Context

This exercise is designed to help dissolve your ego.

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In particular, by getting you actively reinterpret your visual field.

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Before we commence however, we must first come to understand how humans interpret reality.

On a conceptual level, humans relate to the world with language. We use words and symbols in order to define and describe the world around us.

It’s what allows us to gauge social situations, learn new theoretical concepts and better understand the relationship between ourselves and our environment.

And yet, although we live in this predefined world of assumptions based on our conceptual understanding of the world.

None of it is actually ‘real’.

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Numbers, for example, are not real. They're just mathematical descriptions.

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On a cultural level, this conceptuality extends to all the predefined rules we have in regards to how we should act and behave.

For example, some cultures prefer kissing as opposed to shaking hands as a way to greet others …and yet this preference doesn’t actually help describe what humans are.

Although society attempts to define us based on our behaviours and how we act, it still doesn’t change the fact that we all have ten fingers, two eyes and a need to be loved.

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We're all still merely people, after all.

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By the same token, our addiction to porn maintains a very similar same layer of conceptual ‘description’ which prevents us from truly seeing what we’re actually doing.

For example, we can find ourselves drawn to certain types of porn or online fetishes.

Even though, when you think about it, it’s all just a bunch of light emanating from our computer screens.

Which when you put it like that, makes porn addiction seem quite silly.

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I mean, is that arrangement of light and colour on your computer screen really that special enough for you to be completely dependent upon it?

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Essentially, what we intend to do with this exercise is help your brain distinguish between what you see (i.e. light and colour).

In contrast to that extra layer of conceptuality clouding your vision (i.e. the actual person standing in front of you).

We want to remove this bias from our visual understanding of reality, not only to see a ‘clearer’ picture of reality, but to better understand what we’re actually experiencing.

So really, what we’re trying to discover is.

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What information do we lose with all this additional mental processing?

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Can we call what we even see with this additional processing ‘reality’?

Is it possible to truly ‘see’ when our minds are in a constant state of evaluation?

These are the questions will be attempting to answer and of course, it can help to understand that there are many ways we cloud our vision with description.

For example, we typically use a variety of objects in our visual field to construct depth. Then, we often evaluate those objects. Are they alive? Are they human? Are they dangerous?

Ultimately, this is the process we are trying to understand.

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Instructions

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For this exercise, what we want to do is attempt to treat our visual field as a simple plane of a light and colour.

No objects. No descriptions. No focusing on certain details over another. No intepretations.

Nuthin’.

Instead, what we want to do is treat our visual field as a non-descript arrangement of light and colour.

It usually helps to imagine everything as a cloud of sensation, although I’m sure there are other more meaningful ways to describe it.

Certainly, don’t try to focus.

Keep your attention wide and merely feel as if you’re intaking the visual information around you, rather than from the point of view of you actively perceiving that information.

While you can do this anywhere, I personally find it works best when I have a few minutes alone, where you can really explore this idea uninterupted.