Know Your Mind

By Peter Massam

This third and final part of the trilogy moves on from growing pains in teenage years and confronting fears to exploring the extraordinary relationship between the mind and the body which can help overcome those same pains and fears, culminating in a new philosophical perspective.

There was no eureka moment, but a succession of scenarios experienced – some with direct physical impacts, others with more subtle and humorous implications for our mental capacity – that opened a door into another silent reality, where five senses are muted to allow for a sixth to be awakened.

What began as a collection of thoughts amassed from strangely inexplicable recurrences, evolved through research into wider possibilities of the power of the mind and resulted in our protagonist being astonished by the predictability he found and the calm that these experiences instilled in him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press UK
• Release date: Feb 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781982286880

Peter Massam

Peter Massam is a writer who captures a moment in time, a location, events or human interactions that have shaped his life and experiences that have been instrumental in managing the journey. His previous publications are as a poet and technical author. More recently, the Cuz Collection brought together poetry and complementary sketches and images. The first collection of short sketch poems captures the motivations behind the urge to draw a scene or capture a moment which sparks observations or symbolises a trend in attitudes or simply celebrates a moment of beauty or an historical event. The second collection reflects on the plant choices made in a country garden over eleven years and the memories they evoke from child to adulthood. A technical book began this journey to help two opposite sides value each other's domain for the good of the Customer, highlighting the importance of what was to become a permanent agenda item at board level - Customer Experience. Learning Experience Trilogy Nipper (2022) ISBN–13: 978-1-9822-8609-5 First Cuz Collection of Poems Sketch Poems (2019; Audible 2020) ISBN-13: 978-1701299238 Second Cuz Collection of Poems Reflections in a Country Garden (2021) ISBN-13: 979-8723096103 Customer Experience Managing Service Level Quality across Wireless and Fixed Networks (2007) ISBN-13: 978-0470848487

Book preview

Dedication

For J and peace

"To all those loved and lost,

The greater was in the wings

And now is gone,

The greatest yet to come"

Contents

Dedication

Preface

Introduction

Know Your Mind

Part 1

Physical Well-Being

Mind over Physical Phenomena

Body Clocks and Waking Minds

A Spanish Sensation

The Agony and the Ecstasy

Swimming Pool Saga

Take Ten

No Sting in the Tail

Backs and Knees

Part 2

Communication With Others

Vehicle Tales

Miles Away

Response Time Immediacy

Part 3

A New Philosophy

A New Philosophy

Neither Dualism nor Monism

An Inner State

Repercussions of Individualism

Understanding Self

The Science

An Evolutionary Tale

An Out-of-World Experience

Critical Perspective

Conclusion

Epilogue

Bibliography

About the Author

Preface

The concept of this trilogy following the logical thread of experience from childhood to adulthood is perhaps nothing new. The presentation through all three volumes is deliberately kept to the central character due to the nature of the topic. They reflect on the inner thoughts, struggles endured and celebrations enjoyed in interactions with those around him. Unlike a mystery or detective novel, you will not find well-rounded characters here, because it deals with just two different states experienced. The first is the real, physical world which demands our attention for much of the day and the second is the metaphysical world of the mind, its thoughts, its aspirations and its largely untapped capabilities which can operate day and night.

When comparing experiences across decades, I was reminded of the patience and sheer tenacity of programme makers who aimed to track the lives of several individuals at regular intervals across a number of years and at seminal points in their lives. The vast array of behavioural changes, physical developments combined with the lessons life inevitably throws at them was a heady mix.

I wanted to go deeper into a single individual’s life tracking the mind’s evolution over time in what was conceived as a concept some years before.

The first volume has the feel more of a coming-of-age drama, punctuated with poignant and pleasurable episodes that go to formulate a person’s character and beliefs – the way you come to think or are taught to believe in a nurturing way.

The second volume is more factual about events which shaped the same life. It presents the psychological challenges, dilemmas and real responsibilities faced when becoming an adult and how firmly held beliefs are dismantled and principles eroded under stressful conditions. It also describes how strength of mind can overcome difficulties and ease fears, emerging as a positive ally in calming troubled waters.

The third volume pulls together those instances where the experiences involving the mind have surprised, created laughter, eased pain and helped restore a balance in daily life. It looks at our physical well-being, explores communications with others and puts forward a new philosophical perspective, which it is hoped will help the reader appreciate the mind’s complementary tools for coping with and making sense of a physical world.

Before launching into the metaphysical side that I believe to be in all of us – a naturally occurring phenomenon, underused, and in some circles regrettably, dismissed as hypothetical nonsense – it was necessary to consult the best-known authorities of our time in all things human, natural, spiritual and philosophical. They are listed in the bibliography at the end.

Some of that further background reading is made reference to here from six main texts. It was necessary to become familiar with the much bigger picture on several fronts.

They are as follows: humankind’s place in history; its evolution as part of the natural world; the conceptual development of its place in the universe; the philosophical ideas which underpinned those notions and its current understanding of scientific laws proposed – with some even proven – to explain how the universe operated in the past and may do in the future.

It is important to say what this volume is not.

What follows is not a scientific discussion of pros and cons of general relativity, unified theory or quantum mechanics and gravity’s relationship to those, although some, as you will see, may have a part to play. That evidence, those arguments and thought-provoking theories have been expounded by people far more knowledgeable than me. It will not answer the question as to why the universe exists, but will suggest which forces are possibly at work in this existence of ours that produce experiences such as those cited here.

This volume offers a different perspective arrived at through the combination of a mind evolved over time, the experiences and the interactions undergone and the conclusions drawn from them. It draws parallels with recent scientific theory but does not aim to justify outcomes with them.

It tries to accommodate further practical scientific evaluation by examining the mind’s impact on space around and within us.

No mathematical theory is involved as it has been argued before by Russell (2001, p.90) that science’s role is to convert philosophical vision into a provable reality.

…as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science.

In this sense, the thoughts presented here could be considered as Russell’s ‘goods for the mind’ (ibid. p.89), philosophical in nature but in this case based on experiential evidence. The monitoring of such experienced concepts and related outcomes is left to the psychological scientists to conduct the necessary experiments under controlled conditions to provide the empirical evidence.

It would be all too convenient to classify this work as one of psychology whereas, in fact, it considers occurrences – some of which are undeniably commonplace but relegated to the back of the mind by some to deny their existence – that have been experienced too frequently to be ignored, but which nonetheless remain scientifically unproven. These are often consigned to the ‘unsure’ or ‘too difficult’ box: not the one belonging to Pandora, but a glimpse of something special – surely not unique and shared by all with an open mind – that can transform the way we perceive ourselves. The instances leave the individual with a sense of awe about our capabilities which redoubles with each reasoned new experience. When dealing with the unfamiliar or something unusual, we need to bear this in mind:

The value of philosophy is… sought largely in its very uncertainty.

…while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge of what things may be… it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect. (2001, p.91)

It is with this thought front of mind that I present these experiences in three parts: the first revolves around the physical self and well-being, while the second deals with communications with others and the third with a new philosophy on life that is fully inclusive of metaphysical considerations, to understand the impact of those considerations on our physical world.

Introduction

This third volume in the trilogy moves on from growing pains in teenage years and confronting fears in adulthood to exploring the extraordinary relationship between the mind and the body that can help overcome those same pains and fears, culminating in a new philosophical perspective.

A succession of observations and moments lead to an unexpected method of suppressing pain, which changed George’s whole perception of the body he inhabits and instilled a lasting respect in him for the nerve centre which he categorises as the mind in this personal account, but which scientists may prefer to attribute to the brain. As we learn more about that sophisticated and largely unchartered organ, perhaps the connections between observations made here about the mind and cerebral activity can be proven by methods and technologies already available to us, combined with those yet to be developed.

It was thanks in large part to the subsequent, largely happy family years that George was able to explore the possible depths the mind has to offer. What began as a collection of thoughts amassed from strangely inexplicable recurrences, evolved through research into wider possibilities of the power of the mind and resulted in him being astonished by the predictability he found and the calm that these experiences instilled in him.

There was no eureka moment, but a succession of scenarios experienced – some with direct physical impacts, others with subtle and humorous implications for our mental capacity – that opened a door into another silent reality, where five senses are muted to allow for a sixth to be awakened.

He tells of these in his own words.

KNOW YOUR MIND

                                            Know yourself first,

                                            The levels that lie within,

                                            Reach out to each other

                                            In mind,

                                            Ignore the din.

PART 1

PHYSICAL WELL-BEING

Mind over Physical Phenomena

‘Good grief! I’ll think twice before messing with you, Moose’, cried out the marketing director. He was addressing the assembled crowd at the team building event, nursing his hands and checking to see that no blood had been drawn.

One half of a broken plank of wood, measuring about a foot square before impact, had now splintered into two halves. One half shot off across the large room along the polished wooden floor towards one