Biography

I was born in Yantai, China and grew up in several different cities across Canada before settling in Toronto.

After graduating from the University of Toronto with a major in English and minors in biology and semiotics, I received a certification in hypnotherapy under the instruction of Debbie Papadakis.

A member of the National Guild of Hypnotists, I take a compassionate, client-centred approach in helping people achieve their goals by recruiting support from their unconscious minds. I've worked with various experts to produce two books, and I'm currently working on my own studies applying hypnosis to acting, the topic of my next book.

I am available for ghostwriting projects, speaking engagements, and private consultation on hypnotherapy.

The coordinate biography

I received my first computer in 1990 and started programming it shortly afterward. Four years later, I registered an account at a community Internet service provider, naïvely describing it as “like a BBS, only a lot bigger, and with people from all around the world.” As I grew up using the Internet, I started to imagine what a worldwide communication network would do for the evolution of human consciousness; my greatest realization, as a 12-year-old, was that few people cared what my “real” identity was as long as I could type out my ideas clearly and effectively. This lesson would become vital later in my life.

In 1995, I started to investigate a branch of artificial intelligence called natural language processing, or NLP, which allows computers to read and write human languages such as English or Swahili. However, in my research, I soon came across another expansion of “NLP.” Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a controversial method of psychotherapy that claims, among other things, to have modelled subjective experience so well that clients can be “programmed” with language formed in a certain way.

Although the idea of “programming” my mind seemed like a natural extension of the cognitive science model of the mind as a computer, it turned out be an overstatement. While I did have some successes, I started to supplement my knowledge through the related field of hypnosis, which I found to be much more holistic. Hypnosis was so fascinating to me that my efforts in computer programming have since fallen to the wayside.

My three favourite albums are currently Jason Webley's Counterpoint, Patti Smith's Horses, and Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, all of which contain beautiful poetry.

Why soundofwater.com?

The sound of water is:

1. A soothing or mesmerizing influence.
2. The life and salvation that do not manifest in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.
3. A metaphor for the fluidity of thought.
4. A flushing toilet.
5. Ink spilling across a sheet of blotter paper, leaving ambiguous silhouettes in its path.