Week 1 Workshop: Implantation, Gestation, and Thought Communication

Implant your CCS, learn what gestation does to you, and take your first run at thought communication

26 July 2027

Lab Tasks

In this week’s lab you will:

  1. Quick guide for implantation + FAQs/troubleshooting
  2. Understanding what is happening during gestation, how it feeds on you
  3. Understanding how thought communication works (more in depth coverage in week 2 & 3 lecture)

Task 0: Implantation Quick Start Guide

Preferably you should have implanted before the tutorial. Your self-implantation kit also has more detailed instructions on what exactly you need to do, however, here is a brief summary — the gist of what you need to do in order to implant a CCS inside your body.

The implantation process itself is rather simple and pain-free as you are injecting yourself with the building blocks necessary for the development of a CCS organ within your body. However, the same can not be said about the gestation period, as this and the ensuing periods of CCS hyperactivity (e.g. such as when you mind meld with them) lead to and cause the most side effects.

In your self-implantation kit, you should have the following:

In the rare chance that you are missing something or have misplaced components within the kit please let a member of course staff know and we can let you know if any replacements can be made available.

To load your syringe with the contents of the vial use the following instructions. Please read them over entirely before attempting.

  1. Find a clean space with lots of light to set up your equipment. Wash your hands. Hold the stem cell vial up to the light. If the contents are not a clear purple e.g. it looks cloudy, or there are bits floating in it, do not use it. Check the expiration date and dose again to be sure.
  2. Take the cap off the vial. Put the vial on a flat surface. Clean the rubber stopper with an alcohol wipe for 10–15 seconds
  3. Clean the injection area with an alcohol wipe. Or, pour alcohol over the area. Clean the area in a circular pattern, from the center moving out.
  4. Pull the needle cover straight off the syringe. Pull back the plunger to the number on the syringe that matches your dose.
  5. Insert the needle straight down into the center of the vial. Push the plunger of the syringe all the way down
  6. Gently tap the syringe with your fingers until the larger air bubbles rise to the top. Slowly push the plunger up a little to force the large air bubbles out.
  7. After air bubbles are gone, pull the plunger back to the 2mL demarcation. It is okay if you have left over stem cells in the vial. This is normal.
  8. Pull the syringe and needle out of the vial. Carefully remove the needle from the syringe. Put the needle in the sharps box (found in your sharps disposal kit).
  9. Place a new injection needle on the syringe. Twist the syringe slightly to prevent leakage. Remove the cap from the needle.

To self-implant with a filled syringe follow the following instructions carefully. You should inject anywhere halfway between your knee and your hip on the outer part of the thigh. Aim for where the top of a pants back pocket would be. This will help you avoid hitting the sciatic nerve, which can cause serious pain and injury.

  1. If you can’t get to a sink, you can clean the injection area with an alcohol wipe. Or, pour alcohol over the area. Clean the area in a circular pattern, from the center moving outwards
  2. Stretch the skin tight, away from the injection site
  3. Quickly and firmly stick the needle straight through the skin and into the muscle with the needle perpendicular to your skin. The needle should disappear into your skin completely. If this is distressing for you, do not look at the needle when you inject yourself, however, if doing so please ensure that your injection technique is correct. If you feel extreme pain when you inject, you probably hit a nerve. Remove the needle right away!
  4. Slowly push the plunger to inject the bionically augmented induced pluripotent stem cells. Wait 5 seconds. You can now let go of the skin.
  5. Pull back on the syringe to remove the needle from your skin. Carefully put the needle and syringe into your sharps box. If you are bleeding, gently press a clean tissue or cotton ball on the spot. Use a bandage if needed.
  6. Wash your hands with water and soap.

And you’re done! Assuming you followed these instructions carefully (more details in the documentation provided in your self-injection kits) you now have a CCS growing inside you. Congratulations.

FAQs

Task 1: What to expect when you’re expecting (a CCS)

You must take immense care for your CCS when in its formative stages, as there is research to suggest that this will directly affect how well they will function in the future when fully grown. This gestation only takes up to 8 weeks. You will know when gestation as finished. Everyone knows when this process finishes. We’ll talk about how in later lectures and workshops.

Here are some practical tips to ensure that you are doing the most to care for your growing CCS:

Please note that you must continue with these even after gestation has completed, and it’s a good habit to maintain even in the periods between renewal. The process and purpose of CCS renewal will be discussed in depth during the Week 4 workshop, but think of it now as an oil change for your companion.

Task 2: Practicing thought communication

Now that your CCS is gestating inside you, you may experience side effects (see documentation within your self-implantation kit for an exhaustive list) chief amongst them being brain zaps (may take upwards of 48 hours to develop). This is a brief, electric shock-like sensation in your head — a brain zap — that you may experience up to multiple times an hour. Although this side effect seems distressing, it is probably the most important one as it could be caused by a fundamental restructuring of your brain — this phenomenon is perhaps some of the earliest exploitations of your brain’s neuroplasticity by the CCS. To ensure optimal performance, we want to strengthen this primitive connection that the CCS is creating to your brain with the following exercise.

Making the consciously accessible clearer

Firstly, inside our minds, we think a lot, we’re constantly thinking calculating thoughts that are subconscious and thoughts that are more unconscious. As you read this sentence, circuits in your brain are adjusting your posture, controlling your breathing, and transforming lines and curves on the screen into recognizable words. Most of this processing is invisible to you. But some of what takes place in your brain you do have access to—an image that pops into your head, or a deliberate plan you make about where to go shopping. Neuroscientists and philosophers sometimes refer to the latter type of brain activity as “consciously accessible,” to distinguish it from all the other processing that goes on unconsciously. This activity has special properties: we can describe it, control it, and use it for deliberate reasoning, in contrast to all the automatic processing that goes on without our awareness.

A CCS is a very simple bionic organism, it takes in your thoughts — perhaps a request to do something — and then manipulates your neuroactivity, your muscles, your memory, and so on, to achieve a resolution to this thought. When naïvely interacting with a CCS there’s quite a lot of noise on the wire from other consciously accessible thoughts that will diminish the quality of the instruction hence the quality of the output that you obtain from said instruction. As a result, we need to eliminate all other thoughts apart from the one that is directly required to instruct the CCS into doing whatever needs to be done. A classic example of this is the following naïve thought pattern that could be used to instruct a CCS:

How do I draw an abstract painting? who are some abstract painters? what are their painting styles? How can I emulate their styles? What techniques would be most useful? Have I found/consulted enough sources to be confident in my decisions? ➜ CCS ➜ CCS Output

Of course, the middle step is rather dramatized but think yourself when you’ve been in a situation where you have needed to get something done — there are a multitude of questions and thoughts flying around in your mind. We know that CCS’s can reason for us so these are all just noise, the only thing you need is the first thought. This is the crux of how we will rewire our brains over the semester, and it may seem easy but Dunning-Kruger beware it is very difficult.

Rephrase the following thought pattern examples with a partner by identifying the most important question in the chain, do so individually internalising the thought pattern in your mind, then compare notes verbally:

  1. How do I convert minutes/kilometre into kilometre/hour?

Lastly, your tutors (and even your peers) will be able to help you throughout these exercises so please lean on them if you have any questions.