For a while, it was becoming slightly alarming that I had become less connected to reality. Today I seem to be more connected than I have been for nearly a week. Actually, becoming “less connected” with reality has meant that I seemed to be slipping back into my old way of seeing reality. Most people would probably consider my old way as being more in touch. What I have become more aware of in the past two years is that my “other” reality only appears when I am more truly aware.
For me it is like looking at the screen on the dash of my car that shows me what is behind me when I am backing up. I can choose to turn around and see directly what is actually behind me. Or I can look at the screen in front of me and watch the imaginary world as seen through a wide-angle lens. Sometimes the imaginary, distorted image is useful because it gives me an image I want to see and can benefit from. Sometimes, I just turn around and look at what is actually there.
I have been learning to look at what is actually there as I have practiced my mindfulness skills, as I have become more aware. It has meant that I have had to put my imagination to rest. I am less inclined to interpret what I sense, what I see, in light of my past, remembered experience. I am also less likely to interpret what I sense through my imagined reality of what might, or even likely will happen.
Basically, it has meant staying in the present, paying attention to what is going on right now. It has meant seeing reality without the interpretative lens of my remembered experience or my prediction of what is going to happen.
So often, what I have reacted to in the past has been a reality that wasn’t there. I’ve mis-interpreted what is going on because I am caught up in my memory of what happened in the past. Or I am focused on what is likely to happen rather than what is before me right now.
Being able to use my memory to interpret or my imagination to predict are useful skills. I think that I find them so useful that I tend to use them constantly, habitually. As a result, I am not connected intimately with what is actually happening right now.
I am convinced that what is actually happening right now is the only reality. The future and the past are distorted, fabricated illusions that can disturb me and distract me from reality. I’m happy to be slipping back into my new way of seeing reality. I don’t what lured me out of it, but I definitely prefer my alternate reality.