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Perceptual Lens

Sleep, unfortunately, is not an optional lifestyle luxury. Sleep is a non-negotiable biological necessity.

Matthew Walker

What exactly goes on when we shut our eyes each night? All humans experience life in their own personal way. Perception is different for each one of us creating the beautifully, vivid color of life as we know it. Consciousness is the entry point for perception. Without consciousness there would be no perception through our physical senses. Safe to say that while we are awake our minds are busy analyzing the world around us. For now, we will call waking consciousness, the perceptual field for the analytical mind.

With that said, humans are equipped with filters within perception that allow sensory experiences relating to how we each see the world. We are incapable of noticing everything that goes on around us. Too much to capture for analysis, hence our brains do a wonderful job of filtering out matters that do not seem to be important to the way we each view the world. For example, a positive minded individual is much more likely to see the silver lining in any challenge versus the pessimist who struggles to see anything but hardship. All of this occurs as part of the perceptual lenses we each develop through the process of living. But what happens to perception when we sleep?  

Waking consciousness fades as we fall into slumber. Perhaps, a form of daily death from conscious interaction giving rise to unconscious mental movement charged with cleaning up the day’s events. Let’s start by understanding the two main phases of sleep NREM and REM sleep. NREM occurs mainly during the first half of the night’s unconscious sleep while the majority of REM occurs in the second half of sleep. NREM carries the responsibility of pruning away non useful connections in the brain while REM sleep strengthens connections. Memories are carried from the hippocampus, short term memory center, to long term storage.

Then there’s the glymphatic system which is considered by experts to be the waste disposal system of the brain. All of this occurs in parallel with repair and rejuvenation of the physical body. Sleep, what a dynamic event! We are all made up of about 33-37 trillion cells operating without the need of perception. It is during sleep that these cells receive the support they need to prepare for the following day’s events. 

If the cells of your body do not have ample time to recover they fail to operate at their optimal potential which means so do you, the perception that goes offline during sleep. You see what I did there? It is crucial to begin laying the groundwork for what you truly are. The human body is arguably the most intricately designed organism on the planet. A collection of cells that develop following gestation from to two cells somehow multiplying day after day into the life that emerges 10 months later.

Perception is quite different then. Curiosity and wonder fill the space of perception. Novelty exists in everything seen, smelled, touched, tasted, heard and felt. As the years add up, experience begins to mold together behaviors, beliefs, experiences into the shape known as the ego identity, aka perceptual lenses. These lenses change quite a bit through life with some humans accepting and embracing change while others gripping on to whatever certainty may exist despite the potential harm of stagnation.

Ego identity becomes the subject of the rest of this document. You see it is this ego that we identify with that we believe houses who we are. Yet, it only represents the small portion of the mind known as the analytical mind. It leaves behind the subconscious mind. As the ego identity drifts off into sleep, the subconscious mind takes over in the process of directing which connections in the brain to organize, prune or strengthen.

One could go so far as to call the subconscious mind, the Father mind. It is from this Father mind that the ego identity is born shaped mainly by its environment. Perhaps, we could entertain the analytical mind as the son of the Father. While the son sleeps the Father is busy looking over him to ensure that he meets the next day reborn following the necessary 7-9 hours of sleep. In a future document, I will further this concept by adding the concept of the ego function. For now, gather the importance of sleep from a biological standpoint as you, the perceptual lens, supports the 37 trillion cells that allow you the gift of life.

Alex
June 9, 2024
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