But there is also something to which it is legitimate to give the name of dynamic relaxation. Dynamic relaxation is that state of the body and mind which is associated with normal and natural functioning. In the case of what I have called the fundamental or primary psycho-physical skills, normal and natural functioning of the organs involved may sometimes be lost. But having been lost, it may subsequently be consciously re-acquired by anyone who has learnt the suitable techniques. When it has been re-acquired, the strain associated with impaired functioning disappears and the organs involved do their work in a condition of dynamic relaxation.
Mal-functioning and strain tend to appear whenever the conscious “I” interferes with instinctively acquired habits of proper use, either by trying too hard to do well, or by feeling unduly anxious about possible mistakes. In the building up of any psycho-physical skill the conscious “I” must give orders, but not too many orders—must supervise the forming of habits of proper functioning, but without fuss and in a modest, self-denying way. The great truth discovered on the spiritual level by the masters of prayer, that “the more there is of the ‘I,’ the less there is of God,” has been discovered again and again on the physiological level by the masters of the various arts and skills.
The more there is of the “I,” the less there is of Nature—of the right and normal functioning of the organism. The part played by the conscious “I” in lowering resistance and preparing the body for disease has long been recognized by medical science. When it frets too much, or is frightened, or worries and grieves too long and too intensely, the conscious “I” may reduce its body to such a state that the poor thing will develop, for example, gastric ulcers, tuberculosis, coronary disease and a whole host of functional disorders of every kind and degree of seriousness. Even decay of the teeth has been shown, in the case of children, to be frequently correlated with emotional tensions experienced by the conscious “I.” That a function so intimately related to our psychological life as vision should remain unaffected by tensions having their origin in the conscious “I” is inconceivable.
And, indeed, it is a matter of common experience that the power of seeing is greatly lowered by distressing emotional states. As one practises the techniques of visual education, one discovers the extent to which this same conscious “I” can interfere with the processes of seeing even at times when no distressing emotions are present. And it interferes, we discover, in exactly the same way as it interferes with the process of playing tennis, for example, or singing—by being too anxious to achieve the desired end. But in seeing, as in all other psycho-physical skills, the anxious effort to do well defeats its own object; for this anxiety produces psychological and physiological strains, and strain is incompatible with the proper means for achieving our end, namely normal and natural functioning.
[1]
See Appendix I.
CHAPTER III, Sensing + Selecting + Perceiving = Seeing
Before undertaking a detailed description of the techniques employed by Dr. Bates and his followers, I propose to devote a few pages to a discussion of the process of seeing. Such a discussion will serve, I hope, to throw some light on the underlying reasons for these techniques, some of which might otherwise appear inexplicable and arbitrary.
When we see, our minds become acquainted with events in the outside world through the instrumentality of the eyes and the nervous system. In the process of seeing, mind, eyes and nervous system are intimately associated to form a single whole. Anything which affects one element in this whole exercises an influence upon the other elements. In practice, we find that it is possible to act directly only upon the eyes and the mind. The nervous system which connects them cannot be influenced except indirectly.
The structure and mechanism of the eye have been studied in minute detail, and good descriptions of these things can be found in any text book of ophthalmology or physiological optics. I will not attempt to summarize them in this place; for my concern is not with anatomical structures and physiological mechanisms, but with the process of seeing—the process whereby these structures and mechanisms are used to provide our mind with visual knowledge of the external world.
In the paragraphs that follow I shall make use of the vocabulary employed by Dr. C. D. Broad in The Mind and Its Place in Nature, a book which, for subtlety and exhaustiveness of analysis and limpid clarity of exposition takes rank among the masterpieces of modern philosophical literature.
The process of seeing may be analyzed into three subsidiary processes—a process of sensing, a process of selecting and a process of perceiving.
That which is sensed is a set of sensa within a field. (A visual sensum is one of the coloured patches which form, so to say, the raw material of seeing, and the visual field is the totality of such coloured patches which may be sensed at any given moment.)
Sensing is followed by selecting, a process in which a part of the visual field is discriminated, singled out from the rest. This process has, as its physiological basis, the fact that the eye records its clearest images at the central point of the retina, the macular region with its minute fovea centralis, the point of sharpest vision. There is also, of course, a psychological basis for selection; for on any given occasion there is generally something in the visual field which it is in our interest to discriminate more clearly than any other part of the field.
The final process is that of perceiving. This process entails the recognition of the sensed and selected sensum as the appearance of a physical object existing in the external world. It is important to remember that physical objects are not given as primary data. What is given is only a set of sensa; and a sensum, in Dr. Broad’s language, is something “non-referential.” In other words, the sensum, as such, is a mere coloured patch having no reference to an external physical object. The external physical object makes its appearance only when we have discriminatively selected the sensum and used it to perceive with. It is our minds which interpret the sensum as the appearance of a physical object out in space.
It is clear from the behaviour of infants that we do not enter the world with full-fledged perceptions of objects. The new-born child starts by sensing a mass of vague, indeterminate sensa, which it does not even select, much less perceive as physical objects. Little by little, it learns to discriminate the sensa that have, for its particular purposes, the greatest interest and significance, and with these selected sensa it gradually comes, through a process of suitable interpretation, to perceive external objects. This faculty for interpreting sensa in terms of external physical objects is probably inborn; but it requires, for its adequate manifestation, a store of accumulated experiences and a memory capable of retaining such a store. The interpretation of sensa in terms of physical objects becomes rapid and automatic only when the mind can draw on its past experience of similar sensa successfully interpreted in a similar way.
In adults, the three processes of sensing, selecting and perceiving are for all intents and purposes simultaneous. We are aware only of the total process of seeing objects, and not of the subsidiary processes which culminate in seeing. It is possible, by inhibiting the activity of the interpreting mind, to catch a hint of the raw sensum, as it presents itself to the eyes of the new-born child. But such hints are very imperfect at the best, and of brief duration. For the adult, a complete recapture of the experience of pure sensation, without perception of physical objects, is possible, in most cases, only in certain abnormal conditions, when the upper levels of the mind have been put out of action by drugs or disease. Such experiences cannot be introspected while they are going on; but they can often be remembered, when the mind has recovered its normal condition. By calling up these memories, we can provide ourselves with an actual picture of those processes of sensing, selecting and perceiving, which culminate in the end-process of seeing physical objects in the external world.
An Illustration
Here, by way of example, is an account of an experience of my own, while “coming out” of an anaesthetic administered in the dentist’s chair. Returning awareness began with pure visual sensations completely devoid of significance. These, as I can remember them, were not of objects existing “out there” in the familiar, three-dimensional world of everyday experience. They were just coloured patches, existing in and for themselves, unrelated not only to the external world, but also to myself—for the knowledge of self was still wholly lacking, and these meaningless and unattached sense impressions were not mine; they simply were. This kind of awareness lasted for a minute or two; then the effect of the anaesthetic wore off a little further, a notable change took place. The coloured patches
