I went looking for the mind. I got lost.
“I swear officer, it’s my car.”
The other night I had a dream. The details are a little hazy but I remember at one point being arrested by a policeman. It was one of those dreams where you can’t control the car, the brakes don’t work, and we ended up slamming through the glass walls of shopping centre.
I was outraged. Why am I getting arrested? It was an accident. I’m the victim here.
And then I think maybe he’s still got a grudge against me from my wilder days, when I ran with a wilder crew.
“I swear. It’s my car. Check the glove box.”
Anyway, he’s got one of my arms pinned behind my back and it’s really uncomfortable. Like painful.
So painful that I wake up…
… to find that I’m sleeping on my own arm!
So now my arm’s asleep and I’m awake. And while I’m laying there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the blood to painfully trickle back in to my arm, I’m thinking, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.
Like that dream where my shoes were too tight and I woke up and found that the sheets had been tucked in extra tight and were crimping my toes.
Or the telephone ringing just before waking.. or that dream where I was trying to have a meeting and someone was using an industrial vacuum in the meeting room. And then I wake up and find my wife is snoring.
(Just kidding babe. It was probably me.)
But I feel like this pattern has played out a few times before. While I’m asleep, something happens to my physical body, and my dreams construct a story to make sense of the physical experience.
I also know that I do this in the real world.
For example, if I have a coffee and my adrenals fire off, then I’m convinced that I’m having a great time doing whatever I’m doing. Checking emails. Whee.
Or if I haven’t been sleeping so well, or I’m a bit sick, or a bit hungover, suddenly I’m surrounded by jerk-offs. And I’m not the one being unreasonable, they started it.
I used to know a woman who would always carry a muesli bar around for her partner. He’d start to get cranky and she’d offer it to him. He’d say he wasn’t hungry, and she’d say, sure, of course, but have it any way.
He’d eat it and suddenly become much more enjoyable to be around.
Anyways, the causality flows the opposite way to the way we’d expect.
We think that outside world events create our moods.
But often our moods create outside world events – or at least the meaning we attach to them; the way we interpret them.
What else is part of this puzzle?
Oh yeah, a little while ago some scientists hooked people up to an EEG (reads brain activity), and wanted to identify which parts of the brain were responsible for decision making.
They offered participants a choice between two objects. Like a pen and a mug. Something like that. They were unrelated by design.
They were not asked to come up with a rationale for their choice. Just look at the two objects, and then reach out and grab one. It just didn’t matter which one.
They hoped they’d be able to see which part of the brain fired when a decision was made.
And they could see it very clearly. They could see the part of the brain in the frontal cortex that made a decision, and the part of the brain a bit further back that controlled arm movement.
There was a flash in the part of the brain controlling the arm, and another flash in the neo-cortex.
But guess what they saw? The arm fired before the decision did.
(Let that sink in for a minute.)
The arm fired before the decision did.
Looks to me like the decision was made in the body, and then the brain layered a story about it over the top and after the fact. The ‘mind’ or neo-cortex did nothing but just invent a story to rationalise the choice.
So do you see the pattern here?
- The arm moves, the mind makes up a story about it.
- The coffee hits the adrenals, the mind makes up a story about it.
- I fall asleep on my arm, the mind makes up a story about it.
Does the mind do anything but tell stories?
Maybe its just there to enforce the grand narrative – that I am special and unique, and not some temporary glob of cosmic soup, distinct and identifiable only for the briefest moment of time.
I’ve learnt not to dwell on questions like that for too long, but it’s not what interests me today. Today I’m wondering, how do I incorporate this into my day?
I’m genuinely curious to hear your thoughts. I’m not really sure.
I suspect it means, don’t get too heady about decisions. If we get all tangled up in the ‘story’ of our decisions, it can distract us from the deeper wisdom that is diffused throughout the body.
Maybe wisdom is in the gut, next to the pies.
It’s definitely a reminder that there is a vast gulf between what we experience, and how we interpret those experiences – the stories we tell. It’s a reminder that there is a discipline involved in not getting too caught up in the stories you’re telling, and to keep the flavour of your stories tilted towards the positive.
And it probably means we can just relax a bit more into the adventure of it all. We possibly have a lot less agency than we think. Than we think we think. Than we think we think we think.
I don’t know. What do you reckon?
Am I on to something here? How do you think about thinking?
Cheryl Elizabeth North says
Fascinating stuff. You’re right about the stories we tell ourselves. Fine if they are relatively positive, but do very negative thoughts/patterns mess everything up – actions and stories? It seems to me that many people are not very optimistic, and there are many reasons in our society as to why they do! Maybe not watching the news would help?
Trevor Baret says
Not watching the news helped me to avoid a whole lot of negativity.
It is sad that good news stories just don’t sell, but bad news seems to make the heard happy… I never felt comfortable in the heard anyway. 😉
Roger says
Interesting topic Jon. What dreams are made of even. I seldom remember my dreams, but I admit most of the ones I do remember are negative, usually nonsensical and without any discernable basis in reality. On occasions I have had dreams of such incredible detail that upon awakening and discovering that it was only a dream it is hard to believe that it didn`t occur. I think therefore I am, I think positively therefore I am positive!
Could the arm movement ahead of the brain flash simply be instinct. If something comes towards your head one would instinctively fend the object off, without any analysis of its` intent.
I agree with Cheryl and Trevor regarding the news, fake news, alternative news, nearly all news is alarmist by its very nature.
Don`t wish to appear pedantic Trevor, but it is the herd you are not comfortable with.
ron goddard says
hi jonno. looks like the old days, shoot first ask questions later. now i am a gonna tell you a story which may seem weird..but its true of course. on friday march 20th 2011 at about 12 noon i was driving down a street in booragoon..my daughter rang on my mobile phone. of course silly me answered it. whereupon a custodian of the law pulled me over and wrote a nice ticket for $250.00. bugger! fast forward to sunday 22nd march at about 4pm and i am driving to bunnings to get some cabbage plants.
fast forward even faster to tuesday 24th march 2001, and i wake up in fremantle hospital just out of an induced coma. this is not bunnings i cried! well my youngest son daniel told me that i had had a heart attack whilst driving and here i was. but here’s the interesting part. in my coma i ‘dreamt’ that i was being booked by a ‘custodian of the law’ (friday20th) and i kept telling the erstwhile officer(through the window of my car); ‘you can’t book me i am having a heart attack! and my daughter is telling me to go to hospital’ strange.? you betcha. was the heart telling my brain i was due for a heart attack. being in a coma i didn’t know anything really and my son produced the booking of my misdemeanor. i did pay the fee later, after my op. triple bypass. i asked the dr. what’s the chances of me sort of exiting. he said with a grin : we only lose one in a hundred ron, don’t worry.
end of story. so jonno what goes on inside our minds and bodies may be still a mystery, but i can say one thing. i sleep very well at night, but awake around 5am cos i have had enough. i don’t take pills anymore like the medicos prescribed because i discovered lemon juice and raw garlic and celery.
thinking. a process as still in a ‘discovery mode’ for most of us. i like reading the greek philosophers. simple stuff but true as ever. good article jonno, but stay off that arm please.
Tom says
Ron, Like Roger, I am rarely aware of dreams; but in recall mode they always seem to be disjointed, like a series of almost random photos, with no logic or reason connecting the segments – but during the dream they must have seemed a valid sequence.
Again like Roger, my immediate thought was that Jon’s dilemma may be that the primitive brain acts first – to grab something appealing – then the thoughtful brain, a later development during evolution, kicks in and makes the choice. Looking after number one comes before, “What is good for the herd?”
Very interesting about the lemon, garlic & celery. Any hints as to recipe or method of preparation? Put the lot in the blender?
I generally find that sending Reiki telepathically to my list and concentrating on my breathing will very, very rapidly send me to sleep – unless my body is trying to tell me, “It is time to Wake Up and Get Up. You have had enough sleep for now. Get up and do something useful.”
Not so long ago, I read another interesting hint regarding troubling indigestion/heartburn when the body goes horizontal on the bed – eat an apple to settle the stomach. So far, this has worked on all three occasions on which I have tried it – once blended. Placebo effect? Who cares? It works. Bring it on.
Do you have any hints for keeping blood pressure down, without medication. Hypertension seems to accompany advancing years and personally, avoiding problems naturally seems preferable to Big Pharma’s expensive intervention. An apple is far preferable to pills.
Maybe a routine blended nightcap of Lemon, Garlic, Celery & Apple?
Health and Happiness.
edd says
Tom,
Please crush garlic about half a kilo into a class jar and lemon juice about a 1 kilo (freshly squeezed). Close the jar tightly and keep it in your kitchen cabinet for 3 weeks or so. You can have a spoonful every morning. This lowers blood pressure, and you will not need any medicine at all.
Macca says
Reminds me a bit of the old joke about ‘making your dreams come true’.
Why on earth would I want to be sitting in the nude taking an exam I haven’t revised for?
Very interesting area Jon. I’m convinced sometimes that my wife inhabits some kind of matrix.
Or maybe we all do.
Ian Coombes says
I think it’s likely that everyone’s a bit different, and probably a bit different on every day (and night). That said, I think “instinct” is the word we use for everything we don’t understand. In due course I think we’ll understand a lot more of it. While some people think they operate on “gut” and such, I think some of us at least operate and act on the basis of sub-conscious stored knowledge. Maybe we enjoy coffee out of a mug more than the exam and work experiences we’ve had with a pen. The biggest nerve in our bodies goes to the stomach and intestines, so stress and other mental actions probably register in some people’s stomach more cearly than elsewhere. What can we do with all this? Try not to get too tired because then others will see the dour expression and steer clear. Practise maintaining an open positive attitude. The mind will then be in forward gear rather than reverse. After a certain period of time, 39 days some say, the positive habit will become the norm.
Jan says
Hi Jon I love learning about our mind. And the Ego will do whatever it takes to keep you the same – it’s the only way it knows how to survive! So the mind will take you on patterns of “story telling”. It really doesn’t matter to the ego whether they are positive or negative stories…they’re still stories. It wants to blame and justify everything! In other words tapes on a loop until the day you leave this planet, unless you decide to become aware. Two key words DECIDE and AWARE. Observe your thoughts…and realise you have them however you are not them.
This is the interesting stuff – your ego (conditioned patterns of thought) will kick in and resist and it can be an extraordinary roller coaster. But a little at a time, courage prevails and you become more of your natural self. That is, faculties, talents, wiser choices, feelings of peace, inner strength and resilience etc just waiting for you to become conscious of. You’re not identifying yourself with the patterns of thought. And for sure your body becomes your thoughts. Look at the extraordinary people who have actually healed from diseases such as cancer purely using their mind!
As far as your dreams, perhaps it’s the higher intelligence of our mind letting you to wake up and attend to your sleeping arm or sore feet. Happy dreaming!
Tom says
Jan, some interesting ideas.
The mind hates an ideas vacuum, and creates an explanation or idea to fill the gap. People like Tod Sampson, Michael Mosely and others entertain us with programs based on fooling the brain with illogical, impossible images and such.
In recent years, modern physics has come up with explanations for some of the hypothetical ideas of early twentieth century thinkers. Many of Einstein’s ideas have been shown to be true. One conclusion which his theories led to was what he referred to “Spooky action at a distance”; and modern quantum physics now tells us that an electron leaving one atom to join another, creating a pair of oppositely charged, unstable atoms appear to still have a memory of and are influenced by its previous, oppositely spinning partner. Physicists have developed ‘Chaos Theory’ which seems to help explain in part many of the strange phenomena that their predecessors’ theorising and experimentation had produced. A newer field of study is ‘Quantum Biology’, which is delving into the very type of ideas Jon has highlighted.
What is the mind? How does memory work, on the atomic level? What chemical reactions are triggered when a certain part of the brain is activated? What is a thought?
At the quantum level, there appears to be a connection between the physical and the esoteric.
Oh to be around when these matters are seriously explored.
We have been trying to stretch our brains around the ideas of relativity, wave theory, the Butterfly Effect (where Chaos Theory proposes that a butterfly flapping its wings here might start a chain of events which cause a storm over the Amazon rainforests), not to mention the apparent dual wave/particulate nature of atomic particles and atoms, as demonstrated by the ‘Double Split’ experiment.
The availability of supercomputers, of ever increasing power and ever decreasing size will no doubt help process the extremely complex calculations required, using huge quantities of data. But will our poor old brain be able to make up stories to satisfy itself? A new explanation may satisfy the mind of a mathematician, but what of us plebs, with our limited array of concepts? We will continue to require a satisfying story, written in normal language, using concepts which we can accommodate comfortably. We can have creative ideas, but they are always developed using concepts and thought processes to which we are accustomed. We like the status quo. We don’t like change. We rebel against it. We love our security blankets.
ron goddard says
hi Tom, i wouldn’t recommend celery, raw garlic and lemon as a preferred drink. my lemon intake is confined to having a lemon sliced into a green tea, twice in the morning. garlic and celery in a salad. if one cooks garlic above 140 deg c it loses its goodness, so have it in a salad. before going to bed i have occasionally a slice of watermelon on lettuce. apples(5.5) are ok but not as alkaline as watermelon 7+ and lettuce of course is alkaline. and as you know if your body is in alkaline balance it is very healthy, but if in acid balance..notta good baby..
oh one thing about atoms and neurons etc. the russian scientists are streets ahead of anyone else. they talk of torsion waves moving at luminay speeds. if you can download ‘souls of distortion awakening’ you might find some very interesting hypotheses indeed. cheers, ron
Tom says
Hi Ron, thanks for the hints.
One complication is that it is not necessarily the pH of the diet ingredients which controls our blood pH, but rather the acid/alkaline nature of the products of digestion. For instance, Apple Cider Vinegar is essentially Acetic Acid, yet it is extremely beneficial; meanwhile starch which is a polymer of glucose and insoluble in water, is the prime cause of Diabetes around the world, particularly when it is ‘refined’. Asians had no problems until Europeans introduced them to polished ‘White Rice’. Now much of the population is diabetic, while their pigs, fed on the milling & polishing ‘waste material’, (equivalent of wheat germ+ bran + pollard and containing heaps of the fat-soluble Vitamin E) thrive. The omnivores, pigs & humans have very similar mono-gastric digestive systems.
Since being made aware of all these facts, un-milled brown rice has become my favoured Asian fare.
Our ancient Aussie soils are mostly devoid of the small and extremely soluble Boron atom (number five in the Periodic Table). Since this is an extremely important trace element, it pays to ensure an adequate intake. A heaped teaspoon of Borax in a 1.25 litre soft drink bottle of water makes a stock solution and one teaspoon of this in a glass of water provides a safe and adequate daily trace amount of Boron.
I would suggest that anybody interested in optimal health prospects should purchase a good supply of Borax from the supermarket detergent aisle, because Big Pharma has convinced many countries around the world to prohibit the stocking of this “Dangerous Poison” Borax, which for centuries has been used to remove body oils and fats from clothing. Like caustic soda, it is very alkaline and makes soap from oils.
Yes, of course large doses of the salt are poisonous – so are their expensive pain killers and their alcohol . But do people take them to excess? We have to use our intelligence and take responsibility for our own welfare.
The Multinationals prefer to corner the Boron market with their expensive, pharmacy-only medication – just as they had paraffin (kero) coloured with a poisonous blue dye, to prevent its use as a health tonic. Fortunately, Gum Turpentine is equally effective as a tonic and has not yet been intentionally polluted.
During the Manhattan Project the health specialists found that both Vitamin C and the bicarbonate ions in soda water helped to mobilise the dangerous heavy metal ions like Lead and Uranium, increasing their rate of removal from the body and avoiding health problems.
For many years, my early morning drink has consisted of one teaspoon of the Boron supplement, in a glass of cordial made from a syrup of 50/50 Cider Vinegar and Blackcurrant juice. The latter, apart from being rich in Vitamin C, is naturally coloured with anthocyanins, which are powerful antioxidants, removing dangerous free radicals, which accelerate the effects of aging. This deliciously tasty drink kills several birds with one stone.
After exercise and chores around the garden during the cooler hours, a late breakfast is a fruit smoothie with whatever seasonal fruit, green vegies (plus carrots) and edible weeds are available. Variety is the spice of life. Animals know this instinctively.
Cross fingers and touch wood, with regular exercise and a bit of care and moderation in the diet area, my health is standing up well – although during conversation I often have difficulty remembering names or apposite words. Old-timer’s disease!!!
Health & Happiness!
Tom says
Hi Ron, Thanks for the hints.
One complication is that it is not necessarily the pH of the diet ingredients which controls our blood pH, but rather the acid/alkaline nature of the products of digestion. For instance, Apple Cider Vinegar is essentially Acetic Acid, yet it is extremely beneficial; meanwhile starch which is a polymer of glucose and insoluble in water, is the prime cause of Diabetes around the world, particularly when it is ‘refined’. Asians had no problems until Europeans introduced them to machinery for polishing ‘White Rice’. Now much of the population is diabetic, while their pigs, fed on the milling & polishing ‘waste material’, (equivalent of wheat germ+ bran + pollard and containing heaps of the fat-soluble Vitamin E) thrive. The omnivores, pigs & humans have very similar mono-gastric digestive systems.
Health & Happiness.
ron goddard says
to all who read jonno’s column you need to read, log into ‘whatdoesitmean.com’ to see what the americans are really up to and have been for generations, via the c.i.a. and see it as it is, a vile and corrupt organisation with vast tentacles everywhere. those wars in vietnam and currently in afghanistan are all about the vast shipment of drugs out of those two countries and ‘crop protection’ by american, oz and othe nations troops. this stuff makes me sick. our ‘leaders’ know whats going on and have known forever about it. the only politician to put his hand up and wanted to bring the oz troops back from vietnam was harold holt and you know what happened to him. now nobody wants to buck the yanks.
trumpie is doing what he can. he is doing some fantastic ‘deals’ in usa right now. have a good read and also the attachments. cheers, ron.
edd says
Thank you Ron. I always learn something new from your comments. You are a “wise soul”. Baking soda (sodium Bicarbonate – aluminum free, you can buy it from Coles or Safeway) is the most alkaline element on earth. Before breakfast, in a cup of warm water squeeze a lemon and slowly add 1 teaspoon of baking soda. This PREVENTS CANCER. Also, anytime you have acidic stomach, have a teaspoon baking soda. I have been practicing these for years and never use any medicine.
Ben Hurn says
“Maybe wisdom is in the gut, next to the pies.” JG 2017
NoziTall says
There has been a system of knowledge around for a long time (well, since 1950) that has a workable explanation of how the mind works. You have probably heard of it but you wouldn’t know, because it steps on the foot of several groups with hundreds of billions of dollars of vested interests to loose.
Therefore, what you have heard about it was anything that makes you want to NOT look.
The original book was called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. These have been donated to ALL libraries on the planet, and are also available in all Dianetics Foundations, Scientology Missions and Churches.