Thursday, July 21, 2011

Waking up in the morning

Every day I would work to bring the two sides together, particularly the two eyes, particularly before going to bed, and every morning everything will fall apart. Why?

The obvious explanation is that the mental processing that goes on in the night introduces changes, so in the morning the whole system needs recalibrating. A second explanation is that during the days the eyes get plenty of opportunities to look at different things and in doing so come more together. However, there is also something to be said about underfocusing in the morning.

Today when I was putting something in the microwave oven, I realized I was not looking at anything. As I tried to start looking at something, I felt I had to engage more and to spend more mental and physical energy, just as you need to spend some energy to sit or walk straight, particularly if you are not used to it. I clearly wanted to sleep more, so the consciousness, so to say, resisted going up and was gradually sliding down, perhaps along the reptilian brain, even as I tried to lift it up. However, after I managed to get a little more present or engaged, the eyes also got somewhat closer together. Not as close as I'd like them to, but markedly closer than before.

This illustrates the connection between under- or overfocusing for the eyes and for the mind. Recall how these concepts are introduces in the Eyebody book: people are often using more or less mental energy than is necessary to see clearly. In my case, I was using an inappropriate amount of mental energy to bring the two sides together, as well as to wake up and to get more present. The last two are really the same thing: I suspect that underfocusing has just as much to do with rest and sleeping as with freezing for survival. Perhaps, we can think of a bear sleeping to survive a long and cold winter. The function of underfocusing may be to put as back to sleep as soon as possible, without entirely stopping the processes that have been going on while we were sleeping. This somewhat contradicts the idea that underfocusing spends a lot of energy to block the sensory inputs.

Underfocusing sure does block the sensory inputs. Think about the last time an alarm clock failed to wake you up. Sometimes I would set an alarm clock for too early, because I think I intend to get up earlier and do something, but I will wake up exactly when I need to wake up to be on time wherever I need to be on time. I would also routinely wake up a few minutes before the alarm clock on normal days. A natural conclusion would be that alarm clocks are largely unnecessary. They are probably interfering with some natural tendencies of our mind or our brain, and definitely start our day with either under- or overfocusing. I am not perfect either: I have three alarm clocks.



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