Color, Movement, Sound, and More
Fieldwork Mapping Series, #7
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In this post, we will continue with our fieldwork mapping questions, taking close observations of color, movement, sound, and other properties. We will also take a look at a method for confirming our observations and reducing the intensity of intense feeling states. (Just touching in here? Get oriented by reading the first post in the Fieldwork Mapping Series — #1: In-Depth Instructions for Rigorous Observation.)
Ready? Continue from where you left off with the temperature question, #6: Substance Qualities and Temperature. Say the feeling state name to yourself to bring your focus to it, and continue taking detailed notes as you go.
Color and Appearance
Let’s turn our attention to what this feeling state might look like if you were able to step outside and look at it, as if it were an object separate from you.
Take a moment to reconnect with the information you’ve gathered so far. Place your field of awareness into and/or around the region of your feeling state, and notice again its qualities of substance and temperature. Now we will inquire into what this feeling state might look like if you were able to see its visual appearance.
If you were to say that this [feeling substance] has color, what color or colors would you say it seems to be?
This is a straightforward question that builds on the platform we’ve built with the previous questions, using no further unique phrasing except to specify “…color or colors…” to allow for the possibility of the feeling substance having two or more different colors.
If you do find your feeling state carrying more than one color, inquire into the relationship between/among these colors. Are they distinct with clear boundaries, or do they blend into one another? Is there a regular pattern, or are they more randomly distributed?
Pay attention in this case to whether the distinct colors might correspond to distinctly different substances and/or temperatures. If so, this might turn out to require slightly more advanced mapping technique. Consider treating the distinct quality zones as being distinct feeling states, each with its own, unique qualities and contributions to your inner experience. In this case, go through the mapping questions completely with each distinct component you’ve identified.
Pro Tip: Testing with Contrast
If we think of the sensory imagery centers of the brain as our instrument, it is as if we are trying different imagery settings and monitoring the instrument signal for a match. We are in fact “making it up” as we go, keeping track of what imagery feels like it “fits,” and adjusting for optimization. It’s a little like playing the childhood game “hot and cold” where a toy is hidden and the hider calls out temperature readings indicating how close the seeker is to the treasure. The seeker’s best strategy is to move around a lot at the beginning to get a quick temperature map of the territory, then to zoom in on the “hot spot.”
We can also use this technique to help us confirm any of our map parameters. When we are first getting used to this new skill, it is natural to question the images we get. “Where did that come from?” is a common exclamation. If you think maybe a feeling state has a certain imagery quality, but you’re not sure, ask a specific question about the opposite qualities.
For example, if you have a sense of the feeling state being blue, but maybe you’re baffled because you thought rationally that the anger you’re mapping should be red, “try on” some other colors. Ask yourself, “Is it possible that it’s red,” imagine the feeling substance being red, and check whether this matches the felt sense of what you’re mapping.
Most of the time when you do this, you will get a very clear “No.” When you do, then going back to your first impression of blue will seem much more fitting, and in fact it will often carry a subtle meaning that informs your experience of the state. It’s a great way to let yourself know you’re on track.
Additional Qualities of Appearance
In addition to identifying the raw color value, the hue, it can be helpful to notice additional qualities of appearance. I almost always ask about transparency:
And would you say it seems more transparent, translucent, or opaque?
Here are the definitions of these terms:
Transparent: Can see detail through it, although the colors may be tinted; like some tea or other clear drinks, or tinted glasses.
Translucent: Light shines through but objects are not visible; like frosted glass, clouds, and lamp shades.
Opaque: No light or visibility can be seen through the object; like an iron rod, ceramic plate, or wooden bowl.
As before, we can drill down into further levels of detail, but for the purposes of our mapping it’s best to find a balance. We want to capture the qualities most relevant to the felt experience of the feeling state. Here’s a prompt to explore qualities of vividness (saturation) and brightness (value).
Is the color vivid or flat, dark or bright?
Occasionally, with visual qualities, these can include the following:
Luminosity: Does this feeling object glow, shine, or radiate light in any way?
Reflectivity: Does the surface of this feeling object appear shiny, dull, or significant in some other way?
Saturation or Value: (This is for color geeks.) Does this feeling object have a significant color saturation, either seeming very intense or very flat in color? Or does the color seem significantly bright or dark?
Finally, as always, it can be helpful to offer a more generic prompt.
What other qualities of appearance do you notice in your experience of this feeling state?
As you might imagine, color is perhaps the most useful quality when drawing the visual image of the feeling state. When you engage your materials or device for drawing you may find your discernment grows finer. Again, this has to do with the relative ease of saying “yes” or “no” to specific values over generating them out of nothing. If you have a large set of colored pencils, for example, you may agonize of exactly which shade of turquoise to pick, and find yourself mixing colors to get just the right effect. For now, just capture the general description of the appearance in your notes.
Movement, Force, and Pressure
With this question we maintain our field of awareness upon the substance qualities of the feeling state, and turn our attention to ways in which this substance seems to be moving — or not.
If you were to say the actual, felt experience of this [feeling substance] is moving in any way, would you say it seems to be flowing… or pulsing… or vibrating… moving in some other way… or does it seem to be perfectly still?
Properties of movement, force and pressure vary greatly. The possibilities are at least as wide as those in the physical world of solids, liquids and gases. As with the other properties, only go into as much detail as seems useful to help the explorer experience a strong connection between the image and the feeling state.
Here are a few types of movement to consider, (not an exhaustive list): flowing, pulsing, vibrating, radiating, waves or ripples, whole-object movement through space, or perfect stillness. And within these types of movement we find various qualities, including the following:
Direction: Linear, circulating, inward or outward, expanding or contracting
Intensity: Volume, speed, frequency, or amplitude
Variability: Steady, rhythmic, intermittent, or random
Force or Pressure
Usually it is best to ask about force or pressure separately, after assessing movement qualities. This is because what you learn from examining movement will often suggest a likely configuration for force or pressure. Continue with the following simple prompt:
And do you notice any force or pressure?
If force or pressure is evident, inquire further into its direction and magnitude. For example, a gas identified as having the quality of pressure could be experienced as compressing inward on itself or pushing outward from its center. This directionality could be significant for next steps in the work, including standing as an indication pointing to another feeling state object interacting with the first, and indicating potential opportunities for how to create a powerful shift in the moving phase of the process. We’ll cover these finer distinctions in the relevant sections later on.
Variability
Finally, it can be helpful to explicitly ask for elements of variability along all the components of this property.
Are these qualities of movement, force or pressure steady, rhythmic, or random in any way?
Make your notes to capture your observations, and let’s move to the final explicit mapping question.
Sound
In observing a feeling state’s properties of sound, we take a little bit less focused approach. Inner sound often does accompany the experience of specific feeling states, but it does not necessarily seem to originate within the space of the affect field itself. Sound can seem to come from inside the mapped state space, outside of it, or somewhere more difficult to locate.
No worries. Most of the time, sound serves as more of a support to the other properties than a central feature of its own, so all we need for supporting the mapping process is to take an open-ended approach.
With your attention on the felt experience of this [feeling state], when you listen internally, do you notice any inner sound?
In answering this inquiry, it can help to open the field of awareness wider. As described, sound often arises along with a feeling state, but may not be as strongly or directly connected with the identified location.
For some people, sound is a natural element of their feeling state imagery. For others, sound rarely shows up. For many, answering the questions about substance and color seemed like discovering properties that were already in place, while sound qualities may seem to fall more in the category of “making it up.”
If you are among those who do not find sounds springing spontaneously to mind, let it go. In mapping, we are only interested identifying elements that feel right, that fit.
I generally find that an overview of sound qualities is usually sufficient to be useful in the moving phase. I’ll wait until after we find the ideal state to fully enhance and enrich the sound experience. But if sound stands out in mapping, take a moment to note its qualities in a little more depth. Here are some qualities I’ve found most useful in working with sound.
General source: vocal, natural, machine, electronic, that sort of thing
Is it more of a natural sound, or artificial, mechanical, vocal, or something else?
Variability: steady, rhythmic, random, or other
Is this sound steady, or does it vary in a way that is rhythmic or random in some way?
And a few other possible sound qualities that can be useful at times:
General sound qualities: pitch, amplitude, rhythm, tone
Single or multiple sounds
Musical qualities: instrumental, vocal, choral, natural, melodic
The Special Case of Silence
If the explorer states there is no sound, confirm by asking. There is a difference. Silence can be “deafening” or otherwise carry great meaning.
If there seems to be no sound, is it more the case that there is no sound of any kind, or is there in fact the presence of a distinct silence?
When you have completed a general description of the sound qualities of the feeling state imagery, it’s time for one last check before moving on.
Other Possible Qualities
For a very few people, vivid sensations of taste and/or smell might accompany their experiences of specific feeling states. Ask a casual question the first few times someone maps a state to see if taste and/or smell might be an important channel to observe for this person.
As you feel into this experience of your [feeling state], do you notice any taste or smell that seem to be important components of your experience?
If so, capture as much as seems important to the explorer about what is there.
Brief Review
As we wrap up the explicit mapping process, now is a good time to review. Often, in moving through the question sequence, an observation later in the sequence may reveal previously hidden details from an earlier question. Sometimes answering a question about color, for example, can lead to a clarification about substance.
As you wrap up, look over your notes, or reflect on what you have mapped, and notice if anything needs to be adjusted in your description of the virtual material properties of this state experience.
Is there anything else you want to notice about how this [feeling state] actually feels before you move on? Are there any adjustments you would like to make to your notes?
All that’s necessary here is a quick invitation to mark any background discoveries you may have made while working through the question sequence. Make any changes or updates to your notes before moving on to the questions about thoughts and beliefs.
Pro Tip: A Note About Mental Imagery
At times, as the explorer you may find yourself encountering very specific and detailed images. You might describe a feeling as a “squirrel in my belly, eating a walnut” or “like autumn leaves swirling all around me, each leaf shaped like a heart, with the word ‘love’ written in blue at the center of the leaf.”
When you find this level of detail, question it. You want to confirm that the “actual, felt experience” corresponds to the substance, color, etc. When there is a surplus of vivid detail, it is sometimes because you have lapsed into using metaphoric, thought-based imagery instead of tracking the actual, inner sensations of the feeling state. If you suspect this, try the following question to confirm, substituting a brief reference to the imagery in question for the marker phrase in brackets:
Now as you allow yourself to fully experience this [mental imagery], notice the feeling that arises with that imagery. Paying attention to the sensations of this feeling, if you were to say the actual, felt experience of the feeling itself is located somewhere in or around your body, where would you say that is?
Usually, this is enough to shift the explorer’s attention to the direct feelingmind experience, and you’ll be able to properly map the feeling state.
Differentiating Discrete Properties
If this does not yield a more tangible experience of feeling that accompanies the image, another approach is to treat the image as actual virtual material properties. Then, separate discretely different properties and look into the experiences of each.
For example, if you’re working with an explicit image of a ripe peach, bring awareness to the pit versus the flesh, and treat these as possibly separate states. Ask about the properties of each as different from the other, and invite a further differentiation of feeling by asking how they might be differently named. Confirm each by adjusting the properties of their substances to see if the actual felt experience changes as well.
Rolling With It
If the detailed, metaphoric image persists, and it resonates with the felt experience, roll with it. Complete the mapping.
For one thing, for some people, this level of detail may be normal. I’ve run into a few. And even if what is happening is a substitution of thought-based imagery for the felt sense, if our ultimate goal is to shift the state, moving a mental image can often lead to similar breakthroughs as working directly with the virtual material properties of the feeling state. (Why and how that works is a more advanced topic we’ll get to eventually.)
Over time, with the experience of mapping many states, most people will learn to discern the difference between an explicit image and the observation of the virtual material properties of an affect field. For serious application to a scientific investigation, we will want to choose first-person explorers with enough experience to easily make this assessment. For those on a journey of personal growth and inner exploration, it’s not a critical issue, and the learning will be valuable no matter how accurate the observations might be.
Reflections
In the course of this series on fieldwork mapping, I would like to ask for your feedback about how well you are able to put these instructions to work. Where do you struggle, what comes easily, and what suggestions do you have for improving how this series supports you and others in doing the mapping? Thank you!
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