I wanted to take some time to write about consciousness.
Since I know nothing about the makeup of the brain, obviously, the perspectives here are coming from a mix of a guess about how things work, based on my personal experiences playing around with my grey matter.
A few months ago, I learned how to observe my thoughts. You can do this too, by finding a place with few distractions, and closing your eyes, and thinking about a topic in your mind and observing it.
However, thinking about things a little, I realize that I had not gone all the way. For in fact, there was something observing this observer. What I found peculiar was that I could even observe my observer observing my observer, however, in this state I could not simultaneously view this while viewing the original observer.
So I got to thinking. 😉 What exactly is going on inside me?
My current perspective is based on left/right brain theory, that I know pretty much nothing about , other than 1) one side of the brain is focused on feeling and one side analytics and 2) that one can survive with one half of the brain, either left or right.
We’ll this got me thinking, and the model that I am currently running with is that in fact there are two ways we think, and two ways that we observe ourself thinking.
One way of thinking is analytical thinking, and the other way is what I will call picture thinking, or guttural. Analytical thinking is made up of taking discrete pieces of knowledge, and using logic to come to some conclusion for action or feeling. The other way to think is picture thinking, where the mind creates a picture to model a thought, and these pictures are then manipulated to help us determine action. The source of each of these thinking comes from either the left (pictorial) OR right (analytical) brain. However, both models are then integrated by the self to form a conclusion for action. Each of these ways of thinking have an “observer” that communicates back to the underlying self.
Ideally, both sides of the mind show the same thing, in which case the decision is easy. Other times, both sides end up with a different conclusion, resulting in additional processing (for lack of a better term).
On a side note, when we meditate, there are actually two parts of the brain that we have to arrest, both the analytical and pictorial, which is why I think that when I meditate I need to focus my attention (analytical) on an imaginary object, if even nothing (pictorial), to free my mind.