Two posts ago, in How Virtual Materiality Makes Perfect Sense, I shared a trio of my own feeling states (from 2012) that illustrate a phenomenon I would like to explore here in this post. These three states were an example of multiple coexisting states like those described last week in Multiple Coexisting States. The image above illustrates the three states in composite.
At the center of this trio is Trapped, a writhing mass of raw organ meat. This state is congruent with the ways we typically approach working with emotion. It is experienced as occurring inside the self in reaction to things outside the self. It’s turbulent, uncomfortable, and located in the core of the body space.
But what about the next one out, the Trap state? In conventional methods and theories of inner work, the “trap” experienced by a state like Trapped is commonly treated as purely conceptual, a perception based on past experience and used to interpret reality in ways that warn about a threat to freedom and trigger the Trapped state. Working with this experience might involve examining the beliefs that interpret the conditions of a situation as being a trap, or working with the somatic or nervous system correlates of the Trapped state, attempting to calm the system and induce a sense of safety.
In psychotopology fieldwork, though, we are able to turn our attention toward the inner experience of the trap itself. When we do, we discover that it, too, holds distinct, tangible qualities of virtual materiality, an impenetrable solid shell. Not only that, but when we dig further into the experience, we discover a sense that “The trap is controlled / created by what is outside it.”
Turning attention to the space outside of it, we discover the zone of “people everywhere,” a space where there is no freedom I called No Way Out. Again, this “no way out” would be treated in conventional modalities as purely conceptual, a cognitive labeling that would be challenged in one way or another. In fieldwork, we discover that it also carries distinctly tangible virtual material properties as a weightless, rigid solid that is impossible to move through.
The Nature of Virtual Material Objects
Now it might seem to someone with no experience of fieldwork that we’re just playing around with our imagination. Of course it’s possible to imagine a metaphoric substance that could represent your experience of what it is that’s trapping you. You just get creative, and if what you come up with “makes sense,” well, that’s great. But so what?
From this place, it might seem that we could come up with a virtual material configuration for any concept or other category of thought or experience. It might seem that the field of possible configurations and their attachments is infinite, and that this makes the correlation meaningless.
However, the actual experience of doing fieldwork runs contrary to this interpretation. When we direct our field of awareness to the task of first locating the space occupied by “the actual, felt experience” of whatever it is we’re investigating and then investigate the virtual material properties within that space, we experience a tangible presence of a “something” in that space.
More often than not, we are surprised by what shows up. Almost always, what shows up contributes a great deal to our understanding of our experience. And again, we are easily able to verify our observation through our various confirmation strategies including the slider test. These virtual material objects are as “real” to our embodied inner experience as the cup of coffee we hold in our hand is to our physical self.
If this experience were generated by the imagination, it would exhibit a tendency to proliferate endlessly. This concept with its virtual material object would be linked to that concept with its virtual material object, on and on in prolific circles and skeins of conceptual linkages.
But that is not what we experience. Instead, when we investigate the inner feeling experience within a relevant context, we find ourselves rather quickly identifying a finite set of available virtual material objects underlying that experience. Multiple concepts and stories weave themselves through and among these central nodes, and it is fairly easy for us to identify and map that central structure.
This idea of a finite set of nodes is getting ahead of ourselves. We have a lot more to discover, not just in this current Observation Series but in other writing to come after we cover the fieldwork moving practice. Just know that in this place we’ve arrived, using fieldwork mapping to uncover the underlying structures of any contextually bound experience will yield a limited set of tangible, virtual material objects.
For now, I would like to share a variety of further examples of the kinds of “objects” we are able to identify and map through fieldwork, along with their underlying virtual material manifestations. As you read through the descriptions below, notice how complex the experience of a single state can be. Every one of these examples arises in the context of a set of other states, and these sets can anchor immense complexity in thought, perception and motivation.
Enjoy!
A Few Examples from Jerome
The following five state examples are from a single explorer, Jerome. Except for the first coexisting pair — Rat Wheel and Responsibility — they don’t necessarily belong to the same contextual set of states.
Rat Wheel
Seems to be my back. All the way from my tailbone up to just below my shoulders, maybe including my shoulders. Not very wide, goes to my sides. You could barely see it if you were looking straight on at me. Hard, like a plastic material. Room temp. Quarter inch thick. Translucent red.
Pretty rigid and stationary. Inner sound of breathing. This object I've described is kind of pushing me from behind. Almost feels like it's pushing the top part of my back forward, and it's not necessarily a direction I want to go. Also keeping me from turning around.
There's an anger, actually. I think it's, (if I'm going to let the child in me speak), "It's not fair I have to do all these things, and my needs aren't being met." So I'm angry at the powers that be. So I'll show them, I will run even faster.
Don't look behind you. Don't look behind you because you'd be staring straight into the eyes of obligation. That's scary.
Seems to be attached somewhere around my tailbone. Which is interesting. My legs feel engaged, or at least below my torso where this is fixed to.
Responsibility
{In facilitating, I asked Jerome, “What's behind Rat Wheel?”}
I want to say responsibility. When I can't look directly at it, it's scary. Obligation is external, but responsibility is internal to some degree.
About 10 feet behind me, shoulder height. A little, bright point of light and it has little spider web tendrils that come out and attach to my back, or are touching my back at least. Almost looks like a projector. Golf ball size, an object in the same way the sun is an object, has a shape and size but you can't see the surface because it's just light. Hot. Yellowish orange. Beams of light are scintillating, moving around. Not getting a sound.
I really want to turn around and look at it. It's attractive and warm. I'm exploring how it's related to my body. If I turn, it turns, so it's definitely related to me. Strange that it's connected to me somehow. It kind of wants me to not pay attention to it, wants me to trust that it's there, so I don't have to look. And it really feels great to know it's back there. {Interesting shift from the first encounter, which felt “scary.”}
Identity
As witness, looking at myself I have this shape. If that went away, it becomes a mass of stuff. Imagining if it did get pulled away, it's really disorienting.
Charcoal, light-absorbing surface almost like velvet, same feeling as velvet. Coincident with my skin, only above the plane, but feels like it's connected to all of my body. Body temp. The movement is only if it starts slipping through, but it doesn't do that. It only moves in response to what's underneath it. No sound.
There's a pride here. I'm kind of proud of the shape of this thing. I'm aware of, either it's me or there's some other eyes looking at this thing, I think. It's something I'd really like to keep. If Failure{another state} is pulling it away from me, it's something I'd like to prevent.
Spaciousness
This is bigger than my body. In some ways it's an environment. I'm getting this swirling. I'm almost thinking of a galaxy a little bit. It has arms and maybe pieces of light, almost stars. They define a loose sphere with an outer edge maybe 5 or 10 feet away from my body with a semi-diffuse edge. Not substantive, more of a light. I probably couldn't reach it if I tried to touch it because it's farther than arm's length. I'm the center, so it moves with me. Warm. Sound is like snow falling.
I can actually touch it, and when I do it scatters into a new orbit. Touching it doesn't give a haptic experience, but made the snow fall sound. {Touching it was a discovery that resulted in a shift.} Interesting, the touching it was a creative thing, and it's inviting me to be playful.
I'm free to move around within my environment and interact with it. Freedom is a strong component. It feels very secure.
Earlier this week, I think I had created this Spaciousness through focused self care and boundaries. I was enjoying being in it, and that was influencing other parts of my life. In that space I am able to summon the Gentle Caring {another state} when I ask for it.
The Mind’s Eye
Three or four feet behind my head, above me. It's a glowing orb, maybe six inches in diameter. Purple. Pure light. The whole orb is moving in a kind of a circular motion, an oscillation.
This purple orb feels like it's a head, thinking kind of perspective. Sound of tenor humming. Has the magnitude of an organ, same pitch as a vacuum cleaner.
Seems to want to look at everything. Vision is important. Wants to see an appearance. It wants everything to fit together and make sense. I can sense that this is curious, but I can feel how it goes to a bad place {referring to another state} if it gets too much power, if I'm pushing it hard. There's a respect of the relationship between me and it.
A Few More from Rebecca
We first saw a few states from Rebecca in the post exploring the failed hypothesis of the “sadness signature.” We will see a full set of states from Rebecca in another post to come.
Apathy
Back of my head, back of my back. Every part of my body I can't see. Half an inch thick, gray, (it would be black if it mattered); like smoke; moving without purpose or direction, real slow and weak; really heavy, like a magnet pulling back and then down; low tone like the humming of a machine, a low, white noise, droning on and on, unrelenting.
It doesn't matter. Whatever. I give up. Fuck it. Not the good kind of detachment. The bad kind of detachment.
Higher Self
“Nope, you're already figuring it out." Something else in and outside of me that does know what's going on. The part that's fucking with me for my own good, a conspiracy plot.
Head, a cone going up and out; energy; radiating upward about 10 inches, spiky upper edge, almost like an effervescent fire boiling up; all different colors, including white and iridescent and really energized; really powerful; occasional sound of my voice, only lower, coming from left side.
It knows what it's doing, and it's not going to tell me not to worry, because it's my job to worry if I'm worried, so I can see the worry.
(There's a similar energy down my back and on the undersides of my arms as a result of engaging it. I don't know if I trust Higher Self. I don't know if it's something real and good or grandiosity.)
Tranced Out
Torso, inside, slightly smaller than my torso; a sucking down into my belly, a sucked down, it's still, like it has pulled in on itself and it's still, quiet; temp neutral; energy that is not vibrating at all, or anti-energy, the space between the molecules of energy, black energy; black, possibility for translucence but there's no light shining through this place; very silent. It's very still. I can trance out in it.
I am gone. It's really kind of a nice, little place. Just totally checked out. Lonely is safe. It's that place that I get where I'm just not responsive, because I'm just checked out. It's almost like being in suspended animation. Time stops and I get to take a break.
First inquiry for this: Lonely.
I think I want to avoid being lonely. This is a way to avoid feeling anything.
Stuffing Feelings
In and around my body, thick gas; cool; light gray; not much movement.
Everything is OK. I'm fine as long as everyone is happy.
One from Sam
This example is from Sam, other states from whom we saw in the most recent [[Science Observation 6 Multiples]] post.
Awareness
It just feels like my conscious mind. This is the place from which the old reactions feel like they're “not me," an old costume. In my head; most of my skull; it feels like a light or energy. It just feels like, clean, exacting light; white light; neutral temperature; it's radiating all around, 3-4 inches from my skin.
It doesn't have a sound of its own; it's the part that hears the sounds the other parts are making. It listens; it doesn't sound. It's funny how the feeling states that feel odd and foreign feel outside of this. Describing them as a costume means there's something going on over. So I can sometimes feel those other things as trying to cover this white light.
I have an essential nature that is unchanging. It just is. It being essential and unchanging, it's a constant. It's like wisdom - it has wisdom. While those other feeling states are just feedback.
And One from Me
I thought I’d include this one because it’s a great example of something that represents something “not me,” yet it has a very powerful presence in my inner feeling experience.
Punishing Universe
Black. Harsh. Cold. The force of galaxies directed inward at me, like hurricanes of punishing energy. Very black. Crushing force. There is no air, no life, no reprieve, only condemnation.
This is a very bleak existence. Humanity, and my place in it, are damned. Feels like there's no way out of this. It is a terminal condition.
The Unavoidable Outcome of These Observations
Let’s step back for a moment and reflect on what we have just seen.
My experience of the world’s “trap” within which I feel trapped is itself a feeling object. So too is the judgment that there is “no way out.”
Jerome’s experiences:
A “rat wheel” of endless tasks he needs to do with no support,
His own “responsibility” for his commitments,
His “identity” which carries a sense of pride,
A sense of “spaciousness” he achieved “through focused self care and boundaries,”
And his own “mind’s eye” which “wants to look at everything;”
All of these are also distinct, tangible feeling objects.
Rebecca’s experiences:
An “apathy” that carries the “bad kind of detachment,”
Her “higher self” that “knows what it’s doing,”
Her “tranced out” which is “a way of not feeling anything,”
And her “stuffing feelings” that tells her “everything is OK… as long as everyone is happy;”
Everyone one of these are also distinct, tangible feeling objects.
Sam’s experience of “awareness” that “just feels like my conscious mind” and my own experience of “punishing universe” that feels like damnation are also distinct and tangible feeling objects.
These feeling states represent types of human experience which have been approached as categorically different from experiences like sadness, anger, fear and joy. They have been approached as different in therapy, research and theory of all kinds.
What seems to be showing up here in this early stage of our observation of the actual, inner experience of feeling is this. We really, really do not understand the phenomenon or function of feeling from within our current paradigm. There is a “something” here that is not on our maps — at all.
What we find here, by applying fieldwork and actually observing this virtual material dimension of inner experience, is that there seems to be no conscious experience without feeling. Feeling is integrated into every experience, and when you actually observe what’s there, you’ll always find some wrinkle or warp you would not have expected. Our existing models do not accommodate the actuality of what lies within ourselves.
Let me emphasize again, we are in new territory. There is nothing in our existing knowledge that has prepared us for what we are observing. It is very important that we maintain our radical curiosity as we continue. What are we finding? We honestly do not know yet. And that is an exciting state of affairs.
Make sure to catch next week’s post, where we’ll take a very close look at one type of these seemingly abstract but tangibly present types of states: the experience of self. We will be turning our light beam of observation back on the observer, and what we find will very definitely raise new questions and suggest new possibilities.
Reflections
Please let me know how this all lands for you in the comments, or feel free to reach out directly through DM or email (reply if you’re receiving this by email, or use the Frontiers of Psychotopology URL with an @ sign between “frontiers” and “psychotopology”). I’m curious to hear from you. And if you’re not yet subscribed, please consider doing so!
