I’m quite familiar with Mary’s Room, yes, so this was indeed a helpful analogy.
I can also demonstrate, in real time, the difference between me being in my body and not being in my body; there are things I can do in my body that are harder to do when I’m not in my body, and I have no idea how to convince you that I can do these things via text.
Video!
(Also, convincing me aside, do you mind saying what these things are?)
Oh, actually, here’s an exercise you can do right now … It goes like this: try to get a clear sense of where the “locus of control” of your body is. Probably it’s where your brain is by default. I visualize it as something like a blue ball of energy shooting out electricity to the rest of my body to make it move.
I don’t think I have one of these things… (I don’t visualize any blue balls of energy, at any rate…) I suppose this is one of those “fundamental experiences that some people are missing”, etc.
Anyway, I do understand what you mean, now, and if you manage to get the phenomenon into words I will certainly read it!
I thought about it but I don’t expect video to be very convincing; if I’m by myself the main differences will be changes in my body language, which I could be faking. Most of the most interesting things I can do when I’m in my body involve interacting with other people, and again on video these sorts of things could be easily faked. Try looking up videos of people being hypnotized; they’re not very convincing. It’s much more convincing to actually be hypnotized yourself.
(Also, convincing me aside, do you mind saying what these things are?)
I’ll stick to one example: there’s a thing I’m learning how to do which I’ll call “talking from my guts to your guts.” I’m not very good at it yet and I don’t have a mechanistic explanation of how it works, but what it feels like I’m doing is an interpersonal version of Focusing. It’s something like, I am trying to pick up a felt sense of what a person in front of me is feeling (e.g. from their body language, but processed mostly unconsciously), mixing that with how I’m feeling, then labeling the resulting mixed felt sense. That’s not quite right, though. (Words, man.)
I’ve done this a few times and had it done to me a few times, and when done right I think it’s a powerful tool for personal growth, although those feel like lackluster words for it.
Edit: Oops, forgot to respond to this part:
I don’t think I have one of these things… (I don’t visualize any blue balls of energy, at any rate…) I suppose this is one of those “fundamental experiences that some people are missing”, etc.
I don’t mean to imply that this is something you were already doing and should be noticing that you’re doing; the exercise is to start doing it. That is, start trying to conjure up the sense of a locus of control, in any way you can. I don’t have a visualization that reliably works for everyone, and it’s not really a visualization anyway: if visualization is something you do in your visual imagination, then the thing that’s relevant here is more like doing something in your proprioceptive imagination…
Thank you very much for the detailed reply!
I’m quite familiar with Mary’s Room, yes, so this was indeed a helpful analogy.
Video!
(Also, convincing me aside, do you mind saying what these things are?)
I don’t think I have one of these things… (I don’t visualize any blue balls of energy, at any rate…) I suppose this is one of those “fundamental experiences that some people are missing”, etc.
Anyway, I do understand what you mean, now, and if you manage to get the phenomenon into words I will certainly read it!
I thought about it but I don’t expect video to be very convincing; if I’m by myself the main differences will be changes in my body language, which I could be faking. Most of the most interesting things I can do when I’m in my body involve interacting with other people, and again on video these sorts of things could be easily faked. Try looking up videos of people being hypnotized; they’re not very convincing. It’s much more convincing to actually be hypnotized yourself.
I’ll stick to one example: there’s a thing I’m learning how to do which I’ll call “talking from my guts to your guts.” I’m not very good at it yet and I don’t have a mechanistic explanation of how it works, but what it feels like I’m doing is an interpersonal version of Focusing. It’s something like, I am trying to pick up a felt sense of what a person in front of me is feeling (e.g. from their body language, but processed mostly unconsciously), mixing that with how I’m feeling, then labeling the resulting mixed felt sense. That’s not quite right, though. (Words, man.)
I’ve done this a few times and had it done to me a few times, and when done right I think it’s a powerful tool for personal growth, although those feel like lackluster words for it.
Edit: Oops, forgot to respond to this part:
I don’t mean to imply that this is something you were already doing and should be noticing that you’re doing; the exercise is to start doing it. That is, start trying to conjure up the sense of a locus of control, in any way you can. I don’t have a visualization that reliably works for everyone, and it’s not really a visualization anyway: if visualization is something you do in your visual imagination, then the thing that’s relevant here is more like doing something in your proprioceptive imagination…