Playing with Fire (and Shadows)

"Do not try and bend the spoon, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no spoon. Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself." -- The Matrix.

 

If you are just starting to read my blog and beginning with this post I really recommend you start with the earliest post instead on Kasina meditation since this is more or less a development of aspects where the context does have a degree of dependence on the earlier materials.

 

After a time following previous developments that I had thoroughly started to enjoy by now, I started to embark on another pursuit. As I would sometimes sit in meditation in a well-prepared space with low-lighting but for some candles I would often stare into the flame and after a while the area around the candle would start to take on a kind of dream-like quality which I just presume was a kind of dissociation of the senses. I started to notice errors in my perception that would result as the candle flame moved where the shadow itself in the background, stemming from the specular lighting cast upon the light yellow-grey wall by the candle would actually remain still during the flicking of the flames. I decided then instead of focusing on the candle itself I would look at the border outline of the shadows being cast instead and investigate this further.

I sat in silence staring at the shadow's outline as I became more relaxed and focused and noticed the small gentle movements from time to time. As I did this my vision tended to start to dissociate a bit the way it normally would during this kind of focus. The background lighting would begin to seem to grow dimmer and so on.

 

This is where I made a strange step. I decided to try to see if it was possible for me to "hold" the shadow in place in front of my eyes. As the shadow gently moved I set my focus on imagining that it would be still. What happened was rather strange as a result. The shadow within the center of my vision tended to be perceived to actually stay still while the other part of it outside the immediate center was still responding to the shifting light as normal. It was as if I was able to use my concentrated mind to hold my own perception of the shadow on the wall in-place. I then further held my concentration on the shadow and attempted to imagine how it would look like if it were to darken towards the inside. Since the shadow was actually a gradient of darkness at the edge of the light I focused on the part of it that had the least change in intensity which was the outer part of the cast shadow.

It could be interesting to note here that there is a degree of willfully going against a gradient that is exhibited in the earlier practice of Kasina meditation which is used to teach the mind to hold onto the counter-sign so it can be produced later. Perhaps a similar mechanism was at work here?

With a good degree of dedicated stillness and focus I was able to observe that the gradient of the shadow was indeed something I seemed to have the ability to alter my perceptions about in such a way that it looked as if I could have it grow darker or indeed, once darkened, will for it to grow lighter. This also had the odd perceptual effect of actually looking like the room itself got brighter too. Perhaps this was something like modulating the signals coming the photo-receptor cells in my eyes? or just some trick of cognition. I can only theorise as to where the altered perceptions begin.

 

I soon found that I was able to practice this ability with much less concentration outside of my meditation space. I would sit instead in my living room lit by the regular lighting of the room which came from a large lamp in the corner and could do the same thing to edge of the shadows cast outside of the central umbra. This led further to extending the edges of the shadow outwards and had a similar darkening effect on the perception of the space in front of me. Every time I would move my head and look about then it would return to normal as usual. The edge of the shadow, during longer periods of this kind of activity seemed to start to take on a dreamy, misty attribute like as if it were emitting a subtle kind of steam (same shade as the shadow) from its edges.

I then started to focus on objects set upon my table in my living room, such as a teapot, which under modest lighting I would sit and change the attributes of the shades of various colours of the different decorations and facets of the item individually while leaving the other parts of it the same. While still requiring a good deal of concentration, it was a subtle but definite effect on my perception.

It was around this point while thinking about manipulating my perception of objects in a structured way that I remembered some events that occurred when I was a child. Around the age of about eight years old I would lie in the bed, sometimes with the central hanging light of the room still on. While it had a lampshade, it didn't cover the naked bulb as seen from below while laying down and resting. I remember while just staring at the bulb for whatever reason against the pure white background of the roof that it appeared as if the bulb had started to move. The bulb seemed to gentle move from it's central position as if it were swaying to point towards me (I would offer that this is just some error that comes from not having a good point of reference in the background - but I don't know any literature on the topic). While I thought this was extremely odd at the time. It occurred a few times as I would lay down to rest and thus I resolved not to look at it as it was a little bit disturbing. I soon forgot about it and life went on.

After considering this observation as a child I decided to see if I could purposefully recreate the effect and explore what could be done with it. I lay horizontally flat on the floor and stared upwards at an object that was on the ceiling and then relaxed in a focus. After a time I tried to will the object to move in a similar capacity to the kind of willing that was done to create the shadow effect. I didn't have much luck but then I had the idea of trying to use my hand to "cue" my perception to think it would be moved, which I theorised might have worked due to the way the perception of the light-level in the room seemed to change during playing with shadows. After a few attempts, this actually worked! the movement of the hanging object seemed to start to move slightly as I would very slowly move my hand, both towards me and then away. I practiced this for a little while and then I was able to produce this effect without the use of the hand, which I then practiced further until I had a degree of competence at doing it without holding a strong focus on the matter.

Of course then naturally the next thing to do here was then to apply this to a regular scenario where I would be sitting on my couch and looking at an object, such as a candle-holder on an empty dark wooden table set before me with another object beside it for reference. Surprisingly enough I was quickly able to accomplish this strange feat of perceiving the two objects either slowly moving apart or trying to bring them together. In all these cases the objects wouldn't look as if they move more than an inch or two but it was an obvious altering of my perception. Then of course I tried it in the upwards direction and was able to watch as my perceptions were altered so that it looked as if the candle-holder was gently levitating off the table in a slow, periodic floating movement going upwards and downwards over a period of about three to four seconds. It was a fairly bizarre thing to watch. I then applied it to the entire table I was looking at and watched again as it would seem to float upwards and downwards slightly of its own accord (at this point all I had to do was will it to set it into motion with a degree of concentration and then just relax and watch). I also did this in combination by having the table "levitating" upwards and downwards from the ground while at the same time then applying it to the candle-holder so that it too would be floating up and down in roughly the same period but independently and at different directions at a time (so that it gave the impression they were doing so independently of each other). Before too long I was even altering my perception so that I could do the Uri Geller trick watch spoons bending sideways at will while holding them upright.

One thing that gave me a rather strange experience when doing this was that it looked so real that I actually placed my hand on top of the table while this was happening and actually felt the relative pressure on my hand increasing and decreasing as the table seemed to move up and down which baffled me. I wondered how this could be related to the effect and I just went with the theory that somehow the information about what I was looking at disagreed with what I expected and somehow this trickled down into my sense of proprioception which tried to "correct" for what was seen. Similar to the way that there are a good deal of illusions involving this sort of thing regarding hands, research into phantom limbs and all that sort of stuff that I wouldn't really be any expert to comment on.

Now to summarise: The strange feats of mental manipulation of one's perceptions accomplished here were playing with extending shadows along gradients, a general capacity to alter my sensitivity to the perceived light within a room and perceiving objects being put into motion where none exists.

Now if you've been reading this blog from the start you're probably wondering when I'm going to get to the real deal. That, I promise now, will start in the next post so do stick with me until then.