Perception.
Creating your reality.

At any one time during your waking experience, you are being bombarded by over 2 million bits of sensory (light, sound etc.) information every second. We unconsciously filter out the information which is irrelevant to our cause. We leave out the unnecessary so we can reduce the incoming information to what matters. while you’re reading, you’re not aware of the images to your left or right and you don’t notice the sensation of your body weight on the chair or the sound of what’s outside the room. That’s all still there in the ‘background’ but we automatically ‘tune out’.

The filters do a job of deleting, distorting and generalizing according to our model of the world. So 2 million bits come in through your senses each second and are filtered through your memories, beliefs and values, decisions, meta-programs and your idea of time/ space, matter & energy. At the end of this process which happens in the blink of an eye, your left with your perception. Your perception is your internal representation (re-presentation) of the external information around you and it is reduced down to 134 bits per second from 2 million.

All perceptions (internal representations) are also made of images, sounds and sensations (as above, so below?) and constitute our model or image (belief) of the world. These are instantly translated through the nervous system (neurology) and expressed as chemicals in the body (emotion) which then influence our actions (behaviour). It all happens so quickly that we think the reality is 'out there'.

The truth is, your brain (neurology) doesn’t recognize a difference between what’s out side you and what’s inside. What you see and what you imagine fire off the same parts of the brain. The lemon test is a good example of this. Try it.

If you’ve never tasted or eaten a lemon, try this with your favourite meal instead.

Read this first and then go do it, then come back and read on. It will only take a few minutes. Better still, get someone else to read it to you if you can. OK.

Close your eyes and imagine in front of you a freshly picked organic ripe lemon. Smell the fragrance of the fruit and see the bright yellow color of the skin. It has a shine to it and you notice the texture feels smooth.

Take your lemon and place it on a cutting board in front of you. Now take out a knife and cut the lemon long-ways in half, then cut the half so you have a wedge. You see a little juice dribble onto the board as you do this. Now looking at the wedge of the lemon in front of your eyes, you can see the little sacs full of juice and the citrus smell is sharp and strong.

Some of the juice dribbles on to your hand as you anticipate taking a bite, and before it starts to drip to the floor, you bring the lemon wedge up to your face, open your mouth and bite down on the juicy sacs - the lemon juice bursts into your mouth and you taste the sour tang of the citrus juice all around your tongue as you chew.

OK now open your eyes and check. Is there more saliva in your mouth now than was there before you imagined biting the lemon wedge? You bet there is. You could even measure it in milliliters if you wanted. So show me the lemon. Produce the evidence which caused this. You can’t right, because it was nothing outside of you that gave you that. It was what’s within you that gave you that. You made something real (milliliters of saliva) out of nothing but your perception.

Perception video - The Reality beyond matter.

Take a look at The Secret - The Deleted scene for another angle on this.

Here's a flow chart which depicts the process of perception.

Regardless of attitude, race or religion, we all interact with this universe through a biological suit housing five main sensory systems. Every moment of every hour, our senses are processing information from our surrounds. Conscious experiences seem to start [mostly] as we awaken.

Typically we'll go through our day having one experience followed by another; an endless stream of experiences, and then through the experience of tiredness we decide it’s time to stop having experiences and start sleeping, so we go to bed; we figure we’ll start again in the morning and continue by having more experiences then.

However sometimes as we awaken, we notice that we’ve been busy all night dreaming having still more experiences. These experiences often feel tangible and realistic. Yet we didn’t consciously choose to have those dreams. So what's the truth? And who (if not you) chooses your dreams?

At the end of the day, it would appear we are nothing more than an endless stream of experiences; which begs a few interesting questions:

1. Exactly what (or who) is interpreting a sensory event to build an experience?

2. What role does meaning play?

3. Are we having the experiences we want or are capable of having?

4. Does matter really underpin (cause) reality?

5. Could our existence be based on energy we don't yet understand?

3. What is reality?

We tend to measure reality as something solid, something of substance. At the same time, the intelligence deciding this (that would be you or me) is intangible.

Oh sure, you have a body, but that’s just your body. It's not you. In fact, it’s still here after your gone. So who or what are you? For the want of an all-round title, lets call you “The Observer”.

Well observers we may be, yet science cannot find us. It’s true. Whenever you look, you’ll never see yourself...
unless you are everywhere; and if you are everywhere all around you, then you don’t exist IN physical reality, you exist AS physical reality!

The only reality for each of us is our own individual sensory experience of it. Human reality depends heavily on the conscious (4-6%) and unconscious (94-96%) beliefs we hold which act as the glue of interpretation. These beliefs are only energy too and can be changed, thereby changing (creating) one's 'reality'. Knowing this - lets us relax in peace....