/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14498142]

Are there any books that explore the nature of perception in a way that makes it possible to gain mastery over its mechanisms?

Everything we think, feel, do, ultimately depends on how the world appears to us. Depression is ultimately compelled by the perception of a desolate life and lack of hope. Joy is compelling when we perceive some grand potential for growth and happiness in our life. Thoughts, feelings and actions are just expressions of our present experience, our insight into a small subset of the infinite perceptual field. The manic-depressive doesn't construct his world self-deceptively, he simply taps into the joyful world one day and the depressive world on the other - most of us only have access to a much more mundane frame that results in "normal" mood.

How do you tap into the rest of the perceptual field? It seems that at any moment, your mind is taking in the world only selectively (for obvious evolutionary reasons) but what factors doom you to a particular frame? Before you have a single conscious thought, the world first appears to you a certain way, compelling you towards certain thoughts, emotions and behavior (you do ultimately have a choice, but that requires a fundamental distrust of your only window into the world - rationality is doomed because you will always trust direct experience over abstractions).

Pic related. The illusion seems to me to be a result of being able to tap into this selection mechanism, anchoring yourself on a particular detail for a duck to appear and vice versa. I believe the world is such an illusion except infinitely more complex, with infinite possible subsets that would correspond to radically different phenomenological experiences of the world. Imagine shifting the illusion at will, tapping into different parts of the field on a whim or perhaps even several parts that create one frame richer than the sum of each.

>inb4 psychedelics

It's true that certain substances allow one to meddle with perception in intricate ways but it's only temporary and you don't gain any true insight, simply a glimpse into what's possible. I don't want to rely on them if there are natural ways of achieving something like this.

[Anonymous No.14498160]

>>14498142
Enjoy your owner's manual for the human brain
t. ~2015 /x/

[Anonymous No.14498232]

>>14498160
>The Thinker & The Prover

Oh wow, the first chapter is literally about this. Thanks for reminding me about this book, a second read will probably be much more insightful. The quarter exercise makes so much sense now, focusing on the quarter will make it more likely you'll tap into the "quarter" field and they'll suddenly pop out everywhere. It might appear that you've magically materialized quarters but they were already there, just outside of your usual frame.