NUMBER 5 IS ALIVE: Awakening the Bliss Circuit (and Remembering You’re Not a Robot)

Kelly Palmer
Jul 23
3 min read

You know that feeling of living on autopilot? Repeating old loops, stuck in survival mode, or just kind of flat — even when everything “should” feel good?

That might be because your inner robot is running the show. Or as Robert Anton Wilson would say, your lower brain circuits are still stuck in survival, territory, or social programming — and haven’t yet remembered the higher octaves of your being.

But what if Number 5 is alive?

If that reference makes you smile, you're already tuned in. It comes from the cult 1980s film Short Circuit, where a robot struck by lightning suddenly wakes up to its own consciousness.

It learns to dance, to feel, to be.

We are programmable beings—our reality is shaped by how our brains are wired, imprinted, conditioned, and educated. Most of our behavior is not conscious but automatic, based on early survival programs. But we have the ability to reprogram ourselves, transcending inherited limitations.

This is what Wilson's book, Prometheus Rising is all about: shaking yourself out of the trance, and reclaiming the totality of your consciousness — body, mind, and mystery.

You are not your software. You are the programmer (if you choose to be). Read on to find out how.

A Quick Refresher: The 8-Circuit Brain Model

Wilson adapts from Timothy Leary to map human consciousness as an 8-circuit bio-computer:

Survival Is it safe? - safety, comfort, fear of death. Imprinted in infancy
Emotional/Territorial Who’s in charge? - Power, status, dominance. Imprinted in toddlerhood.
Symbolic/Conceptual What does this mean? - Language, logic, symbols. Imprinted in school-age.
Social-Sexual Am I lovable? - Gender identity, reproduction, moral rules. Imprinted in puberty.
Neurosomatic / Bliss Circuit Bliss, body-mind unity, ecstasy. Activated through yoga, psychedelics.
Archetypal / Genetic Memory Archetypes, DNA consciousness. Mystical experiences.
Metaprogramming / Self-Awareness The self-aware programmer. Conscious re-wiring.
Quantum Nonlocality / Transpersonal Mystery Telepathy, time-travel, quantum awareness.

Most people spend their lives bouncing between circuits 1–4: fear, dominance, thinking, performing. But Circuit 5 is the gateway to aliveness — to a state of embodied pleasure, joy, and deep presence.

Circuits 5–8 belong to the awakening of a new humanity.

Ergo, what you experience as “self” is a patchwork quilt of software from parents, teachers, TV, peers, advertising, and primal fear. Once you question the first few layers, a whole new universe becomes available. The real “you” is not the survival story. It is the one watching that story unfold—calm, spacious, and amused.

Circuits 5 through to 8 aren't fantasies: they are part of the human design, simply underused. Practices such as yoga, breathwork, meditation, sex magic, and psychedelics can trigger them. In a sense, humanity is not “evolving” toward these circuits—we are remembering them. They are dormant capacities ready to bloom in the right conditions of trust, play, and openness.

So What Is Circuit 5?

Also called the holistic neurosomatic circuit, Circuit 5 is the shift from thinking to feeling. From surviving to thriving. From enduring life to actually enjoying it.

This is where somatic wisdom, breath, pleasure, yoga, plant medicine, and sacred sexuality live.

This is the circuit that says: “Wait a second. I have a body. And this body is a miracle.”

This is the circuit that lets you trust life — not just mentally, but physically. It’s what turns your nervous system from a battlefield into a temple.

How to Activate Circuit 5 (and Feel More Alive)

You don’t need lightning, like the robot. You just need presence. Here are some real practices Wilson recommends (and some intuitive additions):

✨ 1. Hatha Yoga + Somatic Movement

Not for performance — for presence. Let movement be pleasurable. Let stillness be sacred. Your body is listening.

✨ 2. Sacred Cannabis (yes, really)

Gently and with reverence, cannabis can help you feel again. Breathe. Move. Let your body speak. (And don’t rush the download.)

✨ 3. Float Tanks & Breathwork

Sensory deprivation tanks or circular breathing can shake loose the frozen tension of the old circuits — and deliver you softly to your Self.

✨ 4. Pleasure, Touch, Connection

Bliss is a skill. Joy is a frequency. Touch yourself. Let someone hold you. Feel the sun on your skin and say: thank you.

✨ 5. Laughter + Play

Nothing short-circuits fear like laughter. Wilson reminds us that humour is one of the highest states of intelligence. Watch a silly movie. Dance like the robot. Get weird.

You Are Not a Machine

You are not a program. You are not just surviving. You are life — alive, awake, and allowed to feel good.

Let Number 5 be alive in you.

Want to remember more?

If you want to hear about unlocking Circuits 6 through to 8, comment, reach out, and let me know. We have nothing to lose or gain but ourself.