Photo: Getty Images
No one likes to be in pain, and there are many ways to deal with it if you are, from medication to acupuncture, but it turns out that the Central Intelligence Agency found a very strange method for reducing pain, and it was recently declassified and revealed.
It comes from a 1977 document that was developed by the Monroe Institute of Applied Science working as part of the CIA's Gateway Program, which had a goal of changing states of consciousness to bring about a "gateway into different modes of perception."
The technique is described in the Gateway Intermediate Workbook, and explains that you can make pain go away by closing your eyes and visualizing the part of your body that's in discomfort. Next comes the weird part, once you are focused in on the painful body part, you repeat the number 55515 in your head until the pain goes away. Per the workbook, "when you do these two things the pain signals will reduce until they are no longer important."
The technique was listed under "Daily Tools" in the workbook. Stranger still, under the section heading it says "for use in your physical waking life."
Photo: CIA.gov
As odd as it all may seem, plenty of people are swearing by the method. One TikToker who suffered from chronic back pain after a car accident tried it and said it worked and "it freaked me out."
Commenters had similar reactions, with many agreeing that the method works. One stated, "I have lower back pain and the pain went away," and another claimed, "I just tried this with my sciatic pain just now and it's going away." Others are more skeptical, writing, "People act like they don't know about the placebo effect."
As if it all weren't bizarre enough, the workbook has a warning at the start of it that reads, "The material contained herein is intended for the personal and private use only by those who have completed the first Session of the Gateway Program. The attempted application by others may result in undesirable and uncontrolled effects detrimental to any such unauthorized user."
You can read more and see the Gateway Intermediate Workbook at the CIA's website.