Listening and the Integration of the Self
Writing this, I am here in Varanasi, reflecting on death and impermanence at the Ganges’ Dashashwamedh Ghat for the Aarti ritual. This is part of a three-week trip in India where I am visiting a lot of holy spiritual Buddhist and Hindu sites, and it’s bringing me a lot of higher-level reflections, including on the nature of intuition and consciousness.
One thing that I’ve been thinking about is finding a medium to communicate my ideas and reflections about listening as a state of consciousness. In fact, I’m thinking maybe I should publish a book, probably boringly called, “Listen” (it’s probably already taken, though).
I think what I’m trying to do here is to expand people’s lay understanding of listening. I don’t mean listening only in the sense of “listen to what people are telling you” or “empathetic listening”. I also mean it in the sense of “listen to the social and physical cues in your environment”, “listen to your intuition and your unconscious brain”, and even, “listen to what life is trying to tell you, through coincidences and synchronicities, may it be”. It is also as a way to see mindfulness and paying attention more generally as a form of “listening”. So perhaps we could talk about “deep listening”, in the sense of listening to cues that are usually too subtle to detect, but that nonetheless carry rich and useful information.
I’m feeling ambitious these days. I also want to write about “The Integrated Self” or something like that. Like mindfulness integrating different parts of the self / brain, mirroring gamma synchrony during mindfulness (Lutz et al., 2004). Perhaps it could be part of the same book (listening to one’s intuition helps get a more integrated self with the non-verbal side of the brain).
Yes, the integrated self book will be about integrating the left and right hemispheres, the verbal consciousness with the non-verbal one. I know most of us still have an intact corpus callosum, but I still think different brain regions are not as harmoniously integrated by default as they could be, but that this can be learned or developed. Perhaps it could fit in the same book as “Listen”, or a different book, I’ll see.
Now, what do I mean by the “integrated self”? For example, waking up before your alarm, waking up before your bus stop, waking up when the meal cart is nearby during your flight while others are still sleeping (somehow there’s some sort of sensory filtering going on, and you just get woken up for relevant stimuli).
Mental Map and Mind Sensations
I also noticed that many people say that I have a distinct way to speak, which mostly resolves around the timing of my break and emphasis on words, with some feeling it’s a bit of a hypnotic rhythm (go figure out why). So I’ve turned my attention toward what is going on there.
And what I’ve observed is that I don’t know what exactly is going on there; I’m just following “the path” (what’s that, you ask?). Simply put, “the path” is, in essence, a “feeling”, that shows me the rhythm to adopt. Then, I just follow this “map”. This “map” is non-visual, and only contains like the next second or so of “planning”, so I have to continuously pay attention to it to know when to stop my words and take breaks. In other words, I have to continuously “look at” or “listen to” the next steps to know what to do. So I think you can see here what’s happening: the conscious part of the brain is actively trying to “listen” to the (so-to-speak) unconscious side. (Now, a side quest might be to ask: how on earth does this mental sensation “know” what rhythm to adopt? I have no idea)
Basically, one could say that this process is normally automatic, but that with awareness, I was able to observe in more detail what is happening. That process is not exactly 100% spontaneous or instant, rather, I have to actively “listen” to “it”—the so called unconscious mind, for a lack of a better word?
Regardless, at this point, I am pretty confident that I could define “intuition” in very clear operational terms, mostly around physical sensations in the body and mind. Yes, yes, mind sensations. Such as “listening to the path” as described above. Perhaps similar things are happening for musicians and improvisation, freestyle rapping, and the like.
Keep in mind that this is different from “a wild guess”, as paying attention is necessary to have (more) accurate information for decision making based on precise mind sensations (themselves based on some sort of non-verbal information), rather than just random “chance” or noise. Without paying attention (“listening”), you might in fact notice that you would have taken a decision opposite to what the path of mental sensations suggested.
Peripheral Awareness and Cocktail Party Effects
Another example is that when I walk and text on my phone, I might be fully focused on my phone’s screen. Yet, my body still processes the environment and “alerts me” (in the form of mental sensations) about what I need to pay attention to in the environment, such as: cool-looking landscapes, individuals of possible relevance, possible threats in the environment, people looking in my direction, but also obstacles in the environment such as holes in the ground or steps on stairs. (Would we call this process “exogenous attention” then?).
In other words, I am on “autopilot texting” and walking, and not paying much attention, and yet I (somehow) manage to avoid all accidents in the road (probably because this peripheral processing is automated too). So basically I might have strong automatic peripheral vision processing. I’m pretty sure this is a visual variant of the auditory cocktail party effect, and we might just need to explore this known effect in more depth and with more attention.
I think this is actually one of my strengths, what I lack in conscious mental abilities, I make up for with a strong connection to my intuition. That’s why people sometimes have a funny perception of me: my conscious self might appear quite ordinary, but underlying that, the intuition is based and strong, so interestingly, there’s some sort of dissociation going on there. (Side note: should I add “has strong cocktail party effects” on my CV?). More seriously, I think we could investigate differences in cocktail party effects susceptibility (linked to hypnotizability? Not sure). What might be the main drivers of individual differences in cocktail party effects? One hypothesis: Dispositional listening to mental sensations, and more generally one’s ability for awareness (with the understanding of awareness as distinct from attention… the topic of another blog post I’m afraid).
And so, no, in my opinion, having a functional corpus callosum doesn’t explain differences in this ability (as we all have unless it was severed to treat epilepsy). So a fully integrated self might just be a very fluid and cooperative dialogue between the conscious and unconscious mind. In other words, “inner listening” might be a necessary condition for the integrated self. And the development of this more subtle form of awareness is necessary to develop the best “listening” of these mind sensations.
I am starting to think that this is why practicing Vipassana and awareness of body sensations is so important (the topic of a future blog…), because at some point (some advanced level?), this ability is then (must be?) turned toward consciousness itself, to unlock the next level of “progress”. The only question mark is, why doesn’t S. N. Goenka (the founder of the modern Vipassana movement / tradition) talk about this explicitly? Why did I have to learn this “turning consciousness inward” from Tibetan Buddhists?
This is a breakthrough because although I have been mumbling about non-verbal thinking since 2009 (which I used to call “supra-thinking”), I’ve just now tied it explicitly to Goenka’s practice and with the construct of “mental sensations”, which I find useful to describe to others as well as to integrate with our existing knowledge of the practice. On that note, be well, and may you be happy and enlightened.