States of Consciousness
Charles T. Tart
11. Observation of Internal States
Observation of internal events is often unreliable and difficult.
Focusing on external behavior or physiological changes in useful,
but experiential data are primary in d-SoCs. We must develop a
more precise language for communicating about such data.
Observing oneself means that the overall system must observe itself.
Thus, in the conservative view of the mind self-observation is
inherently limited, for the part cannot comprehend the whole and
the characteristics of the parts affect their observation. In
the radical view, however, in which awareness is partially or
wholly independent of brain structure, the possibility exists
of an Observer much more independent of the structure.
Introspection, the observation of one's own mental processes,
and the subsequent communication of these observations to others
have long been major problems in psychology. To build a general
scientific understanding requires starting from a general agreement
on what are the facts, what are the basic observations across
individuals on which the science can be founded. Individuals have
published interesting and often beautiful accounts of their own
mental processes in the physiological literature, but analysis
of these accounts demonstrates little agreement among them and
little agreement among the analyzers that the accounts are precise
descriptions of observable mental processes. Striving for
precise understanding is an important goal of science.
One reaction to this has been behaviorism, which ignores mental
processes and declares that external behavior, which can be observed
more easily and reliably, is the subject matter of psychology.
Many psychologists still accept the behavioristic position and
define psychology as the study of behavior rather than the study
of the mind. That way is certainly easier. One hundred percent
agreement among observers is possible, at least for simple behaviors.
For example, in testing for susceptibility to hypnosis with the
Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale {144}, the examiner suggests
to the subject that his arm is feeling heavier and heavier and
will drop because of the increased weight. The hypnotists and
observers present can easily agree on whether the subject's arm
moves down at least twelve inches within thirty seconds after
the end of the suggestion.
Behaviorism is an extremely valuable tool for studying simple
behaviors, determining what affects them, and learning how to
control them. But it has not been able to deal well with complex
and important human experiences, such as happiness, love, religious
feelings, purposes. The behavioristic approach is of particularly
limited value in dealing with d-ASCs because almost all the interesting
and important d-ASC phenomena are completely internal. A behavioristic
approach to the study of a major psychedelic drug like LSD, for
example, would lead to the conclusion that LSD is a sedative or
tranquilizer, since the behavior frequently produced is sitting
still and doing nothing!
If we are to understand d-SoCs, introspection must become an important
technique in psychology in spite of the difficulties of its application.
I have primarily used peoples' reports of their internal experiences
in developing the systems approach, even though these reports
are undoubtedly affected by a variety of biases, limitations,
and inadequacies, for such reports are the most relevant data
for studying d-SoCs.
I believe psychology's historical rejection of introspection was
premature: in the search for general laws of the mind, too much
was attempted too soon. Mental phenomena are the most complex
phenomena of all. The physical sciences, by comparison, deal with
easy subject matter. We can be encouraged by the fact that many
spiritual psychologies {128} have developed elaborate vocabularies
for describing internal experiences. I do not understand these
psychologies well enough to evaluate the validity of these vocabularies,
but it is encouraging that others, working over long periods,
have at least developed such vocabularies. The English language
is well suited for making reliable discriminations among everyday
external objects, but it is not a good language for precise work
with physical reality. The physical sciences have developed specialized
mathematical languages for such work that are esoteric indeed
to the man in the street. Sanskrit, on the other hand, has many
presumably precise words for internal events and states that do
not translate well into English. There are over twenty words in
Sanskrit, for example, which carry different shades of meaning
in the original. Development of a more precise vocabulary is essential
to progress in understanding consciousness and d-SoCs. If you
say you feel "vibrations" in a d-ASC, what precisely
do you mean?
The Observer
In science the word observation usually refers to scrutiny
of the external environment, and the observer is taken for granted.
If the observer is recognized as possessing inherent characteristics
that limit his adequacy to observe, these specific characteristics
are compensated for, as by instrumentally aiding the senses or
adding some constant to the observation; again the observer is
taken for granted. In dealing with the microworld, the particle
level in physics, the observer cannot be taken for granted, for
the process of observation alters the phenomena being observed.
Similarly, when experiential data are used to understand states
of consciousness, the observation process cannot be taken for
granted.
For the system to observe itself, attention/awareness must activate
structures that are capable of observing processes going on in
other structures. Two ways of doing this seem possible, which
we shall discuss as pure cases, even though they may actually
be mixed. The first way is to see the system breaking down into
two semi-independent systems, one of which constitutes the observer
and the other the system to be observed. I notice, for example,
that I am rubbing my left foot as I write and that this action
seems irrelevant to the points I want to make. A moment ago I
was absorbed in the thinking involved in the writing and in rubbing
my foot, but some part of me then stepped back for a moment, under
the impetus to find an example to illustrate the current point,
and noticed that I was rubbing my foot. The "I" who
observed that I was rubbing my foot is my ordinary self, my personality,
my ordinary d-SoC. The major part of my system held together,
but temporarily singled out a small, connected part of itself
to be observed. Since I am still my ordinary self, all my characteristics
enter into the observation. There is no objectivity to my own
observation of myself. My ordinary self, for example, is always
concerned with whether what I am doing is useful toward attaining
my short-term and long-term goals; thus the judgment was automatically
made that the rubbing of the foot was a useless waste of energy.
Having immediately classified foot-rubbing as useless, I had no
further interesting in observing it more clearly, seeing what
it was like. The observation is mixed with evaluation; most ordinary
observation is of this nature.
By contrast, many meditative disciplines take the view that attention/awareness
can achieve a high degree or even complete independence from the
structures that constitute a person's ordinary d-SoC and personality,
that a person possesses (or can develop) an Observer that is highly
objective with respect to the ordinary personality because it
is an Observer that is essentially pure attention/awareness, that
has no judgmental characteristics of its own. If the Observer
had been active, I might have observed that I was rubbing my foot,
but there would have been no structure immediately activated that
passed judgment on this action. Judgment, after all, means relatively
permanent characteristics coded in structure to make comparisons
against. The Observer would simply have noted whatever was happening
without judging it.
The existence of the Observer or Witness is a reality to many
people, especially those who have attempted to develop such an
Observer by practicing meditative disciplines, and I shall treat
it as an experiential reality.
The question of its ultimate reality is difficult. If one starts
from the conservative view of the mind, where awareness is no
more than a product of the nervous system and brain, the degree
of independence or objectivity of the Observer can only be relative.
The Observer may be a semi-independent system with fewer characteristics
than the overall system of consciousness as a whole, but it is
dependent on the operation of neurologically based structures
and so is ultimately limited and shaped by them; it is also programmed
to some extent in the enculturation process. Hilgard {26} has
found the concept of such a partially dissociated Observer useful
in understanding hypnotic analgesia.
In the radical view of the mind, awareness is (or can become)
different from the brain and nervous system. Here partial to total
independence of, and objectivity with respect to, the mind/brain
can be attained by the Observer. The ultimate degree of this objectivity
then depends on whether awareness per se, whatever its ultimate
nature is, has properties that limit it.
It is not always easy to make this clear distinction between the
observer and the Observer. Many times, for example, when I am
attempting to function as a Observer, I Observe myself doing certain
things, but this Observation immediately activates some aspect
of the structure of my ordinary personality, which then acts as
an observer connected with various value judgment that are immediately
activated. I pass from the function of Observing from outside
the system to observing from inside the system, from what feels
like relatively objective Observation to judgmental observation
by my conscience or superego.
Some meditative disciplines, as in the vipassana meditation discussed
earlier, strive to enable their practitioners to maintain the
Observer for long periods, possibly permanently. The matter becomes
rather complex, however, because a major job for the Observer
is to Observe the actions of the observer: having Observed yourself
doing some action, you then Observe your conscience become activated,
rather than becoming completely caught up in the conscience observation
and losing the Observer function. Such self-observation provides
much data for understanding the structure of one's own consciousness.
For a comprehensive discussion of this method of understanding,
I refer the reader to Riodan's and Goleman's chapter in Transpersonal
Psychologies {128}.
Self-Observation During Transition Periods
The distinction between these two kinds of observers is important
in considering the transition period between two d-SoCs. If we
ask questions about what phenomena are experienced during the
transition period, we must ask who is going to make these experiential
observations for us. Since the ordinary observer is the structure,
then the radical destructuring necessary for transition into a
d-ASC eliminates the ability to observe. At worst, if there is
total destructuring we can expect no direct experiential observation
of the transitional period, perhaps only a feeling of blankness.
Such blackouts are often reported.
Yet people do report transitional experiences. Destructuring of
the b-SoC may not be total, certain parts of it may hold together
a subsystems through the transition period, partial observations
may be made by these subsystems, and such observations are recoverable
on return to the b-SoC or in the d-ASC. But the observations are
necessarily limited and incomplete, since they come from a partially
incapacitated observer.
Now consider the role of the Observer, if it is well developed
in a particular person, during the transition from one d-SoC to
another. Because the Observer is either not at all based in particular
structures, only partially based in particular structures, or
based in structures that are not part of the b-SoC undergoing
destructuring, it should be able to observe transitional phenomena.
Exactly this sort of phenomenal report has come from reporters
who feel they have a fairly well-developed Observer. They believe
this Observer can make essentially continuous observations not
only within a particular d-SoC but during the transition among
two or more d-SoCs.
For example, Evans-Wentz {17} describes the following Tibetan
yogic exercise for comprehending the nature of dreaming:
That which hath been called "the initial comprehending of
the dream," refereth to resolving to maintain unbroken continuity
of consciousness throughout both the waking-state and the dream-state...sleep
on the right side, as a lion doth. With the thumb and ring-finger
of the right hand press the pulsation of the throat-arteries;
stop the nostrils with the fingers (of the left and); and let
the saliva collect in the throat.
Evans-Wentz comments:
As a result of these methods, the yogin enjoys as vivid
consciousness in the dream-state as in the waking-state; and in
passing from one state in another experiences no break in the
continuity of memory.
I can say no more about the nature of the Observer here because
we know so little about it in our Western scientific tradition.
However, I think it is extremely important to find out to what
extent the Observer's apparent objectivity is a reality and to
what extent a fiction. Insofar as it is a reality, it offers an
objectivity and a possible escape from cultural consensus reality
conditionings that are highly important.
I must, however, caution the reader against taking this discussion
of the Observer too concretely. I am using words to describe a
certain kind of experience, but the words are not the experience.
As Korzybski said: "The map is not the territory." Unfortunately,
we not only habitually mistake the map for the territory, we prefer
the map to the territory—it is so much clearer! I find it
difficult to express the concept of Observing, and words can do
no more than create analogies that point to aspects of your own
experiences. The term Observer is a way of referring to
an important aspect of experience, a process, but we must
not become too attached to the concept of one "thing"
separate from and observing another "thing."