Perspective on Consciousness

[Constance]

Thanks for sharing that.... No really.

Maybe we could talk about it. I didn't mean to be abrasive in my comment. I actually find it interesting that a number of texts like this crop up these days, and I think it would be worthwhile to pursue why this is happening.

 

[Constance]

Coming back to Schuyler's original post {btw, is he/she still here?}, I don't think his/her heightened sense of consciousness was anything to worry about (surely not a serious mental aberration or it would most likely have led to the development of schizophrenia or other disabling psychotic conditions). Some experiences, or a succession of experiences, can trigger a sudden access of consciousness -- a recognition of the capacity of one's consciousness to become aware of itself. This feels at first as if one has discovered another consciousness within one's own normal waking conscious awareness. I experienced this myself when I was about 24 or 25 years old, walking up a snow-covered hill on the University of Iowa's campus, and I found it unsettling. I considered that I might be losing my mind when in fact I was beginning to discover the complexity of mind and of the consciousness in which it develops. I should have thought along these lines a year or two earlier when I had experienced a spontaneous OBE on another campus, in Wisconsin, during which I discovered another consciousness alongside my normal consciousness, taking over 'my' perception of my body from across the room and contemplating it (and my condition) from a separate, dispassionate perspective. But I wasn't ready at that time to deal with the possible meaning of that experience or even to explore what was understood and not understood about OBEs at that time. Nor had I read anything about OBEs by the time, a year or two later, when {in what I referred to above as an 'access of consciousness'} I became aware of the operations of my reflective consciousness on my ordinary prereflective awareness.

 

[Tyger]

Coming back to Schuyler's original post {btw, is he/she still here?}

It doesn't look like he is. Won't he be surprised if he ever comes back onto the thread and discovers we've been playing in his backyard, putting up Christmas lights and having block-parties on his corner.

 

[Burnt State]

I don’t know quite how to explain this. I will fumble around it. I hope you will bear with me. I don’t think this is a ‘paranormal’ experience per se, but I suspect it is related. Since I was a small child, ever since I can remember at all, I have had the perception that the universe starts with me. I am at the center of it. I don’t mean this in an egotistical sense in that I think myself more important than anyone else. I mean it in the technical sense. “I” sense the world from somewhere behind my eyes. Everything else in the world is an ‘other.’ I can interact with these ‘others’ whether they be other humans, dogs, plants, carpets, chairs, or houses, but the fact is the center of the universe moves as I move. It can be sitting in an airplane traveling across the globe or sitting on a couch typing this note.

The thing is, if everyone else experiences the universe the same way, if this is simply an ‘artifact of perception and consciousness’ shared by everyone else who perceives they are the center of the universe, not me, why doesn’t anyone else talk about this? No one does. No one seems bothered by it. They seem content to be an ‘other.’ They seem oblivious to the issue.

Mental health spaces are always so engaging. Once upon a time, before the Matrix, I used to ask students to engage in this thought experiment, "how do you know that everyone around you isn't a cyborg biobot and you're not the only human being in existence, where the entire world is just a programmed event for your benefit?" Some, after serious consideration, expressed some real disorientation, so I canned that experiment. Heightened experiences, like Constance described, remind me of the moments preceding a panic attack, the sudden rush of reality not seeming right anymore, like you just stepped into the Twilight Zone but Rod Serling and cigarette are nowhere to be found - very disorienting indeed.

I've always lived with a keen sense of everyone's otherness and hoped they were doing the same. But these moments of mental discomfort are not common platforms for discourse; most in the room get uncomfortable. It's probably best to continue to celebrate your happy marriage and seek some wisdom from the loving dog and its inherent Buddhist nature. The dog is always living in the moment, bringing full presence to each and every action. In the dog mind,the dog just
is and is never troubled by any feelings of a heightened existence, or being alone in the universe. We can learn a lot from our dogs.

 

[Tyger]

Mental health spaces are always so engaging. Once upon a time, before the Matrix, I used to ask students to engage in this thought experiment, "how do you know that everyone around you isn't a cyborg biobot and you're not the only human being in existence, where the entire world is just a programmed event for your benefit?" Some, after serious consideration, expressed some real disorientation, so I canned that experiment.

Fascinating. [I feel like Mr Spock - but the word does apply. ]

 

[Constance]

. . . It's probably best to continue to celebrate your happy marriage and seek some wisdom from the loving dog and its inherent Buddhist nature. The dog is always living in the moment, bringing full presence to each and every action. In the dog mind,the dog just
is and is never troubled by any feelings of a heightened existence, or being alone in the universe. We can learn a lot from our dogs.

I appreciate what you're saying. I think most happy, well-cared-for, well-loved animals do live fully in the each present moment (whether with people who know how to treat them or in safe environments in the wild). And I think it's why we love to be around our animals and other well-off animals we meet in the world. But it seems clear that animals also experience moments of high anxiety, sometimes unfortunately long periods of it. One of the signs of our progress as a species is the increasing evidence in our time of human outrage over animal suffering and efforts to prevent or alleviate it. It's progress because it involves a recognition of animal consciousness and it ought to foster also greater recognition of our obligations to our fellow humans. It's also evident, I think, that animals, especially the ones who live with us, sense our state of mind in general and particularly at times when we are in emotional pain, not just if we act out that pain is some noisy way but even with it sit quietly with it. Animals also exhibit sensitivity to paranormal experiences and in a number of reported cases have acted intelligently on the basis of what appears to be precognitive knowledge.

 

[Burnt State]

I appreciate what you're saying. I think most happy, well-cared-for, well-loved animals do live fully in the each present moment (whether with people who know how to treat them or in safe environments in the wild). And I think it's why we love to be around our animals and other well-off animals we meet in the world. But it seems clear that animals also experience moments of high anxiety, sometimes unfortunately long periods of it. One of the signs of our progress as a species is the increasing evidence in our time of human outrage over animal suffering and efforts to prevent or alleviate it. It's progress because it involves a recognition of animal consciousness and it ought to foster also greater recognition of our obligations to our fellow humans. It's also evident, I think, that animals, especially the ones who live with us, sense our state of mind in general and particularly at times when we are in emotional pain, not just if we act out that pain is some noisy way but even with it sit quietly with it. Animals also exhibit sensitivity to paranormal experiences and in a number of reported cases have acted intelligently on the basis of what appears to be precognitive knowledge.

I agree wholeheartedly with everything up to the precognitive part. When my dog, and sometimes personal shadow, Badger, sits in front of me for food hidden on my person, I know he's not reading my mind, it's just that his nose is like some some super quantum computer compared to my sense of smell. I know there are these moments, though where he does appear to know what's going on ahead of time, but then I think perhaps he has senses that pick up on subtle nuances and intersections that are also beyond me.

For sure my former cat could read my emotional state almost as good as my Ouija board could. Animals have a lot to teach us about living in our skin, thinking, patience and being human.