I’m very happy with the responses I got on my Subjective Reality post.  I’m seeing a lot of open minded people that are willing to at least consider different theories of life and reality.  I think Sara of A Sharing Connection said it best, “I would hate to think I was just one of those vacant people walking the streets in the Matrix unable to see…I much rather be Neo.”  I agree, even though I know I’d be giving up the easy life within the Matrix, I’d rather choose to enter it at my discretion.  Plus, when you go back in the Matrix, you get all kinds of cool powers over your world.

Have you ever felt like the people around you in this world were vacant?  I have.  I see people just plugging along in their world, with no desire for anything above the basic necessities.   They might want more “stuff” but they never try to improve themselves to achieve their goals (if they even have any goals set.)  I feel a small sadness when I see people like this.  However, if our reality is subjective than it’s possible those other people aren’t real at all, they are just figments created to complete my world, and therefore, they don’t have to strive for anything better.

Recap – Subjective vs. Objective

I think I should recap a little since the terms subjective and objective can get confusing.

Objective – Not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; existing independent of thought or observation.

Objective Reality – A world that is concrete and defined.  Even if humans did not inhabit this planet, it would still exist.

Subjective – Existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought; relating to the nature of an object as it is known to the mind and distinct from the thing itself; there are no facts.

Subjective Reality – The world exists differently to each individual.  The world I see will differ from the world you see.

Subject Reality Fun – Questions from Readers

Let’s address some the comments that came up from the last post.

Raul form Alien Ghost added to the fun in describing another type of subjective reality where we each have different types of subjective realities.  His example was that he creates a world and others may inhabit the world that he created, while someone else may be in a world they created and have no other sentient entities in their world.  That’s the beauty of a subjective reality; we could each have completely different realities.  It would be like sitting in a computer lab, and some people are playing together in a multiplayer game, while someone else is flipping blocks in Tetris all by themselves.  They are all experiencing a reality, but some share and some don’t.

S. Ali Myers of Soulful Body and Mind brought up the topic of energy beings.  This is an interesting component of any reality, subjective or objective.  Everything we see and touch is made up of energy.  As far as we know, we are all made up of atoms, which are constantly moving.  From our perspective, and without a tool to see at the microscopic level, we see solids.  Yet those solids are vibrating, spinning, moving, and oscillating.  Consider that we can manipulate certain types of energy, like directing it through an electrical cord or turning on a lamp, it’s not too much of a stretch to think that we could control other types of energy.  And some of that energy could be in the form of manifesting things into our lives.  Whether it be creating solids from energy, attracting things with thought, or manipulating the weather.  If it’s all energy it seem to me there must be some way to control that energy.

Viewing energy manipulation from a subjective viewpoint makes the whole process a little easier.  In a subjective world, since everything exist as we see it, then we just have to change our view to change our world.  Then by directing our energy of thought, we can really put the law of attraction in action.

Sara from A Sharing Connection has many great thought.  First she has some questions about the implications of a subjective reality.  She says it’s “scary,” and I agree.  It can be scary.  Espeically since it goes counter to what we have been taught about reality.  All through our lives we are thought about reality and the science of our objective reality.  Now to consider that it was all wrong is just as scary as finding out the Earth was round.  I’m sure people were once scared to consider the world as round, figuring people on the bottom of this big ball we live on would simply fall off.  Without the concept of gravity, they could not perceive a spherical Earth.

Subjective reality can be very individualistic. Or it could be a cooperation.  It depends on how you look at it, and ultimately on exactly how you define your own subjective reality.  Ultimately, a subject reality is individualistic in that you’re reality is defined by what you perceive.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that other people don’t exist.  You could have a subjective reality where we are all sentient beings, but we simply perceive things differently.  If you think of the world we live in, you can see some of this already, especially in politics and religion.  Everyone seems to perceive those things differently.  I think if reality were completely objective, there wouldn’t be any difference of opinion, as there would only be one right way, and everyone would have to agree on that one right way.

How does subjective reality deal with people who join together to fight for a cause or to make a change in a world? Whose world is receiving the change? Joining together is just as you see it in our world.  If you are the only sentient being in your reality, then you are joining with yourself to fight for a cause or to make a change.  Interestingly though, you would also be the opposing faction.  Therefore it would be an inner conflict, manifesting in your subjective reality.  It’s like an indecision that you often work out in your head.  Should I where the black belt or the tan belt.  You may go back and forth, but the conversation is in your head.  In a subjective reality, that conversation manifests into other people fighting back and forth.

If your subjective reality has other sentient beings in it, then you would cooperate with them just as you do in our world.  I believe in the case of cooperation, you would each see the changes in your own worlds, although you each may or may not perceive that change to be the same.  Subjective is always a personal view, so even if you entered into someone else’s world, you still have your own views of that world.  The mixing of world can be confusing, huh?

Sara asks, “How do we handle things in our world that require cooperation?  How do we deal with war, oil spills, terrorism, and genocide?”  This also depends on the type of subjective reality you think we might be in.  If we are the only sentient beings in our reality, then all these acts and events are part of us.  They are created by us to experience them in this world.  This can be a very scary thought, and part of the reason it’s scary is because of something else you mentioned.  How does subjective reality deal with the concepts of good and evil?  From a very early age we are taught the concept of good and evil.  Then, just to make sure you get it, we have religion to hammer that idea home.  And boy, do they take that concept and knock it out of the park.  The very first chapter of the bible hits you with the evil serpent and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Good and evil are engrained in our world, but do they exist outside of the human world?  Religion would have you thinks so with God and the Devil, and angels and demons.  My feeling, and many agree with this thought, is that good and evil is a man made creation.  I personally don’t think it exists outside of the human realm.

In any case, what are the implications of good and evil in a subjective world?  You are correct when you questions if we create them.  I think in a subjective reality, the concepts of good and evil would be created by us.  Once we create them, we are bound to the consequences of our belief.  On the flip side, consider a subjective reality where good and evil doesn’t exist.  In this type of reality, you, or any other sentient beings in this reality would simply be.  They wouldn’t be bad our good, they would just be.  Imagine that murder or death by murder were simply an experience to be had.  It’s like in video games, where we often like to play the bad guy.  Most of us don’t get a chance to be bad in our world, so we take the chance to be bad in the video game.  Consider a subjective reality, where you dream up the world, would you take an opportunity to experience doing bad things?  In such a case, you aren’t bad, you are simply experience a different variety of feelings and emotions.

I touched on good vs. evil in another post, you might find that interesting also.

Preeti of Happy Heart and Mind didn’t say much about subjective reality, but I wanted to give her a link because she always stops by to comment, and I really appreciate that.

Yu Omori of Blissful Burden tried the dream world experiment and sounds like he had some good success with it.  I was amazed at how well things fell into place when I looked at this world as a dream that is under my control.

Yu had some trouble with an open source reality in which we are all creators.  He said it might have been because he was tired, and with that section being towards the end of my last post.  I have the same trouble after a long day of work; it’s hard to keep that brain thinking when it’s telling you it would rather take a nap.  It finally clicked for him though after it had some time to stew.  I’ve actually heard this theory before, but not necessarily as related to the subjective.  I have heard of experiments where a group of people will get together and mediate or concentrate on a certain thing.  Perhaps healing someone that is sick, or perhaps praying for someone, or in one case I heard of people trying to change the weather.  It’s like anything we do in cooperation.  We agree to the outcome we want and the steps to get there, then we all work together to make it happen.  Like building a sandcastle.  We all agree on a design and a method for construction, then we all grab our buckets and shovels and manifest a castle from a pile of sand.

As a side note, I sometimes feel like weather is one of the easiest things to control.  Most people assume the weather is out of their control and therefore nobody tries to control it.  I like to take that opportunity to put in my very own weather requests.  Many times on the way to the beach, I’ll see a bunch of white puffy clouds that are going to mask the warmth and hide that beautiful sun.  On the way there, I’ll concentrate on sunshine, and usually by the time I get to the beach it’s clear and sunny, and stays that way for the rest of the day.  I like to think that I can move those big puffy clouds around with the power of thought, and as far as I can tell, it works pretty well.

Yu also mentioned that it seems the open source world would require some type of physical world.  In a way it does, but then what constitutes physical.  Can a subjective world have physical components if we define those properties?  I believe it can, and likely does.

Barbara Swafford of Blogging Without a Blog talked about “rock star” parking.  This is a great example of law of attraction.  You think of that great parking spot up close and somehow it appears just as you are pulling up.  I’d like to see some folks supercharge that by using the dream world technique to imagine a constant rock star treatment.  If anyone gives it a try, please let me know!

Patricia of Patricia’s Wisdom had a long comment and sidetracked a bit into a short Walmart rant.  I have the feeling that Patricia is on the right track with everything she’s working on, but like in her comment, she gets a little side tracked.  She has all the basics down, and has a great foundation, with work in affirmations, positive thinking, energy healing, and law of attraction.  In many ways, it mirrors the path I have taken.  Plus she’s already using the lucid dream technique on the highway, which is a great place to experiment!  I like to imagine people moving out of my way so I can get home faster.  I bet Patricia does something similar.  After all, if this is my dream world, I don’t have any need for traffic to slow me down!

The things that are sidetracking her progress are illness and financial woes.  These are two biggies that can be difficult to overcome.  I’d be willing to bet they are two of the biggest problems that people have to deal with in our little world.  So, the question is, how do we deal with these in a subjective reality or a dream world?

First, understand that believe plays a huge role in a subjective reality.  Belief is hard to overcome and takes time and/or effort.  We often place limits on ourselves due to our beliefs.  In several of the books I’ve read on law of attraction recently, they discuss our beliefs about money.  We often believe there is a limited supply, or that we have a limited ability to earn money.  This is a self limiting belief.  There is more than enough money to go around and we can have as much as we belief we can.  This is especially true in a subjective reality, where we set our own rules.  The one caveat in a subjective reality though, is that the beliefs affect us big time.  Since it’s our beliefs that create and define the world, they can also be our limiting factor.

Most of the times I’ve found myself stuck, it was because I wasn’t clear in my desires, or because I was sabotaging my positive thoughts without noticing it.  I can give you a great example on clarity.  When I was unemployed last year, I wanted to find a job before my savings ran out.  I did find a job, but I hadn’t been clear on the type of job I wanted, and the job wasn’t a good fit.  After being there for a couple months, I got real clear on the extract type of job I wanted.  I wasn’t even sure a job like that existed, but I got clear on it anyway.  Within a couple of weeks, I received a call for a job interview.  I was shocked to find out it was the exact job I had imagined.  Getting clear on what you want is absolutely necessary.

As far as sabotaging my positive thoughts, I finally caught myself.  I found myself saying that we couldn’t have certain things.  It was any variety of things, like a toy for the cat or a book for me.  I was sabotaging myself by saying that I couldn’t have these things, when really I could have them, I was just choosing not to.  Saying I can’t made it more definite.  Saying I chose not to, made it a possibility that I chose to forgo.

To roll all this back into a subjective reality, it’s easiest to consider a lucid dream world where you control everything.  If that’s the case, then decide that you control your health and your income, and recognize that for a while you had been limiting that income and health so that you could have certain experiences.  You have experienced some sadness, some illness, and the emotions that go with financial issues, and now that you’ve had those experiences, you are ready to move on to new experiences.  Get real clear about what you want.  Envision it, write it down, draw pictures, or cut out pictures and words from magazines, to create as much clarity as possible about where you want to be.  You are taking control of your dream world, and it’s time to move on to a more enjoyable place in that dream.

On a side note, I just added “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” to my Netflix queue.  I’m not going to commit to a boycott, but I’ll at least take a look at the issues.

Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

I hope by answering these questions I’ve brought a little more clarity to the world of subjective reality.  I’m reminded of a couple of things from the movies every time I think of subjective reality.  One is the part of the Matrix where the little girl says, “There is no spoon.”  This reminds me that I create my reality, and the spoon only exists if I say it does.  The other is Alice in Wonderland, which my daughter has been watching lately.  Alice falls down that rabbit hole, which is something I often hear associated with subjective reality.  It’s an exploration within, and the world is sometimes topsy turvy but is always dependant on the thoughts we put into it

I love the comments and questions, so keep them coming.  I also love to hear stories of manifesting abundance, law of attraction, and dream world experiments.  Please share these in the comments section below.  Also, be sure to visit the blogs mentioned in this post.  These are all open minded individuals, and these are the leaders of the Reality Perception Revolution.

I’m going to end with my future Wikipedia entry crafted by Raul of Alien Ghost, because in my reality I darn sure have an entry in Wikipedia!

“There used to be a unified world where people, out of blindness, lived in a standardized concept of reality, until a man named Eric Watermolen started the movement for “Reality Perception Revolution” which eventually led to the disassociation of physical beings by the creation of “Personal Realities” that created our actual “Physical Variable Reality” where infinite realities interact among each other, dependent on the people’s own perceptions and controlled thoughts. – Wikipedia, 2030

Get ready for this post.  It’s a mind blowing path to enlightenment.  We are going to consider some different theories of reality.  We’re going to open our minds and consider an array of possibilities to define our existence.  Use caution while reading, you are likely to experience brain ache by the time you get to the end of this post.  If you do make it to the end with your brain intact, I’ll share some ways of applying these mind bending realities to drastically improve your life.

I was recently introduced to the concept of subjective reality through some posts at StevePavlina.com.  Steve has started at 30 day experiment to live in and embrace a subjective reality.  Subjective reality is a new term to me, and it spurred some interesting thoughts within.  When approaching the topic of subjective reality, I think it’s best to start with (what I’d call) the opposite, Objective Reality.

Objective Reality

Objective Reality is based on the idea that our world is “mind independent.”  Meaning that the physical world we live in really exists, is subject to universal laws, and that everything in this world is the same for everyone.  Everyone sees everything the same.  In this world, facts are facts.  Objective reality may also be referred to as philosophical realism.

Basically, it’s the world that most people believe we live in.  A physical world defined by physical laws and is not and cannot be changed by perception or thought.

Subjective Reality

Now that you have the concept of Objective Reality, let’s move into the world of Subjective Reality.  Let me get you primed with the Wikipedia definition of Subjective Reality.

“Subjective reality states that reality and all of the things, concepts, and “truths” in the universe change between individuals. Simply put, we all live in different worlds. All of these worlds may have things in common but because of each of our unique perspectives on our worlds we are left with an altered existence or reality of existence. If someone in Africa is aware of fire and is seeing it and an Eskimo in the Arctic that has never seen fire before to him the fire does not exist.”

I find it helps to think of Subjective Reality as a dream world.  Your real self, which you may think of a spirit or soul, is somewhere else.  It could be physical or non physical, but in either case, it brings the physical you to this world through a dream.  That is, the reality is manifested by your thoughts. To say it another way, the real you is the dreamer, and the physical world you see is the dream.

From there, my thoughts really took off.  Once I started considering different possibilities for “reality,” my mind started racing with ideas.

Perhaps there are no other dreamers participating in my dream.  This entire physical world is created for me, and possibly by me.  It’s like a dream that you might have while you are sleeping.  The entire world is created by you, and nobody else is participating.  The other people in this dream are simply manifestations of your own thoughts.  You create all the people in your dream.

Then I started thinking about other possibilities.  Perhaps it’s my dream and yet other people come into my dream.  Or maybe someone else created the dream and I’m part of their dream.  In order to solidify these thoughts, I broke them down into some categories so I could corral them before pondering them further.  To me (at least for now) it came down to who created this world and are there really other people in it.  When reading through this, keep in mind that I am approaching each reality concept as me being a dreamer with an avatar or physical manifestation in the dream.

I am the creator

First we have the worlds where I create the dream and thus create the physical world in which the dream takes place.

The entire physical world is created for me by me.  I am the only player in this dream.

This type of world can be compared to our dreams when we sleep.  I create the dream.  I may see other people in my dream, but they are all created by me.  Everything, including the world, the people, and the rules of this world are created by me.

I think this would be considered to be Solipsism or is at least very similar, although Steve Pavlina (if I understand him correctly) considers Solipsism to imply the dream and the dreamer are one, meaning there is no differentiation between the two.

Further, and again if I understand him correctly, Steve Pavlina considers this “physical world created by me, as the dreamer, and I am the only player in the dream” to be his concept of Subjective Reality.

In addition to comparing these concepts to dreams and dreamers, I like to compare them to video games.  It gives me another frame of reference to work with.

Example: Consider the Pac Man video game.  In this example, I am Pac Man, and I created the Pac Man video game.  I control myself, the ghosts, the placement of the dots, the layout of the game board.  I control all aspects of the game and can change them to the extent that I believe I can.

In Steve’s definition of Solipsism, I am the Pac Man, but there is no controller, I control myself from within the game.

Physical world implications: I can’t fly because I believe I can’t fly.  I self imposed that rule.  Since I self imposed it, it’s very difficult to overcome.  It requires a complete change in belief to overcome.  The rule limiting flight can be overcome at any time when I accept the belief as truth.  The people I interact with are all a part of me.  If I argue with someone, I am actually arguing with myself.

In a personal development and law of attraction sense, this subjective view of reality is very powerful.  It’s self centric meaning that everything in life (in our dream world) is created by us.  We create them to deal with and overcome our own issues and to create opportunities to learn.  And since we create everything then anything we believe can manifest into reality.

The entire physical world is created by me.  There are other players that enter my dream.

This is a world where I create the dream, and but it’s open for other people to enter.  It’s like when two people have the same dream and that they interacted together in this dream.  This would mean there are multiple worlds.  We are always a part of our world, but we may enter the worlds created by others as well.

Example: Considering Pac Man, I create the game, I control my Pac Man, the placement of the dots, the layout of the game board, but I may have Ms. Pac Man or maybe even Donkey Kong jump into my game for a while.  This would also imply that I may enter their video games as well.

Physical world implications: I can’t fly because I believe I can’t fly.  I self imposed that rule.  Since I self imposed it, it’s very difficult to overcome.  It requires a complete change in belief to overcome.  The rule limiting flight can be overcome at any time when I accept the belief as truth.  The rules of my world would create the limitations of those entering my world, and I am subject to the rules of world created by others.  The rules of this world would be very limiting as it would be the sum of all limitations.

An outside entity as the creator

The next two examples consider subjective realities in which someone else creates the world.  This could be a God created universe.  Or it could be a Q created universe as in Star Trek.

The entire physical world is created for me by someone else.  I am the only player in this dream.

I like to think of this one as a virtual reality world, or as a video game.  A programmer creates the game and I’m the player of the game.  I am still the dreamer, and my dream world is created by this programmer.  I enter the dream through my physical representation.  Once entered into this world, I must follow the rules of the programmer.  I am free to move about and experience this world, but I’m constrained to the rules created by the programmer.   There are no other players in this world.  All players are created by the programmer and respond to me based on the input I provide.

Example: Consider PacMan as an example.  I enter the world as Pac Man.  I eat a bunch of dots, and then I meet some ghosts.  These ghosts are other people, but they are just here for me.  They are not actually controlled by anyone, but are created by the programmer for the sole purpose of interacting with me in some way.

Physical world implications: Everyone and everything that I interact with is here just for me.  I can’t fly because that is the limitation placed on this world by the designer, programmer, or God.  Everyone I interact with is here just for me, to teach me, for me to learn from, or me to experience the physical and emotional with.  In this world, murder would have no meaning, since all entities other than myself are simply part of the program and not attached to any sentient being.  Murder does not affect any other sentient being since none exist in this world, but it may impact the rules of the programmer, and thus have an impact on me.

The entire physical world is created by someone else.  There are other players in this dream.

This world is like a multiplayer video game.  As with the prior example, a programmer creates the game world, and I must follow the rules established by the programmer.  In this world, however, there are other dreamers that I interact with.  These dreamers control their own physical representations, and things they do in this world may affect my world.  For those accepting a subjective reality, this is likely the most common perception of it.  God creates a universe, and our soul bodies inhabit physical bodies to experience this physical world.

Example: Think of it like two people playing Pac Man at the same time.  If one of them eats a ghost or a dot, then that dot is no longer available to me.  I can interact with this other player.  I can team up to get all the dots, or I can compete to get more dots.  Every action I make has an effect on the other player(s).

This is also the reality as portrayed in the movie The Matrix.  The dream world is created by the machines, and all the dreamers plug into the dream world.

Physical world implications: The people we interact with are sentient beings.  My actions will affect others in this reality.  I can’t fly because that is the limitation placed on this world by the designer, programmer, or God.  Murder will terminate the physical representation of the dreamer.

Open Source worlds, we’re all creators

After thinking about worlds that I create and worlds that are created by God, I considered another alternative; Worlds that are created by many.  I call this the open source reality.

The entire physical world is created for many or by many, but I have my own interpretation of it.  We create the physical by agreement. There are many players in the dream, but my vision of this dream is different from all the other players.

This is like open source software.  Many people may contribute to the design and creation of the software, but we all might use it in different ways.  Like a web browser for example.  I might use that web browser to pay bills, while someone else might use it to watch videos.  My interpretation of the software is based on my own needs and interactions.

Example: This is one of the harder concepts to grasp (at least for me,) so let’s consider another example.  I am playing a video game.  We’ll use Pac Man again.  This version of Pac Man was created by many people.  We’ll consider a version with two players; two Pac Men moving around the screen.  In this version of Pac Man, as the game starts it’s full of dots.  I can see the other Pac Man moving around the screen, gobbling up dots.  After they eat a dot, in their reality, the dot is gone.   But, in my reality, I still see a dot.  It’s a dot that’s still available for me to chomp, even after the other player eats it.  Zoom out to see the overall picture as an all reality seeing observer.  You might see everyone on one screen, and as one player eats a dot, it becomes slightly transparent to indicate that it’s been eaten by one player, but still available to another.  We all interact in the same world, but we see our own version of reality.

Physical world implications: The rules of the world are defined by many based on an agreement.  The rules might be broken or changed, but it takes either a strong individual (like a Neo from the Matrix) or a group decision.  I can’t fly unless the group as a whole decides it’s possible to fly.  My actions may or may not affect others, it depends if my actions are part of their perceived reality.

The entire physical world is created by many, and we all interact together.  We create the physical by agreement.  All players in the dream see the same vision.

This is a more mainstream belief.  Well, mainstream in that many people share this idea of reality more so than some of the prior ideas.  It’s also more of an Objective Reality since everyone sees the same reality, yet I think it holds some subjective components since it’s created by agreement.  In this reality, we are all dreamers, and we agree on a reality.  This agreement creates the reality.  We may be able to change small things within our reality, but the world as a whole requires the agreement of many.  This world would be strong in the Law of Attraction.  There have been experiments on ideas like this, where a group of people meditate on a single idea.  One example is changing the weather.  The idea being that when enough people think about shifting the path of a hurricane it or thinking (praying) for rain, their thoughts can manifest the reality.

I think this could have happened during the world trade center attack.  I suspect everyone watching thought those building were going to fall (I know I did.)  With so many millions of people thinking they would fall, in this type of agreed reality, it would cause it to happen.  The questions becomes: Did I think they would fall based on a premonition, or did the combined thoughts cause them to fall?

Brain pain

All this consideration of different realities that may or may not exist can definitely be a strain on the brain.  You may want to take a minute now to stand up and stretch.  It took me several days of starting and stopping just to put all this together, so you might need a brain break, or maybe a KitKat (break me off a piece of that KitKat bar.)  I’m sure I have only scratched the surface of various types of subjective realities.  There are likely many more that could be imagined, but these are the ones that came to mind when I started thinking about it.

WDET (What Does Eric Think?)

You might be wondering what realm of reality I consider to exist.  Honestly, I haven’t a clue.  There’s likely a whole slew of realities that I haven’t even considered yet.  I will tell you of an interesting experiment though.

This experiment is one currently being conducted by Steve Pavlina, which I mentioned at the beginning of the post.  He is trying to live life subjectively.  He is diving into the belief that the real Steve is a dreamer, and the world and the avatar Steve are in the dream world.  This is like my first example of Subjective Reality, one in which the dreamer creates the dream and is also the only participant.  Steve says it’s expanding his entire world for the better.

Your turn to Delve into the Subjective

I was really intrigued by all this, and being that I already subscribe to the law of attraction, this wasn’t too much of a leap.  In fact I found it to be a powerful mind technique for using the law of attraction to manifest reality.  You can use these ideas of subjective reality to activate the law of attraction for yourself.

Getting Started in a Subjective Reality

To get started, look around and imagine that instead of actually being here, you are far off in a galactic bed, and you have dreamt this world and everything that you see.  You are in a dream.  Everything here is your creation and it is all here in some form to benefit you.

I’ve read that some people have trouble getting started with this, and for others it’s an exhausting process.  Maybe my experiments with the law of attraction, lucid dreaming, and out of body experiences have helped me to prepare for such a reality.  I’m sure past experience has some bearing on this subjective reality experiment.

Even so, I think anyone can do it.  I find it helps to not try too hard.  Use your imagination.  Relax and think of what it’s like to dream.  The dream world is fixed for a time, and then it changes suddenly.  This world is the same, over the course of a day or two, the world doesn’t change much, but over 20 years the world is an entirely different place.  (Don’t get tied up in the time, since time is a relative term.)  Notice the changes around you.  Think back to your childhood town, if you went back now, you’d notice huge changes.  It would be just like a dream that jumps from one place to another, huge changes.

You accept that your real world changes to your amazement, much like a dream does.  Now consider the people in your dreams.  They seem absolutely real in the dream.  You talk with them, you interact with them, yet they are all created in your mind.  They don’t really exist.  Now expand that to the objective reality to make it subjective.  Could you consider that all the people in this world don’t really exist either, and that you created them.

The next step is to think about a lucid dream.  A lucid dream is a dream that you control.  Have you ever controlled a dream?  It’s a very interesting experience.  I recommend you read up on lucid dreaming if you’ve never tried before, but for now just accept that you can change your dreams.  You can recognize that you are dreaming and you can begin to control the dream.

Now apply that to the objective world to make it subjective.  Imagine that you are in the dream, and you can control it.  Controlling dreams may take a little practice, both in your bedtime lucid dream and in your new subjective reality dream.

Jump into an experiment

After considering for a couple of days how this world could be a dream world, I decided to give it a try.  I started on a trip to the grocery store.  I imagined that I controlled this dream and everything would go the way I wanted it to.  I wanted to go into the (dream) store, find exactly what I wanted without wandering the isles.  That’s truly a dream, to enter a grocery store and find the right isle every time.  I wanted everyone (all my dream characters) to be friendly and feel good around me.  You know what happened?  I went in, found what I needed on every single isle on the first try, and the checkout person was really upbeat and friendly.

That went well, let’s try another

On a trip to Walmart, as I walked in the back door through the garden center I saw a huge line.  I told myself that in my dream I never have to wait in line.  I also decided that in my dream I wanted the checkout person to be friendly and chatty.  I then continued into the store, made my shopping selections and headed for the checkout.  In this case I think I needed to clarify my thoughts, because when I arrive there was one person at the checkout.  I’m not sure if two people constitute a line, so I made a mental note to be clearer in the future.  The checkout guy was super friendly and we did chat for a minute, which is very unusual for me at the checkout.

A couple days later I made another trip to Walmart for some sleepover supplies.  My niece and nephew were over for a sleepover with my daughter.  I needed some goodies for dinner and desert.  In my dreams, I go with the flow and follow my thoughts or instincts.  In this case I decided to skip Winn-Dixie and head to Walmart instead.  I thought about how I wanted my dream visit to the dream store to go.

I wanted to find what I needed on the first try, and I wanted to find a checkout where I could walk right up and check out.  I headed inside and was like a machine, moving through all the right isles and finding everything quickly.  I also remembered that I needed some new underwear, because in my dream I always remember the items I need from the store, which was also the reason my intuition pointed me toward Walmart instead of Winn-Dixie.

After getting most of my items I heard it start to poor down rain.  In my dream I don’t have to walk in the rain, the rain will stop for me.  It seems this new intention affected the other intention of finding items quickly.  I had a hard time finding the underwear, but I knew this was because it would take a minute for my dream rain to cease or slow.  When I found the underwear it was marked down to half price!  I like to save money in my dreams.

I headed to the checkouts, and right in front of me was a lane that was completely open, now waiting at all.  So I checked out and headed outside.  The rain had slowed from a torrential downpour to a very light drizzle.  My dream knows I don’t really mind a light drizzle, so I headed out to the car.

The rest of the night was pleasant and fun, even with three kids tired and wore out from a full day of activities.  It went that way because that’s how I dream it to be.

Analysis

After a few days of experiences like this, I felt a need to analyze a little.  There are a couple of possibilities and I’m fully aware and open minded to the fact that subjective reality could be a bunch of hogwash.  All the happenings during my experiment could be explained away.  They could also be the results of the Law of Attraction, by manifesting my thoughts and desires.  If the Law of Attraction is the explanation, then approaching life as a dream world is a very powerful mind technique.  Or it could be that the world really is all in my dream and I am beginning to learn to control it.

In any case, I’ve had a great week and I feel great.  I’m going to end this post with an excerpt from The Matrix.  This scene shows Neo placing a phone call to the machines.  It’s not a perfect fit for my dream world, since I don’t imagine any machines, but I like the call to action.  It’s a call to action for me and for you to choose the framework of our lives and to live the life we desire to live.

I know you’re out there…I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid. You’re afraid of us, you’re afraid of change…I don’t know the future…I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end, I came here to tell you how this is going to begin. Now, I’m going to hang up this phone, and I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you…a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world…where anything is possible.

Where we go from there…is a choice I leave to you…

“It takes one to start a war, and two to make peace.  I wish it were the other way around.”
~Eric Watermolen

I was Googling the term “Enlightenment” a few days ago, and I came across a number of entries for “Terminal Enlightenment.”  It sounded very intriguing, like a type of enlightenment that might end in death.  Ooh, danger and intrigue.  Imagine sitting on a hill, in the shade of a tree, meditating peacefully.  BAM all of a sudden you reach enlightenment and your physical body dies while your spirit body moves on to its enlightened state.

It turns out in this case that terminal enlightenment isn’t nearly that cool.  It’s actually a terminal interface for computer systems like Linux.  Huh, just some piece of software.  I think my idea was way cooler, and finding the truth didn’t stop my mind from traveling.

I continued to think about terminal enlightenment.  It occurred to me that we will all reach terminal enlightenment, being that when we die all will become known.  I assume that before we enter our physical world, we are spiritual entities, and at that time, we are enlightened.  You could say that we know what God knows.  I also assume that we return to that state after the death of our physical body.  If that’s the case, then we will all experience terminal enlightenment.

That led me to think back to a subject that I ponder from time to time.  Why do we spend so much of our time in our physical world thinking about the nature of the universe, religion, belief, the origin of life, and other such topics?  Is there any point in trying to figure that out while we are inhabiting our physical shells?  Couldn’t we just wait until we die, at which time we’ll regain the knowledge of all things?  Couldn’t we just wait for our terminal enlightenment?

I supposed that maybe we could, or maybe I’m wrong about the whole terminal enlightenment.  It’s possible that when we die we don’t get to know everything.  Maybe that’s why we’re here in the first place, to figure everything out.  Personally I don’t think that’s the case, but nobody really knows for sure.

Whatever the case, I enjoy thinking about these things, and I’ll be right here blogging about them. I’d like to hear from you.  Why do you think we spend time thinking about things may be completely outside our realm of comprehension?  Why don’t we just wait for terminal enlightenment?  Let me hear what you think in the comments section.

Photo credit: h.koppdelaney

“History will remember me as I choose it to.”
~Eric Watermolen

Today I want to share a little history of Eden Journal and a vision for the future.

Before Eden Journal got started I spent some time brainstorming a name for the blog.  I knew that the name would be important, but I didn’t want to be tied into something too specific.  I had an idea of what I wanted to blog about, but I wanted some room to shift focus without having to change the name of the blog.

In the Beginning

I’m big on using my intuition, and during a brainstorming session, and in the time that followed, the word Eden kept coming to the front of my mind.  I didn’t have a good reason for using that word, other than it’s what felt right.  My impression of Eden is that of a paradise, a happy place full of leafy green plants, grassy fields, cool spring fed streams, and washed in the warm glow of the sun.  It is a happy thought for me, and I settled on that as part of the name.  The term Eden is also flexible enough to be used in a variety of contexts.

I was certain that Eden was a good name, but it needed a second term to accompany it.  Something equally as flexible, but having some authority.  I combined some brainstorming with a domain name search to figure out what worked and what was available with a dot com domain.  As you know, I settled on the word Journal.  It seemed to fit since I hoped to journal some of my life lessons to share with my readers.  The term journal was also flexible enough to fit if I chose to change direction a bit, as it’s a common term for a news site, newspaper, or periodical.

The crafting of the name Eden Journal was a combination of intuition, common sense, brainstorming, and dot com domain name searching.  To be honest, I wasn’t sure why that was the right name.  It felt right though, so I went with it.

Planning

Before I launched Eden Journal on October 1, 2009, I wrote a full month worth of posts and sketched out about three months worth of topic ideas.  I wanted to make sure that I would be able to create enough content to keep this going, and also have some backlog in case ideas dried up.  My initial focus was on the life lessons I have learned.  I figured I’ve had enough time to accumulate a number of lessons, and I had quite a few worth sharing.

I also liked the personal development arena and planned to focus posts on this area.  I have always felt it was a slightly blurry focus.  Personal Development is a good fit, but it doesn’t seem complete.  Not everything I wanted to write about fit in personal development.  I mean in a way it did, but not in the way many people look at personal development.

Personal Development – Yes and No

I often like to dig a little deeper and look a little wider.  I like to offer questions that I may not have the answers to.  I like to look beyond our physical world.  I don’t write out lists of things to make your life better or talk much about productivity, self-help, or lifehacks.

Many personal development blogs are very successful because they give people the quick fix for little problems.  Just look at the front page at Yahoo or MSN, and you’ll likely see some articles that offer quick fixes.  Outside of blogging, you can look at any magazine rack and see a wealth of quick fixes.

Many of these quick fix personal development posts take the form of lists.  List posts are extremely popular among readers.  Dumb Little Man is the king of these quick fix list posts with titles like Eight ways to make good use of your spare minutes online or 7 pieces of wisdom from Socrates.  While interesting to read, I don’t find much value there.  I’m not bashing Dumb Little Man, as I quite enjoy reading that blog and have even guest posted there with a post about “My Experiment to Break Free from TV.”    As a reader I like to skim these lists, but as a writer I loathe them.  They are just not in line with what I feel I should be offering on Eden Journal.

Gaining Clarity of Direction

After blogging for ten months now, I am beginning to gain some clarity.  I’ve been searching for this clarity for a while, and it’s taken its sweet time to appear.  I suppose this is natural being that I had to test the waters and get a feel for the types of writing that I enjoy.  I like the personal development field, but I dislike quick fix personal development.  I prefer posts with deeper meaning that more closely mirror my own quest for knowledge.  I like writing posts that make me think, that make me pause to consider the big picture, and that help me search within myself for the answers.

My own quest for knowledge leads me to blogs where people speak from their own experiences or their own quests and then share what they’ve learned.  The types of posts that I resonate with most are from blogs like Raptitude, Worlds Strongest Librarian, Why Not Start Now, Soulful Body & Mind, and Alien Ghost.   These blogs don’t give us all the answers, but they give us lots of information to ponder, and often share some of their opinions or views.  These are personal development blogs that dig deeper.  I hope my blog is in the same arena as these I mentioned, it’s hard for me to tell from the inside looking out.  I could use some outside eyes help me, so let me know what you think in the comments and what other blogs you feel mine resembles or resonates with.

Enlightenment

My new vision of clarity is leading more to a path of enlightenment.  I’ve mentioned enlightenment in several posts, and after reading a post on The Jungle of Life, I realized that the topic of (or the quest for) enlightenment is more in line with many of the posts I have written.  I don’t want to just be tied to making our physical worlds better; I want to reach beyond the physical to explore other realms.  I want to touch on things like self healing, the law of attraction, manifesting abundance, intuition, psychic experiences, religion, past lives, and opening our minds to all the possibilities.  After a great deal of thought, I feel like my topics resonate more with a focus on the quest for enlightenment within the broader field of personal development.

With this realization I am shifting more towards this Quest for Enlightenment.  The shift may be more mental for me as the writer than for you as the reader, since many of my posts have already related to this topic.  In any case, I needed to find clarity, and for now this clarity is leading me down a path of enlightenment.  I’m defining my subject area as Personal Development with a focus on Enlightenment.

Humans Lying Dormant

I have often felt that as humans we lie dormant, submersed in the physical, and paying little attention to this non-physical world to which we are also tied.  I dislike being unable to discuss intuition in public without people shutting down the conversation or quickly changing topics.  And if you think intuition is difficult to discuss, try past lives or out of body experiences.

I once had a conversation with a friend whom I thought to be rather open minded.  He was into some new age stuff and practiced yoga.  I don’t remember the exact conversation, but I think it was on past lives or remote viewing.  We didn’t get far in that conversation and I could sense that he wasn’t ready to accept such possibilities.

I think that a great many people aren’t ready to accept possibilities beyond their realm of understanding.  Many people just refuse to accept the possibility that we don’t know more than we do know, and that we are part of a non physical world that meshes with our physical world.  On the flip side, I think there is a segment of our Earthly population that is ready to consider and discuss all the possibilities that surround our life on this planet as well as all that lies beyond.  I enjoy discussing the possibilities, not only to develop our person, but to develop our minds and our souls.  I want these people, who are open to new possibilities, to come here and find a comfortable environment to read, learn, and discuss.

What’s Changing?

I hope this new clarity will help me bring more great content to the masses through Eden Journal.  Current readers need not worry, if you like what’s here you’ll see more of the same.  The content won’t change a lot, but will be more focused.    The post schedule will continue to be a couple of times a week, with me writing on days that I’m inspired to do so.  My hope is that a clarity of vision will help me generate more great content and attract like minded readers.

Enlightenment in Eden

This new clarity brings me back to the beginning.  Back to Eden.  I had a thought that Adam and Eve weren’t merely seeking knowledge in the Garden of Eden, but were actually seeking enlightenment.  It seems to me that knowledge in and of itself can be readily found.  It’s found through experience.  The knowledge of good and evil would have come to them through the encounter with Mr. Snake.  The knowledge of nudity would have come had they met others that were clothed.  They would not need to partake of the fruit to learn of this.  They were seeking to know all that God knows.  This isn’t mere knowledge, it is enlightenment.  (This is my own interpretation, and may not be the same as the biblical story.)

New Logo to Celebrate a Focus on Enlightenment

And so we’ve come full circle.  I have found some clarity, and I may have found the reason behind my intuition leading me to Eden.  To celebrate this clarity of enlightenment in personal development I am introducing a new logo.  This new logo contains a book to illustrate knowledge and learning, a tree to illustrate life, and the enso circle to illustrate enlightenment.  It all comes together as a call to action to Quest for Knowledge, Learn Life’s Lessons, and to Seek Enlightenment Every Day.  Clarity has served me well in the past, and I hope it does so again now.  Let me know what you think in the comments section.  I’d like to hear your thoughts on my slight shift in direction towards enlightenment, about the new logo, and about what other blogs you think resonate with Eden Journal.

Thank You

I’d like to thank a few people that contributed to the new Logo.  Marci Brinker for the overall design, Lori for creating this beautiful example of an enso circle, and Lance for allowing me use of this enso, one that he also uses in his logo.  I appreciate the efforts and contributions of each of you.

I’d also like to give a big huge thank you to my readers.  I hope I’ve brought you content that you enjoy and that makes you think.  I’d love it if you could help spread the word.  Now that I have clarified my focus, I want to bring in a lot more readers.  I want to help usher in a new awareness of the world we live in and of the worlds we are still learning of.  I want more people in this world to understand that we are more than just meat popsicles, that we are part of this physical world and also a much larger non-physical world.  So please share a link to EdenJournal.com with all your friends.

Please take a minute to subscribe to the RSS feed if you haven’t already.  I don’t want you missing any of the fun!

I trust that my cat won’t eat my face off in the middle of the night.  That kind of trust is pretty important.

Trust is a tricky thing.  It seems like it always has condition attached or underlying factors that merit the trust.  With our cat for example, he trusts that someone in the family will feed him every day.  If that trust is broken he may break his trust, and then I wake up faceless.

It looks like trust is a give and take.  It has to be held by both sides.

I wish trust were more universal and more of a default.  I wish I could walk down any street in any city and feel completely comfortable, trusting every person that I meet.  I wish I could trust that I’ll be safe, that I won’t get robbed, that I won’t be attacked, that I won’t get hustled, that others will look out for my interests in addition to their own.

I wonder if everyone in this world were honest, would mean that everyone could be trusted?  Is honesty the basis for trust?  I think it’s a good start.  If someone is honest and they promise to meet me somewhere at a certain time, I can trust that they will be there.  Or can I?  Honesty in that situation doesn’t account for traffic, acts of nature, or a more important event.  I suppose that’s where I have to trust that the other person did their best to make our appointment.  In a case like this, I could trust the person, but might not trust in their ability to show up.  The more I think about it, the harder it seems to nail down.

You just can’t pin down trust.  Trust is more of a variable based on countless other factors.  It has to account for past history of performance, honesty, loyalty, an ability to plan, an ability to follow through, and probably countless more factors.   And what about trusting someone you’ve just met.  Then you have to go by reputation, appearance, and instinct.

Actually, maybe that instinct portion is the key.  Maybe trust is mostly comprised of the feeling we get about another individual.  It’s a sum of so many things that we have to kick it over to our instincts, gut feelings, and intuition.  I’m sure some of the trust factors float through our heads when we determine the trustworthiness of someone, but I think feeling plays more of a factor than logic.

I’ve seen a few apocalypse movies lately, and a central factor in any end of the world scenario is trust.  When you are fighting for survival, and for scarce food and water, it becomes hard to trust.  The world really falls apart fast without a level of trust between individuals.  It’s impossible to form any kind of group, much less rebuild a society.  Trusting the wrong people after the apocalypse will get you killed though.  In these situations, the trust must be beneficial to both parties.

I suspect this mutually beneficial level of trust is needed in today’s pre-apocalypse society also.  It’s the reason I can walk down many streets and feel safe.  It’s in my best interest to live in a safe environment, to not risk harm to myself, and to avoid arrest.  Others in society have these same interests, thus creating a basis for trust.

I’m going to hope that we, as a society, can eventually get to a point where we can all trust each other; where it’s in everyone’s best interest to live in a safe, prosperous, and loving society. I hope for a day when everyone desires to live in a bliss filled peaceful society, and because of this mutually beneficial desire we all grow more trusting of one-another.

Now that you’ve read my thoughts on Trust, check out the other RAOKA participants listed below.  Before you head off though, scroll on down and leave a comment with your own thoughts on trust!  Thanks!

The other day I shared a link to Ali Quotes on Soulful Mind and Body.  Ali had a great idea to start sharing his own quotes.  After I shared that, Ali challenged me to come up with some of my own quotes.  I have accepted the challenge and am starting with this quote today.

“All of us will achieve enlightenment.  Some will reach it in this lifetime by seeking knowledge, approaching all with an open mind, and learning from life’s lessons.  Everyone else will have to wait until death when our soul once again has access to all knowledge and information.”

I want to expand on some of the topics in my last post about The Invisible Gorilla.  If you haven’t read it yet, you should pause here to read The Invisible Gorilla post, and then come back to this post.  I say this because it will help you understand where I’m coming from and also because there are some spoilers in this posts that would make the other post less understandable.

In the Invisible Gorilla post I shared a few videos that demonstrated the how the focus of the human mind can be so keen as to completely miss an obviously out of place element.  Before experiencing this for myself, I would not have believed it.  How could anyone watch a video and completely miss a gorilla strolling through the scene.  The gorilla was in the scene for a full nine seconds and even paused in the middle to thump his chest.

I pride myself on being observant.  I like to notice things that other people miss.  I like to see the hidden treasures in our world.  Noticing everything and paying attention to the treasures along the way is integral to enjoying my path through life.  A big part of this blog is about our path in life.  And now to see so clearly that it is so easy to miss things, it makes me feel a little disappointed.  Disappointed in my ability to notice things and disappointed that it seems to be part of human nature.

I find it important to pay attention to these things that are irritating or disappointing.  They are usually changes to expand our minds, and this is one of those cases.  Our focus is what allows us to work more efficiently.  It allows us to tune out distractions.  It’s part of what allows us to function as a highly evolved animal.

In my interaction with others, especially in the workplace, I find there are two types of people.  There are big picture people and there are detail oriented people.  I wonder what the split is among these types when they take the gorilla test.  I’m a big picture person; I always look to see how the details affect the situation as a whole.  Other people I work with are detail people; they excel at digging into the details to make things work.  Both are necessary parts of any company.  My feeling is that, on average, big picture people will notice the gorilla more often than detail people.

On the other hand, I may be way off about that, it may be too broad a generalization.  I wonder if this ability to notice things is built into our DNA.  That is, if it’s part of us from birth, or instead if it’s something that can be learned.  I suspect to a certain degree it can be learned.  At least that what I gather from all the spy movies I’ve seen.  You know, the ones where the CIA agent goes through training and learns to notice everything around them, the ones where the Secret Service guy spots the suspicious character, and the ones where the hero notices danger and is able to make a crucial escape.

I want to note that there are two related terms in this field of attention and perception.

One is Change Blindness.  This is where we fail to notice a change, and relies on us having a comparison in memory.  For example, one person is standing behind a counter.  He ducks down to retrieve something, and someone else takes his place.  Not recognizing the different person from the one in your memory is Change Blindness.

The other is Inattentional Blindness. This is where a change in the environment or field of vision is not noticed, and does not require any comparison from memory.  The Invisible Gorilla video is a good example of this, where people are focused on counting balls and miss a gorilla walking through the scene.

The question in my mind is:  Can we be trained to overcome change and inattentional blindness? I know that we can train ourselves to be more observant, and we can train ourselves to notice more things in our environment.  It’s difficult to find any evidence in the Google searching I did.  (If you find any evidence please let me know in the comment section below.)  My feeling is that we can overcome it to a certain extent.  After all, 50% of the people studied in experiments on change and inattentional blindness are able to notice the change.  So what makes those 50% different?

A couple of years ago I started a little training of my own in order to be more observant.  I didn’t like the fact that I would often miss things that others would notice, and I wanted to change that.  I also really liked the heroes in the spy movies that noticed every little detail in a room.  I don’t remember the name of the movie, but it was one where some young people were studying to enter the CIA, and part of their training was to become more observant.  I was really interested in that component of the movie.  And much like the kung fu movies, where after the movie I kung fu everyone in the house including the cat, I got pumped up and wanted to emulate some things I had seen.  In the movie, much of the practice involved memorizing a pile of items on a table, covering the pile with a blanket, and then recalling everything they saw.

Well, that kind of activity may be beneficial, but it seemed kind of boring to me.  Instead I developed some of my own techniques for becoming more observant.  The main technique was simply to practice being more observant.  Here are a few of the activities I practiced.

One New Thing Per Day

On the way to work I would make an effort to notice one thing I had never seen before.  I drive to work every day, so you’d think I’d seen it all, but day after day I was able to find things I hadn’t noticed before.

The Unnoticed Item

At random times throughout the day I would make an effort to notice something that I felt most people wouldn’t notice.  It might be a stapler that’s always there on the desk, or the way a cord loops down under the desk, or a spot on the floor that never got cleaned.  I tried to pay attention to the little things that often get overlooked.

A Walk in the Park

I liked to take walks in the park, but I realized I often failed to pay attention to all the details.  So I began taking time to notice more things during my walks in the park.  From a small ant carrying a tidbit of food to the way a tree spreads its branches.  There is so much to see in nature, we very often fail to notice most of it.

Sit and See

Sometime I like to just sit outside my home and enjoy the outdoors.  While I was in my quest to become more observant, I practiced by looking at everything around me as I sat outside.  I looked in all directions; down at the ground, up in the sky, to my left in the grass, to my right in the flower beds.  I noted the differences in each piece of mulch.  I noticed how the flowers leaned towards the sun.  I look with the intent to see all the details that I usually don’t bother paying attention to.

This was all good practice and I think it did help me to become a little more observant.  I think mostly the repetitive nature of my observance practices helped plant a small seed in my mind.  It’s one that clicks every once in a while and says, “pay attention.”  That pay attention seed helps me to be more observant.

Even so, I don’t think any of us can be observant all the time.  We have times where focus is required, and that focus must tune out distractions.  There is some compromise needed between focus and observance to all that is around us.  Through the videos I’ve seen recently on change blindness and inattention blindness I have come to realize that this tuning out is a necessary part of us.  I’m also going to go a little easier on those around me when they don’t happen to notice all the details.  I’m seeing that it’s one of my flaws to be a little short with people when they don’t see the same things I see.  I’m going to work on that.

If you like this kind of thing, you should check out the book The Invisible Gorilla.

I hope you are finding this topic as interesting as I am.  If so, be sure to sign up to receive my posts for free.

I recently came across a video that is absolutely fantastic.  It’s called the Invisible Gorilla.  It’s a test of attention and illustrates something called Change Blindness.  If you think you are an observant person, these videos may change your mind.  I’m going to share a few videos, so if you are reading this in an email or RSS reader, you’ll want to click through to the site to view the amazing videos.

Here is the first called The Selective Attention Test.

Watch the video and then we’ll see how you did?  According to Daniel Simons only about 50% of the people pass this test.  I find this amazing.  The first time I saw this video, I already had read about it, so I knew what to expect.  Happily he posted another video also.

In this video called The Monkey Business Illusion, he expects you to be on the lookout for changes.  Watch this one and see how you do.

How did you do?  Be sure to tell me in the comments.  I was able to see the gorilla and one of the other changes, but I missed one change.

I consider myself to be rather observant, and I must say it really irritates me to have missed anything.  I have even practiced becoming more observant by mentally reminding myself to pay attention and see things I might not normally see.  I practice this from time to time.  Sometimes I’ll do it while driving to work, or maybe while walking in the park, or even when sitting outside my house.  So when I miss things and I’m really trying to see them, that is most irksome.

Even though it’s irksome, it’s actually pretty normal.  Like I said earlier, about 50% of the people miss the change.  I find this absolutely fascinating.  Why is it that we miss things so easily?  The concept behind this is called Change Blindness.  It’s actually the same concept behind sleight of hand, but seeing it in videos like these bring that concept to a whole new level.

Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons are the creators behind these videos.  The have recently published a book called The Invisible Gorilla.  In the book they use a variety of stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to reveal an important truth: Our minds don’t work the way we think they do.  Judging by the videos, I’m going to have to agree with that statement.

The really eye-opening part of all this is that this Change Blindness has real world consequences.  Imagine making a turn at an intersection, and while looking for cars you miss seeing a pedestrian, bicycle, or motorcycle.  Imagine convicting someone of a crime you witnessed based on the fact that you knew it was them, and later through DNA testing you find out it wasn’t.  These are just a couple of examples.  The book, The Invisible Gorilla, is full of many more.

I want to share one more video with you.  It’s from a Ted Talk on Counter Intuition by Daniel Simons.

I am completely amazed at all this.  I’m going to have to pick up the book.  If you’d like to order the book, you can order it from Amazon here: The Invisible Gorilla

Be sure to check out the follow-up to this post on Being Observant.