Heightened Awareness

When you have to concentrate on your thoughts, you subconsciously block the world out. People who multi-task well, start out doing it consciously. As they progress to a bigger load and more tasks, this ability to tune out what they see, hear, and feel becomes second nature.

What makes a person smarter is the speed they intake and process information collected from their senses--all things being equal, this guy will get there first. I would find him...I think we should all look for him because he knows things we don't. Like why God made himself such a huge mystery. It's a pretty tough one. But hey, every problem has an answer right?

I met a man that claims he figured it out. He sits meditating all day, and as soon as I'm in peripheral parameter...I'm noticed. Don't know how he does it, and he won't tell me....until I cook him a mongoose.
 
Hu, just so you know, since we've begun this discussion (in this, and the other thread) I've been running that smooth stream through my mind a lot while shooting.

I'm not gonna proclaim any great advancement, but I have been a bit calmer, and seemingly in better control. I'm encouraged. And will continue along the path. (Still dunno if I'll be able to fade the conversations just yet, but hey, it's only been a couple days :D )

Thanks again.
 
glad to help a little

justadub said:
Hu, just so you know, since we've begun this discussion (in this, and the other thread) I've been running that smooth stream through my mind a lot while shooting.

I'm not gonna proclaim any great advancement, but I have been a bit calmer, and seemingly in better control. I'm encouraged. And will continue along the path. (Still dunno if I'll be able to fade the conversations just yet, but hey, it's only been a couple days :D )

Thanks again.
Click to expand...


I'm very glad if I have helped a little. Your thread is what led to this one. Unfortunately how to move from on the edge of level three fully into level three is not clearly mapped out. Fighting to ignore distractions or fighting to enter fully into level three involves the conscious mind too heavily and insures we are not in level three, a Catch 22 type of thing. The route to success and to massive failure seems to be exactly the same, turning loose of deliberate control and trusting.

The person that maps out a foolproof and reliable path to level three will become a gazillionaire. Unfortunately I know where an occasional sign post is but my small knowledge is far from a GPS generated path. The main thing I have to offer is the sure and certain knowledge that level three is out there somewhere beyond the horizon and is worth pursuing, especially when you are very near it.

Hu
 
ShootingArts said:
Brian,

I have long wondered if there are more levels above the third one. Sometimes I have sensed trouble ahead or great evil without knowing how or why. I don't know if it was information from my five senses that was being processed at something other than a conscious level or some sort of sixth sense everyone has. There were a couple of times that it saved me from dying or severe injury. Another three or four times since then when I felt that way I simply accepted it and changed my plans. No way to know if something would have happened or not had I not changed plans but I absolutely trust those warnings now after seeing the seeming impossible a few times.

Speaking of animals I've told the story of my chow-chow dog a few times. Mom was divorced and teaching school when I was in my late teens-early twenties. She asked me to live in her home since she was uncomfortable living alone. My dog was of course part of the deal since he was with me whenever possible. I didn't keep regular hours between racing cars, pool, and partying but I noticed that mom started having a plate of hot food ready whenever I got home. I asked her how she knew when I was coming home when I didn't know myself. She told me that my dog would go to the door and wait about fifteen minutes before I got home.

I'd noticed him doing that before mom came home and I started having fresh coffee made the same way. When she was out of town for weeks at a time running a department store he would go to the door about fifteen minutes before she was coming in even when I had no idea she was coming. I verified several times that she hadn't stopped and visited a neighbor or something. The dog knew she was coming while she was still 12-15 miles away, the same when I was coming home. How???

There is still a lot for man to learn. In particular I think there is probably still huge potential in the mind that we aren't tapping or aren't tapping on demand. While I am skeptical about a lot of things I hesitate to say almost anything is impossible. Whether we believe in God or the power of positive thoughts I have seen the seeming impossible and near impossible happen many times when prayer was involved, particularly group prayer. Whatever is happening is beyond known science.

These posts are getting pretty far from the original focus of the thread but particularly the level three zone seems to be tapping an area of the mind we seldom use, or perhaps I should say seldom knowingly use.

Hu
Click to expand...

There is your answer. I got it! HAHAHAHAAHA....do yall? I mean really. I know I joke around a lot but, I'm being really serious here. J/k.
 
C.Milian said:
When you have to concentrate on your thoughts, you subconsciously block the world out. People who multi-task well, start out doing it consciously. As they progress to a bigger load and more tasks, this ability to tune out what they see, hear, and feel becomes second nature.

What makes a person smarter is the speed they intake and process information collected from their senses--all things being equal, this guy will get there first. I would find him...I think we should all look for him because he knows things we don't. Like why God made himself such a huge mystery. It's a pretty tough one. But hey, every problem has an answer right?

I met a man that claims he figured it out. He sits meditating all day, and as soon as I'm in peripheral parameter...I'm noticed. Don't know how he does it, and he won't tell me....until I cook him a mongoose.
Click to expand...

If anyone listens to Fresh Air then go look for the podcast on Yoga. There is a story of a Yogi who had himself buried alive for 40 days to prove to a prince that he had absolute control over his body. When they dug him up he came back to consciousness and said weakly, "do you believe me now?"

Science is now discovering so many thing about the mind that it's almost impossible to keep up with it all. We are figuring out the chemical and biological reasons why certain techniques work to allow us to reach states of focus and calm and ability.

What works for one person may not be exactly what works for someone else but generally each person who truly tries hard to meditate and learn how to control themselves is able to.

In fact some pyschiatrists and psychologists reject the idea of mental illness as a neurologically damaged brain which can only be set to "normal" with drugs and they follow a path of belief that a human being has the capacity to to reprogram themselves. And there is certainly evidence of that being possible.

I think it's a bit of both. I think that given that our brains are essentially billions of electrical connections acting as a hard drive there is certainly some that are damaged beyond a persons capacity to reprogram how the neurons fire. For the most part though we are products of the environments we grew up in plus our dna.

I would like to say that the zone is not always heightened awareness as animals possess. It's often the opposite of that becoming intense focus on the task at hand to the exclusion of everything else. Heightened awareness to me is being in touch with your environment to the point where you are in-touch with everything happening around you and you are able to keep it on a low hum on alert while you go about your business. The zone is to me when people are in sort of fugue state where their whole being is zeroed in on a task and they are able to regulate the chemical spikes from adrenaline and dopamine coursing through them. They achieve zen while managing the extra focus and input that comes with it. How many times have you noticed the scratches on the pool balls. When you get in the zone you can notice those things as if time slows down. Your focus becomes zeroed in to a tight range of things that only have to do with what you need to do.

I think that in that state you don't notice the tsunami coming. And the research bears this out I believe as well if one starts to read up on how people experience the zone.

That said I think you CAN get to a state where you are able to focus intently on a task and yet still have part of your mind attuned to the environment. That to me would be above the "zone". I think that this is in part what daily driving is. You do it without a lot of thought but aware of everything around you with the ability to react and focus in an instant. You have simply done it enough that it's now instinctive. That isn't to say that you can't have moments where you allow concentration to lapse or instincts to be dulled by redirecting more focus on something else, say texting.

In pool it's harder to get into a zone because you are not reacting constantly. Unlike motion based sports pool is static. The only time things move is when you make them move. There is no ball flying at you or flying away from you, no person coming at you, no one to chase down, no one driving against you. I would agree that target shooting is very much like pool and perhaps even easier since the layout is the same from shot to shot. Yes it maybe raining and the light may be getting dimmer but you aren't facing a relatively random layout each time with a lot of choices.

So in both of these endeavors I think being able to bring focus on demand is the skill most needed. That brings with it the heightened awareness of everything related to the task at hand. If someone can do that often then they should be successful provided they also have put in the time to build the actual physical skills and knowledge needed to perform the task.

There are many many many ways to do it. Perhaps attaining mastery over one's self is actually the highest art and all competitive endeavors are just channels towards that goal.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top