Stupid Thursday Questions: Powers of Suggestion Edition
SF Weekly reviews a new dim sum place.
The reviewer states “The most puzzling dish was a basil taro cake that had no trace of basil, and although there were dried baby prawns on top, it tasted exactly like a blueberry bagel. (I would eat a bite of something else with an entirely different flavor and come back to it, but it was always blueberry bagel. Mystifying.)”
I went there today and the place was really good but the reviewer was right about the Taro Cake. It really did taste like a blueberry and had the consistency of a chewy bagel or muffin.
The question is whether I thought it tasted like a blueberry bagel because the taro cake did taste like a blueberry bagel. Or whether the taro cake tasted like a blueberry bagel because I did the review before going to the restaurant.
Today’s Stupid Questions is when was the last time your were the victim of the powers of suggestion?
I expect something blubbery would be rather chewy.Report
I just went ahead and fixed that.Report
But it was such a good unintentional typo….
Sniff… 😉Report
Good thing I quoted the typo, otherwise my comment would make no sense at all.Report
Everybody loves hypnotoad!Report
I’m sure I succumb to suggestion all the time. But I just can’t recall any of them at the moment.Report
You were telling me about one of those times just yesterday. You remember that, don’t you? Of course you do. Just close your eyes, take some deep breaths, and tells us all about it.Report
Are you suggesting that I would succumb to suggestion?Report
The prime characteristic of blueberries is sour, so I don’t think you’re imagining things.
Wine, on the other hand, is often designed to bring out taste hallucinations (where one’s prior taste-mappings determine what one says it tastes like.) If a wine is strongly flavored, it will taste like grapes — it’s only the weakly flavored ones that taste like peanut butter.Report
I may possibly be in the throes of a serious ‘power of suggestion’ episode myself. My lower back has been acting up enough lately that I scheduled a visit to my physical therapist or, as I call him, the Miracle Worker. This guy has a PhD in physical therapy and so trust him perhaps more than I should. He combines deep tissue work, ‘aggressive’ realignment and some basic exercises that usually get me back on track with a couple of weeks. Well this time he has some new tricks…
He has been subjecting me to something called ‘dry needling’ which involves pushing a total of 8 needles about 2 inches deep on both sides of my spine and then running an electric current throuhh them for 10 minutes. It sounds like poppycock but damn if it doesn’t work. I get days of relief while my muscles are allowed to heal.
He completely sold me when he described the science behind it but then I told a friend who is an orthopedic surgeon and he said it was horse shit.He admitted though that the power of suggestion is a powerful thing. So…am I an idiot or should I just play along so long as it appears to work?Report
If it works and you insist on proving to yourself that it doesn’t, then you’d be an idiot.Report