at an optical illusion, we cannot override it mentally!
I have a personal example of misinterpreting what I was looking at. I had been working in an office furniture warehouse for about 6 months, so I was well familiar with the environment. The huge space containing thousands of boxes and desks had a white plywood divider running down the centre of the warehouse, effectively separating the area into two sections. One weekend, this divider was taken down without my knowledge. Coming out of the canteen the following Monday, I stood frozen to the spot as I realized that I couldn’t make sense of what I was looking at! Desks and boxes were literally MOVING back and lurching forward in a frenzy of activity. I was gob-smacked to say the least. As soon as I made a tiny movement (only seconds later) immediately my brain recovered to be able to tell me what the hell was going on. Whilst my brain was in panic trying to interpret confusing information from a fixed position, I clearly remember being offered alternative explanations of “reality”. Are those boxes near and small? Or are they big and far away? No, are they big and near? Please excuse the loss of picture; we will resume normal transmissions as soon as possible! I didn’t think my brain could over-rule visual input to such an extent!
HUMANS= FOURTH DIMENSION
Human consciousness is undoubtedly a dimensional leap above that of animals. Although it has recently been proven that animals such as parrots and orangutans are far more developed than previously thought, they cannot be said to have reached a level any way near that of mankind. It’s been due to human contact and teaching in the first place that these animals have thus developed. The fact that left to nature, at least for the time being, all animals are aware but not conscious of their own existence and of the world around them.
Adam and Eve.
How did human consciousness come about? I think it was due to a dimensional leap in awareness, which took place very recently (on a geological time-scale). The story of the Garden of Eden, where the first humans “fell” after having eaten forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, at first glance doesn’t look to be overflowing with scientific fact. However, coupled with recent findings in the chemistry of certain hallucinogenic plants and brain development, I am convinced that the answer to this mystery lies here.
Imagine a troop of highly developed primates, living in perfect harmony with nature. In other words, they lived and died in a state of “ignorance is bliss”. Even though they were at the top of the evolutionary tree (pardon the pun) they behaved without a conscious awareness of their own existence. Their ability to use tools such as sticks and rocks, although ingenious, does not necessarily mean that they possessed consciousness. (Just as some birds can build intricate spherical nests to a level of perfection beyond most people’s dexterity, these are attributes that have been “genetically pre-programmed”, which is totally different to freewill.) One day, these primates ate some hallucinogenic foodstuff, probably a fungus or mushroom. The ramifications of this seemingly mundane event led to the evolution of a new species: Man. I imagine that the impact of a hallucination on pre-humans could easily have led to the first conscious memory: a memory of existence in a different state. The first moment when an animal experienced or remembered an experience outside of it’s nature as it were.
Interestingly, Homo sapiens are the only species that will voluntarily take a psychedelic drug again after having experienced the effects. Although laboratory animals including monkeys and rats will readily self-administer most other drugs abused by humans, including cocaine, heroin, amphetamine, nicotine and alcohol, they find hallucinogens highly aversive.
Hallucinations are caused by very specific changes in the brain chemistry of the “observer”, whereby naturally occurring brain chemicals are mimicked by the invading hallucinogens. The naturally occurring substance known as serotonin is widely regarded as one of the most important brain chemicals present in both Man and many other animals. It’s main role in Man covers things like mood, daylight regulation and even the development of intelligence. The part of the brain most associated with the production of serotonin, is the highly controversial pineal gland, also known as the third eye, by mystics both ancient and modern.
The molecular structure of hallucinogens such as psilocybin, mescaline and LSD are astonishingly
The Fall: Eve is tempted by the serpent
Hugo Van Der Goes 1470
Hugo Van Der Goes 1470
