Mindfulness observing self

Was Norman Cousins really cured by laughter, or was he just one of the lucky few who recover from ankylosing spondyhtis That s a difficult question to answer, but many no doubt tried to follow in his footsteps and laugh themselves to health, only to succumb to their disease. And these people didn t write books about their experiences. Cousins s self-cure may be questionable, but his contribution to science is undeniable. He sensitized the scientific community to our need to study body-mind relationships seriously, and bis efforts have led to some fascinating observations. 

The dynamic interaction of perception, emotion, and cognition in the creation of conscious experience is highlighted by the visual image transformations that are enhanced by natural and drug-induced alterations of brain-mind state. Later in the book we will read the detailed accounts of such transformations in the reports by careful self-observers such as Albert Hofmann (who discovered the psychotogcnic potential of LSD) and Heinrich Kliiver (who used mescaline to study visual hallucination). In Hofmann and Kliiver s work, the most valuable descriptions are formal. That is, they emphasize form rather than content. 

Even when he was out of his mind, Hofmann was capable of accurate self-observation. Hofmann is thus twice a hero. He resisted the impulse to interpret the visions that developed when he was synthesizing LSD-25 as either a visitation from the spirit world or as a spontaneous mental illness. Instead, he wanted to describe and investigate his inadvertent discovery with objective dispassion and analytic curiosity. 

Observing oneself means that the overall system must observe itself. Thus, in the conservative view of the mind self-observation is inherently limited, for the part cannot comprehend the whole and the characteristics of the parts affect their observation, in the radical view, however, in which awareness is partially or wholly independent of brain structure, the possibility exists of an observer much more independent of the structure. 

To interpret new experimental chemical kinetic data characterized by complex dynamic behaviour (hysteresis, self-oscillations) proved to be vitally important for the adoption of new general scientific ideas. The methods of the qualitative theory of differential equations and of graph theory permitted us to perform the analysis for the effect of mechanism structures on the kinetic peculiarities of catalytic reactions [6,10,11]. This tendency will be deepened. To our mind, fast progress is to be expected in studying distributed systems. Despite the complexity of the processes observed (wave and autowave), their interpretation is ensured by a new apparatus that is both effective and simple. 

In its most general form, the practice of self-observation is simply a matter of paying attention to everything, noticing whatever happens, being open-mindedly curious about all that is going on. This everything will almost always be a mixture of perceptions of external events and your internal reactions to them. You should drop all a priori beliefs about what you should be interested in, what is important and not important. Whatever is, is an appropriate focus for observation. 

A particularly useful focused form of self-observation is the type of Buddhist meditation know as vipassana or mindfulness meditation. 

Self-observation can be done from the level of false personality. One IJ observes aspects of its behavior. In the case of partial or full coconsciousness of I s, something likely to come about with dedicated practice, one I can observe some of the functioning of other I s. Ordinary mind pays attention to ordinary mind. You can see something more clearly than normal but may not see the biasing characteristics you bring to the observation or notice that you are getting absorbed in the observation. 

Depersonalization—change in an individual s self-awareness, during anxiety disorder, such that one feels detached from his or her own experiences, with the self, body, and mind seeming alien or distant Persistent or recurrent experiences as if one is an outside observer of one s mental processes or body (e.g., feeling hke one is in a dream). 

The mind of a Virgo is a wondrous thing. Thanks to Mercury, the planet named after the quick-witted god of communication, you re observant, insightful, capable, and articulate. You re also discriminating and critical, especially of yourself. Constantly in search of self-improvement, you consider yourself a work in progress. 

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