This, and also this, and over here, this

 

 Nothing to do; no one to be right now. - Christiane Wolf in Insight Timer guided meditation

The vast majority of the time we are aware of nothing outside our head* -- it's all plan and stew, shift body to become less uncomfortable (crack, stretch, jiggle).  Being slightly miserable -- cold, hot, noise, smells... wanting that to change.

In times of "altered perception" (like after particular long or fast runs) you might become aware of the contemporariness of things -- train making it's way methodically and clangily around a bend in the tracks, birds swooping in unison overhead, a young mom pushing a fancy stroller through the gravel. What follows is a feeling of expansiveness.

When I'm in that mode, the simple sensation of those things is pleasant in itself.  There's a quickening of attention as those things change.  It's a small shock to realize that "all this is happening... and I've been ignorant of it."

But I haven't really been ignorant of it.  These things had shown up serially... or just as "objects" to negotiate my body around while jogging around the park. (this, then this, then this).  But the awareness of these things is fundamentally different.  

Maybe it's the fragmentary nature of the observations.... (this, this, this, this).  Instead, during the altered perception, it's "this, and also this, and over here, this."  Maybe it's whether the consciousness sees these things as having some importance or not.  In the "just jogging" perception, nothing has much importance -- objects to avoid, things that appear in consciousness very briefly and judged to be threat or no threat, then discarded.  

But in the altered perception, these things linger and each thing is perceived "in relationship" to others ("Listen to that lumbering train...  oh, and these birds are carving their way through the air towards the train... and just underneath, the woman kicks up dust as she pushes through the gravel path with her fancy stroller.")

I notice now as I write this that each of the details is "non cliche" (it's not "I heard a train and saw a bird and a lady with stroller"... there are details (swooping, fancy stroller, 'making its way methodically') and when I wrote it again in the paragraph just above, all of the details involve (a) movement, (b) movement through something, (c) a kind of mini narrative.  

In perception A, I am noticing objects.  These objects are important or not as they appear in my consciousness (or below consciousness) as threats or simply physical items to be avoided (this feels to me like "dog consciousness"... a simple flow chart of "friend or foe or nothing?" then simply to not run into the thing.  (This gives me the opportunity to include my favorite "Far Side" cartoon!)

In perception B, I am noticing the relationship of beings moving through the world in a complex way ("through" something, negotiating a tight corner of track, a resistant gravel path, doing high speed aerial maneuvers  timed to other birds to get dinner).  It feels like the difference between a static image and an iPhone  Live photo image, which captures a second or two of movement.  

In perception A, you notice a bird with a big clump of grass in its mouth; in perception B, you notice a bird struggling to bring a big clump of grass through the wind back to its beginning nest.... at the same time as two or three other things are struggling or crafting or racing... and you recognize that you're in a little diarama of simultaneous movement and striving and (in general) things aiming to do their own purpose, likely oblivious to others. 

I recall the feeling of loss or slight disappointment when the birds go out of view. 

ADDITIONAL NOTES that I found on July 18, 2014 journal:

 After my run, I got that peculair vision thing again looking at mulch. I am absored into it... it seems very 3D, ver spatious. It "slips" back into normal, "flat" vision from time to time -- is distinguished from the "pictorial" 2D view.  I don't move my eyes much, I "absorb."