Silencing the Demon
Using Pleasure to Hijack Your Busy Mind
You know that voice. It waits until you’re quiet.
Until you’re trying to relax.
Then it starts:
Replaying that embarrassing moment from 2017.
Rehearsing a difficult argument (that will never happen).
Worrying about the way you wrote that important email.
Relentless. Exhausting. Default.
Neuroscientists call it the Default Mode Network. DMN.
We call it what it feels like: the Demon.
The Trap
The DMN isn’t evil.
It’s the part of your brain that constructs your sense of self, accesses your memories, plans your future, and helps you understand what others are thinking. It’s essential for being human.
The problem is: It doesn’t have an off switch.
And it absolutely cannot handle empty space.
The moment you try to get quiet – to meditate, to chill, to feel – your Demon rushes in to fill the void.
This creates a frustrating paradox: You can’t out-think the DMN, because thinking is the problem. Trying to quiet your mind with more thinking is like putting out fire with gasoline.
You need a different way out.
The Antidote
Your brain has a built-in counter-force to the Demon. Neuroscientists call it the Task Positive Network (TPN).
While the DMN is about past and future, the TPN is purely about right now. It’s the network that activates when you are completely absorbed in a complex task, focused on an external goal, or fully immersed in raw physical sensation. When you are “in the zone,” your TPN is running the show.
Here is the crucial neurological rule: The Demon and the Antidote cannot be active at the same time.
They sit on a neurological seesaw. When one goes up, the other must go down.
The Anchor
To activate this antidote, you need a physical sensation strong enough to demand your brain’s full attention.
Passive observation won’t cut it. Watching your breath or listening to the silence of your room is too gentle; the DMN easily talks right over it.
You need something that forces razor-sharp focus. Something that feels… good.
If only such a thing existed… Oh, wait!
Your pelvic floor. Your Source!
This area has an unusually dense, powerful neural connection to your brain.
And unlike watching your breath, engaging your Source is intrinsically rewarding.
When you gently flex it, you don’t just get simple sensation.
You get pleasure.
The Reward
This is where everything changes.
Regular meditation quiets the Demon with stillness. It works, but it’s neutral, and fleeting. Tomorrow you start over.
Mindgasm quiets the Demon with pleasure.
Pleasure means dopamine.
Dopamine means your brain pays attention and stamps a bookmark: “This felt good – do it again!”
Pavlov figured this out a century ago: Pair an action with a reward often enough, and the action becomes the reward. Each session makes the next one easier. The pathway strengthens itself.
You’re not just distracting the Demon.
You are rewiring your brain to choose sensation over suffering.
The Practice
1. Catch the Cycle
You can’t escape a loop you don’t see. The moment you catch yourself replaying an old regret or pre-living tomorrow’s stress — that’s gold. Don’t judge it. Just stop. You’ve just created a tiny gap between you and the spiral.
2. Drop the Anchor
Immediately shift focus to your Source. Give it a gentle internal squeeze — just enough to feel a spark of warmth or a tingle. That physical action is you manually tipping the neurological seesaw from thinking to feeling.
3. Stay with the Sensation
The DMN will fight back; it hates losing control.
Regret tries to pull you back? Shift focus to the squeeze.
Worry interrupts? Notice the tingle instead.
You are making the physical pleasure more interesting than the mental fiction.
Every time you return to the sensation, the new pathway gets stronger
The Practice
At first, you steal seconds. The Demon is loud. The sensation faint.
But the seesaw tips easier each time.
The body becomes more interesting than the noise. The pleasure pathway grows.
And then you notice: you’re not in your head anymore.
You’re here.
Present.
In the now.
The Demon? Still talking.
You’re just too busy feeling good to listen.