We all experience the world indirectly
through a model of the world held within our minds (physically contained within
the structure of our brain). This model thus forms our reality, and all that we
experience flows through it. As a consequence, we cannot consciously
experience anything that is not contained within our personal world model or
very close to its performance envelope. The integration of new
experiences over time leads to mental tiredness and, if combined with sleep
deprivation, can result in severe headaches and then hallucinations
(essentially dreaming whilst awake).
In the ‘normal’ mode of brain operation,
one’s world model, starting from a rudimentary form at birth, is continually
updated when asleep (and unconscious*) as we integrate our life’s new
experiences into it. This normally occurs one day (night) at a time
during the process of sleeping.
One’s world model is built up over life’s
experiences, but is personal, dependent upon individual experiences, one’s
perception of them, one’s actions in response to them, developed pattern of
behaviour, etc., which may be maladaptive. One’s world model will also
contain important areas/crevasses within which lie traps when interacting with
new or slightly different elements of the world, and the person is likely to
completely fail to cope in these situations – becoming very stressed/angry;
acting totally out of character; experiences lapses of consciousness following
which they don’t remember what they did – or at least, in a most superficial
and biased form.
Now: this world model may be patched –
providing one knows where to patch it, and the erroneous/maladaptive processes
may be rerouted – again providing one knows where they are; but just as
evolution has led to many ‘errors’ of inefficient replumbing/reallocation of
resources, this would result in a sub-optimal and fragile world model. A
better solution would be to use one’s life experiences to drive a
reprogramming/rebuilding process, and to augment them with further knowledge
gained by the wisest in society over millennia combined with the latest
knowledge that science affords us.
However, whilst the mind can adjust rapidly,
the brain has a physical structure which can be grown and trained over time so
that, just as the body and brain can learn new skills, the brain is exercised
appropriately day by day (well, night by night, actually – but we won’t get
into that here) until the world model itself has been rebuilt from the ground
up to support the most efficient and effective experience of life that the
person can achieve. In order to do this, the world model has to be placed
in a state within which all its preconceptions (structures) are testable and
malleable, and the person also needs to be conscious and in a safe environment,
because the level of consciousness required is that of a new born baby, known
more negatively in many instances as psychosis – which is one reason why a
safe, comforting, well controlled environment is vital.
Hypervigilance is a common feature in this
state of consciousness, heightening experience of real and psychosomatic
inputs, along with hyper-cognisance. As a result, the person may
experience various sensory responses, hallucinations and perceptual and
cognitive distortions – such as feelings of intense heat, light, relief of
pain, profound peace, calm, serenity, etc. and, having regressed to a
‘childlike’ state, speaking in tongues, etc.. Further features may
include shaking, falling to the floor in an apparent fit, writhing on the floor
and so on, as the brain is effectively being recalibrated and the normal
paralysing response to sleep is not available (otherwise similar things
would happen when sleeping, of course).
Hence the much abused expression, to be ‘Born
Again,’ and all the confusion about the existence or otherwise of G-d and so
on. Incidentally; I’m sure that you can also see how water could be
turned into wine in this regard – as far as the behaviour of the Imbibers would
be concerned...
* Although during the first few
years of life the world model is updated whilst awake also; as there is a great
deal to learn, errors have to be corrected where possible in real-time through
exploring - and time is of the essence...
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