Mid-afternoon. You have been running an errand and Carol is at the park walking. Last night you finished chapter two of Lehrer’s Imagination and this is what is important in your mind.
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Comments on Lehrer’s Imagination: Chapter Two: “Alpha Waves (Condition Blue)”
“Why is a relaxed state of mind so important for creative insights? When our minds are at ease – when those alpha waves are rippling through the brain – we’re more likely to direct the spotlight of attention inward, toward that stream of remote associations emanating from the right hemisphere.” p. 31
And,
“. . . People had previously assumed that daydreaming was a lazy mental process, but Raichle’s fMRI studies demonstrated that the brain is extremely busy during the default state. There seems to be a particularly elaborate electrical conversation between the front and back parts of the brain, with the posterior cingulate, medial temporal lobe, and precuneus. These cortical areas don’t normally interact directly . . . It’s not until we start to daydream that they begin to work closely together.” pp. 45-46
And, [on color stimulation]
“While people in the blue group performed worse on short term memory tasks [the red group performed better on these], they did far better on those requiring some imagination . . . In fact, the subjects in the blue condition generated twice as many creative outputs as did subjects in the red condition.” p. 51
And,
“. . . creativity isn’t a fixed feature of the mind – that’s why merely exposing people to the color blue can double their creative output. The imagination is vaster than we can imagine. We just need to learn how to listen.” p. 52
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The above collaborates with my hospital witnessed ‘glitch in the left temporal lobe in the mid-eighties. Once or twice in that decade I felt I had a seizure of some kind and mentioned it to the doctor but nothing was detected. Maybe I imagined it, maybe I didn’t. As soon as I saw the info on the color blue I thought of one of my favorite expressions: “out of the blue”. In fact, that is the reason my books continue to have a solid blue cover with white lettering – my sense of humor at work. As far as listening to my imagination -- I have been listening and responding to it since the age of four and probably before that. Fortunately for me I have been observing reality just as long. People who say the two aren't closely connected aren't connected as far as I am concerned.
I don’t know about imagination being vaster than we can imagine, but I definitely feel our minds are capable of much more than we usually give them credit for. And, even before our minds, our brains, our senses feeding into and out of our brains are capable of vast self-deceptions that if you didn’t mention them to anyone, might carry you through a lifetime – you might never realize your sense of ‘objectivity’ was in error – like being color blind in one color but unconsciously compensating and never being aware of it – where someone else saw red and for red you saw a particular shade of gray. The brain and mind are tricky places, and sometimes even more so when staring into a mirror. Talk about imagination – our species is full of it, I’m just one in the crowd of seven billion, and we are the living ones. Imagine how it would be if we, the living, and dead of our species were fully conscious at once? Now that would be a trip. That comment just appeared, out of the blue, no doubt.
While the above comment does appear to be relevant as far as the books are concerned, if true, how would this be shown? The closest thing to it would be an unbound book of pages without words. “Once” would be over before it could be thought let alone uttered. Use your head, boy. Post. - Amorella
After twenty-two hundred hours. Merlyn didn’t know about the affair. His concern was always on Arthur and as Arthur had no clue he did not see it. Arthur was upset but realized after talking with Merlyn that he did not see the relationship either for the reason above. They both erred in the observation of the love affair. You have erred too, several times in your life, orndorff, in not seeing reality for what it is. Keep that in mind. As for Lancelot and Guinevere – they still see one another in their own privacy. She does not want to see Arthur because of it. Things don’t go away when you are dead in these books, boy. You continue with who you are and so do your close friends. – Amorella
I am glad this was so easily resolved; at least in print it will be workable. The last line though – continuing with who you are – sounds inviting and even reassuring but down the stretch I would hope there would be a change for the better, that we would grow, we would mature, from whom we were when we died.
Such a lack of humor here, orndorff. You are not you as a child, as a forty year old, or as you were yesterday. The Dead do grow but they have to know who (and where) they are to grow from that point. HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither is a name that means what it says in here. – Amorella
Time doesn’t exist but change is detectable.
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time noun
1 the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole [Oxford-American]
change noun
1 the act or instance of making or becoming different [Oxford-American]
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Heartansoulanmind is/are not physical. Hearts and minds certainly change; they grow or shrink by degree. When observed they are what they are at any given point. – Amorella
I will have to think about this.
It will be good to finish scene eight and move on. Thank you for the help.
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