, smells and emotions.  Is this natural?"  someone sent.

"You are going to get everything from the common mind that you would from your own mind.  If you have emotions, you can also receive them.   If you ordinarily think of smells, you will receive them"  I sent a picture of an apple to the common area.  "You should be able to smell this apple, because one of the things associated with this apple is its smell."

"There is a girl at my school who is able to send emotions, just like I am sending you images.  She is very good at it.  I cannot do that myself.  Maybe some of you can send emotions.  Maybe some of you can send sounds or smells.  You can experiment with each other to find what you are able to share."  I sent to the group.

"George would you like to send an image to the group?"  I sent.

"Sure,  I do not have many images, but I can send one for sure."  George sent.

"Look around you at your blob map, do you see another blob map over the top of it?"  I asked.

"Yes, I seem my blob map clearly, and then there is this faint blob map that seems to stretch everywhere."  He responded.

"That faint one is the common blob map for this group you are in.  Now, pretend you are sending an image to that larger blob map.  Like you are trying to throw your image to the common blob map.  Just like when you are sending to one blob map for mindspeech."  I explained.

"I am trying."  George sent.  I sent an image of the common blob to George.  "Keep trying.  I will tell you when."  I Sent.  Gradually there was a brightening of the common image area, and an image started to form there.

"You are getting there, try sending it harder.  Try to brighten the image."  I sent.

An image formed in the common area.  It was a picture of George's wife.  When the image formed there, it was improved by the other minds in the merge.  People who had seen his wife before could add detail.  This continued until there was a standing image of his wife, she was turning and talking and moving.  There were small sounds like her voice.  There were smells, that probably smelled like her individual perfume.

"I'm Christina, can anyone send me a picture of my husband, Jesse?"  Christina sent.  A new image started forming in the common area.  It grew in intensity and detail as people added new information.  It was a portrait of Jesse.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!!"  Christina sent.

"This is Ted, can you show me Rebecca?"  Ted sent, and then an image of Rebecca grew.

"This is Katy Simmons.  Do you have a picture of Fred, my brother?"  No new picture formed.

"Katy, you are going to have to merge with a sighted person who knows Fred, or you are going to have to merge with Fred and tell him to look in a mirror and send you a picture of himself!"  George sent with a laugh.

People swapped pictures of each other, and of loved ones, for the next half hour or so.  I did not interrupt.  This is one of the things a mind merge was for.  It seemed like each person was picking up image sending without any problem.  A few times there was hesitation, I talked them through it again, and everyone got it.

"Does anyone have a picture of the Washington Monument, I have always wondered what it looked like.  I went there once, but could not see it."  someone sent. I googled an image for them and was ready to send it, when an image began forming in the common area.  Someone else already had an image ready, or beat me to it on the web.  As usual the image was greatly enhanced because many people had information to contribute.

"George, is that what you wanted to know?"  I sent to George privately.

"Dana, thank you for your help this evening.  We really appreciate it.  You probably have homework to do,  We can continue sharing images with each other now.  It is really amazing how the images grow so detailed when we view them in a merge like this. Thanks!"  George sent to everyone.

"You are welcome, I am glad I could help.  If you have more questions, you can ask George and he will forwarded them to me.  Or we can have a get together like this again.  I think you will learn a lot by sharing with each other and seeing what happens."  I sent to everyone.

[Thursday]

[Kitchen]  It is really amazing how much I missed our Wednesday night classes. We had classes during much of the summer, and then gradually shifted mind training to the church, and to training put on by the Mind Mappers Association.  Without Patty here, and without the Wednesday classes, it was quiet in the middle of the week.  Maybe I could meet with George and his friends on some week day evenings.

"Mom, I think I need to do something with my hair, I have not changed it since I was a little kid.  Are you going to get your hair cut any time soon?"  I asked.

We could go this afternoon after school if you want.  I can usually get in late in the afternoon.  Should I call?"  Mom said.

"Sure.  Let's try.  We can do it another day if you need to.  You remember we are going to have a meeting with the Mind Mappers Association tomorrow?"  I asked.

"That's right.  I have it on the calendar for 7 o'clock."  she said.

[School]  Homeroom announcements were serious.  A student had stepped into traffic yesterday without looking.  People near her thought she was mind merging.  The message again was to keep your eyes open or "Stop to merge".  A further announcement about merges, "Students are not to merge during tests.  Anyone caught merging will be given detention."

That one made me think how the teachers were able to see if kids were in merges.  I could see the brighter blobs of a merge.  Were teachers getting mind training in blob watching, mindspeaking, and merging?  Later I asked a couple of teachers and they said, no, not that they had heard.

[Lunch] I sat with Paul and Theresa.  Paul asked me if I was going to be available on Saturday.  I said I had a commitment with one of my contracts, what did he have in mind?  He said that he was worried that he would not be able to get all the people merged, and he was worried that he would have trouble changing topics.  I told him I would probably be available in the morning if he mind called.  I could help then.  But later in the afternoon was going to be busy.  I went over topic changing with him a few minutes.  He felt a little better then,

I got out my laptop and wrote a couple of notes.  I wrote one to Rick, Paul's father, suggesting to him that he could have his people get together by mind merge alone.  They did not have to travel to one location to merge.  Distance doesn't matter.  If he had groups to merge, he could send trained mergers to the group locations, and then merge over long distance.

I wrote another email to Max, saying that I had been thinking about the blind a lot recently.  When we were designing the artificial brain, we also designed a "signal generator".  I remembered that it had an image generator as part of it.  That struck me because I was seeing that the generator could do everything a person could do, except merge.  Could he have his people design a device for blind people that would hook up a pair of cameras to a signal generator and send the images to a particular blob.  The device would only work with one unique blind person.  Would that be easier to build than something designed for lots of people?  Also, could you do the same thing and have a couple of microphones connected to a signal generator that would send sounds to a specific blob of a person who is deaf?

Max mindcalled me later in the day.  Luckily I was listening to a lecture from the book. 

"I got your email.  We have a large team working on the signal generator.  I checked with them.  It should be possible to build a device like that for the blind and deaf.  Thanks for suggesting it."  he sent.

"Will it help to make it for a specific person?  I thought that might make it more portable."  I sent.

"Yes, we would have to make lots of measurements on the person, but the device would be a lot easier to make.  I asked them."  he sent.

"What kind of measurement?"  I asked.

"They mentioned an MRI of the brain structure, and then an MEG while the person was viewing standard images.  I wasn't sure how that would work for a blind person."  he sent.

"I could send a blind person the standard images by mind merge."  I sent.

"I will send them a note about that."  he sent.  "Could you tell your Mom that I got the contract and the security forms?"  he continued.

"Sure."  I sent.

"Bye"  he sent.

"Bye"  I sent.

[My room]  My hair looks different cut shorter.  It is easier to keep out of my eyes, but I miss the feeling on my neck.

[Friday]

[Living Room]  Mom and Dad and I are meeting with the Mind Mappers Association and the other volunteer coordinators this evening via mind merge. It is the first complete merge meeting since the Association began this summer.

Jim, Jack and Carly's father, is the Director of the Association.  Jack and Carly are friends of mine. Jack is the first bright I ever saw.  Carly is also a bright, and Carly's Mom, Karen.  They have naturally bright blobs which most anyone can see with a little training.  Because of the brights, I was able to learn how to see blobs and blob maps.  Because of brights, I was able to learn to mindspeak.  it was a slow process that took me the whole summer.  Finally, I learned to mind merge and that reduced the dependency on brights.  Jim and Jack had a lot to do with setting up and running our BlobWatchers.org website, and its associated sites, MindSpeakers.Org and MindMappers.org.  When the sites went viral toward the end of the summer, Jim set up the MindMappers Assocation as a nonprofit membership association to promote mind skills.  The Association currently has contracts with government agencies, hospitals, and corporations.  The Association has contracts in dozens of countries to teach people there how to see blobs, see blob maps, merge, mindspeak, and how to bring people out of comas.  The Association has many volunteers to help teach the blind and deaf and to work in hospitals and elsewhere.  The Association publishes textbooks on all the applications of mind skills.

There are about thirty full time staff and hundred of volunteers.  The meeting tonight is just the full time staff and members of Jim's family, my family, and Edith's family (Edith, Jerry, Susan and Frank). 

"Welcome to our first full meeting of the Association staff and founding members." Jim sent to everyone.  "This is the first complete merge of everyone involved in creating and running the Association."

Jim made introductions of some new staff members, and gave a summary of the progress the Association had made in promoting mind skills.  There was a Treasurer's report on the finances.  (I did not realize how much money the Association was earning from book sales, classes, seminars, and consulting.)  Thousands of people had been trained in basic merge, mind mapping and mind speech.  There were tens of thousands of volunteers waiting to be trained - people who would then help the blind, the deaf, and people in hospitals.

There were presentations on programs for the blind and deaf.  There was a presentation by the International Department.  There was a presentation on federal agency contracts.

All of this was done with no images.

"Finally, I would like to introduce Dana Freehurst, the discoverer of most of these mind techniques.  She would like to talk to us about mind merges.  She has some new information for us."  Jim sent to everyone.

"I am going to be sending you some images.  Would you all please close your eyes so you can see the presentation.  Thank you." I sent to everyone.

I sent an image of an apple to the common image area, and then I brightened it so that everyone could see.  As usual, the image intensified and became more real.  There was the smell of apples and the taste as well.  I could almost feel the apple being chewed and swallowed.

"Many of you have sent images to the blind.  You might have sent images to each other.  I noticed there were no images in the presentation tonight. Does anyone have a guess as to why?"  I sent.

"The images always get messed up, right after you send them to a group."  someone sent.

"Exactly.  When an image is sent to a merge group, that image is changed by all of the people in the merge who have related information.  So when we send a picture of an apple, we get all its associations - its taste and smell and texture."  I sent.

"I have been consulting with several groups and helping them to use this capability of mind merges to solve very difficult scientific, engineering, math and financial problems."  I sent - being very careful to say the kinds of problems I had worked on.

"The Association could use this ability to solve problems for the Association.  It could also teach this skill to scientists, engineers, mathematicians, doctors and other professionals."  I continued.

By this time the common area had expanded to include apple trees, apple pies and hundreds of other associations for apples.  "If you will all notice, that our combined minds have added detail to my original apple image.  Now there are hundreds of things in the common image area that are related to apples.  I did not specify the purpose of the image, so our minds just keep adding detail without any plan or organization."  I sent.

"That's what I saw before."  someone sent.

I cleared the common area and sent an image of a car engine I had memorized earlier in the day.  I sent to the whole group, "I would like you to find a better way to manufacture this."

The engine sat for a moment with no change.  Then copies of other engines were added.  Then diagrams, and videos.  There must have been some car enthusiasts in the group, because the detail kept growing.  I let it grow on its own for a while before continueing.

"Even though we are not experts, the combined knowledge of this merged group is capable of tackling the problem of creating a new car engine design.  Even though no one of us could solve this problem, our minds, working together, can."  I sent.

I cleared the area and put up a complex integration problem that I found online.  The problem sat for just a moment and then the solution came up.  There were notes and graphs showing the solution.

"Even though most of you forget your mathematics since college, your minds are able to remember.  All the minds together tonight went to solve this problem - at least those of you who have had calculus or physics."  I sent.

I cleared the common area and then visualized the next image before I sent it.  I sent the words, "Find a way to help people of different languages mindspeak." to the common area, and I sent the words to everyone as mindspeech.  There was a clear delay, and then notes, charts, videos, images and other information started to fill the common area.

"I would like you to look at this one for a while.  This is the kind of complex problem that a group of people can solve.  What is happening is that our merged minds are supplying information to help solve this problem.  It will solve it to the best ability of this group."  I sent. "You will notice that some areas are being highlighted.  These are areas of special importance.  They are being worked on by every mind here.  If we do not interrupt this image, it will continue to work on this problem until everyone is satisfied in their minds that the associated information is all there."  I continued.

"We see lots of suggestions for how to help people with different languages to mindspeak.  How do we write it all down."  Jim asked.

"In my contract work, we had the whole group writing down the results by hand.  We broke the image up into regions and used paper and pencil to capture as much as we can.  In one instance I had about 90 people working and thirty were just writing things down.  The results are so complex and so important that we all pitched in to write down the results.  We do not have time right now to write down the results.  From my experience, that would take two to three hours to do with everyone helping."  I explained.

"I hate to lose this, there is some really good stuff here." Jim sent to everyone.

"Are we near the end of our meeting?  This was what I wanted to show you.  If people have to go now, they could stay connected, their information will remain on the common image.  We could continue a discussion of this problem, and write down some of these results, if you have people who can stay."  I sent to the whole group.

"We can stop the meeting now.  I would like to write down some of these results.  If half the staff would be willing to stay for half an hour, they can help write down this data.  We can break it down into about 12 parts and try to capture it."  Jim sent to everyone.

"Everyone, stay connected to the merge for the next half hour.  That way we can capture this data, even while you go on about your business."  I sent to everyone as a reminder.

Mom and Dad were looking at me when I opened my eyes.  "That is simply incredible!"  Dad said.  "I had no idea you were doing things like that."

"I have been holding off saying anything to the Association, because I cannot say what I have been working on with the government contracts.  This is all mind techniques that I have been developing on my own.  I felt I could share this much with everyone now, so they could start to see some of the benefits.  I think we are going to have to teach this technique, so I wanted to warn everyone."  I said.

"Would this work on financial problems?"  Dad asked. 

"Yes, it works well on investment problems anyway."  I answered.

"What about technical problems?"  he asked.  "Like computer and network problems."

"I have done nuclear physics and communications problems that included computers and networks."  I said.

"What about legal and social problems?"  he asked.

"What do you mean?"  I asked.

"What about the legal aspects of international trade?  What about social problems like poverty and homelessness?"  he asked.

"Do you have people working on those kinds of problems now?"  I asked.

"Yes, my company advises on social and international problems.  That is what we do.  There are three partners and seven associates in my firm, and we have many adjunct experts whom we hire for different contracts."  he said.

"I never knew what you did.  I thought you changed jobs before?"  I said.

"I have worked in international development, and in social engineering."  he said.  I did not know what those terms meant, but I tried very hard to remember them.

"Do you know about the contract that I have with Paul's father?  I have been helping them to design new kinds of nuclear reactors, new kinds of batteries.  I taught their people how to merge and how to problem solve using the merge.  Would you like me to teach your firm how to do that?  I charge reasonable rates?"  I said, smiling at Mom.

"Did Mom tell you what happened to the Secret Service contract?  Because of the research I helped them with, they have been taken over by another government agency, and their budget has expanded a lot.  Did you hear that I got a raise, too?"  I asked.

"Yes, she told me.  Congratulations.  Maybe we could talk about a contract with my firm.  We hire experts all the time."  he said, thinking.

"Do you have any problems you are working on right now, where time is important?"  I asked.

"We are just starting a contract related to the homeless.  We are advising major cities on how to treat the problem.  There has been a lot of work on the homeless, but many things do not work."  he said.

"It takes me about one hour to merge a group of ten people  Once we start a problem, it takes only 20 or 30 minutes to get a solution, and then it can take two hours or more to write down the answer.  So about four hours to actually solve a problem.  In a couple of hours I can show how to solve several problems, but there will not be time to write down the answers."  I explained.  "Would you like to tell me some of the problems you want to solve?  We could start with something like 'homeless'." I continued.

"Let me think about this."  he said.  "It sounds like you are taking a quantum leap in problem solving.  I think our firm should take advantage of this."

"Another way to do this, is to have the Mind Mappers Association train your people to merge and mindspeak. Then I can come in and help you with problem solving.  After tonight, I hope the Mind Mappers Association will think about making problem solving part of what it teaches."  I said.

"Ok.  I will get back to you."  he said.

[Saturday]

[My Room]  I do not have to be at the university until 1 o'clock.  I can take a cab there.  I need to dress up, but not for a while.  I can rest this morning.  It might be a busy afternoon.

Paul mind called me, but he really did not need any help.  He was just nervous.  He had several people who were remote.  I helped him get them connected.

[University] 

The cab dropped me off next to medical engineering department again.  I met Dr. Allen, Chad and Sally there, and they led me to another building nearby.

"This is the Engineering Design Group in this building.  They work with various industries - aerospace, energy, transportation, utilities and others.  They do advanced visualizations and computations.  The people we are going to meet today are all part of the Design Group who specialize in computer aided visualization.  They are looking forward to learning more about mind merges and mind skills generally.  We have talked to them a bit, but we are not very good at teaching this yet.  We just learned ourselves. We are going to sit in, since we hope to find out more about mind merges.  Max had us be part of a small task force, but we did not sit in on any of your larger merges.  We heard lots about them, so we are eager to learn more."  Dr Allen said.

We walked into a classroom where there were about 20 computer terminals.  They had large screens, some had two screens.  Some had large drawing surfaces in front of them, kind of like large pen pads.  Dr. Chip Sears was the head of the group.  He introduced about ten students but I quickly lost track of their names.  Chip wanted me to call him Chip, so I did.

"We are ready, if you are."  Chip said.  So I moved toward the front of the room.  Everyone sat down at a computer.  I was able to see everyone by standing on the front edge of a small stage.

"Max Williams is the head of a research group at the Office of Science and Technology Policy that is using mind merge techniques to solve problems.  I have been helping him.  One of the problems with solving complex problems is that the answers take up hundreds of pages.  Since we are using our minds to solve the problems, we have to find a way to get the answer out of our head on to paper.  Right now we are using large groups of people with paper and pencil to write down the answers by hand.  I saw where people were using computers to visualize problems, so I suggested to Max that we try to have a group of people using computers, have them mind merge, and see if we could save some time getting the answers down.  I have never seen one of these computers in person before.  I am hoping we can try so things that will lead us to something that will help."  I started.

"I am going to merge with Dr. Allen, Sally and Chad here and then passively merge all the rest of you.  We are going to try a few simple problems, and then try using your computers together in a mind merge."  I continued.

I merged with Dr. Allen, Chad and Sally without too much problems.  Then I carefully merged each of the others in passively.  I had done this so many times now, it was getting routine.

"Could someone tell me a problem that you might solve with your computers?"  I asked.  Chip motioned me over to his computer, and he showed me a highly colored picture on the screen.  This is the flow of air around an air intake."  he said. 

"Do you have a picture of the air intake?"  I asked.

There was a brief flurry of activity on the next computer, and they showed me a piece of equipment with the air intake.

"This looks like a part of a larger machine.  Can you show me, on another computer, that larger machine?"  I asked.  They managed to bring up a picture of a car engine, which I recognized.

"What sort of questions do you ask of the air flow?  Are you trying to find the best airflow?"  I asked.

"We usually say we are trying to optimize the airflow for maximum power, or something like that."  Chip said.  "optimize the airflow for maximum power"  I memorized.

"Would three of you sit at those computer and focus on the images?  I am going to transfer the images from your minds into the common image area.  I will explain shortly."  I said.

Three people moved to the computers and sat down.  They focused they attention on the computers.  I asked everyone else to close their eyes.

Working quickly, I copied the three images into the common area, and then spoke out loud as clearly as I could, "Please optimize the airflow for maximum power."

"Would the three of you close your eyes now."  I instructed.

Everyone could see the common area now.  The three images were somewhat ragged, but soon cleared up.  These people were familiar with these images.  Nothing changed on the common area for a full minute.  When people stirred, I said to be patient, and give it time.  Then the common area started adding new material.  First there was a change in the engine.  The cylinders changed size, there was some highlighting on something connected to the engine by wires, a picture of a piston (I learned later what it was called) was added, the engine started moving.  The air inlet changed size, and the air flow changed.  Everyone had their faces foreward and their eyes actively scanning behind their closed eyelids.  The looks were intense.  The common area was adding new information, but not very quickly.  There were chemical symbols beside the piston.  There were some charts that I later learned had temperature curves on them.  No one spoke. Ten minutes went by, but I could tell that no one was losing interest.  Thirty minutes went by, and the optimization was still going.  Finally the common area seemed to settle and then stop.  Chip spoke, but he kept his eyes closed.

"So this is what you were talking about, a complex solution."  Chip said.

"I was wondering about the changes in the original diagrams you showed me.  Can you make those changes on your computers?"  I asked.

"That would be the next step, for sure."  Chip said.  "We make the adjustments in our original images, and then we run this optimization again.  But, where is all this data and computing power coming from?"  he asked.

I gave your three images from your computers, through your eyes and into what I call the merge common area.  It is a place where images can be shown to a group,  Any image shown there immediately is changed by information from the brains of everyone if the whole group.  If you did not know anything about these images, they would just sit there.  But you seem to be experts with engines and such, so your minds added all that detail.  I do not have a lot of control over how it is done, I just know that is how the merged mind works."  I said.

"Now we see your problem about writing down the solution.  There are obvious changes in the engine, the ignition system, the coating on the pistons, and there are airflow changes in the inlet.  Like I say, we could make those changes in the diagrams, and restart this optimization.

Chip had stepped away from his computer.  He whispered to the woman next to him, she sat down at his computer.  She started making changes in the design on the computer.

At the other two computers, one man and another woman made changes to those diagrams.  In about ten minutes, Chip said "They have made most of the changes.  It is close enough.  We  had to estimate some of the distances, and measurements."

"Do you want to run the new optimization?"  I asked, being careful to say "optimization" properly.

"No.  We trust that it will work.  We can run our own simulations from this one, and compare with previous runs we have made.  We are interested in the mind merge.  We want to know more about it."

Everyone had their eyes open again.  "Before I get started, let me show you a couple of things and you will have an idea how the common area works.  Please close your eyes again."  I asked.

I sent a picture of a monkey to the common area after I had blanked it.  As usual the common mind added detail, animation, sound and smells.  It soon looked like a video of a monkey.  "All of the detail is coming from the brains of the people in this merge.  The original sketch was from me, but you all added details from other monkeys you have seen, heard and smelled, to make this final product.  Since we did not say what we wanted to do with the monkey, this regular information was added.  If we wanted to know more about monkey faces and language, that would have been put there."  I explained.

I cleared the common area and sent an apple there.  The same kind of detail, smells, taste and sounds of crunching were added.  "This is another example where ordinary information is being added.  If all of you in this merge had never seen or tasted or smelled or eaten an apple, nothing would have happened." I explained.

"Now you can open your eyes again."  I waited for them to adjust.  "I have been working with students at my middle school.  They use this to solve advanced algebra problems.  They can solve the advanced problems because they have been exposed to simpler problems.  No one of the students can solve the complex problems, but in a merge they can."  I continued.

"I have been working with Max on finding new technologies for detecting and recording mind speech.  I cannot tell you what we have discovered, but I can tell you that we got most of our results from two days of intense mind merges with groups as large as 90 people.  Our problems ran for about 30 minutes, and took two hours for many people to write down the answer."

"I have worked with an investment group designing new batteries, and new types of nuclear reactors.  They are very happy with their results.  That group is runnng problems today with about 25 people."  I said.

"We have solved mathematical, scientific, engineering, and financial problems."  I was careful to pronounce these words.

"What do we have to do to be able to run these kinds of problems on our own?"  Chip asked.

"Since you are part of what Max is doing, he can make arrangements to have his people come and train you.  We have only just touched on how to use computers along with a mind merge.  It will be an active area of research, perhaps."  I said.

"This might be a good place to stop.  Perhaps we could all thank Dr. Freehurst for her presentation."  he said, and they all clapped!!  I blushed down to my shoes!  "I am not a doctor."  I mumbled.

Chip saw my confusion and he said under his breath, "Ms Freehurst".  But he had a big smile on his face. He seemed to enjoy my confusion.  "Thank you, thank you,"  I said.

===== Oct 1  54,900 words about 110 pages

Chip and Dr. Allen waited with me while the cab came.   They talked about using mind merges for simulations.  I guessed that a simulation was a kind of mind merge where you use the computer to solve your problem.

"How old are you anyway?"  Chip asked me quietly.

I was almost not going to answer, but I guessed it did not matter anyway. "I will be 14 in October." I said.

"How can you be doing all this?  It seems impossible."  he said.

"I am very good at running mind merges.  I have a pretty good idea what will happen when many people merge.  I do not know anything about nuclear physics, or engineering, or that stuff, but I know how the mind merge will work."  I explained.

"Well, thank you very much for showing us."  Chip said, sincerely, just as the cab drove up.

[My Room]  I immediately wrote down what I had done with the Engineering Design Group.  I explained about the three computers, sending their images to the common area, and the people making chanages to their computers.  It took a lot less time to change the computers than to write down the whole common image area by hand.  I wrote that Chip had said, "We can get global solutions this way."  I was not sure what that meant, but I think it was because we had started with three separate diagrams, and the engine got changed as well as the flow.

[Sunday] 

[Church]  I closed my eyes briefly and looked at George.  He was in a merge.  There were few other people at church in merges as well.  I did not know whether for mindspeech or blob mapping (mind mapping).  I mindspoke to George privately.  "Good morning, George.  This is Dana.  I just wanted to say hello."  I sent.  He turned slightly and replied, "Oh, hello, Dana.  Good to hear from you." he sent and waved across the room.

Edith and Jerry were there with their parents.  They are all mindspeakers and had helped me a lot during the summer.  I had not seen them much since school started.

"Mom told Jerry and I about your talk to the Mind Mappers Association about mind merges.  There are a lot of people who would like to learn more about it.  Can you give another talk to another group soon?"  Edith said. 

"I can do that almost any evening.  Monday is the earliest, although I probably could talk to you this afternoon, if you had a group ready.  It will take half an hour to an hour, depending on how much detail you want.  It helps me if I know ahead of time what kinds of problems a group might want to solve."  I said.

"We were thinking of getting a group of all the volunteers who are working in hospitals.  That is about 50 people now.  We are helping at more than 20 hospitals now."  Edith said.

"Well, contact me when you know what you want to get together.  I will be happy to help.  You might also want to tell everyone what you all have been doing.  Has there been a general meeting of hospital volunteers?"  I asked.

"No, there has not been."  Edith's Mom said.  She had been listening.  "I think that is a good idea."  She said. "We should do it soon."

[Living room]  It was nice having a day off.  I had been helping people every day.  I just wanted to veg out and watch an old movie.  Mom and Dad were out shopping for a coat for Dad.

Paul mind called me.  He said that yesterday the problem solving went Ok. but they did not get very good results.  He felt it was because I was not there.  He tried to help the people, but he did not know what they were doing, and he did not know how to help.  He got them merged Ok, and he presented the problem.  But it seemed to stop in the middle and no one knew why.  They got a lot of good information anyway, but it was not as good as they hoped.  Could I help them merge next Saturday?  They were going to run it completely remotely, so they really needed my help.

I told him that I could help them next Saturday.  Did they mention a topic?  No.  Well, I would come to Paul's house around 10 am Saturday.  There were going to be people from the west coast, so they were starting a little later.

"See you at school."  Paul sent.  "See you."  I sent.

Edith mindcalled me just a little later.  She was helping her Mom to contact hospital volunteers for a general meeting.  She found a group of volunteers who were merged and trying to bring a woman out of a coma.  They were stuck, could I help them?  They feel like they are close, but nothing seems to work.  They were using the textbook from the Mind Mappers Association, one that I had helped write.  I asked if there was family there.  "Yes." Edith replied.

Edith sent me the blob image of a person in the group.  I mindcalled her and then merged in the group. 

"Is anyone there with the family?"  I sent to the group. 

"Yes, I am here at the hospital with the patient.  My name is Jeannie."  someone sent. 

"Could you send an image of the patient to the common image area so we can all see it?"  I sent.

"I do not know how to do that."  She sent.

"Form a picture in your mind, then send it to the whole group, just like you mindspeak to the whole group."  I sent.  I could tell that Jeannie was trying to send an image.  I boosted her image of the group's blob map, that boosted her ability to send generally.  The image formed in the group image area.  "Maybe you can practice your image sending.  You did Ok."  I sent to her privately.

The image I saw was of an older woman in a hospital bed.  She did not have a trache or a breathing tube, so that was good.  Her color looked good and her muscle tone was good, but she had been in the bed for a long time.

"What is her name?"  I sent.

"Heather."  someone sent.

"Does she move around?  Does she open her eyes?  Has she tried to talk?"  I sent.

"She moves around some.  She opens her eyes but does not appear to see anything.  And she has not tried to talk."  Jeannie sent.

I looked at the woman's blob map, and could see quite a bit of activity.  She looked awake according to my mental image of her.  "What have you tried?"  I asked.

"We tried to send her blob map to her to boost her awareness.  We were working as a merge group to get the most power."  Jeannie sent.

I sent her blob map back to her to boost her.  I got a small response.  I was surprised that did not work.  I tried it again, stronger.  There was still more response.

"Would you each send me her blob map as an image, so I can see how strong your sending is."  I sent to the group.

Each person in the group sent me the patient's blob map.  There was a lot of difference between the senders.  Some were weak and some were strong.  Some of the blob maps were distorted.

"I am looking at the blob map images you sent me, and they are all different.  If you tried sending those to Heather, you probably did not get the best response."  I sent to the group.

"Jeannie, could you sent your blob map image to the common image area?"  I asked.

Jeannie struggled a bit to get the image into the common area, but managed.  Once the image was there, it brightened and became more detailed as each group member added information about the blob map to the common image.

"Can you all take the common image and send it to Heather now?  You should have a strong image to work from."  I sent to the group.

I simply watched Heather's blob map as the group boosted her.  There was an immediate response. 

"Stop for a minute, but hold on to the common image."  I sent to the group.

"There was a clear response.  Jeannie, would you ask a close family member to speak to Heather and ask her to wake up?  Then everyone continue sending her map to her."  I sent.

I could not hear the words spoken in the hospital room.  If it was like other times when I had brought people out of comas, it was start with a family member calling out her name.  They would identify themselves and ask for the patient to wake up and talk to them.  I monitored Heather to listen for mindspeech.  I could hear mumbling, a faint whispery murmuring.

"Keep up the sending.  See if you can brighten her blob map.  She is trying to talk."  I sent to the group.

"Ken, is that you?"  Heather sent.  Jeannie was repeating that for the family.

"Where am I?"  Heather sent just a little later. 

"Open my eyes?"  Heather sent.

"What happened to me?"  Heather sent.  Jeannie was excited, I guess Heather was talking out loud now.

"I love you too, Ken"  Heather sent.

"How long did you say?"  Heather sent.

"My name is Heather Grander.  I am 68.  No, I do not hurt anywhere"  Heather sent.

"Can you take care of things from here on?" I sent to Jeannie privately.  "Yes, thank you."  she replied.  I disconnected from the group.

[Kitchen]  I got myself a can of coke.  It tasted good.  I was a little bothered by what I had just seen.  I was very happy that Heather was out of her coma, but that large a merge group should not have had trouble waking her up.  She was in a light coma, almost awake.  Jeannie did not really know how to send to the common image area, and the whole group was not trained to send a strong image.  Each person was sending something different.  They needed to work as one to bring her out of her coma, but they were acting as individuals.

I mind called Edith and told her what happened.  She was sorry, but said that some volunteers were better than others.

[My Room]  I wrote up what I had just seen.  I tried not to be too hard on them, but I did say that the group could use more training.  I said that groups who were trying to wake people from comas should use the common image area to get a strong image to send to the patient.  I tried to be as positive as I could.  I suggested that each volunteer be tested on their ability to send images and blob maps, and that they all be tested on their ability to sent images and maps to the common image area.  I sent my note to Karen, Susan, Mom and Jim.

[Living Room]  Mom came home a little while later.  When she read her email a little later, she came down to talk with me.  She sat on the couch next to me.

"I know you are a little disappointed with the volunteers."  She said.

"I do now know what kind of training they are getting.  It seems like everyone is different."  I said.

"We try to get everyone trained the same, but it is hard to know what to do.  This is all so new.  You and Patty did a lot of this over the summer, and we tried to teach the volunteers how to so this, but it is hard.  Every situation is different."  Mom said.  "We can change the procedures for waking coma patients to use the common image area from now on.  We can test the volunteers on their ability to send images and blob maps. But we still have a lot of volunteers and they need experience to know how to bring people out of comas, to help patients on traches and breathing tubes.  It is just going to take time and practice."  she continued.

"I wish I could clone myself sometimes.  I try to work as hard as I can, every day, and it is still not enough.  I try to teach others what I have learned, but they forget or they do not know what to do, and then they call me."  I said.  Tears were forming in the corners of my eyes.  I felt a weight on my chest.  My throat hurt, and tears started running down my face.  I did not make a sound.  The tears would not stop.  When Mom put her arm around me, I could not help it, I cried as hard as I have since I was a little kid.  I cried because I could not help everyone.  I cried because I did not know what to do.  I cried because I was so tired.  I cried because I was tired of being an adult all the time.  I cried because my Mom was holding me.

My nose was running, and my eyes hurt, I had a headache from all the crying.  Mom got me a towel from the kitchen to dry my eyes. It was kind of rough and scratchy and that rubbed my eyelids so they hurt.  I kept blowing my nose.

"What are we going to do for you?"  Mom asked. "What should I do?"  Mom asked.

It took me a long time to settle down.  I would try to talk to Mom, and I would want to cry again.  Dad must have heard me crying, he came down, and I started crying all over again.  He sat there patting my shoulder.  I wanted him to hold me too.  I finally stopped.

"You seemed to know exactly what to do, and we let you keep consulting.  Is that too hard on you?"  Dad asked.

"I had two things scheduled yesterday.  I could not get to both.  I had to leave Paul to run the problem session for his Dad's group.  I thought he could do it on his own, but he is just a kid too.  I feel sorry for the volunteers that I cannot help them individually.  They are trying hard and they need help.  The group I helped yesterday wanted me to help them to learn how to merge, but I had to tell them to get help from Max.  I want to help everyone, but there is only one of me."  I said, softly.

"I like consulting.  I do not know most of what these people are doing, but I know how to help them solve their problems.  They seem really happy and excited by what we are finding."  I continued.

"You should probably not have to teach all the volunteers.  That is our job.  If  we are not doing a good job, then you need to teach the teachers, not every individual.  There is only one of you, as you said."  Dad said.

"I like doing the consulting, but I also miss helping people in the hospitals.  It has been a long time since I helped bring someone from a coma.  I miss that.  I enjoyed helping George and his friends.  It is hard talking to large groups.  I miss working with people one by one."  I said.

"Is there anything you can put off for a while?  What do you have scheduled?"  Dad asked.

"I am supposed to help Paul's Dad this next Saturday.  I promised to talk to all the hospital volunteers about mind merging.  I really should talk to all the volunteers about mind merging.  It is really important.  I do not have anything planned with Max, but he might call me any day."  I explained.

"Your talk to the Mind Mappers Association about mind merges was interesting and useful.  Could someone else give the same lecture to the volunteers?"  Dad asked.

"If they are able to send images to the common area for a group that large, I do not see why someone else could not give the same talk.  The hard part is thinking of good problems for the volunteers to work on.  I think they could work on how to provide services to people in hospitals, how to bring people out of comas, how to talk to patients in emergency rooms.  That sort of thing."  I said.

"Could I give that talk for you?"  Dad asked.

"You would need to know how to send to a common mind area, and how to blank out the common area, and how to brighten.  But you probably could."  I said.

"There are some problems that the volunteers could be thinking about.  Getting them into a mind merge to think about it is not a bad idea.  We need to arrange to write down the answers that they come up with, so we should not do this without preparation."  Dad said.

"Are you feeling Ok, now?"  Mom asked me.

"I am feeling better. Thanks."  I replied.

"Do you feel up to teaching Dad and I how to handle the common area?  If you do, could you also teach Jim and Karen, Frank and Susan?"  Mom asked.

"Yes, I am feeling better now.  If I teach you and you teach the volunteers, that will be fine."  I said with a little smile.  My face still hurt from crying.  But I was happy to do something to help the volunteers.

I merged with Mom and Dad, and then we mindcalled Jim and Karen, Frank and Susan.  They were all free on a Sunday afternoon.  Dad explained that I was going to show them all how to manage a common area.  They all agreed.  I showed each of them how to blank the common area, how to send an image to the common area.  I explained that it took time for a group to think about a problem before new information was added to the common area.  I had them each send my blob map to the common image area, to see that they could do it.  I had them each send the common blob map to the common image area.  This took a while, but it went smoothly.  When we had done the basics, I had each one send a problem to the common area.  Mom asked about how to better coordinate the hospital volunteers.  We noted down some of the results on paper.  Jim asked, kind of jokingly, how to replicate Dana.  We watched the results and there were lots of good ideas for training and managing the volunteers and staff.  They all got practice solving a problem, or brainstorming as someone had called it.

It turned out to be a good afternoon.  I was not as worried about the volunteers as I had been.  And Dad was going to give the talk that I had promised.

[My Room]  I took a shower and put on my robe.  Mom brought me my dinner in my room, and I took it easy that evening.  I felt better after washing my face.  My hair seemed to fall back into place.  I was afraid it was going to be hard to take care of now that it was shorter.  But it looked Ok.

Paul mind called me, but I told him I was busy, could I talk to him tomorrow at school.  He said Ok.

I went over the Word document that was the original for the textbook for hospital volunteers.  I noted several changes that could be made, and I started making some of the changes.  I got into it and ended the evening with a good start on correcting the textbook.

I went to bed early.  I felt pretty good.

[Monday] [School]

Several people commented about my short hair.  I guess they did not notice last week.  It felt good.

I enjoyed my classes all day.  In each class I seemed to have a new interest in what the teacher was saying.  I was watching the kids around me as they tried to learn new things.  The day seemed brighter and I felt good all day.

Some of the students came to me to ask about mind merges.  I answered their questions quickly and precisely.  I was not anxious or worried or tired.

[Home]  Dad merged with about a third of the volunteers.  He told them about how to solve problems using mind merge.  He had them focus on the problem of how to do their volunteer jobs better.  They took the time to write down a lot of the information that the common area provided.  He told me about this afterwards.  He said that it went fine, and he would get the other volunteers later.

[My Room]  I worked on the textbook for hospital volunteers.  I made good progress.  I did all my homework and read ahead in all my classes.  No one called or mindcalled. 

I worked on a summary of how to manage mind merges.  I went to bed early.

[Tuesday] [School]  Another quiet day, just going to school.  Paul said that he had mindcalled on Sunday just to talk.  He seemed kind of quiet around me.  I wonder if I had changed somehow.

[My room]  I finished the changes to the textbook for hospital volunteers.  I sent it as an attachment to Jim, and suggested that they update the text routinely.  New information was coming in all the time, they had to keep adjusting.

My summary of how to manage mind merges was coming along.  I finished all my homework and went to bed early.

[Wednesday] [School]

Another day at school with no interruptions.  The days are nice.

[My Room]  I finished my summary of how to manage mind merges.  I sent a copy to Jim, Karen, Frank, Susan, Mom, and Dad.  I wrote a note to Max and included the merge manager file.  I suggested to him that all his team leaders might want to know how to manage merges.  FYI.  I sent a copy to Paul.

Mom came to my room and asked me a couple of questions about the merge manager paper.  I added a short explanation to the file on how to brighten, but I did not send out new copies.

I finished my homework.  I was several chapters ahead in my reading.  I went to bed on time.

[Thursday] [School]

Max mindcalled me during Homeroom.  Nothing much was going on, so I talked to him.  He thanked me for the note on managing merges.  He said his team leaders were doing Ok, but I had put it all down in a concise way.  Could I talk to his team leaders today and answer any questions they might have?  It would probably only take about an hour.  I said that was fine, what time?  He said about 2 pm.

I got out of class that afternoon, and went to the empty office.  Then I mind merged with the team leaders.  I tested each one of them on their ability to blank the common area, to send blob maps to the common area, and to send images to the common area.  I had to help them learn how to clip a part of the common area and make it a new topic.  It was kind of an art, but they managed to do it without too much prompting.  There were several questions.  One of them was about brightening the common area.  I explained that was a method of highlighting the common area so that everyone could see it.  It was done by sending the image there with a strong effort.  One of the leaders had problems, but got it.  The rest got it pretty much the first time.  They were learning the basics of how to manage a mind merge.  They thanked me for a good review.  I asked how their research was going, they said that there were merge teams working on facets of blob detection, signal generation, and the artificial brain.  There were two teams working on aids for the blind.  There were groups working with computer simulations to speed up the time it took to capture results from a merge session.  My session with the engineering design group on Saturday is already bearing fruit.  I asked if they were going to be able to build aids for the blind any time soon, they said they were working on it as fast as then can.

[My Room]  There were several emails back to me about the merge manager paper.  I corrected a few small mistakes in grammar, and expanded a section on how long to wait for an answer.  There were questions about what to do if the merge did not produce any answer, or stopped after a while.  I explained in the paper that you should bring in people with more knowledge, or rephrase the question.  I spend a couple of hours revising the paper.  I finished all my homework.

[Friday] [School] 

The weather is starting to change, it was a little cooler today.  I might switch back to jeans again.

[My Room]  I got emails back from everyone now on the merge manager paper.  There were several comments from team leaders that Max forwarded to me.  This included some things they were doing to improve mind merge problem solving.  I added a brief note on how to manage using computers, and related my experience at the university.  I saved this copy as my second draft, and then sent it out to everyone, once I made all the changes.  Max said his team leaders were going to keep updating the Mind Managers Manual as they were calling it.

[Saturday]

[Paul's House]  I arrived a little early.  Rick was still setting out papers.  Jacob, Matt, Marion and Sarah were all there.  I talked with them as they were setting up.  There were going to be thirty five people in the merge today.  Most of the people were merging in from remote locations.  There were several people from California and Washington state, some people from Phoenix, and others from Denver.  Groups were already starting to merge in, so I jumped in and helped.  The group from Denver was in a mess because the person who was supposed to merge them in was late.  None of them had merged before.  How were we going to connect to them if we did not know where their blobs were?  I asked if the person who was going to merge in Denver knew the people he was going to meet.  I got a blob image of that person from Jacob.  I mindcalled him.

"Hello, this is Dana.  Can you talk?"  I sent to him.

"Hi. This is Adam.  Sure.  Are you working with Rick?"  he sent to me.

"Yes, I understand you are late, or you cannot make it to get these people merged in."  I sent.

"My son is ill, and my wife had to work this weekend.  I do not have anyone to take care of him.  What can we do?"  he sent.

"How well do you know these people?  Have you merged with them before?"  I sent to him.

"No.  They are completely new.  I know how to merge with someone if I am in the same room with them.  Is there any way to merge with someone in another part of the city?  People that I don't know really well?"  he asked.

"Do you know where they are located?  How well do you know Denver?"  I asked.

"I know approximately where they are located.  I could google their address but I am not at my computer and it is off."  he sent.

"Give me the address.  I have a computer here."  I sent.  I entered the address into my laptop that I had brought. 

"Let's merge"  I sent to Adam.

We merged and then I sent the image of the city map to Adam.  As I expected, his blob map extended to that part of his city.  We had to zoom out on the map, and then follow his blob map to get to their location.  I was on the phone with one of the people in Denver.  "What floor are you on?"  I asked.  "We are on the second floor in the northeast corner.  There are five of us around a conference table.  Adam and I found their blobs at that address from the combined blob map and city map.  We could see their blobs, five of them all together.  I picked one of the blobs and sent a mind call to it.

"This is Dana.  Can you hear me?"  I sent.

"Hi.  This is James.  How did you find us?"  he asked.

"It is a long story.  Let me get you merged in first."  I sent.  I took each blob in the room and passively merged them into a group.  I took a few minutes to show them how the mindspeech worked.  They were going to let James handle the talking so I taught him how to mindspeak to the group.  Jacob was in another larger group, so I merged my small group into his.

One benefit of how I did that was that Adam was merged as well.  He would not have to leave home.  I asked him if he needed anything.  He said he was fine now.

It took us about half an hour to get everyone merged into one group.  By that time it was time to start.  Rick said that we were going to go over some results from last week.  We would start with an image of a battery.  They had located a manufacturer and were negotiating terms for an agreement.  The group I had located was part of the manufacturer's team.  They were needed for the meeting.

Rick talked to the whole group and explained the terms of the agreement.  While Rick talked, the image of the battery was changing.  This was the first time the battery manufacturer was included in a merge, so the battery design was already changing.  I sent a private message to Rick and suggested he look at the common image.  He stopped for a moment.

"It is clear that the manufacturer's have lots of information about how to make this a better battery.  Would you all close your eyes and look at the common image.  It is showing that we can cut the weight of the battery in half by treating the lithium.  Would the manufacturing team like to comment about that?"  he sent.

"I see the battery and the notes on lithium."  James sent. "We can do that.  It will also improve performance on some related designs where we already hold patents."  he continued.

"This mind merging is going to change how trade secrets are handled, and how patents get written."  Rick sent.  You could tell that he was serious and joking at the same time.

"We are committed to helping you bring this new battery to market.  We will help you."  James sent.

"Thank you."  Rich sent.

Most of the meeting was related to that agreement.  Rick also wanted to show James and his group how the mind merge worked to help research.

"We have already seen how this works.  We might have come up with that improvement in the lithium processing, but I think not.  Can we see some other images?"  James sent.

"Would you like to provide a starting image?"  I sent to everyone.

"What do I do?"  he asked.

"Just think about what you want to show everyone, I will take the image from your mind."  I sent.

He formed an image of a different kind of battery.  I transfered it to the common area.  It immediately started to change and add detail.

"This is a new battery our research and development group put together, we are looking for investors."  James sent.

"It looks like it benefits from the lithium processing too, and there are a few other changes that seem to help."  Rick sent. "We might be interested in investing in that one too."  he continued.

It was a long meeting.  Finally we broke for the day.  Everyone thanked me for making it all possible.

[My Room]  I wrote up notes on remote groups and on taking images from people's minds for the common area.  I added those to the Mind Merge Managers paper.  I used an old audio recorder and recorded myself reading the paper.  It took me over an hour to read it.  I left out some of the footnotes.

[Sunday]

[Church]  I enjoyed the singing today.  We got to the earlier service today.  Mom and Dad like the later one, and I like the earlier one.  We switch off from Sunday to Sunday.  Edith and Jerry are here, even if I end up in a different Sunday school class.

I saw George as he was coming for the later service.  I went up to him and gave him the audio copy of the mind merge managers paper.  He said it fit his walkman and he would listen to it later. He thanked me for it.

[Living Room]  Paul called me on my cell phone.  He said that some of our friends from school were going to be getting together at his house for a blind dance.  Would I like to come?

I said thank you, but no.  I had some other plans already.  In fact, it was my birthday, and I wanted to spend it quietly.

[My room]  I took the Word document of the textbook for blind volunteers and made a copy.  I sat down and started to read and change it.  I spent a couple of hours at it, then I took a break.  I had finished my homework for the weekend, so I decided to read a book.  It was a kid's adventure book.  I read it until the end, and fell asleep for a while.

[Living Room]  Mom and Dad were both home. Dad had gone to his work for a few hours.  When he came home he was distracted.  Mom was in the kitchen finishing dinner, and Dad came into the living room.  I was going to watch an old movie.  "Is something bothering you, Dad?"  I asked.

"We are working on the homeless project at work.  I was wondering if there was any way to use mind skills to help the homeless.  I feel like there should be a way, but I do not know where to start."  he said.  "Could we teach the homeless how to mindspeak?  Would that be of any use to them?  Would it be helpful to teach them how to mind merge and to solve complex problems.  Could they get jobs and work their way out of being homeless?  Could we teach social workers how to solve problems with mind merge?  Nothing seems to fit."  he said.

"Would you like to mind merge and brainstorm to see what comes up?"  I asked.  "Maybe we could invite some other people to join us."  I continued.

"I would really like to include Tom and Meridith from work.  I could invite them over after dinner.  They are trying to come up with some answers as well.  We are supposed to deliver something by the end of the week." he said.

After dinner Tom and Meridith came over.  Mom served some fresh coffee and some coffee cake.  I had some too, it was delicious.

"You mentioned something about mind merges before.  It sounded rather far out."  Tom said.

"Would you like to try it and you can decide for yourself.  It is a great way to brainstorm."  Dad said, with a smile.

Mom and Dad and I were already in a merge when they got there.  I passively merged Tom into the group and mindspoke him.

"Tom, this is Dana.  Can you hear me Ok?"

"I hear you inside my head!"  He said somewhat anxiously.

"You can answer silently.  Just pretend to talk out loud, but don't open your mouth."  I sent.

"Like this?  Is this working?"  he sent.

"Yes, that is just fine.  Let me connect up with Meridith"  I sent.

I passively merged Meridith and mindspoke her as well.  We did not really have to mind speak, but I knew that if they could hear the mindspeech they would be able to see the common images and to join in a merge fully.

"Would you close your eyes for a minute?"  I sent to them both.  "I want you to see how a mind merge works on a topic.  We are going to brainstorm on the topic of homelessness."  I continued.

I sent the word "homelessness" to the common image area and waited for it to start changing.  Almost immediately new information was added about the topic.  There were maps, and images of the homeless, there were charts and diagrams.  There were reports of what looked like dollars.  There were pictures of various people.  There were references to various organizations.  Each moment new information was being added. All of a sudden there was a rapid change and new information on prisons was added.  There were reports on prisoner releases, and numbers of prisoners.  Then there was another jump and information on veterans was added.  There were notes on many government agencies, and many nonprofit organzations.  There were more maps by state and region.  There were financial reports on income and housing costs.  (I did not know all this at that time, much of this was explained to me later.) 

"Where is all this coming from?"  Meridith asked.

"It is coming from the minds of the people in this merge."  Dad explained.  "Us five."

"It is like wikipedia on steroids."  Tom said with a smile.  He had his eyes closed and a surprised and happy look on his face.

"Can anyone do this?"  Meridith asked.

"Apparently so.  We were wondering whether it would be a useful skill to teach the homeless."  Dad explained.

"This shows all the relevant data and information on homelessness.  It includes everything I know, and more.  And it is fairly well organized.  There is hardly any junk."  Tom said.

"I think that the common area only shows the information that peoples' brains can agree on.  If several people think about it, it gets shown.  If only one person thinks about it, but it is important, it gets shown."  I explained.

"Do you have something you want to do about homelessness?  Do you have a goal?"  I asked everyone.

"We would like to eliminate homelessness.  We want every person to have a home."  Meridith said.

"Do you want to keep looking at this information on homelessness?  We can probably bring it back later.  Or we could take some time for you all to write down some of it."  I said.

"I do not need everything, but I would like to make a few notes."  Tom said.

Mom got some legal pads from the desk, and some sharpened pencils.  She handed those out to everyone.  I wrote on mine, "How do we eliminate homelessess?" 

We spent about 20 minutes looking at the common image, writing things down.  I made a sketch of some of the maps.  They looked interesting.

Soon everyone was ready to stop.  I cleared the common area.

"Do you have trouble finding homeless people?"  I asked.

"Yes, that is actually a problem.  They tend to find vacant lots and empty buildings. They know how to hide.  We find them under bridges, on box cars, in industrial areas, in parks.  Why do you ask?"  Tom said.

I sent them a blob map of the room.  "This is a map of the people in this room."  I sent them a blob map of the neighborhood.  "This is a map of the people in this neigborhood.  I sent a blob map of the city.  "These are the people in this city."

"You mean right now?  Those were maps of where people are right now?  You can see the whole city?"  Meridith asked.

"Yes.  It is something we developed.  We have used it with firemen, search and rescue, and hostage rescue teams, so they can know where people are.  It has saved lives in fires, and helped to find lost people.  Perhaps we could teach people how to locate the homeless.  Would that be useful?"  I said.

"Yes, it would.  But we were just talking about the general problem of the homeless.  We can follow up on these maps some other time."  Tom said.

"Then would you like to see the details for what happens when we ask "How do we eliminate homelessness?"  I asked,

"Sure let's try it."  Meridith said.

I posted the question in the common area.  There was a slight pause and then we saw much of the same information as before.  There seemed to be more financial reports.  There were charts and curves.  There were even some mathematical equations.  I wondered whose brain that was coming from, certainly not mine.  The detail kept growing, until there was a sudden shift and a section of the image was highlighted.  It began to grow and pushed the rest off to the side.  Nothing was lost but it was a lot different looking.  There were pictures of warehouses, there were factories, there were churches (again, a lot of this was related to me later).  There were diagrams and maps showing roads and railroads.  There were hospitals and schools.

"Do you recognize most of this?"  Dad said to them.  "I have seen some of it before, but a lot is out of your heads."

"I have seen about a quarter of it before."  Tom said.  "Me too."  Meridith said.

"I think that if we five people can come up with something this complex, this fast, what do you think that more people could come up with?"  Dad said.

"Yes, we are only seeing a partial solution, based on our own experiences.  What if hundreds or thousands of people added their thoughts to this?  Wouldn't the most important things show up?"  Tom asked.

"There is a lot of emphasis here on training."  Meridith said.  "Dana is here.  I wonder what parts of this are from her?" 

"Do you think that the homeless could merge like this and learn new things?  Would they find new solutions to their own problems by merging with people around them, or with people who are looking for solutions?"  Dad said.

"This is not really showing us a solution yet."  Meridith said.  "It is lots of the information about the problem, and it shows the people and organizations that have to work together to solve this."

"Yes, it is only showing part of the answer.  We really might have to have hundreds of people merge to find a better solution."  Tom said.

"Maybe merging is the solution."  Mom said.  She did not explain herself, no one asked her about it, but it stuck in my mind.

We spent about half an hour writing down parts of the information.  It seemed to help Meridith and Tom and Dad to organize the information in their heads.  It was the information in their heads.

Tom and Meridith left fairly late.  They would start to leave, and then another conversation would break out.  Tom said that we really need to get the whole firm into a merge and see what happens.  Dad said we could do that.

====== Oct 2   62,100 words about 124 pages.

[Monday]

[School]  People were looking at me funny as I came in to school.  While I locked up my bike there were three girls looking at me and kind of laughing.  I tried to look at myself to see if I had my clothes on backwards or something, but I felt like everything was Ok.

In homeroom pretty much everyone was looking at me.  I heard them saying things like, "Is she the one?"  "Are you sure!" "Oh my god!".  It soon got a little irritating.

Finally I noticed Cindy, next to me, who was looking at a video on her laptop.  She kept glancing at me, so I asked her what was up.  "Did you see yourself on YouTube?" she asked.

I turned her computer slightly and clicked play.  It was titled, "Can you believe she is 13!!!!!"  It was an edited version of my meeting at the university with the Engineering Design Group. They had taken just a few things I had said, edited away everything else, it came out very clipped.  It did sound funny.

• "Could someone tell me a problem that you might solve with your computers?"
• "Do you have a picture of the air intake?"
• "This looks like a part of a larger machine.  Can you show me, on another computer, that larger machine?" 
• "What sort of questions do you ask of the air flow?  Are you trying to find the best airflow?" 
• "Would three of you sit at those computer and focus on the images?  I am going to transfer the images from your minds into the common image area.  I will explain shortly."
• "Please optimize the airflow for maximum power."

Someone must have taken a video of me.  Probably with their cell phone.  There were several million hits on the video.  It was nearly the top video today.  There were comments on the video.  There were things like, "OMG can you believe how cute she is?", "I wish my professors were like this.", and "Here is what she is doing" with links to my Mind Merge Manager paper, and some of my earlier videos on mind mapping and mindspeech.  There was one link at arxiv.org that I looked at.  Someone had filed my paper among some scientific papers under "Quantitative Biology".

I wonder where someone got a copy of my M3 paper?  I think Max sent it to his team leaders, maybe he sent it to Chip.  No telling how it had got out, but it was several places on the Internet now.  I googled "can you believe she is 13" and got back thousands of hits, most at the top related to the video.  It was other places besides YouTube.  It was in several facebooks.  There were a lot of universities where my paper was posted.

Did I need to do anything about this?  Should I tell Max?  That paper was not secret, but I really only meant it for a few people.  Will people use it to merge and solve problems?

I pulled out my laptop and wrote a brief note to Max.  I sent some of the links and asked him if I should do anything.  I sent a note to Jim as well.  I did not know if the Mind Mappers Association was getting hits.  Maybe he should post my paper so there would be an official version.  I did not know what to do.  At least no one had given out my email or my phone number.

I have been wondering about what would happen if many organizations started using mind merge to solve problems.  Maybe this would be a positive thing.

The bell rang and I had to think about school again.  Nothing happened during the school day.  I did not get a mind call from Max during the day.

[Living Room]  Max called me as soon as I got home.  He was a little concerned that the M3 paper got out.  Mind merging is a very powerful technique, he did not know what would happen.  He said that the technique was getting out of his work groups into the universities and research labs.  All of his people were using it full time.  There were at least thirty universities that had been "infected" with mind merge problem solving.  The release of the M3 paper meant that people had detailed instructions on how to run problem solving using mind merge.

Jim called on our house phone and asked for me.  He said that there was a lot of activity on the website, looking for information on me.  The videos were being downloaded constantly.  He had a biographical sketch of me online.  It was getting hundreds of thousands of hits a day.  I said it was ok if he wanted to post that paper online.  It was out anyway.  He said he was going to offer a course to teach how to manage mind merges based on my paper.  I promised I would help him teach the teachers.  He had already received several requests from organizations tor that class, even though it was not yet offered.

I showed Mom and Dad the video.  They laughed too.  I was so serious in the video, it was funny.  I talked to them about what might happen when a lot of people started using mind merge to problem solve.  Dad wanted to start right away to solve the problem of the homeless.  I said I would help.

[My Room]  I read over the M3 paper.  It assumed that you already knew how to mind merge, so I wrote an introduction to mind merging.  I sent the updated paper to Jim.

It was hard to focus on homework, but I had gotten used to doing it even when I was tired.  I did skip reading ahead, I was still a couple of chapters ahead in most of my classes.  I did my math homework, since that had to be handed in tomorrow. There was a short essay to write.

When I checked my email, there were three emails from Craig.  They were questions that people were asking about mind merge problem solving.  All three were answered in the paper, so I sent Craig a copy of the paper.  I said he and Jim should decide if they wanted to post it and where.

I got a mind call from Susan.  She said her hospital volunteers had run into a problem they did not know how to deal with.  A man in a mental hospital was unresponsive, they did not know if his mind was intact.  They were not sure.  Could I look in on the man?  There were two volunteers at the hospital right now.

"Can you give me the blob of one of the volunteers, so I can mind call?"  I asked Susan.

"Here is is."  Susan said and sent me the blob image.  "His name is Gary, the patient's name is Brad."

I mind called Gary at the hospital.  He was in a mind merge with his partner, Scott.  I merged with them.  They showed me the blob image of the patient and I looked at his mind map to check for mental activity.  There was a lot of activity.  The patient was not unconscious.  If anything, it seemed like there was too much activity.

"Have you tried to hear mindspeech from him?"  I asked Gary.

"Yes, and we get something, but it sounds like noises.  We cannot understand him."  Gary sent.

I listened for mindspeech and I heard a continuous mumbling, almost like someone saying "blah, blah, blah".

I sent Brad's mind map back to him.  This is what we do to wake up people from comas.  It only increased the noise he was making in his head.  It did not wake him up.

"We can passively merge with the patient.  I want to see what is going on in his head."  I sent to Gary and Scott.

We merged with Brad and then looked at the images that were in his head.  I could not get anything clear.  I decided to try something else.

I sent an image of an apple to the common area and waited for a response.  The apple got clearer, then random things were added to the image.  I sent a picture of a horse to the common area. Again it was clear and then random stuff was added.  It was like his brain was generating noise.

"What did you just do?"  Gary sent.

"I was sending images to him."  I replied.

"Brad started to say something.  Can you keep sending images?"  Gary sent to me.

I googled "dogs" and started sending images directly to Brad. 

"He is saying "dog, dog, dog".  Gary sent.

I googled "cars" and sent those images to Brad.

He is saying "car, car, car".  Gary sent.

"Do you know how to send images?"  I asked Gary and Scott.

"Yes.  What do you want me to do?"  Gary sent.

"Send him a picture of himself.  Just keep sending until something happens."  I sent.

There was a long wait while I heard nothing from them.  I was just going to ask them how it was going when they sent to me.  "He is moving around.  He is touching his face.  His eyes are open and it looks like he can see us. Do we just keep sending."

"Keep it up for a while.  He was generating a lot of noise.  That might come back if you stop."  I sent.

After a while, Gary sent "He is talking now.  He is asking us who we are." 

"Talk to him now.  See if he will stay out of that noise."  I sent.

There was another long delay and Gary sent, "We called the doctor to tell them that Brad is talking normally now.  Is there anything else we can do?"

"He could easily go back to making noises.  We don't know why his brain is generating noise.  His whole head was full of it.  We managed to wake him up, but he could go back any time.  The doctor is going to have to prescribe something for him I think.  Tell the doctor about the random talking and the random images.  I think he was seeing random images.  When we sent him images, it helped him break out."  I sent.  "Do you need me for anything else?"  I asked.

"No, we are fine from here, I guess."  Gary sent. "Thanks."

I wrote up what I had just done, and sent a copy to Craig to post on the website.  I copied Susan, Karen and Mom so they would know what happened, and one possible thing to try if they were going to have volunteers in mental hospitals too.  Susan could share that with Scott and Gary if they wanted.  Maybe they could add to it.

I mind called Susan and explained what had happened.  I said I sent her an email with my notes.  Was she planning on more work with mental hospitals?  She said she did not know.

[Tuesday]

[School]

Several kids came up to me when I got to school.  They had seen the video and were congratulating me on a viral video.  Everyone thought it was cool. Some had read the M3 paper and were trying it on their own.

I checked my email at lunch.  Jim had emailed me and said that a lot of the staff and volunteers were reading the M3 paper and were trying it.  They had a few questions, but mostly things that were already answered in the paper.  He also said there was a lot of interest from universities wanting to have the Association give seminars on the technique.  I suggested we make a video and post it on YouTube and our own sites.

All day long there were kids asking about the mind merge problem solving.  I said that I could try to answer their questions if they wanted to merge after school.

[Living Room]  I have been getting calls from kids in my school.  They are in merges and wanting to see what I was talking about in the paper.  I gave each group a ten minute intro.  Luckily this stopped about dinner time.

Dad said he wanted to get his whole firm in a mind merge on the homeless.  I said they should get training from Mind Mappers Association on merging.  Then he could lead them on the problem solving.  He agreed that I did not need to help him, but he said he might need some pointers.

[My Room]  Craig sent several emails that needed answers.  These were questions about how to choose a goal for problem solving.  I tried to answer as well as I could, but I mostly asked the groups what goal they wanted for what they were doing. 

Max sent me an email. It had links to some articles online.  Universities all over the world were forming merge groups to solve different problems.  Mainly it was engineering, math, and science, but people were solving problems in sociology, anthropology, economics, demographics, finance, medical sciences, nutrition, and lots of technology problems.  There were even groups forming for art, music and dance.   Someone had discovered the blind dancing and that was becoming a craze.  He sent links to articles on international affairs, and they were concerned about international competitiveness and military applications.  Most of the articles I could only understand half the words.  But I did understand that lots of people were trying this.

There was a second email from Max.  It was an online journal someone had started.  The first paper there was mine on M3, but there were already dozens of reports on the application of mind merging to different problems.  One on music I read.  It described how music students at one university had merged.  When they started off with a single note, their brains had created a whole symphony.  Rather than a common image area, there was a common sound area.  I am not very musical or sound oriented.  I had never discovered that, even though there were sounds associated with the monkeys and other samples I used.  I thought of Sherry and her ability to send emotions and feelings.  I wondered what that would do in a large merge.

Craig wrote that he was posting my note on helping Brad as an application note.  He said there was a lot of interest from the mental health community already.

Patty called me on my cell phone.  We talked a long time.  She said that her college was going crazy applying my new techniques.  She said some people recognized her as my sister.  They were asking her how to manage mind merges.  I sent Patty the lastest copy of the paper by email.  I said I would be glad to teach her once she read the paper.

Paul's Dad called me.  He was a little concerned that so many people were learning how to mind merge.  He was worried that other groups would start using it to build better reactors and batteries.  I said that I did not know who leaked the paper I wrote.  The video was from a cell phone probably.  He said he would keep working with his group to stay ahead.  He did not sound happy.

[Wednesday]

[School]  I got a mind call from Max in the morning.  He wondered if I could get to the university this evening.  Dr Allen needed some help with some measurements.  It would not take long, maybe a couple of hours.  Could I get there by six?  I said I would.

[University]  Chad was waiting for me at the front door where the cab dropped me off.  He took me to the other end of the building where there was a shielded room.

"We are measuring with a magnetoencephalography machine here."  Dr. Allen explained.  "We have a blind volunteer and we need them to view some standards images.  You said you could send the images to a blind person.  That is why we need you here today."

I met Katie who was the blind volunteer.  I merged with her and sent her an image.  She had no trouble seeing it.  She was fascinated with being able to see.  While Dr. Allen was preparing to take the measurement, I showed Katie about blob maps.  I told her about the volunteers at our church and how they were helping people who were blind.  She said she would follow up for sure.

Chad showed me what looked like a heavy pair of glasses.  There were two small video screens mounted in an eyeglass frame.  I put on the glasses and all I could see is what was on the screen.  I was supposed to send the images to Katie.  Katie went into a little room where the MEG was set up.  Then we started.  I took the images from the little eyeglasses and sent them to Katie.  Dr. Allen was measuring the MEG from Katie's brain.  They wanted an exact picture of her brain as she was looking at these images.  Katie had earlier had an MRI done to take a picture of her brain as it is today.  All of this information was going to be fed into a supercomputer that was going to track the signal from a signal generator they had designed, through the air, through Katie's scalp and skull to her brain.  It would take a long time even with a supercomputer, but it only had to be done once, and the signal generator would be able to send new images to her brain.  Dr. Allen told me that one of the other teams was almost ready with the signal generator.  Once we had the data from Katie's brain, they would build a signal generator for her and we would try it out.  Maybe as early as this weekend.

[Thursday] 

[Kitchen]  Max called.  He wanted me to train Katie as much as possible so she would know more about mind skills.  He could have other people train her, but Katie would probably be working with me and Dr. Allen soon, so could I teach her this evening, and maybe Friday evening?  I said I would help her.  She was going to come to our house at 6 o'clock.

[School]  When I got to school there was a mind merge of about fifty students.  Could I give them a problem to work on so they could see how it worked?  I spoke to the entire group and said that I was going to post an image in the common image area.  I posted, "What problems can middle school students solve using mind merge?"

In my homeroom, I could see a number of students who were probably in that mind merge.  I checked in on the group at lunch, and they had a huge list of possible problems they could work on.  I told them they could leave it there and it would naturally go away when the group broke up.  Many students were writing down some of the problems to try later.

[Living Room]  George came over to meet Katie.  He told her how his group was merging on a regular basis, not only blind, but sighted persons.  I showed her blob maps and George talked about how to use blob maps in various situations.  I showed her some more images, and George said she should teach her family how to merge so they could transmit images to her. I showed her how to send, how to merge, how to mindspeak, how to send images.  We practiced moving around using blob maps to navigate.  George took her for a walk around the block.  They used blobs from people in their houses as part of the navigation.  There were a few cars out, so they saw blobs moving by in cars.  We finally stopped around ten.  That was when Katie's ride came by.  She thank George and I for all our help.  George's wife came and picked him up.

[Friday] 

[School]  Another mind merge was running this morning.  They had picked the problem how middle schoolers could affect world peace.  I looked in on their progress.  There were lots of items to look at.  I thought the problem was too general.  I told the group, they might want to try something simple like designing a rocket to the moon.  It was good they were trying.  Perhaps if they would teach their parents how to merge and solve problems, that would make a big difference.  Some kids said their parents were going to merge with them to help out.  Maybe next week.

[My Room]  I did my homework, but I was a little excited.  Max had called and said that Katie's "glasses" were ready and they were going to try them tomorrow.  I was going to meet them at the Universtity at 1 o'clock.

[Saturday]

[University]  This signal generator was not portable.  It weighed about twenty pounds and had wires sticking out all over it.  There were two cameras mounted on a tripod standing nearby that connected to a computer (it looked like) and from there to the signal generator.  There were some controls on the generator, probably for intensity.  There was data on a screen on the computer to show what the cameras were seeing, and there was data on the signal generator and its settings.  The small video screens in the glasses thing we had used the other day was plugged in too.  I could look in there and see what images were going to the camera.  There were photos, blocks and other things set in front of the camera for viewing.  There were images on the computer as well, a whole desktop of images for her to see.  There was a picture of a cube on the screen.  I guess they were going to start with that one.

Katie just sat on a plain wooden chair.  She looked a little nervous.  Dr. Allen explained that we were going to start on the lowest setting and then gradually increase it to see if there was any response.  I merged with Katie.  I asked her to send me image.  She said so far nothing was coming through.

Dr. Allen adjusted a control on the signal generator.  There was a small meter next to it that measured signal strength (Dr Allen explained).  It was on the lowest setting.

"I am not getting anything."  Katie said.  "Still nothing." "Still nothing."  Dr Allen kept increasing the power.  The little meter crept up to about half way.

"I see a little blob.  It is faint and fuzzy.  She sent me the image directly.  I could tell that it was a cube, but it was stretched out from front to back.  I drew a picture on a piece of paper and showed it to Dr. Allen.  He made an adjustment on the generator.  "That looks like a cube now.  Do whatever you were doing, a little more.  Good.  Back a little.  There.  That's just right."

"Is this supposed to be in color?"  Katie asked.  "No, just black and grey."  she was answered.

Katie sent me the image, it was green.  I told Dr. Allen.  He made an adjustment.  "Now it is blue."  Dr. Allen was writing down some notes.  Chad was video taping the whole thing.  This was the first time a signal generator was used at all I think, at least with a blind person.  Maybe Max tested it already with other volunteers.

Dr Allen had Katie move around.  I helped her not run into things.  She walked to the end of the lab and she could still see the images.

We tried a whole series of images.  They came out looking like what was sent.  The colors were all wrong, but each image stayed the same color.  If we went back to an image it was still the same color as before.  It did not change.

Most of the images were a little fuzzy.  Katie showed me, and I described it for Dr. Allen.  He made some changes in the computer settings and that seemed to help a little.

I asked Katie to send her current image to the common area, rather than directly.  She did and the image came out fuzzy, but quickly came into focus.  I described this for Dr. Allen.   Two brains were cleaning up the image.  We tried a whole series of images like that.  When the image got to the common area, it started fuzzy and was quickly cleaned up.  After a while, Katie said that her brain was already making the adjustment.  She sent me an image direct and it was hardly fuzzy at all.  She sent images to the common area again for a while, and then said that the raw images were being corrected automatically.  Her mind had adjusted to deal with the fuzz.  We told all this to Dr. Allen, and he kept making notes.  Chad video'd everything.

"I wonder if we will get color correction too?"  I suggested to Dr. Allen.  Katie sent images to the common area.  They would start out the wrong color, and then they would shift until the proper color was shown.  I had to look at the current image being sent, and then look at the image in the common area, and keep looking back and forth.  That seemed to correct the color, and any remaining fuzz.

I described what I was doing to Dr. Allen.  He showed photos of colorful fish against bright coral.  He showed pictures of forests and ocean waves.  He showed photos of people in bright clothes.  Katie would get her image from the signal generator.  She would copy that image to the common area, where both she and I could see it.  I would look at the original photo on the computer screen, and then I would close my eyes and look at it in the common area.  I would do this until the two were the same.  Katie's brain seemed to pick up the corrected image from the common area and she changed her way of looking.

Dr. Allen showed a video of people skiing on the screen.  It was sent through the signal generator to Katie's brain.  She said that she was getting images but they were all broken up and they kept changing.  Dr. Allen adjusted the frame rate down to one frame every five seconds.  Katie said she could see that, and her brain could keep up.  Then he changed it to one frame every second.  She could still see that.  When it got to five frames every second, she said it was starting to break up, but she was starting to get used to it.  We kept trying video for about half an hour, and then Katie said she was getting tired.  Could we stop for a while.  We stopped and Sally brought everyone a coke or other drink.  She had been quiet this whole time.  She was at another computer following data from the signal generator, and a signal detector, she said.

After about twenty minutes, Katie went back to watching videos.  The more she saw, the more she got used to it.  The color was better, maybe because of the practice she had with the still images.

Sally turned the video camera stand to where it pointed at Katie.  The video from there came through at five frames a second and went to Katie's brain.  She could see herself.  She waved at herself.  She asked if we could point the camera at me, then at Dr. Allen, Sally and Chad.  Katie's face was intent.

Katie and I worked with the video cameras pointed at her.  I put on the little glasses that let me see the video as it was being sent to the computer.  I sent this directly to Katie as she was seeing the video come directly to her brain.  She said that was much better.  She was able to correct the image much quicker that way.  We turned it up to thirty frames a second, and she was still able to see.  She saw it through her brain, and she saw it as I sent it to her.

We stopped there.  We now had a signal generator that could send images directly from a computer to Katie's brain.  The signal generator was specific to Katie. It would only work with her.

I tried to see the generator by blob sight.  There was a blob there, but it was not like a human blob.  I could not send to it.  It was sending images but I could not see them.  I tried to get a blob map out of it, but I could not.  I told Dr. Allen that I could see a blob where the signal generator was.  I merged with him and he could see the blob as well.  He made more notes.

Katie thanked everyone for letting her see.  She was hoping they could get a version of this that was portable. (I found out later that Katie was given that computer and signal generator, since it was built just for her.  She used it at home to watch television, and to surf the net.  With the cameras she could see people who came to visit.)

[Living Room]  I told Mom and Dad what we had just done to help a person who was blind.  They were really shocked to hear that someone had built a machine that could send mind data like that.  I told them this might be secret.  Max did not tell me to keep it a secret.  I said we should wait until there was an official announcement.

[My Room]  I wrote up my experiences for the day, with emphasis on how we used direct images, images in the common area, and then the video glasses to help correct the fuzz and color in the images.  I said it also seemed to help Katie to adjust to the higher frame rates.  I suggested that people could help train the blind to use the new signal generators.

[Sunday]

[Church]  I saw George and told him that the experiment with Katie was a success.  I said to wait until the official announcement before saying anything,  But since he helped, I wanted him to know.  I did not know what the signal generator and computer cost, but maybe they could be shrunk down to a portable size.  He said that even if they were the same size as Katie's that would be a help.  Just being able to read would be a help.  It would be interesting to watch television and videos.

[Living Room]  Max called to congratulate us on a successful experiment.  He especially thanked me for figuring out how to correct the fuzz and color.  Their people were stuck on how to do that.  Simply training the blind person's brain seemed to be all that was needed.  Not something they would have guessed.  He said we should wait to tell anyone.  There was going to be an official announcement next week probably.  They might want to demonstrate this for the news.  Could I be there next week some time?  I said yes.

Susan mind called me.  She said she had some people at the mental hospital again.  They had a patient who seemed to be locked in like Brad had been.  Would I be willing to go over there and help them?  There were several patients they were looking at.  She gave me the address.  Mom and Dad were busy, so they told me to take a cab.

[Mental Hospital]  Scott and Gary met me at the downstairs desk of the hospital.  They took me to a ward on the third floor.  Each person had their own little room, but there were common areas and the outside door was locked.  Penelope Brown was the patient's name.  She was laying on the bed, her eyes were rolling around, and she was making small noises.  She was kind of rocking.  Af first I was just shocked, then I looked at Scott.  He was telling me about her family.  They visited her pretty regular.  They seemed to feel that Penelope was almost normal on some days.  They felt like she was trying to talk to them.  She had been in here for many years.  She looked terrible.  I had a bad feeling in my stomach.

I merged with Scott and Gary.  I looked at Penelope's blob map.  It was active like she was awake. She was not in some kind of coma.  I had Gary walk around the room, and down the hall.  I could follow him in her blob map.  She was aware of people around her.  At least her brain was aware of people around her.  I looked at her image area to see if she had any clear images.  There was the vague stuff from her wandering eyes.  I listened to hear any mindspeech, and there was nothing but the noises she was making.  I brightened her blob map and got a little response.  I could wake her up a little more, I was just not sure what that would do.  Was she in there?  Was she aware of us at all?  I asked Scott and Gary to disconnect for a minute, and I merged with her.  I sent an image of a monkey to the common area, it took on more detail and then became animated.  I tried several other images, they all acted normally.  I sent the images directly to her brain.  That seemed to get a response.  I said her name out loud, that seemed to get a response.  I wished we had some family members here right now.  I asked Scott and Gary to merge with me again.

"I am not really sure what is going on."  I said.  "Her brain is aware of us.  She is awake as far as I can tell.  She responds when we talk to her.  She responds to images.  I do not know why she is not awake.  "Gary, can you monitor for mindspeech?  Scott, can you talk to her like we normally wake up unconscious people.  Call her name, talk to her.  I am going to try sending her some images and try to brighten her blob map.  I wish we had a fourth person.  We can at least try."  I said. 

"Hello, Mrs. Brown.  How are you?  Can you hear me?  My name is Scott.  We are visiting you today.  Can you talk to us?  ..."  Scott started talking to her.  I noticed a small response in her blob map.  I decided to brighten her map first, so I got a clear image of her blob map in my mind, and then I sent it strongly to her.  That had a small response.  I changed.  I put her blob map in the common area.  With Gary and Scott and her and me all contributing information to her blob map, it became very clear.  I took it from the common area and sent it as hard as I could to her directly to her blob map.  That brightened her up.

"I got something just now."  Gary said.  "Do that again."  I took her blob map from the common area again and I sent it to her as hard as I could.

"Definitely something."  he said.  I started sending her map to her continuously.  The common area seemed to brighten.  I kept sending.  There was a definite brightening.  I kept sending.

"Ahhh Uuuhhh" Gary said.  "Tell her your name, Scott. Talk about yourself."  I said.

"My name is Scott Peterson.  I am here to visit you.  I live here in town.  I have a little daughter.  My wife's name is Sandy."  he continued talking.

I kept up the sending.  I tried to push it harder, to send more.

"Am I?'  Gary said.  "She is asking where she is.  Tell her Gary."  he whispered.

"You are in Shadybrook Home.  You are in a hospital.  Do you remember your name?  What is your name?"  Scott spoke clearly.

"Penelope Brown."  Gary spoke for her.  I continued sending.

"Penelope Brown.  My name is Scott.  How are you feeling?"  Scott was right next to her, talking slowly and clearly.

"Tired. I am tired."  she said out loud.

"What is your name again?"  Scott asked.

"Penelope Brown, I said."  she said, clearing her throat.  She sounded a little angry.

"Penelope, how do you feel?"  Scott asked.

"I am tired I said.  Hungry."  she said.

Her eyes were still wandering, but not as much.  She was not making little noises.

"Do you have any questions?"  Scott asked.

"Where is my son?"  she asked.

"We will try to find out.  Maybe he can come later." Scott said.

"Can you see ok, Mrs Brown"  Scott asked.

"I can see fine."  she said.  Her eyes had quit wandering.  She was looking directly at Scott.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"My name is Scott Peterson.  I came to visit you."  Scott said.

"Talk up.  Where is my son?" she asked.

"Maybe your son can come later."  Scott said loudly.

"Yes, maybe he can."  she said.

I quit sending and she seemed to stay awake.  She kept talking to Scott.  He had to think of topics to talk about.  He asked her where she lived and she talked about her home town and her family.  Once he got her started talking she seemed to be fine.  Gary went down the hall and talked to the nurse there.  He said we had waked her up, did she know where Mrs. Brown's son was?  The nurse said that he usually visited on Saturday's but she would call him, since she was awake.  He would probably come to see her.

The nurse came down the hall, and asked one of us to talk to Penelope's son.  Gary went and talked to him, then came back and said the son would be here in about fifteen minutes, could we stay?

Her son might have driven very fast, it did not seem like fifteen minutes and he was there.  He came into the room and started talking to his mother.

"You will have to talk louder, she seems to be hard of hearing.  Maybe you can have her ears checked."  Scott said.

"There doesn't seem to be much wrong with her brain.  I do not know why it was so hard to wake her up.  She seemed to be awake and aware of us.  Maybe it is her hearing.  Maybe no one talks to her loud enough and she gets bored.  She seems very weak and she said she was hungry.  How have they been feeding her?  Do they feed her when she is half awake?"  I said to Scott and Gary shortly.

They said "thank you" for my help, and then I called the cab on my cell phone.  I was talking to them while I was waiting for my cab.  They had left Penelope with her son, but they were going back up.  They had other patients, but they were not going to see them today, in order to spend more time with Penelope and her son.

[Living Room]  Mom and Dad were both very interested in the story about Penelope.  I still did not know why she was not responding to people.  Maybe we were just not talking loud enough.  That seemed so sad.

Katie called to thank me for helping her.  I said, I was just glad that it worked the first time.  If it had not worked, I am not sure what we would have done.  She said she was going to work with the volunteers from our church, and get training for her family, so they could merge with her.  She thought some of her friends might be interested too.  She was going down in the history books as the first blind person to see from a signal generator.

[Monday]

[Kitchen]  Max mind called me to ask me to go directly to the university to meet with reporters.  Dr Allen said they wanted to recreate the historic event with everyone there. 

I called the school and said I would be late.  I dressed in the same business clothes I had worn on Saturday.  Mom was volunteering at the hospital, so I took a cab.  I was getting used to that.

[University]  I was dropped off near the building.  There were news vans and reporters and cameramen everywhere.  There was no one waiting for me.  I sneaked in the usual door and went to the lab.  Dr. Allen, Chad, and Sally were already there.  Katie came a few minutes later with a friend.  There were cameras lining the lab, and extra lighting, even though most cameras now worked well in low light.  We sat where we had sat on Saturday, and we went through the motions as we had done then.  The signal generator worked fine, and Katie said that she was seeing the colors and images fine.  I merged with her and checked the images she sent.  They were fine.  Her brain had made some adjustment to the signal.  As I waited for the photographers and cameramen to take their pictures, I was thinking of the many blind people this might help.  I was surprised to hear Dr. Allen say that it was my suggestion to the Office of Science and Technology Policy that was responsible for this device, and that I had been critical in the design and development of this technology.  There were news people at the lab where the signal generator was developed.  They were watching us on video and talking about their plans for new devices, and their plans to miniaturize the equipment.  Max was at their announcement ceremony.  They had had sighted volunteers work with the device there, but the first blind volunteer was Katie.

[School]  I managed to get to school by lunch time.  So I got to eat.  I was still dressed in my business clothes, and I kept getting strange looks from everyone.  They asked why I was all dressed up, and I said I had to have my picture taken for something.

[My room]  I did my home work and then worked on the Word document for blind volunteers.  I made notes about the signal generator and included some of what we had done there.

[Tuesday]

[School]  My picture was on the news and in the newspaper yesterday, so a lot of people came up to me to say something.  I describe how the signal generator worked to send images to a blind person.  Everyone was really impressed.  People asked me if that was my real job, when I was not at school.  I said yes, basically.

Paul and Theresa were in our usual spot at lunch.  They were both happy for me that I was in the papers again.  They joked about this becoming my usual thing.  Paul joked that with all my royalties I would never have to work again.  Lol!

[Living Room]  Paul's Dad, Rick, called to congratulate me on the research I had done.  I said that all I did was to suggest this as an application, the government project had created the technology.  He said the news was very clear that I had helped develop the technology through application of mind merge techniques.  I said that was true, but I could not tell anyone since it was under contract.   He said he was really impressed, and did I have any suggestions for what kind of research his company should invest in?  I said I did not know what specifically, but I suggested that when we worked with the battery manufacturer, it was really easy to come up with new designs.  When Rick's people tried to do it on their own, they had to worry about manufacturing.  Didn't the battery manufacturer need money?  Maybe he could find manufacturers who need money, and help them come up with better designs.   Rick got very excited when I said that.  He said he could do that, and then goodbye.

Dad said how proud he was of me.  He asked me how I had come up with all these devices.  I said that I did not invent them, I just helped very smart people to mind merge.  I talked to Dad a little about Rick.  I mentioned how he got really excited when I suggested he help manufacturers to brainstorm.  Dad said that was a really smart thing to advise. 

Dad was meeting with his people to help them with brainstorming.  They had had several mind merges already.  Did I have any suggestions?  I asked Dad whether anyone had gotten together with the homeless people and asked them, in a mind merge, what they wanted to do?  Do homeless people ever get together somewhere?  Were homeless people like manufacturers?  Did they need money and just needed help in coming up with better ideas?

"Micro-financing, micro-investing!"  Dad said.  I asked he what he said.  He explained that was talking about how you give little bits of money to people to help them invest.  Rather than giving lots of money to large corporations, you give a little bit of money to individuals.  Did he mean little bits of money to the homeless to help them start businesses?  Yes, that was it.  I said to ask the homeless.

Patty called.  She had seen me on the news too.  She said there were several people at school who were blind, when were they going to have the technology ready?  I said I did not know.  Could they learn to mind merge and navigate with blobs first?  If their friends would send them images, blind people could get the same benefit as having technology.  Patty was worried that the world was changing so quickly would her college degree mean anything?  I said I was worried too.  Would there be colleges when I was old enough, or would people just mind merge to learn what they needed to know. 

"But the knowledge you are getting in college is what will make you a good contributor to a mind merge.  The information has to come from somone's head.  If you know a lot it will help, but you also have to know how to ask good questions.  Even Dad and Paul's Dad are still asking questions.  They both have mind merges and they are still struggling."  I said.

"You can spend a lot of time merged with smart people now."  I suggested. "Isn't that what you are doing, without merges, by going to college?"  I asked.

"You are right.  The knowledge has to come from somewhere.  If I have good knowledge then people will want to merge with me.  If I know how to ask good questions, that is even better than knowing things."  she said.

"I am sorry we are not together where we can talk easily."  I said.

"Yes, me too.  But we can call and we can mindspeak.  Talk to you later."  she said.

"Talk to you later."  I said in return.

[Wednesday]

[School]

My science teacher spent the entire period talking about mind technology.  He was saying how there were signal generators to send images to the blind, they could also send sounds to the deaf.  They can send either to any person.  They might be able to get machines that you could send images to, and machines you could sounds to, with your mind.  He made me a little embarrassed, when he said, you have in this classroom someone who is partially responsible for this revolution.

===== Oct 3 70,000 words about 140 pages

During lunch I sat with my eyes closed and watched the blobs of students and teachers moving about.  I could see that half were in merges.  It was just possible to guess which were in large merges, and which were in small merges - by the brightness of the blobs.  A merge of two was less bright than a merge of ten, for instance.  I picked people who were brightest and I checked their merge map.  I gently merged to see what was in the common area, and what people were saying, then I quietly disconnected.  The common areas were very complex, so they had been running the merge problem for a while.  I asked Theresa whether students were merging with their parents, she was keeping up with many merge activities.  She said that they were.  That would help bring knowledge into the merges.

In Art class, I merged with Ginger so I could share images with her.  I gave her one of a merge mind map alongside an individual mind map, to show what they looked like.  That was a common thing to look at when passively merging people.  Ginger started making sketches to capture the general look and feel of the image, and then she was going to work on it more later.  She was so far ahead of our class, she had extra time, and she was looking for challenges.

[Living Room]  Max called.

"Are you going to be free Saturday?  Could you go to MIT and help them with their signal detector?  They are having trouble making it work, and they need an expert in sending to help them.  If you take the first flight in and the last flight out, you should have enough time to help them."  he said.

"I will be happy to help them.  Do they also have a signal generator?"  I asked

"Yes, they do.  I am not sure what their plans are.  They heard about how you helped with the blind volunteer and they asked for your help.  They need you to get to the university so that Greg Allen can take an MRI.

[Thursday]

[Living Room]  I had another pile of letters.  Some were addressed to just "Dana Freehurst, She's just 13".  Most of it was fan mail, but there were several from universities and research groups.  I went through these carefully and set them in a pile for Mom to look at.  Most of them would be answered with a form letter that included a page of Internet links pointing to my online videos where I teach about mind skills.

There was a package waiting for me, it contained my airline tickets and contact information from MIT.  I was to meet with Dr. Francis in the Department of Biological Engineering.  There were some photos of their equipment, and a few diagrams to show what they were trying to do.  For a blob detector, it was very complicated. 

I just had time to change, and I took a cab over to the university to see Dr. Allen and get my MRI and MEG.  That went smoothly.  He was going to transmit the data to MIT somehow.  I guess they were on the same network.

[Friday]

[School]  School has been smooth all week long.  I took my quizzes today and aced them.  Staying ahead really helps.

[Living Room]  There are people all over the room.  A team came to have me make a video about mind merge management.  I knew about this several days ago.  They are going to use a teleprompter and have me essentially read the paper to the cameras.  They will do it twice and then edit.  I do not know if that is a good strategy for making videos, but it is what they are going to try.  I practiced a few times with the prompter and it seems fairly simple.  I just have to pretend that I am talking to a large group of people.  Mom and Dad are in the kitchen trying to stay out of the way, and handing out cold drinks to everyone.  I hope they can finish this up so I can get to sleep early tonight.  I am somewhat nervous about tomorrow.  I hope my time at MIT goes well.

[Saturday]

I got up early and dressed in my business clothes.  I had time for a bite and Dad drove me to the airport.  There was an airport guard there to meet me, and he escorted me directly onto the plane.  Again I was in first class right at the front of the plane.  Breakfast was good, but not great.  I arrived in Cambridge soon enough, and the stewardess handed me off to someone who took me out to where there was a car waiting for me.  We drove to the campus and I got dropped at the building were the Biological Engineering Department was housed.  Dr. Francis greeted me and asked me to call him Jim.

"We are really glad to have you here with us."  He said.  "We hope you can help you sort out what is going on."

"Well, I am happy to help."  I said.

We arrived at a fairly open lab.  There were high ceilings and large windows.  The equipment was laid out on several lab tables.  They seemed to have everything ready.

"We learned several things from the experiments you did.  The signal generator is not as sensitive to the images as we thought.  We originally thought that each individual image had to be sent differently.  That is true, but the variations are smaller than we expected.  The signal detector we are testing is intended to receive images.  There is another version, at another university, where the detector is for sounds, and intended to hear mindspeech.  Today we are going to try to have you send an image to the detector."  Jim said.

"We can send images from the signal generator over here, to the signal detector over here."  Jim said, pointiing out the parts of the setup.  I could see the camera, computer and signal generator like what we used at the university.  There was a gap, and then a signal detector that looked exactly like the generator, then another computer.  I could see that the camera was pointed out the window, and there was a picture of outside the window on the second computer screen.  They were sending camera images between the generator and detector.

I closed my eyes briefly to confirm, but I notiiced that they were all in mind merge.  I asked Jim if I could join them,  He was happy to have me merge with them.  He said that they stay in merge all the time.  When they are trying to solve problems, they use the common area a lot.  Some of them start out first thing in the morning and merge with someone working here.  There were people in the lab 24 hours a day.  This project had high priority.

I closed my eyes again and looked at the signal generator.  There was a blob around it.  Not like a human blob, but definitely a blob.  In my mind it was an icy blue color.  It did not change much, but there were small variations as people walked in front of the camera.

"Could you send a video through, instead of the camera.  Something with a lot of motion?"  I asked Jim.

He was kind of surprised that I was changing directions, but he asked one of the graduate students to put on a YouTube video that had lots of action.  It was silent.  I closed my eyes again and could see the clear variation in the signal coming from the generator blob.

"We would like you to sit over here and send an image to the transmitter.  We have tried it ourselves but we cannot get a response from it.  We can tell there is some signal, we just cannot form images.  We just get noise."  Jim continued.

Jim indicated to another graduate student to turn off the signal generator.  For this first test they wanted me to send a signal to the detector.

"We are ready.  You can start sending any time."  He said.

I formed an image in my head of an apple.  I faced in the direction of the detector.  I tried to form a mental image of the signal detector and tried to send to it.  There was no change in the signal detector.  Nothing showed up on the screen, it just showed white noise.

"I tried to send an image from my head to the detector.  Nothing happened.  I would like to use the common image area to help me.  Do you mind?"  I asked.

"That is fine.  Go ahead."  Jim said.

I sent the image of the apple to the common image area.  I took the image from that area and tried to send it to the detector.  There was a slight blip, but it went back to white noise again.

"I am going to try sending harder now from the common area.  Could you all help me?"  Take the image from the common area and send to the detector."  I said.  Everyone got a look of concentration on their face.  The detector's computer screen darkened and then lightened, then darkened again.  We kept that up for a full two minutes.  We could get some response from the detector, but not much.

"This is more than we got before.  Before we had individuals sending.  Now we have a group."  Jim said.  "What do we do now?  Should we get more people in the merge?"  He was asking me.

"Could you turn the signal generator back on but leave it with white noise?"  I asked Jim.

"Why do you want to do that?" he asked.

"Well, when I am mindspeaking, or sending images,  or sending blob maps, I always have a target.  The target is always a blob.  It is the way you send.  I was looking at the signal generator before, and it has a blob.  I notice that the signal generator and detector have the same shape.  I think that the detector has a blob just like the generator.  I want to use the generator blob as a target to send to the detector.  Does that make sense?"  I explained.

"Yes it does make sense.   The detector is like an antenna.  There is a shape to an antenna that determines how it sends and receives.  The shape of the detector is the same shape as the generator.  Let's try it."  He said.

One of the graduate students found a white noise video and plugged it into the generators's computer.  Jim switched on the generator.  Now I could see the blob again.  I closed my eyes tightly and got the blob of the generator.  I made that my target and sent a picture of a cube to the detector/generator.   There was an immediate change in the detector screen.  There was a blob in the center of the screen.  I changed the image to an apple, and sent that.  The detector screen changed again.  I sent a picture of a horse.  The screen changed again.

"Do you have a pair of video screen glasses?  I can send you a specific image that way.  With a particular image can you tune it?"  I asked Jim.

"Yes, of course.  Get her the glasses and pick a test pattern.  We can use that to make adjustments."  Jim told his students.

One of the graduate students handed me the video glasses.  I put them on my head and looked at the image.  It was a pattern.  I sent that image to the blob detector.

"The detector is getting a nominal signal.  Adjust beta upward, it looks a little slanted.  We are missing some of the fine detail."  Jim was giving instructions.

"Dana can you send more detail?"  Jim asked me.

I kept my eyes moving slowly over the image.  I tried to look closely at the fine detail on the image.  I kept a clear image of the generator blob.  I kept sending. 

"That is better.  Keep sending.  We are getting a good signal.  We have plenty to optimize the transforms now.  Let's switch to a different image and get some more geometric and intensity corrections.

They sent me an image of a sphere lit by a light from the side.  I sent that to the detector.  From the sounds of it, they were getting a clear image now.

"Let's try some color correction now.  Send her the color test pattern."  he instructed.

I was looking at a pile of blocks of different colors.  They each had shading.  I had to keep moving my eyes around it to get the full picture.  I sent the image to the detector.

"That red is off.  See if you can adjust the filters."  Jim continued.

This went on for quite a while.  I was starting to get a headache from concentrating so hard, and from the glasses which were heavy.  Finally Jim called a halt.  "We did it!  We have clear images!  It works!"  he said to everyone.  "You can take your glasses off now, Dana." 

I looked at the detector screen and saw the last image I had sent.  There was a slight fuzz to it, but it was basically clean.  Jim asked me to walk around a bit and rest.  He had one of his graduate students sit where I had sat and try to send images.  I told the graduate student how to focus on the generator blob and then send to it.  He got a weak signal from the detector.  Hardly anything.

"Would you try sending to me.  Send as hard as you can."  I explained.

He sent me an image, but it was very weak.  "Try again harder.  Do you have a clear image of my blob?   The image was still weak. 

"Can you mindspeak to me?"  I sent to him.  He answered me back, but it was weak.  "Louder!"  I mentally shouted at him.  It shocked him how loud I could get.  He responded with a decent loudness.  I had him do it again, "Louder!"  I sent to him.  He managed to "shout" back at me.

"Now send your images that way."  I said to him, loudly, and I sent him a strong image of the signal generator blob.

This time he got a decent signal into the detector.  It takes practice to send clearly.  I explained to Jim what I had just done with his image sender.  He looked puzzled for a minute and then said, "We have just been using whoever volunteers as senders.  I did not know there was that much variation in senders.".

"He was sending like someone not in a merge.  It is about one tenth what I was sending, or less."  I explained.

Someone had ordered sandwiches in for lunch.  People were eating and working.  The new image sender was working Ok.  The images were not as clear as mine, but you could tell what he was sending.

"Would you pick someone else to send, someone who sends strong images?"  Jim asked me.  He pointed to a group of five students, men and women.  I mind called the first one, "Can you please send me an image as hard as you can?"  They sent me an image.  "Stronger, louder!"  I sent to them.  The image came back stronger.  I went through the group and selected one who was sending about twice as strong as the rest.  It was a woman named Cindy.  I indicated to her to sit down in the chair.

"We do not have MRI and MEG data on her.  We are going to try to work from a general brain model and a general skull and skin model."  Jim explained.

"Would you send an image to the detector?"  Jim instructed the graduate student.  Cindy adjusted the video glasses and tried to send.  There was a response from the detector, but it was not strong enough.  "Here is the image of the detector's blob"  I sent to her along with an image of the generator's blob.  She nodded her head, and tried again.  This time there was a clear signal in the detector, but the image was distorted and fuzzy.  Jim's team worked on various adjustments, and it got better and better.

"The general models will work!"  Jim shouted.  He was very excited.  All of the people in the room were excited, except for me.  I was very happy for them.  I just did not know where this was leading.

A little later I asked if I could try again.  I put a monkey it the common image area and then sent the resulting image to the detector.  The image shifted and changed on the monitor.  I peeked a few times to see how it was growing.  Gradually the image became animated and the color was corrected in the common image.  That was sent to the detector screen.  It was fairly clear.  As the image grew and stabilized, I tried to capture all parts of the image.

"I wanted to know if there was some way to capture images from the common image area.  Those images become so large, there must be some way to piece together small images into a common image."  I said to Jim.

Jim was looking at the video of the images I had just sent, frame by frame. "We can build an image splicing program to take all these images and put them onto a single master image.  You are looking at the image in the common area, and sending it piece by piece to the detector.  Keep sending this particular image and we will see if we can splice it."  he said.

"Can we try something more realistic?"  I asked.  I sent an image of the signal detector and signal generator to the common area.  It immediately was converted to a diagram and charts.  The image areas was filling up,  I carefully tried to look at every part of the large common image, and went over some details several times to get everything.  I sent all of that to the detector where it was recorded.

"That will do very fine.  I think you have found a way to capture these large images.  We can work with that data.  We can pull out the common image from it.  I am sure!"  Jim said excitedly.

We continued trying different common images until the evening.  No one wanted to stop, but I was getting tired again.  I asked Jim if he could get someone else to send for a while.  He asked Cindy to send again.  She sat down and started sending test patterns again.  They said they were "checking how the standard model parameters need adjustment."

I watched the group working so closely together.  They were merged, but not really using the common area that much.  They were merged in a more natural way. as humans working toward a commom goal.  It was beautiful and fascinating to see.

Finally Jim walked me back to the entrance and handed me over to a driver who would take me to the airport.  He thanked me warmly and waved goodbye.  I was met at the airport and guided to the plane.  It seemed like a moment later I was at my own airport and a security guard took me to meet Dad.  I fell asleep on the drive home.  Dad woke me and I struggled into my room and my bed,  In the morning my clothes were still thrown on the floor.

[Sunday] 

[Church]  We went to the 11 o'clock service since I was so tired from the day before.  I saw George and his wife.  I could tell they were in a merge.  It was bright enough they probably had many other people with them.  I said hello and chatted briefly.  George seemed very happy.  He said he was getting a lot of images from his wife.  His whole view of the world was changing.

Father John said that the volunteer classes had settled down to where they were very efficient.  New mergers were being trained every day and they were helping literally hundreds of blind people from all parts of the country.  He had volunteer sending images to blind people in California.  There was interest from all parts of the country in replicating the program in other churches.  He had already sent teams to other churches in the region to show them how to teach and work with the blind.  The hospital volunteers were doing well also.

I really enjoyed the sermon for some reason.  I talked about how Jesus healed the sick.  I was thinking that some of these volunteers were helping the blind and healing the sick.  It was not magical or a miracle, it was just people helping people.

[Living Room]  Dad had invited some of the people from his firm over to mind merge.  He also asked some homeless people to come.  They came all in a van together. They were wearing new clothes like you would buy at a discount store.  They smelled faintly of soap and shampoo.  A couple of the men had nicks on their faces where they had cut themselves shaving, and the also smelled of hamburgers and fries.  I guess someone had taken them out to lunch at a fast food place.  There were three men, and three women.  The women's hair had been combed out, but you could tell it had not been taken care of.  They had split ends and a dry look.  The men had long hair too.

I closed my eyes to look at them.  One of the women was a bright.

With me, Mom and Dad there were five people from his work, then the six homeless people.  Fourteen people.  What did Dad want to do?

"We are really glad you would join us."  He said to the homeless people.  He offered them cold drinks and I helped Mom to get everyone something.  I showed one of the people where the bathroom was, and then someone else had to go.  Finally everyone was settled.

"My firm advises cities on how to solve social problems.  Right now we are helping a group of larger cities on the topic of homelessness.  We thank you for joining us, to help add your voices to this discussion."  he said. 

So far none of the homeless people had said much of anything, except for small murmurs.  One of them said, "Are you really going to listen to us?  What are you planning to do about this social problem?"  one of the men said with an edge to his voice.  He sounded angry.

"We do not know what to do, exactly.  That is why we wanted to hear what you had to say.  We are looking for new solutions."  Dad said.

"We just want to live our own lives.  I like what I am doing."  One of the women said.

"I know you."  One of the men said, staring at me.  He pointed his finger at me and told the others, "This girl was in the papers the other day. She is that girl who helped the blind guys."

I edged a little closer to my Mom, but I sat up a little straighter.  "Yes, I was in the papers.  What have you heard?"   I asked them.

"You were in there because of that machine at the university, but you were in there before because of helping people in a fire.  You teach people how to mind speak."  One of the women said.  "Why are you here?"  she asked with a strong tone.  She sounded a little angry too.

"This is my Dad and my Mom.  I live here.  Dad thought that you might like to learn how to mind merge, to mind speak and how to solve problems.  So I am here to help, in case you want to do that."  I explained.

"I wanted to learn how to help blind people.  I have some good friends who are blind.  Some of the homeless are blind."  another woman said.

"Can you teach me how to mindspeak?  I dreamed about that when I was a kid."  a man said.  They all nodded agreement.  Some of them actually had little smiles on their faces.

"I will take each person in turn and teach you how to mind merge and then teach you how to mind speak."  Their names were John, Abby, Kerry, Tim, Alex, and Lana.  I was merged with Mom and Dad, so I mindspoke each one, and then had them send to me.  I had them actively merge into the group.  It took about an hour, but I had them all merged, they had all seen blob maps, and they had all tried mindspeech.  I helped the people from Dad's firm to merge as well.  They already knew how, so I let them join on their own.

"If you will all close your eyes, I would like you to look at some images.  I sent an image of John to the common area.  It sat for a moment and then started to change.  It began to show an image of someone younger and stronger.  His hair darkened and his clothes changed.  He looked like a businessman you would see on the street.  I looked at John with my eyes.  There were tears running down his face.  That is me when I was younger.  Where did you get that picture?  How did you know?"  he cried.  He opened his eyes and looked at us.  Everyone still had their eyes closed except me.

"I know this is hard, can you close your eyes again and see what happens?"  I sent to him privately.  He closed his eyes again.

I sent an image of Abby to the common area.  Her picture changed too.  She was a beautiful woman.  There were things around her, clothes and cars and books.

I had never sent picture of people to the common area before.  I had no idea this would happen.  Was this some kind of self image?  Was this what was expected of these people.  Was this what they wanted?  On a hunch I sent a picture of my Dad to the common area.  He changed slightly to be younger and stronger.  But he mainly changed very little.

"You can all open your eyes again.  John can you think of something that you have wanted to do?"  I asked John.

"I want to work again.  I was very good at it, until I got sick.  I lost my job and ended up on the streets.  I started drinking and things got worse.  But I used to be very good at what I did. I was a great salesman.  John said.

"What about you, Abby?"  I asked. 

"I miss my sister and my family.  I forgot what I looked like.  I did good for a while before I got on the streets."  she said.

"What about you, Tim?"  I asked.

"I want to help the people on the streets.  They are my family now.  I hate how they are sick all the time.  I hate how tired and hungry everyone gets.  I just want to help."   he said.

Dad and his friends were listening.  There were tears on one man's eyes.

"I would like to do an experiment.  But I need only my Dad and his friends to stay out of this.  I just want John, Abby, Kerry, Tim, Alex, and Lana to look at this image and to think about it.  It might take ten minutes or longer to settle down."  I explained.  "Would you six close your eyes and concentrate on this image?"  I asked.

I sent an image of the six of them as they sat there to the common area.  Then I opened my eyes.  Only the homeless people were looking at that image.  It was changing as their brains contributed new information related to that image.  I could see surprise and curiosity on each face.  They were fascinated by what they were seeing.  I peeked a couple of times by blinking extra long and looking at the common image area.  The image was growing and changing.  I did not want to look at it, since I only wanted their brains to come up with the final image.

I kept an eye on the clock.  Ten minutes went by, and then fifteen.  They did not look away.  Twenty minutes went by and they started to fidget a little.  I glanced at the common area and it was nearly full.  After thirty minutes, I indicated to Dad and his friends to close their eyes and look at the common area.  I did too.  It was a rich picture of the homeless people and their lives. It had pictures of their families and the things they had left behind.  There were social services, police, hospitals, churches, shelters and homes.  There were part time jobs, factories and stores.  They had an intricate vision of the community.  They had a rich view of life.  And then it began to change.  The core image remained the same.  It became more complex.  It was filled in with other people and organizations.  I watched the faces of the homeless as their view of life was changed by these other people.  As Dad said later, there were more options.  There were more resources.

"Everyone can open their eyes now.  John would you like to comment?"  I asked John.

"I had no idea life was so beautiful.  I tend to look at the same streets every day.  I see the same people every day.  When were in there together, I could see how we are all connected.  The city has people that we see pretty often, but it is us that have to work together."  he said.

"I want to learn how to do what we were just doing."  Kerry said. 

"It is called mind merging, or merge problem solving."  I explained.

"Whatever you call it, I want it."  She said.

"You showed us how to mindspeak.  Can we learn it so wes can do it?"  Alex asked.

"I want to know more about those blobs.  Are those really pictures of people all around the city?  That would be handy to know."  Tim said.

"We can make arrangements for volunteers to help train you in mind mapping, mind merging, mind speech and in using those skills to help others like the blind."  Dad said, going back to what one of the women has said earlier about helping the blind.

The driver came and picked up the homeless people soon after that.  I asked if they were going back out on the streets.  Dad said not right away, but soon if we did not do anything.

Dad's friends stayed and talked.  They would talk for a while, and then one of them would say something like, "That is so amazing what they came up with on their own." or "Can you believe the self images?" or "Imagine what they could do if they did not have to scratch for food all day." or "We've got to get them where they can mind speak." or "We can't let them go back out on the streets like that."  I did not know what was going on, but it looked like they had been affected by what they saw.

Mom put out sandwich stuff, chips and some side dishes.  We all got something to eat and kept talking.  A little later Dad got out some wine bottles, and they kept drinking and talking until almost midnight.

[My Room]  I had to leave them to their own work.  I wrote up what I had done at MIT yesterday and sent it to Max.  I suggested that they add a signal generator to the signal detector so that it sent out a white noise signal all the time.  Then people would have a blob as a target and you would not need a separte signal generator.  I also suggested that they test the image senders to be sure they are really sending strong signals.  I mentioned about the problem with the weak sender.

I worked on the textbook for the blind a while, and then I checked over my homework and reading.  My math homework was easy, and I did not have any writing assignments over the weekend.

[Monday]

[School]  I saw Paul when I got to school.  He was just arriving.  "Paul, could we talk for a minute?"  I asked.

"Sure, what is up?"  he asked.

"I met with some homeless people yesterday.  They all wanted to learn mind skills.  Could you find some kids to volunteer and teach them?"  I explained.

"Sure.  That would be easy.  We have taught almost everyone in the school now.  Even most of the teachers know how to merge and mindspeak. When and where do you want us?"

"Let me ask?"  I said, then I mind called my Dad.  I seldom call him at work, but he was happy to talk with me.  I asked him were he wanted the student volunteers to go.  He had to check somewhere, but told me a few minutes later, Star of Hope Mission.

"How many homeless people are there at the mission?"  I sent to him.

"There are only about a dozen who stay at the shelter any given night, but they feed them and about forty turn up."  he sent back.

"Can you train forty people?"  I asked Paul.

"We can take six kids and work in pairs.  We can go back a few times and it should not be too hard.  Also once they can mindspeak, there are always kids and parents here who want practice mindspeaking or merging."  he said.  "We could send kid and parent pairs.  Would that work?"

I nodded.  "I think they really want to problem solve.  Do you have kids who are pretty good at that?"  I asked

"Sure.  Almost everyone uses merge solve now.  Some kids just do random things to see what the group comes up with.  Some of the animations are pretty amazing."  he said.

"What about other shelters, and other cities?"  I asked.

"I hear that kids in other cities are merging as well.  It spreads through families, and friends.  Older brothers and sisters pick it up and take it to high school and college.  Parents pick it up."  Paul said.  "I know some of the kids parents are really involved in mind merging.  They want to use it to help others.  We could talk to those kids and get their parents to do the driving.  We can ask at the Mission where other places are.  If someone is just poor, is it Ok to teach them?"  Paul continued.

"I do not think that it matters if you are homeless or just poor.  Let's teach them and let them figure out what they want to do."  I said. 

I sent Paul a picture of the people who had come to our house yesterday.  "If you run into any of these people, say hello for me."  I said to Paul.

[Living Room]  There were three piles of letters waiting for me.  Mom had already sorted into fan mail, junk mail, and consulting.  I went through the junk mail quickly.  Mostly offers of marriage or worse (Mom got rid of some stuff I know), offers to merge and solve the mysteries of the universe.  Pretty wild stuff.  I glanced at the fan mail.  We still did not know what to do with them.

"I think we should have some pictures made of you, and then you can send autographed pictures back to the fans."  Mom said, she had come downstairs while I was looking at the mail.

"Does Craig have any suggestions?  He is our media expert."  I asked Mom.

"He suggests having an official fan club.  But you would end up having to meet with them.  You hardly have time now.  Let's go with photos for now."  Mom said.  "I can hire a part time person to respond to that mail."

I looked throught the consulting letters.  Most of them were just learning about mind skills and wanted to have someone teach them.  Mom sent those to the Mind Mappers Association.  A few were from research and development firms.  And a few were from investment firms.  Mom said she was going to have someone do some background research on those and suggest a very few for follow up.

"You really helped your Dad yesterday, he was not sure what to do with the homeless people.  You really put a positive spin on everything."  Mom said.

"Oh.  I asked Paul to organize some volunteers to teach the homeless and the poor how to mind merge and so on.  He said he would.  He is going to get some of the parents involved.  That should start right away.  They are going to the Mission where John and them were staying to start training."  I said.

"That was quick work.  Will they be Ok?"  Mom asked.

"I guess so, we will only find out by doing it."  I said.

[My Room]  I did my homework quickly.  The math was hard, but I got through it.  I had to read a book for English.  I found the book online at Gutenberg.org and read the first couple of chapters.  I had time to read it, but I started right away.  I made the link a favorite so I could get back to it easily.

Max had written me an email, thanking me for solving the problem of how to send to the signal detector.  He said they were going to change the straight detectors so they also transmitted a blob.  He thanked me for that suggestion.  He also said they were going to train the staff and graduate students at all their research locations in how to use mind skills.  Max said that they were continuing their research on blob shielding, but had made no breakthroughs yet.  They were able to block the signal when it came from one of the signal generators, but when people were involved, they could not block it.  Something the mind was doing to the signal was getting through.  It was really frustrating.  I wrote back that I did not have any particular ideas for shielding.  I was thinking about active shielding, but had not come up with anything.

Craig was sending me emails to answer that they could not answer.  It reminded me of the summer when our website went viral.  He was sending me stuff every day now.  He did say that my most recent video on merge management was a hit.  They had over a million downloads already.  They had also posted it on YouTube, and there were a million hits on that as well.

I wrote a note to Craig and Jim, and said that I was thinking about a version of the M3 paper that would have lots of graphics and images to help people understand.  I mentioned that I was working with Ginger at school to get some of the images down in hard copy.  I took a picture of one of the images with my camera and attached that to the note.

Craig answered my email in about twenty minutes.  He said the idea of a paper with images would help a lot of people who were writing in and asking for help with the M3 paper.

[Tuesday]

[School]  I saw Paul at lunch time.  He said that some volunteers had already gone to the Mission for dinner last night.  Three kids and three parents.  The kids did the actual training, and the parents merged in to help.  They found the names of four other places where the homeless go.  They were going to send volunteers there starting today.  The parents were interested, and the kids, though a little afraid, were excited to help.  John and Kerry were there when the volunteers came, he was telling all the homeless people to get training.  He said something about going to the other missions and homes to tell still more people about it.  The volunteers had taught John how to mindspeak, and he was already practicing.

During Social Studies the teacher had us do a classwide mind merge on some historical maps.  There were maps of the state during its founding, and later during the Civil War.  We, collectively, knew a lot about our history and the geography of our state.  The teacher was saying that good citizens should look deeply into history and economic, using mind merge.

The teachers must have been thinking of ways to use mind merge to help teach.  The Art teacher had us merge as a class, and then she showed us pictures from various periods.  It was interesting how much associated information we had.  Each piece usually was associated with a picture of the artist and pictures from their period.  There were also associated works from the same period.  Kind of random, but the common mind painted everything with vivid colors.

There was time after our mind merge for me to talk to Ginger.  I made arrangements for ten images to be made into paintings.  I gave her another two and she sketched them out.  She said she had almost a photographic memory for fine detail, so I gave her two more.  She said the images were not complicated, just detailed.  She could finish four of them by tomorrow.  She would let them dry and bring them in on Thursday.

[Living Room]  Going through the mail was a daily thing.  Mom had Jackie there.  Jackie was going to go through the fan mail and send people photos of me.  Mom had a photographer coming by soon.  Jackie was going to get a database of names and addresses ready, and she would print the envelopes off the laser printer.   I looked at the consulting pile.  Most of them could probably use the new version of the M3 paper I was writing - the one with images.

[My room]  I read my assigned book for English again.  It was interesting.  I wondered what people would have done with mind skills in the eighteenth century.

The email from Craig could mostly be answered by an updated version of M3.  I wrote Craig and told him I had two images already, and four more ordered.  I was going to order four more tomorrow, and then by the weekend I could have enough to write a new version of the paper.

I took the M3 paper.  I had my notes on where I wanted to add images.  I put in boxes for where the images would go, and I wrote titles for each images, and then added text in the paper to explain how to use the images.  I was trying to explain about image maps, mind maps, blobs of ordinary people, blobs of people in merges, blobs of brights, mind maps of people in merges, mind maps of groups, how to locate the common image map, how to send images to the common image map.

I also started notes for another paper on comas and people in mental hospitals.  I wanted to show images of mind maps of people awake, in light comas, lightly asleep, deep in comas.  I also started sketching out images for an updated text for helping the blind.  I had a lot of writing in front of me.

Max mind called me.  It was pretty late, and I wondered what he needed this late.  Nothing.  He just wanted to know if I was going to be home after school at the regular time.  He said he might stop by! That was quite a surprise.  He did not say what he wanted to talk about, he was in town to visit the university and decided to stop by.  He would probably come by at five, and had to leave by six. He had a flight out at eight.

[Wednesday]

[School]  Paul has more volunteers lined up and working with the homeless.  He is teaching everyone at the free kitchens who wants to learn - homeless, poor, hungry, whatever.

I gave Ginger a few more images.  She says she will have them back by Friday.

[My room] I am doing my homework now, so I will be done when Max shows up.  Mom is straightening up the mail and the living room.

[Living Room]  I am going through the mail as I wait for Max.  The fan mail is even larger than usual.  I was just finishing up when his cab arrived.  He is bringing a suitcase and a package in with him.

"Hello Max.  How are you?"  I said.

"Hi, Dana.  It is very good to see you.  I had a good session with Greg Allen at the university.  He really praises your work, and thanks you for getting them so far along wth their project.  He has a signal detector too now.  All of our labs have them, and they are using your techniques for testing."  he said.

"I am really glad to hear everyone is doing well.  I just help out a little, I barely know how they can deal with all that equipment."  I said.

"Well, I brought you some equipment."  Max said, and then opened the package he was carrying.  I recognized a signal detector/generator right away, and then a small laptop.

"Can we set this up on your table somewhere?"  he asked.

"Sure. Let's go in the dining room.  There is a plug in there."  I said.

[Dining Room]  He set up the laptop and plugged it in.  He said it had batteries, but this was better.  He set the signal generator/detector down on the table and plugged it into the laptop. 

"This is a special connector.  It is basically a usb 4 standard.  Most of the image processing goes on in the base of the detector.  This only has a range for sending of about thirty feet.  It sends and receives.  This one is specially built based on your MEG and MRI, and the data from your sending tests.  Here let me turn it on.  I will set it to send first."  he explained.

When I closed my eyes I could see the blob around the array antenna (that is what we decided to call it later).  I could see a spinning cube in my head, where the common image would ordinarily be.  He clicked on another sample, and there was a video of some horses running across a field.

"That works perfectly.  I can see those as though I had my eyes open.  Can I try to send?"

There was a button on the screen.  It was red and said "send".  He clicked it and it turned green to "receive".  I focused on the blob and sent it an image.  The image immediately came on the screen.  There were buttons to save the image as a jpeg, or MP3.  There were recording controls like for a recorder.

"I am having an artist paint images from my mind.  It is a slow process.  This will allow me to capture images instantly.  This is really something!"  I said.

Here is a plastic holder so you can carry the array antenna around without hurting it.  He slipped that on and then snapped it closed.  It looked like a smooth white ball sitting on the table with a wire coming out.  You can take this to school if you need to.  The laptop works just like a regular laptop, but it has a lot more memory and is much faster than any normal laptop."  he said.

"I have to go now.  I have some papers to go over on the plane.  Everyone on the project wanted to give you this present.  Oh. There is a cable here for you to connect this to any video source like a TV or DVD.  The images will be sent to the array, and you can watch in your mind.  You might want to try that.  Got to run.  Hope you like it!"  He said.  There was a cab waiting outside for him.  He must have arranged for the cab to come back and get him.

"Wow!  Thanks!"  I waved goodbye to him, and went back in to see my new "toy".

It was still set to receive, so I created images in my mind and then sent them to the array.  I saved each image as a jpeg, and then copied them off onto a thumb drive. 

[My Room]  I took the drive up to my room where my computer was plugged in.  I made prints of each image on paper and then put them with my school bag.  I wanted to show these to Ginger tomorrow.

[Dining room]  I showed Mom and Dad how the array antenna worked.  I sent images to the computer and I could get images from the computer and send them to my parents.  I closed everything up and took it upstairs to my room.

[My Room]

==== Oct 4  78,200 words  about 156 pages

I set up the array antenna and computer.  I am going through the text for the blind, and the text for hospital volunteers.  I am making images to go with the text.

[Thursday]

[School] I did not bring the array antenna and computer to school.  I am going to be busy today with just ordinary schoolwork, I did not know who I would show it to.  I am going to make some arrangements first.

I spoke to my Science teacher and told him about the array antenna.  I asked him if the class would like a demonstration.  He was very excited and said "Yes!"

Paul was very interested in the antenna array.  I told him I would bring it to school tomorrow and show him.  He said that John had gone to all the homeless shelters and told the homeless about mind skills.  He is encouraging everyone to learn. Someone had given John some new clothes, so he is dressed up a little instead of discount store chique.

Ginger was very interested in the brain image pictures I showed her.  She brought several of the image pictures she had made for me.  I like hers better than the ones from the array antenna.  I gave her the stack of brain image pictures, and she is going to paint pictures based on them.  There were some duplicates, I said to try them anyway.  I think from here on I will give her brain images from the array antenna, rather than sending thing directly to her brain.  I also gave her the thumb drive.  She is going to work directly with the images and give them back to me as jpeg.  She was going to try to get everything ready by tomorrow.

[Living Room]  Jackie has several hundred addresses for the fan club members.  She has printed out the addresses on envelopes.  There are stacks of photographs.  Someone had added my signature to all of them.  One looked like a press photo someone had taken on the day we announced the array antenna for the blind.  I felt a little embarrassed to be the center of so much attention.

I sat down with the stack of mail that might become new contract work.  I might be able to add a new contract now that Rick's work was slowing down.  I did not expect to have to do much more for Dad.  I could help once in a while if he needed it.

[My Room]  I worked on the M3 paper and finished my changes.  I just needed the images from Ginger, and I could send the updated paper to Craig for posting online.  Craig has already said they were going to have a video crew here to film the updated paper.  He wanted the new paper and the video to go out the same day.  Maybe as early as Saturday.

I did my homework and prepared for quizzes tomorrow.  My reading for English class is going pretty well.  Reading a whole book is a lot, but the book report we write will be a big part of our grade.

I wrote a note to Max and thanked him for the array antenna and computer.  I said I was going to give demonstrations at school tomorrow.

[Friday]  I am leaving my regular computer home today.  I added my email to the new computer, so I can send email if I need to.  The smaller computer fits in my backpack with no problem.  The array antenna is not much bigger than a hard ball.

In Science the kids were fascinated with the array antenna.  I plugged it together and then demonstrated sending images to the computer.  I merged with the whole class, and then I sent the common image to the screen so they could see images in their minds and on the screen at the same time.  I explained about capturing images to jpeg format, and I showed the controls for video capture.  We put a dog in the common area.  When it was detailed and animated, I sent that video to the computer.  Then I played it back for everyone.  The biggest questions were "How much does it cost?", "Where can I get one?" and "How can we get one that will work with anyone."

We tried other people sending to the computer and we got some results.  It was not as clear as the ones I sent, but it was close.  Some people said that was good enough for a lot of things, where you just wanted to remember what you were thinking.  I showed every one how to see the blob around the array antenna.  Some of them seemed to pick up part or most of the images that were sent from the computer.  I wondered how specific the signal was, if so many kids could send and receive from it.  Even if it was fuzzy a bit.

During lunch I gave another demonstration for Paul, Theresa and a bunch of kids in the cafeteria.  They also tried sending and receiving from it.  Again we got pretty good results.

In Art, Ginger had the thumb drive to return to me, and she had the rest of the pictures on paper she had painted.  The images were numbered and all I had to do was put them with the new paper and send them.  I was going to check everything one more time.  I showed her and some of the Art class how to use the array antenna.  She sent a picture of an alien world from her mind to the computer.  It was eerie and beautiful.  We had wireless printers in the room, so we printed a copy of her picture and copied it to another thumb drive she had.  She said she could use that image as a starting point for a painting.

[Living Room]  Jackie was organizing the mail for tomorrow, she had gone through all the old mail and saved the names and addresses.  We were keeping a few of the letters, but many were going into the trash after we saved the addresses.  Just too much stuff.  The junk mail we were also saving names and addresses, and then into the trash.  I hope we are not missing anyone.  I went through the potential contract pile and looked for interesting contracts.  One of them looked interesting.  It was a hospital for the mentally ill.  They were asking for help in waking some of their patients, and in training the staff.  The hospital was not more than an hour away from here.  I mind called Susan and asked her if she had anything to do with this hospital yet.  She said no.  I gave her the contact names and address.  She was going to follow up with them.  I wrote a note and attached it to the letter to tell Mom and Jackie what I had done.  I also wrote down that I was interested in how mind skills would benefit people who were mentally ill.

[My Room]  I did my homework for the weekend.  I never knew when the weekend would get busy with contract work or volunteering.

I wrote a note for Max,thanking him again for the array antenna and computer.  I told him about my demonstrations at school, and I explained how most of the kids got something out of the array antenna, even when it was designed just for me.  I told him about Ginger making an image from which she was going to paint a painting.  I said the computer was very light, and the array was easy to use.

I finished the M3 paper and sent it to Craig along with all the images that Ginger had updated for me.  They looked good.  She had highlighted some parts that were supposed to be more important, and she had changed the colors to make them more attractive.  It did not change the meaning of the images.  I think hers were easier to see.

The hospital volunteer handbook was fairly long.  I had been updating it.  Now I made a copy and saved it as a mental hospital document.  I removed some things that were specific to emergency rooms, and I sketched in some things I had done with the mentally ill.  I had the array antenna and computer hooked up.  I sent images to the array computer to save them to go along with the text.

I wrote a note to Craig and told him that I was updating the textbook for the blind, the textbook for hospital volunteer, and a new textbook for mental hospitals.  Could he get some volunteers to write for the mental hospital text?

[Saturday]

[Living Room]  The video crew is here again this morning, to video tape the new paper on M3.  There were enough changes so they could not edit the last one.  I was dressed in my business suit and I felt better about it than the first time they did this.  Jackie and Mom had a huge pile of mail in the dining room.  Mom was helping Jackie with the addresses and names.  She had a big trash bag under the table.

The video crew left and I went upstairs to change, when I came back down, Mom and Jackie were just finishing.  "We are keeping track of the junk mail ones, in case you get any stalkers."  Mom said.

"Is that likely?"  I asked.  "We do not know, but Craig suggested we keep track, just in case.  If someone starts sending you lots of things, we might get worried.  People are sending you things now.  We have been giving the things to the thrift store, or throwing them away.  You get quite a few books, we are keeping a lot of those.  People send you books to review.  We are not sure what to do about them, some of them are pretty good."  Mom said.

Craig called to say that the video crew had good tapes and they were not going to need a lot of editing.  He was planning to release the new video and the new paper tonight.  I thanked him for all his hard work.  He said I was the one working hard.

Susan mind called and said she had made arrangements for Scott and Gary to visit the new mental health hospital.  They were going to call me if they got stuck. I told Susan about the textbook for mental health volunteers I started, and she said her volunteers would be happy to contribute.  I sent her a copy of the document later.  I told her I wanted to know how mind skills could benefit people who were mentally ill.

Paul called me to say that he was helping his Dad with mind merges.  They were interviewing prospective manufacturers.  He did not have any questions or problems.  He just wanted to talk.

[My Room]  I spent the time and finished my book for English.  I wrote down an outline of what I was going to say in the report.  All of this writing is improving my ability to write.  At least I know to just get it done and not worry about it.

I worked on drafts of the updates and then sent them all to Craig to have other people look at them.  I had added images to all the documents to show blob maps and the other things that were needed to help the blind, people in hospitals, and the mentally ill.  The array antenna was very handy.

Craig sent me several emails to answer.  I wrote back on most of them that "This is answered in M3." 

There was one note from Craig that was really interesting.  It was a description of all the volunteer groups around the world.  He even included reference to the volunteers helping the homeless.  I sent back a note thanking him for the information, and asking him to start a volunteer group to teach the mentally ill how to use mind skills.  I said I did not know what would happen, but I felt it was important.  Later he responded to my email.  He had forwarded it to a mailing list of all the volunteer leaders.  That way I asked hundreds of people to help the mentally ill.

One of the groups he talked about, that I had not thought about, was people who were in prison.  Volunteers had taught the prisoners how to merge and merge solve, and mindspeak.  That meant that no matter where they were, even in solitary, they could talk to each other, privately.  It also meant they could combine their minds to solve problems.  I did not know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Associated with the prisoners still in prisons were the prisoners who had been released.  There were volunteers helping them as well.  Many were trying to gain skills to enter the workforce, or to learn how to run businesses.  There were many "micro investing opportunites" as Dad would say.

Paul called again.

"I have volunteers helping the homeless and the hungry.  There are a dozen parents and their kids helping out.  The homeless are lining up to learn mind skills.  John is really everywhere getting the homeless organized.  He is running mind merges everywhere, and he is going into the streets to locate homeless who are not coming to the feeding kitchens."  he said.

"You might want to write up your experiences with volunteers and the homeless and hungry.  Send them to Craig Clarkson and tell him what you are doing.  He can post them on the Web Mappers Asssociation websites.  That way people with similar interests can become involved."  I said, and then gave him Craig's address.

"There is something else I wanted to tell you."  he said.

"What is that?"  I asked.

"Many of the kids at school have been teaching their younger brothers and sisters how to use mind skills.  Mind speaking, mind merge and blob skills are getting into all the elementary schools.  These kids are really learning and they are very good.  You remember Sherry, and her ability to send emotions.  There are younger kids who can send emotions too, and there are some who can send music.  It seems that it is even easier to teach young kids than teenagers."  Paul said.

"Is this