Ropes, Snakes, and the Reality of Perception

 If I were to coil a thick rope like a snake and set it on the forest floor next to a hiking trail, it is inevitable that someone would eventually come upon that coil of rope and mistake it for a real snake.  If that person were wearing a helmet attached to a mobile MRI machine, you would be able to see the parts of their brain that went all nutty-active with a fear response and then loads of adrenaline.  You could actually map out the parts of the brain that were involved in that process of registering and then reacting to the snake.  Except they’d realize that it wasn’t a snake, and other parts of their brain would kick in.  You could map those, too.

If you repeated the same experiment except this time with a real snake instead of the rope, you could use your MRI helmet to map the subject’s brain again.  This time, since the snake would be real, the hiker would have other reactions, and you could map the parts of the brain that fire up when someone is running away and screaming about a snake.  

If you took both sets of data and lopped off the divergent point, the moment of realization that the rope wasn’t real, up until that point both sets of data would look the same.  Identical.  The same parts of the brain would be firing in the same sequence, making the same connections, processing the same stimulus, and preparing the same body for a response.  The physical brain response and the emotional response of the individual would be no different.

The weird thing is, the stimulus would actually be different.  The objects in the physical world would actually be different.  The nature of the threat would actually be different.  Yet…to the brain…no different.  

Lesson 1: Perception truly is reality.  My dad always says that, and it is true in ways we don’t quite comprehend.  It doesn’t matter if it really is a snake as long as I think it’s a snake.  My brain says so.

Lesson 2: Our brains often do not distinguish between what is real and what is imagined.  Think on that for a moment or two.  I have heard about and read about this being confirmed in countless studies in countless ways.  The result is always the same: our brains often do not distinguish between what is real and what is imagined.  It works that way with ropes.  It works that way with snakes.  It also works that way with insults.  It works that way when you tell someone that they are stupid.  It works that way when you tell someone that they are worthless.  It works that way when we silently berate ourselves for being fat.  It works that way when we shamefully wish we were someone other than who we are.

But it also works that way when we imagine positive results in our lives.  In works that way when we wish for healing.  It works that way when we smile at ourselves each morning and tell ourselves just how wonderful we really are.  It works that way when you wish for nothing but peace for those you meet.

Sure, the outside world may not always listen to what’s going on in your brain.  It often has its own agenda.  But the outside world might also trick you into believing that a rope is a snake.  Sometimes there really is a snake, but sometimes it’s just a rope.  Sometimes our reality is all about perception.