Consciousness

Con­scious­ness is one of my favorite topics.

Con­scious­ness is inter­est­ing because so lit­tle is known of it (noth­ing for all intents and pur­pos­es) and because we all have the same access to it. We have our own and that oth­ers have it we real­ly can only accept on faith.

It is my expe­ri­ence that many peo­ple are not clear what is being dis­cussed when con­scious­ness is the sub­ject, so this post is my attempt to define consciousness.

If you would please indulge me, I ask that you close your eyes (not yet) and count to ten. Do this with­out mov­ing your lips and be sure that each num­ber is “enun­ci­at­ed” in your mind. Then be sure to open your eyes.

Go ahead and do that. I’ll wait.

Now, I would like you to point to the loca­tion where you count­ed to ten.

As I under­stand it, most peo­ple will point to right between their eyes. But some peo­ple will point to oth­er part of the body, par­tic­u­lar­ly the chest. A rare indi­vid­ual might point away from their body to a cor­ner of the room perhaps.

That loca­tion, that space, is your con­scious­ness. When I talk of con­scious­ness, that is what I’m talk­ing about.

I point right between my eyes. Where do you point?

8 thoughts on “Consciousness”

  1. Seri­ous­ly?! Cool! You’re the first per­son I know that does not point at their own head.

    Does it get weird if some­one else occu­pies that space?

  2. Yes.

    Why do you think I hide so much ?

    ;o)

    My per­son­al space, the space need­ed for me to be com­fort­able, is at about the tips of my fin­gers at arms length, all around.

    If I know and trust peo­ple, then stand­ing to the sides or at angles to the sides, they can stand pret­ty close.

    But that focus point at the front, is touchy, even if I know and trust a person.

    I need peo­ple about 4 feet away, direct­ly in front.

    And in back, don’t get close enough that I can sense your pres­ence there.

    You’ve com­ment­ed before, I believe, that I know a lot more about myself, than most oth­ers you have known. “More aware” of myself…

    Maybe that’s why.

    My aware­ness or con­scious­ness isn’t cen­tered on myself.

    I can look at myself from an ‘out­side per­spec­tive’, eas­i­er than those who are cen­tered on themselves.

    And in fact, maybe am forced to most­ly do so.

    I can tell you that I have also almost seemed to be able to read peo­ple’s thoughts, when they stood in that focus. Espe­cial­ly if they were not pay­ing atten­tion to me, or were not aware of my pres­ence. No way I actu­al­ly have ever read any­one’s thoughts. Just that I seemed to intu­itive­ly know what they were think­ing, feel­ing, were going to say, were about to do, etc. More than coin­ci­dence or even pay­ing atten­tion, could account for.

  3. I’ve always “under­stood” what you have said on the sub­ject. But if you real­ly find that your con­scious­ness is two feet in front of you, well, I nev­er under­stood THAT before!!!

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