OoP clues?

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 158094

---  "Clifford Vander Yacht" <CliffVDY at ...> wrote:
>
> > ...edited...
> 
> Cliff here:
> As I have personal experience in Muggle telepathy, I 
> can say that making your mind blank is NOT the way to
> block intrusion. In fact, to get telepathic messages,
> feelings and images, your mind (...) must be free of 
> interference. Thus Snape told HP exactly the wrong 
> thing as Snape wanted LV to be able to access Harry's
> mind.
>
> ...edited...
> 
> Now, JKR may have not known what I know, so she 
> couldn't write it. Or, of course, she was making an 
> obvious clue to those of us who do know that Snape is 
> a bad egg. I caught the situation on my first reading 
> of the book.
> 
> Cliff, who hopes he's not alone in using telepathy.
>

bboyminn:

While I do agree with what you are saying, I think the
Occlumency lessons are dealing with a very fine 
distinction between what you are saying and what Snape
is saying.

True you need to have a calm quiet mind for it to be
open to psychic input, but Harry's cases is very special.
He is not operating on normal psychic preception. He has
a special connection specifically to Voldemort. 

I suspect that it wasn't so much his mind that Harry 
needed to clear as his emotions. If you are emotionally 
aggitated, then you don't sleep as well. When you are in
deep sleep, you are completely cut off. But when you are
in Deam or REM sleep you are as close to conscious as you
can be and still remain asleep. During restless troubled
sleep, Harry's near conscious mind is more excessable, 
and more prone to suggestion. His mind is active and
awake (or nearly so), but being asleep, it is cut off 
from his control.

So, I suggest that in restless sleep Harry was more 
vulnerable to Voldemort, far more vulnerable than he 
would be if he were in calm deep sleep, and that is
why he needed to calm himself. 

I do agree with you that to open yourself to psychic 
connections, you need to concentrate, and to concentrate
you need to clear your mind of distractions. So a calm 
mind is a more open mind. But if Harry has a practiced 
calm mind, I think he would also have a better ability to 
distinguish between his own normal dreams and dreams that 
were being forced on him by Voldemort. If his mind is 
cluttered and filled with thoughts, it makes it harder
to sort them out. 

In a sense, it seems that the Occlumency lesson did open
Harry's mind further, but at the same time when he slept
a calm sleep he was less prone to dreams. So, it is a 
toss up. 

I think both Snape and Dumbledore could have done a better
job of explaining things to Harry. You can't order or 
threaten someone into calming their mind, that simply 
doesn't work and likely will have the opposite effect. 
There are valid, ancient, and well-known techniques for 
calming the mind; creative visualization, meditation, 
yoga, deep breathing, and a host of others. Even reading 
a book before bed to distract his mind from all the 
troubles of the day would probably have helped.

I think Snape was the absolute worst choice to teach
Harry, partly because as a spy, it put Snape in the 
worst possible position. It simply added to the load of
things he is forced to hide from Voldemort. The greater
that load, the more difficult it becomes. 

Further, it should have been clear that the animosity
between Snape and Harry was going to be counter 
productive. Harry needed to be calm, and how could he
be calm after spending an hour being abused by his worst
enemy? By having his deepest secrets revealed to someone
he so thoroughly despised? 

Still I can see why Dumbledore chose Snape. Snape is an
Order member, he can be trusted, he didn't have to bring
anyone new into the picture, and Snape is a superb
Occlumens. Unfortunately, superb Occlumens that he is, he
was still the worst possible teacher in this circumstance.

I don't think Snape is ESE (Ever So Evil), but I do think
he is ESN (Ever so Nasty), and I do think Dumbledore forced
Snape to divide his loyalties in a nearly impossible way.

Just a thought.
Steve/bboyminn