Perception and reality {How do we take in reality}

The way we access information, recall experiences and engage with life is directly proportional to the quality of our relationship with memory. Every experience, whether it comes from the physical world or from imagination, is known to us only through our senses. Our ability to see, hear, feel, smell and taste is the only means by which we can know, organize and make sense of both the world around us and the world within us. These five sensory channels are referred to as VAKOG, the representational systems through which experience is encoded, stored and recalled. Together they form the basis of a possible understanding of sensory engagement, describing the relationship between sensory input, internal representation, internal state and behavior. We do not make sense of the world in any other way. Even when we remember an event from years ago, the memory is recreated through the same sensory system. When you think of and remember an experience, it has the ability to produce the same feelings, emotions and bodily sensations as though the event were happening in the present moment. It is these sensory and physiological responses that become our evidence procedure, convincing us that our memories and personal narratives are true. This is why sensory acuity matters. The more accurately we observe and participate in what we see, hear, feel, smell and taste, the greater the precision with which we understand ourselves and others. A refined sensory awareness allows us to engage with experience directly, bringing greater clarity to perception, memory and communication.

How we take in reality 

1. The world of reality is where every experience happens. There is a very thin line between the physical world and the world of our imagination (or inner presentation or augmentation). Whether I see a dog barking outside my window or simply imagine that same dog barking, the effect it could have on my senses can be remarkably similar. That is why we can imagine certain situations and suddenly feel petrified, begin to sweat or experience fear. Imagination can be just as powerful as physical reality. Think about your favorite food. Merely imagining it can make your mouth begin to salivate. The intensity of that salivation depends upon the richness of the sensory detail in the imagination and the degree to which we engage with that detail. I probably think there are entire industries and practices built upon the dependability of this very process. Think of pornography, prayer or even advertising. Their effectiveness depends not on the immediate physical reality, but on the mind's ability to engage with an imagined or internally constructed experience as though it were real.

2. Whether we engage with imagination or with physical reality, we do so only through our senses. They are our input channels. Everything that enters our experience does so through seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting. They are the means through which we encode, organize, store and later recall our experiences.

3. If the brain and body had to consciously process one hundred percent of everything entering through VAKOG every moment of the day, we would be overwhelmed by information. It would be complete sensory overload. Our nervous system therefore has an elegant way of managing this constant flow of information. It filters experience through what NLP refers to as the three universal modeling processes: generalisation, deletion and distortion. And sometimes this may also be the reason for errors in perception, especially when we slip out of awareness. Generalisation, deletion and distortion are the filters and processes that make human experience manageable. They allow us to function efficiently, but they also influence what we notice, what we overlook and the meaning we eventually create from our experiences. I will discuss each of these in greater detail later in this article.

4. Once experience passes through these filters of generalisation, deletion and distortion, what remains becomes our truth. It becomes our reality. It becomes what Grinder and Bandler commonly called as map of the world. From that point onward, we spend the rest of our lives interacting with this map. Reality itself has already happened. The moment an experience occurs, it belongs to our personal histories and past timelines. We can never go back to that time in this body and access that event ever again. It is gone. We can never examine it again in its original form. The only access we now have to that experience is through our memory, the map we have created of it. That map becomes our reality. As many people, so many maps.

What if this is the real source of conflict in the world, and very little else? The conflict was never about the coffee. It was about the explanation of the coffee, the interpretation of the coffee and the meaning each person had attached to it. Two people were never arguing about the same experience. They were engaging with two different maps while believing they were discussing one reality. Maybe conflict exists because we are not empathetic enough to hold space for another person's version of coffee. Our need for agreement, commonality or validation often widens the distance instead of reducing it. I still remember Dick telling us in class that we live in cognitive universes. As many people, so many interpretations. As many people, so many experiences.

5. Our engagement with this map of the world, whether within ourselves or while communicating with others, happens through language. Language is often our first point of access to another person's experience and it is one of the greatest tools human beings possess. Language is the crowning achievement of our species, language is also the poorest form of communication (John grinder, 2021). It depends upon interpretation, sequence, syntax, semantics and the meanings we have personally attached to words. When someone says the word coffee, I have no way of knowing whether the coffee you experience internally is the same coffee I experience. Language is not the experience. It is only a metaphor for the experience. Sometimes, even with every word available to me, I still could not tell you what I felt when I looked at someone I loved. Perhaps that is why Javed Akhtar wrote, "Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga, Jaise Khilta Gulab, Jaise Shayar ka Khwab, Jaise Ujali Kiran, Jaise Bun Mein Hiran, Jaise Chandani Raat, Jaise Narmi Ki Baat, Jaise Mandir Mein Ho Ek Jalta Diya...  (1942: A Love Story)