Perceptions and Reality

Today I'm coming at you with a state of questioning reality. And stay with me here, this is going to be a little bit of a dive.

But I really hope it helps us understand how much of an impact our perceptions have on the reality we actually are able to experience.

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Transcript

0:00  
Welcome back, my friend, it's your girl, Stefanie here, and today I'm coming at you with a state of questioning reality. And stay with me here, this is going to be a little bit of a dive. But I really hope it helps us understand how much of an impact our perceptions have on the reality we actually are able to experience. 

0:22  
I was watching a lecture by a Anil Seth, he's a professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. And something in this lecture really piqued my interest. I did notice, however, that he and I definitely interpret things a little bit differently. Something that he is studying right now is consciousness, and in his viewpoint, consciousness arises from our biology. I, on the other hand, feel a little bit differently about it, I feel like our consciousness is something that animates our biology instead of arising from it. 

0:59  
But the thing that I aligned with him in a very deep way was he shared an experiment that he had done. I don't remember how many years ago, I will link that the the YouTube video that I watched down in the comments, so if you're interested, you can go check it out. But there was this experiment that they had done where, in one eye, there'd be a face that was presented slowly, the image kind of coming for slowly and fading. The other eye, it was a very dominant image. And they would flash both images only in the respective eyes. So the face in the left eye, and the other image in the right eye. 

1:34  
And what they found is that the brain didn't actually bring these two things together, the brain saw the most dominant image. But when they gave these individuals who were seeing these images, the suggestion of what they should be seeing, then they started seeing the face. So they would flash the word of face before they flashed the images. And then the brain was able to pick up the image of the face that would fade in and fade out. And something that he shared about this was along the lines of people see more quickly and more accurately, when they are expecting to see that thing. 

2:13  
So what this means is that if a person expects to see a face, right in this particular experiment, then they're going to see the face if they don't expect to see the face. And there's other things in the reality that are more dominant, they won't see the face will only see what's dominant in their environment. And it really got me thinking very deeply about our brains. And this phenomenon that our brains have of wanting to predict outcomes. And this prediction process is happening all the time, every day, all day long, as long as we're conscious, or brain is actually predicting running patterns. And it's based on not only our current environment, that's part of the equation, but a lot of our past experiences and our past environments that we have been in. 

3:00  
So everything that's been mapped in your brain is from the past, and we're looking through that lens to then predict the next step, to predict the future, to predict what we're going to experience in the present moment, whatever it is. We're using this predictive ability of the brain to then create an expectation of what's going to be happening. And when we think about this really deeply, when we understand that the brain is making predictions about our future based on the past, then if we allow that system to just run automatically on its own, without us interrupting it without any internal direction. The lives that we experience right now, in this moment, or tomorrow will be a direct prediction of the past because of the way our brains operate naturally. 

3:47  
And this is important to operate this way. If we didn't have a map of what happened in the past, and were to help us move forward in the future, we would probably end up dying, like it's a protective mechanism to keep us safe, to keep us alive to keep us healthy, based on our experiences. So everybody's version of that could be different based on past programming that's been wired into the brain. And this is a really big concept to understand. And I think it's challenging because it's so intangible. It's something you can talk about people can point towards, we can use words to try to describe and help us understand. 

4:21  
But until we actually play with it and practice it, it's hard to get a grasp on what it actually means. And the interesting thing about this, at least the way that I look at it, this predictive nature that our brains have, could also represent our perceptions. So our past experiences are built in the brain predicting what's going to happen next trying to figure that out. And that's the lens through which we see the world or in other words, our perceptions. 

4:48  
And because everyone has a different past experience, and mapped that in their brain of what reality is or should be. We experience our lives very differently. Based on those perceptions, you can have a completely different experience of your life than your sibling does. Even though you were raised in the same home, your perceptions are very unique and very different. Which goes really far and explaining why two people, even with different backgrounds can be in a similar situation, or maybe even the same situation, and walk away from that experience, with a completely different perception of it, one person might label it as a beautiful experience, and the other person might have been not excited about it at all, because their perception couldn't actually see the value in the experience that the other person was able to perceive. 

5:40  
So we can let our past experiences and our current environment dictate what we see or what we perceive the perception through which we view the world. Or go inside to see what's actually going on. So that we can begin to make those subtle shifts and changes and give our brain new direction. We need to really grab the reins of this prediction process that the brain is having, and do it in such a way that it gives us a new option. 

6:09  
So instead of allowing the environment to then dictate what's going to happen, now in the present moment reality because of your perceptions, you need to literally give yourself a new direction, instead of allowing your external environment and past programming to create what you experience in this moment. And this moment, and tomorrow. And next week, if you feel and this isn't abnormal, if you feel that way. Because I felt this way before. If you feel like you're living Groundhog Day, and can't get out of that loop, you are recreating the past, now, based on old programming. 

6:49  
And this is not something that you need to feel guilty or shame about. It's something just to be aware of, to really integrate it in a way that gives you wisdom to know that, okay, I have these set of beliefs that I picked up throughout my lifetime, I have my current environment that's maybe not ideal. How can I then make changes internally, to not repeat the past, and actually purposefully create this moment, and my future. 

7:17  
The process of changing our perceptions, and the way we see the world is a gradual one. It's not something, at least for the normal everyday person, that you wake up one day and your perceptions are exactly how you want them to be, and you experience everything in your life the way you want it to be. That's not really reality, there's still external things that impact how we experience the world. But if we can focus on shifting our perceptions, what happens is we begin to see different possibilities that have always been there. But we couldn't see before. 

7:51  
Just like this experiment where one I was seeing a face fading in and out. And when I was seeing a dominant image, if we don't go internally, if we don't give our brain a new thing to look for, all we will see is the dominant image. So we need to go internally, and give our brain some different expectations of what we could begin to see. It's this process of becoming open to new possibilities. And you have to be willing to change the perceptions you currently see through not only yourself, but see the world through and challenge those perceptions that are holding you back from seeing something different and something new.

8:34  
I'm going to give an example of this so that you can have a concrete idea of what this could look like. So I have a pattern in my brain of social anxiety. And I've noticed something that when I go into the situation, with my brain predicting, based on the past, that I'm going to feel uncomfortable, I'm going to say something weird, I'm going to feel isolated, I'm going to be the weird one in the corner. If that's what I'm giving my brain as I'm going into this experience, I will more accurately and more clearly see and experience that thing. 

9:11  
But and this is something I'm working with - for myself. If I can go into that situation with a different perception, and open to a different experience of myself, in a social setting. And maybe even giving my brain specific things to be looking for while I'm there. In order for me to experience a social situation differently, a new perception is required. If I were never willing to challenge the perception of experiencing social anxiety over and over again. If I kept that I would continue to experience that. But if I decided I wanted a different experience, I could open up my ideas of what I could be experiencing in a social situation instead of past programming, past beliefs. 

10:00  
I could go in with an expectation of connecting with someone, I can go in with the expectation of enjoying the present moment, I can go in with the expectation of getting to know someone in a way that I didn't know them before. And both of those perceptions are very different. But they will dictate how I experience that environment. Could there be other external factors? Yes, obviously. But going in with an internal perception in a way that will give you the experience that you want, is a fucking game changer. So instead of walking in expecting to see faces that disapprove of me, I can walk in expecting to see faces that want to connect with me. And those two perceptions are very different. 

10:46  
And I've been able to do both, right? I've had lots of practice and experience of walking in and searching the room for the place that's going to be disapproving of me. And then using that, to validate that perception even farther, and have also been able to walk into a room feeling open and looking for the connection and expecting to see someone who's friendly and expecting to have a connection, does it always happen? No. But when I go into that experience with that perception, then that's a possibility for me. 

11:21  
Whereas before with the perception of finding someone who's going to judge me, or reject me, that perception blocks that possibility, for me, my brain's predictive patterns, can't see those opportunities, even though I truly believe those opportunities are there, regardless of the perception. 

11:42  
So if I could summarize this whole thing for you, it would be that if you want to start experiencing something else, you need to give your brain the expectation, that that experience is a possibility for you. At very least a possibility for you, you can go farther, right? But that very opening of it just being a possibility for you giving your brain the message of, okay, we're doing this thing, this possibility could be there. And the thing here is, it needs to be important enough, you need to have repeated enough to your brain, that then your brain starts filtering reality in a way that you can see those new possibilities, those new experiences, not only of yourself, but in other situations. 

12:26  
This whole thing is so fascinating. It's so complex, and at the same time, so simple, when we break it down. It blows my mind. And there are so many things that we simply don't know. Quantum physics is a great example of this. We are learning so much about the quantum world and how it works, and maybe how it doesn't work. And it's fascinating and confusing, and it's big. The thing about scientific data and findings is that it's a very slow process. So a person can experience something and know it's true for themselves. And the science hasn't yet caught up with that truth they've experienced. So if there's something in your life, that maybe you do you on a regular basis and helps you and really opens up that new possibility a new life experience. Then go with that. 

13:26  
Even if the science hasn't caught up with those practices that you're doing right now. If it's working, there's something about it, that is literally working. Something that Ethan Kross talks about in his book "Chatter" is this idea that if you believe something will have an impact or work for you, it actually does. And if we think about meditation, right, there was a day and an age where meditation wasn't accepted, especially from a scientific background. And over the years, as we have had more opportunities for meditation to be studied, we're finding that it's literally creating changes in the brain, more gray matter, larger prefrontal cortexes. 

14:10  
So even that like, here's ago, millennia ago, people were meditating, especially in eastern approaches, meditation was the thing that you did. And they did it because of the experience because of the effect that it had on their lives. And science is now catching up to that and seeing the changes that are happening in the brain and the impact on the body. 

14:35  
So if you want to experience something more in your life, start looking for it. Start giving your brain directions to filter your reality in such a way, those possibilities start coming into your awareness. You will see what you expect to see. 

14:52  
Thank you for joining me today as I questioned reality, the way our brains work and perceptions and how we can shift those. It's a big topic a lot of little topics within here that each have their own rabbit hole dives associated with them. But with that being said, it's just one step at a time and you've got this!