You Are Not Seeing Reality - You Are Guessing It

Your Brain Is Guessing Your World

Do you have the idea that you see the world as it is? Think again. Great minds throughout history have long pointed out that we don't perceive reality directly. Plato maintained that the physical world we experience through our senses is just a faint, distorted shadow of the ultimate, unchangeable truth. 19th-century scientist Hermann von Helmholtz similarly argued that what we experience isn't a raw, real-time streaming of the world, but our brain's interpretation of it.

Well, contemporary science agrees. According to the theory of predictive processing, your brain anticipates or makes a “best guess” about the information it receives from the senses. And the brain's assumptions are based on your past experiences. So, what you are experiencing is not an objective reality but your brain's guesswork built on what it already knows.

Predictions are of course evolutionarily sound survival mechanisms. If a car comes toward us, we assume—based on what we know about fast, heavy objects—that it will hit us in three seconds and hurt like hell if we don't get out of the way. Or if a waiter gives us a stack of paper, it's smarter to guess it will tell us the evening's menu rather than a review of a book by Dostoevsky. However, many other predictions are downright flawed or unhealthy. If early experiences in life taught you to close down to stay safe, your mind will keep projecting those old patterns onto the world - which, of course, gets in the way of deep, intimate relationships.

You Are Guessing You Are a Person

Some predictions are more hardwired than others. Most of us can easily see that we are not our occupation. If I change jobs, I don't suddenly become a fundamentally new human being. Much more difficult to see through is the assumption that you are a "person"—a separate, subjective entity with its own will and agency. Science suggests that predicting a narrative self (assuming that you are a person) is very helpful for survival. It allows you to picture yourself as a person in past and future situations, which other animals cannot do, at least not on a complex level. The positive aspect is the ability to make strategies and learn from mistakes. The downside, of course, is that we can worry about the future and ruminate about the past endlessly—which, as explored in My Mind Is Peaceful - My Body Is Sad, is also an effective way to avoid feeling.

To improve its guesses, the brain will also assess how reliable its predictions are. This is done through precision weighting, which is another word for attention. If you place strong attention or focus on something, the brain treats it as more reliable than if you merely skim over it. Hence, if you learn, for example through meditation, to let your thoughts just be without giving them too much attention (float by like clouds in the sky), science shows you will make less rigid predictions about the world, can be more open to new perspectives and more open to change.

Direct Seeing: Reality Before the Story

So what is direct seeing, then? Is there even such a thing?

Well, what we experience will obviously always be shaped by our senses and our biology. Direct seeing doesn't mean having superpowers or stepping outside your human nervous system. What is perceived cannot be separated from the perceiver—they are two sides of the same coin.

Direct seeing simply means experiencing reality before the mind adds its secondary layer of commentary, judgment, and story. Reality is what happens before your interpretation appears. Direct seeing or experiencing can be hard to communicate through words. To explain your direct experience of tasting a mango to someone who has never had one is very difficult. You could perhaps say it's sweet, juicy and silky on the tongue, well… it tastes like a mango! You simply need to have the direct experience of it to know it. The same goes for truth! Or a punch in the face—although you can kind of predict that won't feel very good (which is often how the ego feels about the truth anyway).

Truth Is Seeing What Is

For recognising truth or “what is”, words can be used as signposts, but in the end it's about directly experiencing that which is, not through concepts, intellectual understanding or trying to be smart or wise. Signposts can be used for getting directions on the way but once you pass them you don't have to pick them up as you move along. And you can't have a direct experience through someone else (or through AI).

Most people live through the ego-self. We see and translate reality through past experiences, based on the assumption that we are a separate entity. That entity needs to be protected and maintained and whatever can rock its boat (like the truth) must be avoided or fought. So, we live through comparison, hiding, arguing, trying to be accepted, boasting, diminishing and so on. Whatever keeps the ego identity intact.

Waking Up And Naked in the World

Living from the ego is like having a soft (or not so soft) sponge between you and the world—protecting, but also numbing you. Or like walking around with ten layers of clothes on: warm and cozy, perhaps, but not very alive or free. Things are happening around you, but not really to you.

When you shift into consciousness or Being, your reality becomes a direct, naked experiencing. And upon awakening, you are in a state of what is. There is much less mental noise and fewer ego movements, and hence, fewer predictions. And if they occur it's crystal clear what they are - just predictions and assessment, not truths. You experience yourself as one with life (you are life), rather than as the story you once thought was life.

Spiritual awakening means the protective clothes of the ego are falling off, which comes with a small "downside." Everything touches “you” directly, without any armor to shield you anymore. Although the sense of—or belief in—a 'Me-person' is no longer so strong, your nervous system is still affected by external events. This makes it even more important where, with whom, and in what situations you spend your time. I used to have the idea (along with many other ideas) that once awakened, you would be a cool, happy cat capable of being with anyone, anywhere. Well… it turned out not to be the case.