Thinks

From Sense Think Act

Contents 1 INTRODUCTION TO MENTAL ABILITIES 2 Physical Construction of Brain 3 MEMORY 4 SHORT TERM MEMORY 5 LONG TERM MEMORY 6 ASSOCIATION 7 MEDITATION 8 INTUITION 9 IMAGINATION 10 DREAMS: Sleeping and Waking 11 RATIONALITY 12 EMOTION 13 A note on Time

[edit] INTRODUCTION TO MENTAL ABILITIES

Many of our popular ideas of the mind and intelligence are based on ignorant superstitions. These limit us from realising anything but a fraction of our potential capability. Not until the Renaissance period was it realised that our thinking centre was located in our head; and it is only in the present century that our knowledge of the brain has had much of a basis in fact.

The division of students into arts or sciences was considered soundly based educational philosophy which was particularly convenient for the development of an efficient technocratic society. It has recently emerged that a 'scientific' or 'artistic' bias is simply an unbalanced brain; for it 'seems that the the right-hand side of the brain is concerned with mainly creative work whilst the left half does mainly calculation work. There is actually no good reason why the two 'haves' of the brain should not be encouraged to develop in a complimentary way.

Another common is that the brains ability decreases with age. Actually the reduction in number of cells by those cells that die is a minute proportion of the whole. Not enough to appreciably effect intelligence. In fact with an accumulation of knowledge and experience the brains potential should increase with age. (possible footnote on damage and hurt)

Irretrievable forgetting is another obsolete idea. When we can't remember, the information is only temporarily inaccessible. And may be remembered if we know the reason why it is obscured. It now seems likely that we permanently store most of our experience from the period of our fetal development in the womb when our sensory faculties first formed.

Another fallacy is that we inherit a level of intelligence (IQ) from our class or racial background. Although we may acquire characteristics of the culture that we are brought up in they are transmitted through the behaviour around us rather than on a a genetic level.

These examples of misconceptions about our grey matter serve to illustrate the confusion that surrounds our commonplace ability to think. Thinking is everyone's prerogative. It is only negative conditioning that leaves most of us depending on the thinking of others who we assume are the finest minds of our time. This is an essential myth of class oppression.

We are tile product of our senses. The sum of our conditioning. The accumulation of experience creates the characteristics of human behaviour and intelligence. And there is no reason why we should lose our soulfulness or mystery on account of this prosaic explanation. As we become adult this process may become more conciously directed. And if we have the know-how we may choose to become whoever we want to be.

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[edit] Physical Construction of Brain

The brain is physically composed of several hundred million nerve cells. Their surface is extended into a mass of filamentous dendrites.These bring information to the cell. A single thicker nerve, called the axon, carries information away to other cells. The N million brain cells are thus interconnected by a complex network of fibres. Areas of the brain with specialised functions may be identified, but they do not seem to be structured differently or to have centres.

The information traveling between brain cells is in the form of an electromagnetic pulse which travels along at about 300 ft per second. Each cell will need to recieve information from several sources before it is triggered to send an impulse out along its axon. A decision will not be made until verification is recieved from various sources. This allows us to sort out priorities, and acts as a safety check against overhasty responses. It also allows subtle judgments of timeing.

Repeated responses develop preferred pathways through the network. These 'preferred pathways' become habitual routes which may be used. in a semi-automatic, unconcious or intuitive way. Both muscular movements and patterns of thinking develop 'preferred pathways'. These habitual neural routes will change only when we deliberately change our habitual thoughts or actions.

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I have structured the mental section by popular conceptions of mental functioning. Memory and association is a relatively mechanistic mental process by which information is stored in an orderly way and retrieved. Memory and Association each has a separate section of exercises.

Imagination represents a more sophisticated level of functioning in which playful use is made of our ability to mentally replay and combine previous experiences. It may be conscious or unconcious and may be seen as a combination of the process of association with the mysterious thought process of intuition.

Thinking that is goal seeking, problem solving and logical is the last category to be considered. This may also be conscious or unconscious, rational or intuitive. There is a major difference between the two.

Intuition is a largely unconscious and multi-dimensional process utilising the resources of the whole mind to reach a decision - often at lightening speed.

Rational thought is the more linear and conscious process of problem solving, primarily utilising a language. As languages are a means of communication that define culture, rational thought is forever welded to the social and cultural.

All five processes probably happen all the time in different proportions. The reality is not of six separate abilities, but a unity of body-mind directed to a purpose. However for the time being the mind exercises are organised into these five categories.

[edit] MEMORY

The memory mechanism of the brain may be crudely likened to a computer. Its operation depends on definite real conditions. It reacts to information from sense impressions and thoughts and, if conditions are right, stores the information relative to past experience. Current perceptions and conceptions are recognised by their similarities with past events in the memory store. This operation is by and large automatic and can happen without the overiding control or direction of the conscious mind.

The infant comes to recognise certain repeated experiences as significant to hir present comfort and development. These become key impressions in the development of memory and of mind. Other repeated or powerful impressions are also coded, remembered and their use or meaning saught. This evolution of key grouping may later become conscious, but for at least the first 6 -15 years it is dependent on the environment.

The mind 'remembers' by connecting key impressions and word concepts together. To some extent you can become aware of this process going on in your own head. For instance you are telling a friend about an experience. Key images, words and feelings seem to be simultaneously present. Linear sentences of speech are spontaneously constructed around the more diffusely structured basic memory information.

Memories are automatically referred to, to give meaning and value to current experience.

[edit] SHORT TERM MEMORY

Most of the information continually pouring in through our sensory windows is of momentary value only. It serves to give experience continuity and allows more important events to happen in a particular context. Most of this imput vanishes within a few seconds. You might not remember the pattern of linoleum in a much frequented bathroom not because your memory was bad but because you had never created the conditions for it to enter your long term memory; it was not significant. Another example of short term memory is with telephone numbers. You can look up a number in the book, cross the room and dial it correctly, but 5 minutes later you may have no idea what it was.

Everybody's short term memory is limited to 10 digits repeated consecutively, or equivalent in other media

[edit] LONG TERM MEMORY

Criteria of Input The more powerfully an experience is remembered, the greater effect it will have on present day activity. Memories are not just passive lumps of data. 'Memories' make up who we are and how we react to the world. Our experience becomes us.

The strength of the memory trace is dependent on the following criteria of retention:

1) primacy and recency

2) categories

3) difference

4) sensual power

5) repetition and review

6 personal interest - use value

7) attention

8) preparedness.

These factors will decide the prominence of any perception in the mind.

Diversified review for flexible recall

A 'memory is not usually an isolated piece of data, but a part of the total experience within which it occurs. Memories of facts are therefore linked to a particular context, to other similar facts or whatever. One of the keys to creativity is to relate facts not normally found in the same context to each other. This is difficult if the context within which a, fact is remembered is always rigidly similar. e.g. A person always seen in a particular setting may be difficult to place when s/he turns up somewhere different.

A fact linked to various contexts in the process of reviewing will be able to be recalled in a greater variety of circumstances (See Association)

A note on 'Bad' Memory and Forgetting

Sigmund Freud was the first to point our that forgetting was often due to the repression of painful experience. This theory has been borne out and expanded in recent times by researchers.

If the right conditions are present any experience will be remembered and will easily be recalled when the prepared signals are given. If the memory doesn't work it is because the necessary techniques were not used. If the memory still doesn't work then accumulating hurt associated with that experience has isolated that memory recording. (link ). Recourse to techniques of obtaining emotinal release or discharge may release the memory.

On the other hand old memories can be awakened by simple associations in our lives and will be replayed like a stuck record, often playing havoc with how we feel, and obliterating our capacity to think well. Such negative old recordings can become chronicly played throughout our lives - giving out a constant barrage of messages that we aren't good enough or whatever.

Otherwise the simplest strategy to avoid forgetting is to over learn. This means not stopping learning as soon as you can 'repeat it without looking', but continue to impress the material upon the mind. Fear of the consequences of forgetting is not a useful method of producing results.

[edit] ASSOCIATION

First a item is stored with the total environmental experience in which it is perceived. Then it is categorised within the brain by being linked to other items with similar characteristics. This mental linking is known as the faculty of association. To remember something we need first to think of something associated to it --- to make the connection. In this way our thinking proceeds by a very complex and subtle chain of association or interconnections. Another way of describing association is pattern matching. This ordering of similar patterns is perhaps the most fundemental aspect of mentality.

Some items are stored in a sequence or in a particular set that can only be recalled by the name of the group as a whole. Other things will be linked to an enormous range of different facts, feelings, objects and sensations.

Repeated associations may become habitual, and provide a line of least resistance; a particular perception invokes a fixed response. If this response becomes unsatisfactory or obsolete then we may consciously decide to associate along some of the weaker, non-habitual links, to find a more appropriate connection or 'idea'. This breaking out from the normally preferred pathways of thought, sometimes this known as lateral thinking.

The particular pattern of habitual association that anybody accumulates is seen as their outlook, personality, preference, priorities and values. Two people may be crudely compared by the different associations they make with a basic object, word or shape. An association with an early experience of pain or hurt can produce quite irrational or bizarre behavior in later adult life. To some extent this can be overcome by taking on a positive direction but long lasting relief may only come after an emotional catharsis or breakdown.(link emotion)

I spoke in the mental introduction about the formation of habitual patterns of thought or preferred pathways. They have the advantage of facilitating quick response. There is a strong analogy that can be drawn here with routines in daily life. Routine allows one to develop efficient methods of doing mundane tasks; leaving more time for what you want to do, above and beyond this. Preferred pathways also have this sort of function in allowing much repeated behaviour to be done without rethinking it afresh each time.

The same disadvantages follow to some extent on both levels. Rigidly developed and repeated routines lack flexibility and may not be able to adapt to changing conditions. The same is true for fixed modes of thought. Flexibility is the answer in both cases; Flexibility seems to be a natural quality of the brain structure preferred pathways are only made inflexible by hurtful experiences.

Apparently Inherent Associations of Recall/Storage

Contrast {+ opposites) - - - - - - - eg. sharp and blunt

Resemblence - - - - - - - - - - - - - eg. icing and snow

Cause and effect - - - - - - - - - - eg. money and wages

Whole and parts - - - - - - - - - - - eg. engine and piston

Contiguity - - - - - - - - - - - - - eg. Factory and worker

Genus and species - - - - - - - - - - eg. mammal and whale

Sign and Thing signified - - - - - - eg. cross and Jesus

Meaning and symbolism

Association is an important mechanism for it gives the objects and processes of our world meaning. A thing and its associations are one. The total meaning of anything is its associations. A thing may have associations from:

1. Its use, eg. plough - furrow/earth

2. Mental connections (see list).

3. By ritual connection and subsequent use as a symbol (eg. a tree with life)

In this way a simple thing may not be so simple in the mind. Mentally it may be associated with powers or qualities that it does not, of itself, possess. It represents values possessed by something else it is associated with.

It is clear that a strong symbol can focus the emotional power of our needs (and fears!) with incredible vigour. In primitive times the objects were chosen to represent the supernatural powers and forces beyond our everyday experience and comprehension. This served to reduce fear of the unknown by ritually caiming the power of frightening phenomena. In modern times these symbols still exist as objects such as lucky charms and retain some of their psychic and emotive powers.

All things share the value to some extent, of the things associated with them. Symbols do this most powerfully. They can represent in one object, a belief which is otherwise an abstraction.

You choose to wear a gold key around your neck to represent your ambition to overcome the difficulties of life and get what you want. You might invent a ritual to' 'give life' to the key. The main invocation of which could be "With this little golden key, I'm going to get all I want". (Note the difference between the above and the unacceptably weak "This little golden key is going to give me all I want".

The environmental influence

Memory recordings include all environmental perceptions. If you experience a certain state of mind in a room with orange walls or when a particular melody is playing, the two things become linked. In this way we develop a range of personal tastes by the subtle association things evoke. Otherwise our cuItural group may inform us of values that have been produced by our social history. Gold signifies wealth and power because of its rarity and by association with the sun', and gilt signifies gold.

Your surroundings will imbue your life with meaning by association both from your personal history and from social consensus. And your surroundings will become associated with the life you have in them. We normally choose our present experiences sympathy or reaction to our early experiences. 'Wrong' associations/drab environment can exert a continuously enervating effect. So can surroundings commonly chosen for:

1. Irrelevant economic reasons .

2. Purely functional' reasons

3. Superficial reasons eg. to be in fashion.

This is perhaps the most profound and pervasive way in which association gives meaning to the experience of our surroundings.

[edit] MEDITATION

It is possible to isolate the basic memory and perceptive functions from the higher level processes, which occupy so much of our time, simply by 'not thinking'. This allows us to look in a relatively objective way at this whole process, and seems to have a number of positive features.

Our thinking mind is rested from racing around in circles chasing its own tail. When the dust has settled ... Our consciousness (whatever that might be) is allowed a refreshing draught of reality. This can be a profoundly reassuring awareness of present time. We are more clearly aware of a perception its recognition and the associations which it brings. This is closely allied with physical relaxation.

Meditation allows you to separate what is happening now from the associated memories that normally obscure present reality. Things take on their actual unique identity and are not confused with associated feelings from the past.

Intermediate meditative practice also allows the cognisance of thought itself. The principle being that if a thought or impression may be observed in its arising, its continuance and its dying away, we have then come to know it in its entirety. Being known entirely it will not have any mysterious power over us.

[edit] INTUITION

The category 'intuition' is used here to include all types of problem-solving or goal-orientated thought, from simple value judgements to theoretical hypotheses which entail a complex and simultaneous use of all mental resources. Special qualities of intuitive thought that result from its non-linear use of the whole mind are high speed of operation and the decisive evaluation of many possibilities. If we are attuned to its use this 'faculty' will allow us to respond quickly and yet flexibly to new and complex situations.

Intuition manifests itself both mundane and magical levels. Many results of intuition are assumed to be 'instincts'.

We just 'know' the answer to a request for advice without thinking, an appropriate response is made without time for consideration. It all seems quite 'natural' and therefore instinctive. Most of our judgements on which we make daily choices, like when to cross a busy road, are based on unconscious thought processes that are a form of 'intuition'. It is difficult to draw a clear line between 'instinct' and 'intuition' and I have a hunch there is a close rapport between the two. [I'm defining instinct as pre-existing whilst intuition relies on experience accumulated since conception.]

It is when intuition gives answers to original questions as if from nowhere that its incredible potential is noticed. It may often provide such penetrating insight that we assume 'it' must come from outside. An answer to prayers. A picture read in the random patterning of tea leaves. We find it hard to credit our own minds with this mysterious capacity to seemingly leap through the unknown.

Preparing the Ground

Without doubt the greatest obstacle to the free flow of intuition is physical tension and mental anxiety. Tension and anxiety tend to happen together. However, we may change our situation so we are more physically relaxed and not plagued by worries. We may also neutralise much of our anxiety by consciously striving to have a positive frame of mind. Never forget that negativities interfere with mental functioning.

The other concrete preparation we can make is to saturate the mind with relevant information. "It is always necessary first of all, that I should have turned my problem over on all sides to such an extent that I had all its angles and complexities in my head and could run through them freely without writing. To bring the matter to that point is usually impossible without long preliminary labour." Herman von Helmholtz 1891

This priming of information is better absorbed in the form of multi-media presentation, live events or contextual environments, as a total experience will provide more mental connections than reported or abstracted information. The more diverse and rich the relevant mental landscapes that can be prepared, the more likely intuition will turn up a choice of novel and appropriate answers.

Most of the judgements we live by are intuitive, in that they are not based on rigorous rational analysis, objective evaluation or proof. For instance I would say that evidence indicates a large part of our personality is formed by conditioning rather than hereditary factors. The evidence indicates but doesn't prove conclusively. The 'weight' or 'value' attached to each piece of evidence is decided intuitively. Many such questions with important implications for social organisation are, finally, intuitive judgements on factual evidences and should be held in some degree of doubt.

When people hold an intuitive judgement in common this gives it considerable weight. The judgement is sometimes spoken of as 'normative'. And yet this is not in itself any proof of its correctness, e.g. only a few hundred years ago practically everybody firmly believed the world was flat.

Estimation of the value or usefulness of information received is the main day-to-day business of intuition. It is the facet of intuition that continually and invisibly supplements rational thought. These judgements are very reliable when they are based on recent direct experience (and the simpler self-evident truths of logic/maths. They become less reliable as they are based on less intimate and recent acquaintance (and more complex abstract principles of mathematics). Intuitive judgements as to the intrinsic values of moral, ethical and aesthetic precepts are most doubtful.

"Where there is conflict the more self-evident proposition is to be retained and the less self-evident rejected." Bertrand Russell in Problems of Philosophy, 1912

As intuition is unconscious, how do we train it? Well, it seems that we cannot improve it directly. It is more a matter of preparing the ground and removing obstructions; being receptive to results in any form; checking with rational procedures wherever possible.

Being Receptive

People often assume an 'intuition' will appear in the form in which their thoughts tend habitually to operate. But an 'intuition' may appear in the form of a picture to an intellect that has tuned itself exclusively to words. An intuitive answer may be symbolised or 'hidden' in a found object.

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You will have to 'follow your nose'. You turn left earlier than usual because a curious house facade has caught your eye. Further on you take an alley to get back onto your route. Down the alley is a dustbin with a box of old papers beside it. You rummage furtively and out slips a copy of 'National Geographic' October 1935 which has 'Demon Possesed Tibetans and Their Incredible Feats' - 12 natural colour photographs. Which turns out to be a great source of inspiration for that street theatre piece you are currently working on.

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Too much conscious focus on getting results will interfere with this process. If you 'look' for an intuition you are not likely to find it. Results will be presented as a part of a life being lived.

There are ways of coaxing the intuition to supply verbal Answers to to Questions ie. conform to rational thought forms. The most simple to use of these is the Ouija Board. The disadvantage of this sort of crude manipulation of intuition is that mental filters are by-passed and questions may dredge unwelcome material from the subconscious; emotional needs create fantasies (eg. scarry stories) which are incorrectly interpreted as fact. However, the Ouija Board does seem to demonstrate the group mind facet of intuition.

Checking Results

Intuition is fast and comprehensive but it is also subject to our weaknesses. The vested interests of our present situation and background may bias the intuitive process in many subtle as well as crude ways. Superstition and our inherited culture will condition us with much wrong information. Intuition can only work within the totality of who we are. The more aware we are of our personal and cultural background and our emotions within this framework, the more we can see when the clear light of intuition is subject to emotional pollution (internal link to intuition) .

On a more specific level we can check intuitions of particular importance with rational procedures. It is interesting to note that the speed of intuition will often provide crucial information before emotion occludes flexible thinking. We may see a man's evil intent for a fleeting moment before his great beauty or charm enamours us.

We can make use of this in a situation where we feel stuck. The rational mind is not getting anywhere, we may spontaneously strike out at a tangent and do what seems to be a random action but is hopefully guided by intuition. Repeated, this will sometimes lead us out of the deadlock.

By being open to the unknown power of our body-mind intuition may be capable of feats at present considered metaphysical or magical. As with imagination, we are unsure of the limits of its power. Some people suspect that in some circumstances it can transcent time and space.

It seems feasible that our understanding of physics will soon get to the point were this does not seem so odd. The electrical energies of thought do seem to exist and interact on an atomic level.

Another idea is that intuition can tap the cultural wisdom of a people. By being open to transpersonal values, symbols and gestures we may engage our minds in a kind of collective consciousness. Results of such intuitive thinking, animated by the imagination, are bound to be fantastic.

For the present we should be open to the possibility that each of our minds is probably capable, when left alone, of making a synthesis out of our accumulated experience and knowledge which goes well beyond any mundane ideas we may have of our capabilities. And, at the least, intuition gives the mind, at all times, limitless creative potential.

Improvisation could claim to be the activity in which a potential is most fully extended. The intuition allows us to improvise thought and action at great speed. This enables us to deal with complex, dynamic situations faster than we could ever think them through consciously. Improvising freely we can achieve a unity between our experience, the intuitive capacity to sort through this vast choice intelligently, and a conscious ideology.

I have therefore included a range of improvisation exercises covering all sense media plus language as the most apt field of 'practice' for intuition.

[edit] IMAGINATION

To imagine is to form experiences in the mind. These can be either recreations of previous experiences more or less as they happened (vivid memories with imagined changes), or completely invented and possibly fantastic scenes. We can also imagine sensations abstracted from their matrix of experience.

An imagined experience is such a rich and complex mental process that it may appear to gain a life of its own.

In other words, an imagined experience may take off and progress through time, with 'unexpected' twists and turns like a real experience. But because it is a fabrication of our own mind we also control or guide this experience, manipulating it in a way that we can never manipulate reality. In our imagination we can take risks and be more playful than is possible in real life.

Imaginative experiences, however fantastic, are constructed from the bricks of sensory experience. The ability to fully memorise sensations and draw on them to create vivid imaginative reconstructions has, to some extent, been lost in western culture through the early emphasis on words and labels. This natural ability, to draw on memory of sensation rather than its label is easily regained through training.

Imagination will naturally tend to include images from all the sensory areas in the same way that real life is a mingling of all sensations in varying proportion. We can, however, decide to imagine one particular sensation predominantly or exclusively. The exercises suggest we practice the memorising and recollection of sensations in each of the senses. The extent to which our imagination provides a total experience is demonstrated by our physiological responses which will often react as if the imagined scenario was real. Imagine a monster and your heartbeat will rise and adrenaline increase, even though there is no possibility of needing to 'fight or flee'.

Even body functions that are normally regulated automatically may be changed and even controlled by suitable imaging. More general images may be used to aid healing processes and improve postural functioning.

In these ways the profound relationship that imagination has with our body functioning may be glimpsed. And some idea of just how much body-mind unity is a functional truth gained. It is of course in this area that the imagery of spells and other sorcery may have its 'magic' effect.

Because of the mental complexity of the imaginative flow a myriad of associative connections are possible at any moment. This explains the unexpected directions in which the imagination can go. It means that imagination is a very creative mode of thinking. (A major component of creativity is that endless possibilties are presented to the mind) - An abstract idea given a form that can have 'life' in our imagination is more likely to be more useful because multiple associations are more easily made to an imaginative idea than to an abstract idea.

Although imagination is usually playful it also can have a hard survival function in providing 'sensory pleasure' that is lacking in the environment. People can survive the most adverse realities by retiring into their imaginations. Children survive parental neglect by inventing parental surrogates like comfort blankets.

Another function of imagination is to give one a change of viewpoint. We can imagine ourselves seeing the world - and ourselves in it if we desire - from places we do not in reality occupy. Plato said to view everything as if from a lofty rock. Or we can imaginatively enter the body of a small person and learn to a limited extent what it is like. We can imagine change to ourselves and to the environment.

By changing the environment we can try to foresee future states. We can imagine how things might develop in various ways. We may then make decisions about present actions in the light of their imagined probable consequences.

The danger of a weak imagination is that it will not accurately predict reality. We may then either reject an imagined possibility when the reality would have had imagined advantageous qualities. Or we may be drawn by lurid fantasy to experience a reality that is actually banal.

This weakness of imagination is continually exploited by the image merchants of the advertising industry.

The confusion between reality and image can be most disastrous in the images of ourselves that we tend to live. Our real selves are felt inadequate so we assume a glamorous media personality, e.g. I once thought walking with cowboy bowed legs would make me more 'manly'. All it did was wear down the outsides of my soles and give me backache. People will often fabricate a complete personality for themselves made of media images. In this way consumerist ideology alienates us not only from the world but from ourselves through the domination of our imaginations.

Imagination, because it is not in itself a focusing method of thought, will often require an entry vehicle, context or direction from the real world to set it in motion. Sometimes a cardboard box is all we need to imagine ourselves in a moon buggy. Other times more complex rituals may enable us to have spiritual experiences or appreciate a larger reality like seasonal change, e.g. May rituals.

The danger of imagination may be that we can get lost in it. Fearful imaginings and worries can separate us from a connection with our present time reality. A meditation exercise is included as an antidote to imaginations.

[edit] DREAMS: Sleeping and Waking

Our conscious mind, of which we are aware during normal waking hours, is only a fraction of our total thinking mind. A great deal of sorting / evaluating / symbolising / choice making goes on without us knowing about it. Dreams give us a direct access to this veiled area of the mind.

Our sleep alternates between two types of sleep. Each night deep sleep is broken up by four or five periods of dream sleep. Everyone has dreams although the extent to which they are remembered is another matter. The function of dreams is not known for certain. This is not so surprising when we consider how little is known about why we need sleep itself.

It is also possible to reach dream states whilst we are awake. Some people will naturally 'daydream' more easily than others but there are techniques available that allow everyone to generate waking dreams.

Dreams can vary from those that seem to have a life of their own to imaginative fantasies whose every twist and turn is willed; from a series of inconsequential images to the most profound insights; from a sensual erotic aquatic delight to a nightmare so disturbing one is jolted awake as ones only escape.

To some extent dreams may be directed and controlled, and practice increases our ability to do this. Consciously directed waking dreams may be seen as exercises in the use of imagination.

There is some doubt as to whether we should regularly interfere with our sleep dreams as their biological function is so little understood.

If dreams are semi-automatic and of unknown function then what use can we make of them?

It has been suggested that deliberately dreaming of clear sunshine, bright stars, huge rivers, can help to keep our bodies healthy. This is possible if one considers the fantastic claims made for the psychosomatic powers of visualisation.

Dreams may be used to solve problems or throw up ideas released from inhibitions during sleep. Dreams may be used to obtain original images and ideas for stories, poems and pictures.

However, perhaps the most important use of dreams is to give us insight into the subconscious pool of our past conditioning. To throw up clues that help us better understand constuction of our personalities. The unique living result of our personal histories.

The images in dreams are often masks for feelings not normally available on a present time level. These repressed feelings may derive from early memories which do not have their own clear imagery. Such feelings without form will find expression in images plausible to or palatable to the intellect.

As there are no universal interpretations for the meaning of dream symbols, trying to analyse dreams in this way is often a hit or miss affair. (Unless you gain a clear understanding of your own symbols).

[edit] RATIONALITY

Reason or Logic

Reason is the ordered use of language to ascertain the truth or validity of statements. It has gained tremendous prestige in the last few centuries through the immense achievements of science. This prestige has led to an unhealthy domination of thinking. We try to apply reason to areas of intuition or emotion in which it is inappropriate and at best crude and heavy handed. Also the appearance of reason confers authority to any common rhetoric - the politician who will dress up his emotional appeal in the reasonable appearance of rational analysis.

But rationality is basically very straightforward. It uses simple principles which we all find intuitively self-evident. Accepting these we may then derive valid implications from combinations of simple statements. For example: If apples and bananas cost the same price per pound, then 3 pounds of apples and a pound of grapes will be the same price as 3 pounds of bananas and a pound of grapes. And - If it is true that all women are mortal, and if Maggie Thatcher is a woman, then (we may deduce it is true that) Maggie Thatcher is mortal.

Put in this simple form, logic seems ridiculously obvious but that just shows how natural an ability is rationality. The trouble is that in the real world the examples we come across are much more complex than the simple forms I have just given, and this leads to all kinds of error. The more we can be aware of these areas of error, the more we can allow our natural reasoning ability to take its course unimpeded.

The errors that creep in to complex chains of reasoning are easier to spot if the reasoning is written down and examined in written form by a range of people to whom the reasoning is relevant. Below is a list of 15 sources of thinking error. In the exercise section each of these heading is discussed in more detail and can be used as a checklist to examine an example of reasoning.

Key checklist of thinking errors

1. Definition of key words/ terms used

2. Equivocation

3. Incorrect basic ideas

4. Cause (or antecedent)

5. Attribute (or association)

6. Generalisation

7. Classification

8. Emotion

9. Personal experience

10. Context

11. Viewpoint

12. Logical arrogance

13. False validity

14. Analogy

Some of these points will overlap and merge into each other.

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SOME FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTIONS OF RATIONALITY (Reason or Logic)

1. Frequent repetitions of similar sets of events give us good reason to expect a similar result in the future. We continually act with faith in this Principle of Induction. We buy a chair in a shop without testing it because various visual clues convince us from past experience that it is in fact a sound chair. However, we must remember exceptions are possible. Some degree of doubt should be retained.

2. What follows from a true premise is true. If it is true that stars are in the sky, then as we look up at the blue sky we deduce the existence of stars we cannot see, or, if it is known that Y is true if X is true and if X is indeed found to be true, it follows that Y is true. This is known as the Self evident principle of deduction.

3. The universe is consistent. No fact in one place will contradict a fact in another place. (Technically this is now challenged in relation to distant parts of the universe, blackholes etc but for our more everyday purposes the principle is useful.)

4. New knowledge can only be understood in terms of things of which we already have had experience. The less things are capable of attachement to things we already understand the less they are capable of being understood.

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[edit] EMOTION

Emotions seem to be chemical excretions, which effect how we feel and are triggered by sensory /mental events. There is also a physiological expression associated with many emotional states - crying, shaking, laughing and so on. So in a way emotions are not entirely situated in the mind and could be seen as an fourth aspect of human ability.

Our fundemental requirement is to survive and thrive. Firstly as individuals and secondly as a species. But what is the pyschic channel of this organismic drive? The most credible theory is that it is our desire for pleasure. Our sense input and thinking seem to stimulate an area of the brain that gives us a positive feeling of pleasure. This drive is modified firstly by our thinking which budgets our resources to ensure longer term security - we think ahead, and secondly by our perception of pain.

Pain is our warning of survival threat. In psychic terms pain is incurred whenever there is a threat to the integrity or power of our organism. As well as damage to our body this can take psychic forms such as loss, fright, frustration, boredom or ridicule. The perception of pain causes the body/mind to protect itself in various ways and then later when the threat is no longer present and we are feeling safe, it will heal the hurt. A process accompanied by emotional expressions especially when the hurt was psychic.

These release or discharge processes include animated talking, laughing, yawning, trembling, and possibly things such as sighing, scratching, retching and stretching. It seems they are essential for a complete healing process to occur. Certain conditions of safety need to be present for these processes to occur. The main requirement is usually the uncritical caring attention of another human.

If these resolving processes cannot occur after a painful experience there is a shut down, repression or rigidity in the memory areas associated with the hurt. Accumulating or catastrophic pain which is unresolved causes serious general interference with the functions of the body/mind. The symptoms of this disturbance vary from severe depression or chronic feelings of inferiority to irrational dislikes or erratic memory recall, from 'nerves' and 'tension' to disease. Fortunately these blocks may be cleared by simple techniques at a later date. But it takes much time.

It seems that a large part of human potential is occluded in this way.

What is repressed excercises a continuous straining in the direction of consciousness, so that the balance has to be kept by steady counter pressure Sigmund Freud, Collected Papers Vol 4 Basic Books NY 1959.

The resolving processes are commonly confused with the hurt itself. A sympathetic parent will often distract a child from hir tears, thinking that all is well if tears can be stopped by distraction or other means. But tears are not the hurt. Quite the opposite, tears are a visible sign of the resolution of the hurt. The value of quiet listening and appreciative attention is often not realised.

A high premium is put on self-control in our growing up. Emotional outbursts are not encouraged as their cathartic healing function is widely misunderstood..

A pain is stored as part of the whole sensory experience in which it occured. When something happens to us that is similar to the experience in which the pain occured it will bring up those feelings by association and may change your mood.

We frequently experience irrational feeling, the cause of which, we look for in the events around us. but, often as not, the cause of the feeling is as upset that happened years ago that has simply been triggered by an association in present time. By this, process a patently innocent event can resurrect a strong feeling, that is quite irrational when applied to the current facts.

To make things more confusing several feelings can arise at together to produce a gamut of bad feeling. The thing to remember is that there is always a concrete origin in past events for an irrational feeling in the present.

This process happens subconsciously as part of the continually associating and interrelating of past experience with present sensations. When people see a sad movie they might cry because it brings up sympathetic feelings in themselves. Many people will pull themselves together and stop crying in these circumstances because they think it is silly to cry in a situation which is in reality obviously safe. What they do not realise is that they are actually crying about a past incident that really was threatening, the memory of which has bee repressed.

It is easy to see how people equate crying with weakness (You cry baby!), trembling and raging with lack of control (Pull yourself together!), yawing with insufficient sleep and so on. These conditioned responses to emotional expression, particularly while we are young, have seriously interfered with our capacity to heal our pyschic hurts.

What do I mean by a survival threat that causes psychic pain? Any denial of our potential is a threat to our integrity. Helplessness on any level is the most common and hurtful experience - it conditions us to be dependent and powerless. Any of our infant needs which were repeatedly denied will be felt as a threat which causes pain and shuts of part of ourselves. These needs include the need to be touched, allowed to sleep in peace, to nurse, to be dry and fed properly, be appreciated, never to be left unattended, to be freshly stimulated but have a tranquil environment, to be consulted and informed, to be treated with respect, to be weaned from dependency with consideration.

Another key one is to receive uncritical attention when hurt and be allowed emotional expression. This key because it leads to the later difficulties we have healing form the others hurts.

Denial of our power is more widespread than the infant realm. It extends through the class structure, in which a majority of people are conditioned to deeply interiorise a feeling of inferior to a ruling minority. All the pervasive and often subtle put-downs that are the building blocks of oppression are profoundly hurtful and leaves most of us struggling in the mould of second class humans.

To Summarise: Emotional release is an automatic physiological reflex that is triggered when the right conditions exist. You can create these conditions and allow it to occur. Some attention must be given to the hurt but some must also be on present time safety. The present time safety is usually provided by the presence of caring human.

With sufficient space for emotional processes to take place the hurt will heal and associated effects will diminish or wither away. Body mind functioning in areas associated with the hurt will improve, tensions become less and thinking become sharper.

As little children we have all internalised an immense amount of HURT. As oppressed adults we get more. These hurts interfere with our body and mind functioning leading to disease, irrational and anti social behaviors and a shut down of flexible thinking.

Recent research: "When Hurt Will Not Heal: Exploring the Capacity to Relive Social and Physical Pain" by Zhansheng Chen, Kipling D. Williams, Julie Fitness, and Nicola C. Newton

available on: Journal of Psychological Science

"Recent discoveries suggest that social pain is as real and intense as physical pain, and that the social-pain system may have piggybacked on the brain structure that had evolved earlier for physical pain. The present study examined an important distinction between social and physical pain: Individuals can relive and reexperience social pain more easily and more intensely than physical pain. Studies 1 and 2 showed that people reported higher levels of pain after reliving a past socially painful event than after reliving a past physically painful event. Studies 3 and 4 found, in addition, that people performed worse on cognitively demanding tasks after they relived social rather than physical pain."

[edit] A note on Time

Time & Rythmn