Felling Yonder

[Guest guest]

V. S. Ramachandra a San Diego University Neurogolist relates

an experimement conducted with sensory perception in

his book " The Ghost in the Brain. " A plastic plastic hand

is placed on a table, and a subject is instructed to sit by the table

with his right knee directly under the plastic hand. The subject

is asked to place both hands on his knees , but in a way

that he can't not see his right hand under the table. He is

told to stare at the plastic hand while a person hiding

under the table rubs his left hand gently. He is asked

to tell where the feeling of being rubbed is being experienced, and

when the person under the table rubs his left hand, the subject

correctly reports the feeling as coming from his left had, but

after a brief while, when his right hand is stroked (the one

under the plastic hand) the subject reports the sensations

as coming from the plastic hand, and not from his right hand

over his knee.

 

This illusion is possible because our sense of sight is so

powerful that it somehow controls and redirect other weaker

feelings as if coming from the observed observed.

 

This experiment brings to mind a peculiar phenomenon I, and

many other contenplatives have reported of being able to

feel how clouds, rocks, trees, and other objects feel by simply

staring at them with an empty mind. It almost feels as if

you are using a different sense, and yet it's only a distinctive

emotion or feeling which a cloud, or a rock evokes. and it's different

from the sensation of seeing a beautiful face, or a flower,

or a road kill. We all feel these things, a beautiful face everyone

knows how it feels. A cloud, or a tree requires more attention, but

with some practice in medition the whole world becomes our

body, and feeling yonder is as close as our fingertips.

 

Pete