RÉSUMÉ
A. IMAGEN CORPORAL REAL (IC REAL)
state of mind or profile of neural firing that may have various shapes and degrees of height and broadness: Lower means less certainty of which firings might be possible and wider signifies more variety, a wider set of propensities; higher indicates a greater probability of firing of those options that are primed or made more likely to occur in that state or profile, and narrower indicates a more restricted set of choices of which peaks might arise from that particular plateau. The open plane of possibility reveals a zero probability that any particular peak or plateau will arise and thus represents an open state of mindful awareness and a receptive neural profile at that moment.
As each of us have tendencies derived from both our temperament and our accumulated experiences, we may also have a set of proclivities in how we live in
the world as well. This aspect of both our subjective mental experience and our neural firing patterns is revealed as distinctive shapes, perimeters, and heights of our plateaus that we call personality, as we’ll discuss in Chapter 11.
A key to this figure is that this movement away from the plane of possibility (along the y-axis, up and down) happens in two directions virtually simultaneously. At the very time we experience the mental image of the tomato on the subjective side, we also move outward to the neural firing pattern within the brain that correlates with the image of the tomato. These are peaks of activation. The sense of fruit may be beneath direct conscious access—or it may just be revealed as a hunger for a snack—but the neural priming, the brain’s getting ready to fire off images of all sorts of fruit, would be manifest in synaptic linkages becoming more likely to fire off in the future. These valenced states are depicted as plateaus of increased probability.
In the open plane of possibility, a nearly infinite number of combinations of neural firing and subjective experiences are available. As we move through time, our personality expresses itself as tendencies of neural firing and the subjective focus of our attention and emotional responses in the shape of our various
plateaus across time. As we continue to narrow our patterns of experience and firing, we move from spaciousness of possibility and clusters of predispositions in our set of plateaus toward a particular plateau as some firing patterns or subjective experiences become more likely to occur. This, for example, might happen if you ready yourself to play tennis—your brain moves toward firing patterns preparing you to compete; your mental sea activates a sense of excitement and memories of prior games.
When you take your racket and make specific actions, your physical side of reality moves toward a peak of activation in that instant as your neural firing patterns activate specific motor pathways. On the mental side of reality, this peak involves feeling a certain rush as you sense the movement of your body and the thrill of competition. If you were to imagine yourself playing a game, the subjective experience of creating detailed images of a tennis match might drive neural firing patterns—just as the actual playing of the game might make the neural activity drive your subjective experience.
This visual metaphor of the connection between the two fundamental primes of the physical/neural side and mental/subjective side of our one reality enables us to go back and forth between these two sides of the
single domain of existence. We are not creating a dualism here—but rather accepting the stance that the physical and mental sides of reality are equally real and mutually influence each other. For some, like Descartes, these were two independent worlds.
Modern philosophers (see Wallace, 2008) also see combining the physical and mental worlds into one as a philosophical error. Yet modern neuroscience sometimes goes to the other extreme, making the brain supreme and the mind a slave—just an outcome of neural firing patterns. I’m sure there will be a host of objections to seeing mental and neural each as different primes that coarise, but for now let’s go with this model, as it helps us envision one very important issue: Sometimes the brain leads the mind, pulling it along, as it is the driving force of our experience. But other times, as this model reveals, the mind leads the way and uses the brain to create itself. Studies now reveal that mental activity can get the brain to fire off in specific patterns—and ultimately change the brain’s structure (see Doidge, 2007). One example of such study is the research into the impact of mental imagery as a form of practice. Musicians and athletes who imagine practicing their instruments or sports not only attain excellent results in terms of maintaining and advancing their physical skills, but they have
demonstrated alterations in brain growth as a result of this mental activity.
This framework for viewing reality also enables us to explore more deeply what being present may really mean. Presence may require that we move both our neural and our mental sides of experience flexibly toward the open plane of possibility. Rather than being rigidly stuck in repeating patterns of peaks, blindly influenced by our moods in plateaus of probability, or being a slave to our particular personality predilections in rigidly confined plateau patterns, we can move freely to the plane and create fresh approaches to old problems. Such a view permits us to put words to the notion that being receptive makes us available to shift into an open internal place and enable unpredictable states to be created so that we may resonate with others. This is a way of seeing how we can intentionally cultivate creativity and presence in our lives.
This metaphor of the plane also helps us see how our brain’s firing patterns will change just as our subjective inner sea will be altered in response to the signals from someone else. If we have preconceived ideas, if we are taken over by judgments, our plateaus of probability or our peaks of activation will block us from being truly open, from having open presence.
Presence happens when we can freely move in and
out of the open plane of possibility. Learning to monitor these neural and subjective aspects of reality and then to modify them toward the open plane of possibility is a visual image of what it means to be mindful. Learning to develop the skill of moving into the open plane of possibility can cultivate presence in our lives and in our relationships.
We can say that being present with others involves the experience of openness to whatever arises in reality. Presence means being open, now, to whatever is. We come to acknowledge our own proclivities and in that awareness, free ourselves to move from peak to plateau to plane with ease and will.
This model links our subjective core with our neural reality in a way that is unifying rather than divisive. But we can only be open to seeing how this unfolds. I used to think like this back in high school, and believe me, it didn’t make me many friends in the locker room or the school yard. So you can understand how I might feel reluctant to go full throttle with this view right from the get-go. But I think it may work—and teaching this in seminars has proven very rewarding, so here we are.
Naturally we often try with words in sentences and paragraphs to get the gist of something out from inside of us to connect with others. Or we can communicate using pictures, drawings, or photographs, or with
music, dance, or touch. But whatever way I try to get my inner subjective experience out into the world to connect with you, the truth is that my inner world can never be fully communicated. We can only do our best in this setting. My heart is into sharing this view with you, so I hope you’ll continue even further along this journey. All any of us can do is try our best, humbly knowing that it is never complete. Any map of a territory is just that: a guide, not a prison. If the metaphor is useful to illuminate the way and to facilitate communication, then perhaps it will serve a helpful function for us. Let’s see how that goes.
And so we’ve imagined a visual image of “reality” as including a plane of possibility and the axes of time, diversity, and probability. As we move from open possibility toward probability and activation, we move out in the two directions above and below the plane toward our two aspects of the physical and mental sides of reality. Perhaps you’ve thought of more aspects besides the physical in three-dimensional space and the mental in subjective experience, the
“space of the mind,” if you will. For now, let’s stick with these two sides of reality and see where we can go with this view. Let’s return again with a general example to illustrate how this model of reality works in real time. As we move from the level of this
two-dimensional plane outward, into the third dimension above or below the plane itself, we’ve moved from open possibility within the plane to instantiated actuality beyond the plane. Within the plane, possibility is wide open, or what some might prefer to call infinite or undefined. For example, you can think of anything you’d like at this moment. You are in the plane and the possibilities of mental experience or brain activity are open, undefined, virtually infinite. When you read “Eiffel Tower,” your physical brain response might be to activate specific neural firing patterns that have encoded the tower in the past while your experiential side may involve seeing the tower in your mind’s eye.
With seeing or hearing the name “Eiffel Tower,” you went from open possibility within the plane to lived actuality as a peak beyond the plane. At this moment in time you’ve moved outward on one side with the experience of seeing the tower, and you’ve moved outward on the other side of neuronal activity. These are the ways subjective experience is correlated with the physical component of neural firing. It’s as if a probability cone was stretched outward in two directions away from the plane, above and below the plane’s level. This bidirectional movement of the cone is symmetric on either side of the plane as subjective and physical mirror one another. As the cone moves
away from the plane, on each side, the infinite width within the plane narrows at the plateau and comes to a point of the cone at the peak. Now that you’ve seen or heard “Eiffel Tower” and the image subsides and neural firing ceases, you return moving down from peak to a slice of the cone lower down called the valenced plateau of probability. This is the plateau that makes it more likely you’ll think of crepes than of tacos.
As time involves this stretching, first we move toward increased probabilities (of wanting a crepe). Then events may occur and the further away from the plane we move, the more restricted the probabilities become until we are actually thinking of that crepe. This is the tip of the cone, our peak of activation. We’ve narrowed from open possibility (within the plane) to increased probability (in the plateau) to specific actuality (at the peak). As you move back toward the plane, first you return to a plateau of probability, and then back to the nearly infinite set of possible firing patterns (physically) or to experiences (mentally) that are wide open and you’ve now returned to the open plane of possibility.
Presence can be viewed as the flexible motion back and forth from within the plane to plateaus and peaks as we move from possibility to probability to activation, and back again down to possibility. Presence is this open and flexible movement through time.
Presence involves the flexible movement in and out of these layers of experience so that we are not locked into some biasing propensity of restricting probability, or fixed patterns of activation. We fluidly and freely move from a specific thought or feeling (in experience) or a particular firing pattern in the brain or overt behavior (in space) toward the more flexible probability, and ultimately back into open possibility.
The capacity to move in and out of this set of transitions is what we are going to define as presence. And presence is a learnable skill. This is the key: We can learn to loosen the grip of habit and engrained aspects of what we call personality to become more mindful. We can learn to monitor our internal world—in mind and brain—and then modify it so that we can cultivate presence as not only an intentionally created state, but as an enduring trait in our lives.
What a way to begin our conversation. My own experience at this moment in time is filled with worry that you’ll find this all too abstract. A worry tunnels through my experiential mind: “I hope you don’t slam the book shut!” A part of me wants to delete this whole bit regarding the notion of two sides of one reality, of the plane of possibility, the plateaus, the peaks. Why can’t we just make this some straightforward book on the research into mindfulness? Why can’t we just have
a salad or a sandwich in the courtyard and talk about the homecoming game next week? My plateaus are primed for rejection and isolation. But maybe, just maybe, this time will be different…and of course, our whole field of helping others, especially within psychotherapy, requires that we dive deeply into the nature of our subjective mental lives. My peaks of conviction of rejection move back to some plateaus of concern…and now, with a few breaths at the center of my awareness, resting back into a familiar but less restrictive plateau of merely doubt and vigilance. I follow my breath, in and out, now letting myself move back to an open plane of possibility. Sometimes we need to name it to tame it, to look head-on into the plateaus and peaks of life and loosen their rigid hold as we soften the peaks, broaden our plateaus and relax back into the open plane of possibility. This is where we all begin, indeed it is a place we all share, and it is a great place in which we can find clarity when we return. This is how we move back to presence.
By starting with the grounding in this view, we’ll be able to fluidly move back and forth from discussions of the brain (in physical space) to explorations of internal life (in the mental sea inside), which is crucial to all that we’ll be doing. If we don’t start with these basics, it may be difficult to develop an in-depth understanding
of these important issues about healing. We could be then at risk of unhelpful and simplistic statements like,
“the mind is just the activity of the brain” or “knowing about the brain has no place in psychotherapy because therapy is a subjective and intersubjective experience.” But being prepared also involves making these ideas about reality and healing accessible to everyday life. Let’s bring this important initial conceptual framework into a story revealing its practical application.