My Time to Waste

Déjà vu is the other phenomenon that to me is easily explainable.  Déjà vu is the experience of suddenly feeling like you have been here before, like every event that happens has happened before.  You remember it in incredible detail.  If there is somethere talking, you remember every word he or she says…just as they say it.  You can never quite predict what will happen next, but it feels like you should be able to.

This is not caused by any mystical force, it is not because you dreamed the events prior to the time they take place.  It is a result of the subconscious mind processing things at a much higher rate of speed than the conscious mind.  I think, once in awhile, a “filing” error occurs and what is happening now is getting filed as an old memory.  So when the conscious mind becomes aware of the glass falling off the table, the unconscious mind is ready with the “long ago memory” that was created milliseconds before.

And déjà vu.

Two days ago, I mentioned how the event of slipping while carrying the bucket of sauce took place in “slow motion”.  I assume most have experienced this phenomenon, but for anyone who has not…

Sometimes in a moment of “crisis” events seem to take place very slowly in relation to one’s thought process.  The result is that in what is a fraction of a second, one can analyze what is happening, go through a handful of possible responses, choose one, and still react quickly (not move quickly, just react quickly).

I have a theory on how this happens and it has to do with yesterday’s topic, consciousness.

Normally, the conscious mind has somewhat limited access to the subconscious.  Yes, information readily moves from the unconscious to the conscious, but the conscious mind plays the passive role of accepting the info with out having any role in its production or any insight into how it is produced.

But sometimes, in a “crisis” situation, that relationship changes and the conscious mind is allowed access to the subconscious workings.  I suspect that the subconscious processes information at a much faster rate than the conscious mind can.  When this faster processing is available to the conscious mind’s purview it seems like time moves more slowly than otherwise.

It is nothing more than “seeing” the sensory information processed at a much higher rate of speed than the conscious mind normally “sees”.

Tomorrow:  déjà vu

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?