Is it really out there..is it out there at all?
There is something both obvious and deeply strange about perception, and most people never stop to examine it.
We move through life assuming that what we see, hear, and feel is happening “out there” in the world, somewhere beyond us. It feels immediate and external, so we rarely question it. And yet, that certainty is a kind of illusion.
What you experience as reality is not happening out there in the way you think. It’s actually being constructed, moment by moment, inside your brain.
Take vision for example. It seems so direct, so reliable.
Light enters the eyes, strikes the retina, and signals are sent back to the visual cortex in the occipital region. That is where the experience of seeing actually occurs. Your brain takes two slightly different images, flips them, merges them, adds depth, and then presents the result as a seamless three dimensional world.
And then it does something even more remarkable. It projects that experience outward, so convincingly that you experience it as being in front of you rather than inside your own nervous system. And it always puzzles me that we perceive the screen of our minds in front of us, even when our eyes are closed.
But what you are seeing is not the world itself. It is your brain’s interpretation of it.
And once you start to consider that, small everyday moments begin to look very different.
You notice how often perception simply fails in curious ways.
I remember watching my own father searching for his car keys, becoming more frustrated by the second. He checked his pockets, looked on the table, retraced his steps.
The keys were in his hand the entire time.
He even shifted them from hand to hand, while continuing to search. At no point did his awareness register what was already there. It had been filtered out.
You have probably seen something similar yourself.
Someone opens the fridge, scans every shelf, and insists the mustard is not there. Another person walks over, reaches in immediately, and hands it to them.
It is almost comical.
My wife calls it “boy looking” but what it really demonstrates is that perception is selective. The brain is not passively recording reality. It is constantly deciding what to include and what to ignore.
That’s where hypnosis becomes especially interesting.
Because hypnosis works with those same processes. It does not create something unnatural. It reveals what the mind is already doing and allows us to guide it.
The same mechanism that can erase keys from our awareness, can also generate entirely new experiences.
A person can see something that is not physically present, hear a sound that no one made, or feel a sensation with no external source.
These are not strange exceptions. They are extensions of ordinary perception.
And it goes far beyond what you see.
Think about sound for a moment. You can be in a crowded room, surrounded by voices, and suddenly hear your name as if it sliced through everything else.
A mother can sleep through a loud thunderstorm, and instantly awaken when her baby cries.
Or you can have someone speaking directly to you and not register a word because your attention drifted.
Your ears did their job.
But your brain decided what mattered.
Touch works the same way. Sensations can fade into the background or become intensely vivid depending on how they are processed. I wonder where you’re itching…right now?
And even taste and smell follow this pattern.
The same food can seem delicious or unpleasant depending on what you believe it is. A familiar scent can bring back a memory so vividly that it feels like stepping into another time.
Although nothing about the external stimulus changed, the meaning assigned by the brain did.
So as you reflect on this, something begins to shift.
Your experience of reality starts to look less fixed and more fluid. Less like something happening to you and more like something being generated by you, or through you…
And if that’s true, then it opens an interesting possibility.
The processes that shape perception can be influenced hypnotically. Gently, skillfully, and often without effort.
Which leads to a simple question worth sitting with.
If your brain is already creating your experience of the world, mostly outside your awareness, what might happen if you began to take a more active role in that process?
Something to think about this Sunday
- Mike Mandel
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