Too many times I am aware that I am to wrapped up in my own problems, and not seeing the wider picture, of what is happening to other people, to listen what they saying to me, what information they are giving me, in fact, what information is available to me in the outside world.
As I watch other people, I also observe the same attitude, people just wandering around in their own world, missing vital clues, missing opportunities, missing messages of change, missing signals, even missing money just waiting to be picked up on the street. (see Playing with Phillip’s Sausage).
These clues, these messages are picked up. Not perhaps consciously, but certainly subconsciously, and we fail to recognise the signals the subconscious gives us, we let the opportunities pass us by.
We are too centered in our vision, which is called foveal vision, we are too aware of our own internal dialog to hear and notice external sounds, we are too attentive on our own state to notice the feelings, smells and tastes that are all around us.
Perhaps it is George Millers’ 7 +/- 2, where we delete, distort and generalise, resulting in our own Map of the Territory, or cat on the mat.
By becoming aware of the peripheral signals, messages from the outside world, signals both internally and externally, perhaps by using La Salsiccia di Phillip, Phillip’s Sausage, by having an active dialog between our conscious and unconscious, being aware what the subconscious is telling us, we can enhance our world, as Freud said making “a decisive step towards a new orientation in the world and in science“, or Gregory Bateson said to be in “uptime” or having the use of “loose thinking“.
Our subconscious, unconscious mind does notice these signals or messages, and we have to start to notice them. Our eyes will look at an object, but we fail to see consciously what we looked at. We make movements, perhaps a change in step, perhaps by a hand signal, perhaps a change in our breathing, our heart rate.
Why are we making these signals?
What to they mean?
Bateson stated that we should :-
a) use peripheral vision as opposed to foveal vision
b) focus on external sounds instead of our own internal dialog
c) have no excess emotional thoughts and to be in a physically relaxed state.
Walk around the streets, and start to notice the signals you have missed before given by the unconscious mind.
For example, when you notice you take a deep breath in, STOP in your tracks STOP what you are doing, and go back just before you took the deep breath in and ask, “why did I take that deep breath in?”
When you notice your eyes flicked to an object, even for an instant, a fraction of a second, STOP, and ask, “why did I look at that item, what did I notice?”
When that involuntary movement happens, STOP, and ask,”why did I make that movement, what did I notice, what do I notice now?”
By stopping and noticing what happened to you, what did you notice that you were unaware of, you will begin to see more, hear more, feel more, to start to have an active dialog between our conscious and unconscious, to have what Robert Dilts calls in his book From Coach to Awakener, an awakening, or Dr Win Wenger of Project Renaissance called Side Bands.
