A view to the gallery of my mind

Germund Hesslow’s paper Conscious thought as simulation of behaviour and perception, which I first read maybe three months back, has an interesting discussion about anticipations.

I was previously familiar with the idea of conscious thought involving simulation of behavior. Briefly, the idea was that when you plan an action, you are simulating (imagining) various courses of action and evaluating their possible outcomes in your head. So you imagine bringing your boyfriend some flowers, think of how he’d react to that, and then maybe decide to buy him chocolate instead. Imagining things is a process of constructing a simulation of them. Nothing too surprising in that idea. Here’s how Hesslow puts it:

What we perceive is quite often determined by our own behaviour: visual input is changed when we move our head or eyes; tactile stimulation is generated by manipulating objects in the hands. The sensory consequences of behaviour are to a large extent predictable (Fig. 2a). The simulation hypothesis postulates the existence of an associative mechanism that enables the preparatory stages of an action to elicit sensory activity that resembles the activity normally caused by the completed overt behaviour (Fig. 2b). A plausible neural substrate for such a mechanism is the extensive fibre projection from the frontal lobe to all parts of sensory cortex. Very little is known about the function of these pathways, but there is physiological evidence from monkeys that neurons in polysensory cortex can be modulated by movement[33].

But the “buy flowers or chocolate?” example concerns relatively long-term decision-making. We also simulate the short-term consequences of our actions (or at least try to). And what I had not consciously realized before, but what was implied in the excerpt above, was that very immediate consequences will be simulated as well.

Discussing this paper with a friend, we considered the subjective experience of such anticipatory simulations. Suppose that I want to open a door, and start pushing down the handle. Even before I’ve pushed it all the way down, I seem to already experience a mild foretaste of what having pushed it down feels like. I know what it will feel like to have completed the action, a fraction of a second before actually having completed that action, and it feels faintly pleasing when that anticipation is realized.

Which was interesting to realize, but not particularly earth-shattering by itself. But the real discovery came soon after reading the paper. I was doing some vipassana-style meditation, focusing on the feeling of discomfort that came from wanting to swallow as there was excess saliva gathering in my mouth. I realized that what I thought of as “discomfort” was actually a denied anticipation. I wanted to swallow, and there was already in my mind a simulation of what swallowing would feel like. I was already experiencing some of the pleasure that I would get from swallowing, and my discomfort came from the fact that I wanted to experience the rest of that pleasure. When I realized this, I focused on that anticipated pleasure, trying to either make it stop feeling pleasant, or alternatively, strengthen the pleasure so that I could enjoy it without actually swallowing. My clock rang before I could fully succeed in either, but I did notice that it made it considerably easier to resist the urge.

On my way to town, I started observing my mental processes and noticed that that tiny anticipation of pleasure was everywhere. Coming to the train station, there was an anticipation of not needing to wait for long. Using a machine to buy more time on my train card, there was an anticipation of the machine working. Waiting for the train, there was an anticipation of seeing the train arrive and getting to board it. And each time that I experienced discomfort, it was from that subtle anticipation being denied. Anticipating the experience of seeing the train being there on time could have led to frustration if it was running late. Anticipating the experience of boarding the train led to impatience as the train wasn’t there yet, and that sequence of planned action that had already been partially initiated couldn’t finish. Suddenly I was seeing the anticipatory component in every feeling of discomfort I had.

When I realized that, I started writing an early draft of this post, which contained the following rather excited paragraph:

That’s what “letting go of attachments” refers to. That’s what “living in the moment” refers to. Letting go of the attachment to all predictions and anticipations, even ones that extend only seconds into the future. If one doesn’t do that, they will constantly be awaiting what happens in some future moment, and will experience constant frustrations. On some intellectual level I already understood that, but I needed to develop the skill for actually noticing all my split-second anticipations before I could really get it.

Unfortunately, what often happens with insights gained from meditation is that one simply forgets to apply them. Or if one does, in principle, remember that they should apply the insights, they’ll have forgotten how. Being able to isolate the anticipation from the general feeling of frustration, and then knowing how to let go of the attachment to it, is a tricky skill. And I ended up mostly just forgetting about it, especially once my established routine of meditating once per day got interrupted for a month or so.

I did some meditation today, and finally remembered to try out this technique again. I started looking for such anticipations whenever I experienced a feeling of discomfort, and when I found any, I just observed them and let go of them. And it worked – I was capable of meditating for a total of 70 minutes in one sitting, and got myself to a pleasant state of mind where everything felt good. That feeling persisted for most of the rest of the day.

But after that session, it feels like my earlier characterization of the technique as “a cessation of attachments to predictions” would be a little off. That description feels clunky, and like it doesn’t properly describe the experience. “Letting go of a desire for sensations to feel different” sounds more like it, but I’m not sure of what exactly the difference is.

This probably also relates to another meditation experience, which I had about two months back. I was concentrating on my breath, and again, I noticed that the sensation of saliva in my mouth was bothering me. At first I tried to just ignore it and keep my attention on my breath; or alternatively, to let go of the feeling of distraction so that the sensation of saliva wouldn’t bother me anymore. When neither worked, I essentially just thought “oh, screw it” and accepted the sensation just as it was, as well as accepting the fact that it would continue to bother me. And then, once I had accepted that it would bother me… the feeling of it bothering me melted away, and vanished from my consciousness entirely. I was left with a warm, strongly pleasant feeling that lasted for many hours after I’d stopped meditating.

I haven’t been able to put myself back into that exact state, because as far as I can tell it, getting into it requires you to genuinely accept the fact that you’re feeling uncomfortable. In other words, you cannot use the acceptance as a means to an end, thinking that “I’ll now accept this unpleasantness so that I’ll get back to that nice state where it doesn’t feel unpleasant anymore”. That’s not genuine acceptance anymore, and therefore it doesn’t work.

Anyway, it feels like the “isolate anticipations and let go of them” and “accept your feelings and discomforts exactly as they are” techniques would be two different ways of achieving the same end. The feeling of pleasure I got today wasn’t as strong as the feeling of pleasure I got when I managed to accept my discomforts as they were, but it seemed to have much of the same character.

Some – though not all – meditators report a lack of achievement after reaching high levels of skill. They’re just happy with doing whatever, with no need to accomplish more things. And after meditating today, I too felt happy with whatever would happen, with no urgency to accomplish (nor avoid!) any of the things that I had planned for today. There seems to be a fine line between “use meditation to get rid of your disinclination for doing the things you want to do” and “use meditation and get rid of your inclination to do anything”.

In any case, I will have to try to remember this technique from now on, and keep experimenting with it. Hopefully, having written this post will help.

Originally published at Kaj Sotala. You can comment here or there.

I’ve finally been achieving some progress in meditation, so I figured I’d give you a report and also write things down so that I won’t forget.

About a month or two ago, an iRL friend of mine found Daniel Ingram’s Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha and started doing meditation practice. Since he had done things involving concentration practice before, he made rapid progress. Inspired by his practices and partially because I’d so quickly lost my position as being the superior meditation guru of us two, I too started making attempts at meditation again.

On a Monday maybe three weeks ago, I realized that something had clicked. You know that thing when you try to learn a skill, spend a long time being bad at it, and then suddenly one morning you wake up and realize that you’re suddenly good at it? That happened to me and my concentration ability: concentrating on just one thing felt easier in an almost qualitative way, and was far less frustrating.

I reached the first samatha jhana the following day, the first time since my only previous jhana experience last summer. I put myself in the first jhana several times afterwards (including once while walking next to a noisy road), and also tried doing some noting practice. Suddenly I was using almost all available opportunities to do concentration practice, like when I was preparing a sandwich snack. I also thought about the Three Characteristics a lot.

On Friday that week, I woke up in the morning and turned on the lights. The first thing that I happened to look at was the back of my hand (which I’d just used to turn the lights on), and I was startled to realize that I was seeing in it far more details than I’d done before. When I looked around me, I could see details of things jumping out at me in a way they hadn’t done before. While looking at a fantasy map on my wall, I noticed the names of the different regions for pretty much the first time – previously I’d only looked at the “big picture view” of the map. Things also looked sharper somehow, as if I’d just gotten stronger glasses.

I expect that if I’d done meditation practice at this time, the effect might have become permanent. As it was, I didn’t have the chance as I had promised to go see a friend. By the time I got back home, six hours later, my perception had gradually faded back to normal.

For some reason, this caused a longer interruption to my practice. Getting to the first jhana felt more difficult, and I lost my inclination to keep doing concentration practices all the time. This might have had something to do with the fact that the noting practices had made it more difficult to really try to solidify any emotion, since I’d just been trying to think of them as impermanent. For a while, I was basically unable to meditate while at home, though for some reason I noticed that getting to a very light first jhana was still possible if I was walking outside. Sitting still at home, though, not much luck.

Then a while later, I decided to try out tranquility meditation. The first time, recalling a time when I’d felt happy and using the way I had felt as my concentration focus, felt quite nice, and I think I got to the first jhana. Unlike my previous jhanas, it was almost entirely lacking the irritation of needing to constantly maintain the feeling.

My next attempts at tranquility meditation fared worse. Using feelings of happiness as an object became harder, because for whatever reason, I suddenly had difficulties recalling my feelings on occasions when I’d felt happy, or indeed recalling any occasions when I’d been happy in the first place. And there was again the thing about having difficulty solidifying anything, feeling included.

So after some days, I decided to use the breath as an object instead. Now, there had been *one* lasting effect from that one Friday: I had briefly done some meditation on the way to my friend, and thought that I could see faint lights even with my eyes closed. And those lights had began to show up on later meditation sessions, as well. They don’t seem to be *entirely* hallucinatory, since they are clearly stronger when I’m meditating somewhere well-lit, but I have also seen a much weaker form of them when when meditating in total darkness.

So this time around, I was doing tranquility meditation with the breath as an object, and I began to really notice the lights. Mostly I seem to sort of see them from the corner of my (closed) eyes, and if I try to focus my attention to them I’m not sure if I’m actually seeing any light at all. Now however, there were times that they got strong enough to persist when focused on, and I could follow them as they moved about in my visual field. They also seemed to work as feedback – when I e.g. focused on a feeling of tension and tried to let it go, the lights got considerably stronger. In general, they seemed to intensify whenever I was doing “the right thing”.

I seemed to get quite strongly into… something, not entirely sure what. Some sort of jhana, I suppose. There was a feeling of movement, and my body seemed to grow heavy and slightly numb, with all sensation in the region around my head, where the lights were and where I’d also been focusing on some tension. Something seemed to be happening, but I wasn’t sure of what.

When I emerged from meditation, I had an odd feeling, pretty close to how MCTB describes the first vipassana jhana, Knowledge of Mind and Body. I also seemed able to visualize things more vividly. I meditated two more times that day, though I didn’t get an equally strong experience from those occasions, and I think my mental state actually faded back towards normality during them. On the third time I also got rather drowsy (I guess I hadn’t slept enough that night), and ended up feeling drowsy for the rest of the day, unable to get much done. By evening I was feeling rather normal again.

That was yesterday. This morning I started with some more meditation, which went roughly the same, though again my experience wasn’t nearly as strong and I didn’t seem to get as deeply into it. Part of this was probably that I couldn’t decide how to act regarding the lights: should I treat them as feedback but essentially ignore them, e.g. keep doing the things that made them stronger but not particularly focus on them? Or should I try to gradually shift from using my breath as a focus to using them as a focus? Or should I do neither, just treating them as yet another observation to be noticed and then let go? I think I instinctively did whatever the “right” thing was before, but I can’t remember what that was.

I also made a tentative observation that I might be able to reverse the causality with the lights: e.g. usually when I’d let go of a thought, the lights would get stronger. On a few times, I tried instead making the lights stronger, thereby letting go of the thought. I’m not really sure if it worked, though, since on most occasions the thought still seemed to be there when my attention “got back” from the lights.

When I stopped meditating today, I again had a slight Mind and Body-ish feeling, but it was much weaker and also faded much quicker than on the first time.

Originally published at Kaj Sotala. You can comment here or there.

"In such a view, the prefrontal cortex does not represent a supervisory or control system. Rather, it actively implements higher cognitive functions. It is further suggested that the prefrontal cortex does not act as an inhibitory agent of older, more primitive brain structures. The prefrontal cortex restrains output from older structures not by suppressing their computational product directly but by elaborating on it to produce more sophisticated output. If the prefrontal cortex is lost, the person simply functions on the next highest layer that remains.The structures implementing these next highest layers are not disinhibited by the loss of the prefrontal cortex. Rather, their processing is unaffected except that no more sophistication is added to their processing before a motor output occurs."

"It is proposed in this article that altered states of consciousness are due to transient prefrontal deregulation. Six conscious states that are considered putative altered states (dreaming, the runner's high, meditation, hypnosis, daydreaming, and various drug-induced states) are briefly examined. These altered states share characteristics whose proper function are regulated by the prefrontal cortex such as time distortions, disinhibition from social constraints, or a change in focused attention. It is further proposed that the phenomenological uniqueness of each state is the result of the differential viability of various [dorsolateral] circuits. To give one example, the sense of self is reported to be lost to a higher degree in meditation than in hypnosis; whereas, the opposite is often reported for cognitive flexibility and willed action, which are absent to a higher degree in hypnosis.The neutralization of specific prefrontal contributions to consciousness has been aptly called ‘‘phenomenological subtraction’’ by Allan Hobson (2001).The individual in such an altered state operates on what top layers remain. In altered states that cause severe prefrontal hypofunction, such as non-lucid dreaming or various drug states, the resulting phenomenological awareness is extraordinarily bizarre. In less dramatic altered states, such as long-distance running, the change is more subtle."

"It is evident that more research is needed to resolve the conflicting EEG and neuroimaging data. Reinterpreting and integrating the limited data from existing studies, it is proposed that meditation results in transient hypofrontality with the notable exception of the attentional network in the prefrontal cortex. The resulting conscious state is one of full alertness and a heightened sense of awareness, but without content. Since attention appears to be a rather global prefrontal function (e.g., Cabeza & Nyberg, 2000), PET, SPECT, and fMRI scans showed an overall increase in DL activity during the practice of meditation. However, the attentional network is likely to overlap spatially with modules subserving other prefrontal functions and an increase as measured by fMRI does not inevitably signify the activation of all of the region's modules. Humans appear to have a great deal of control over what they attend to (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968), and in meditation, attentional resources are used to actively amplify a particular event such as a mantra until it becomes the exclusive content in the working memory buffer. This intentional, concentrated effort selectively disengages all other cognitive capacities of the prefrontal cortex, accounting for the a-activity. Phenomenologically, meditators report a state that is consistent with decreased frontal function such as a sense of timelessness, denial of self, little if any self-reflection and analysis, little emotional content, little abstract thinking, no planning, and a sensation of unity. The highly focused attention is the most distinguishing feature of the meditative state, while other altered states of consciousness tend to be more characterized by aimless drifting."