This article is a continuation of this blog post. We recommend you start here.
You are about to discover how your brain functions in terms of creating images, memories and attaching meaning to experiences. You will gain a better understanding how each eye (and each hemisphere of the brain) codes, interprets and applies different meaning to any single event.
(Note to reader: This book (article series) is based on the transcripts from a two day seminar. From this point on, A: indicates Al, M: indicates Marilyn, and participants names are in italics.)
A: Does anyone have any questions up to this point?
Tim: So you are analyzing, organizing, and coordinating. Is that a linear reduction?
A: Yes.
Tim: Is it that reduction process that helps create our experiences from visual and auditory input?
M: A: Right, it’s how we make meaning out of the external world.
What we see, what we hear, and what we feel, creates what we call, in NLP terms, a meta-k (beyond or about a feeling). The meta-k, or evaluation, can be interpreted as either a positive or negative experience. What we see, hear, feel, smell, and taste, as well as our internal beliefs about who we are in the world, dictates our emotional equivalence from external input.
We can be happy or we can be scared, in response to similar circumstances, depending on our internal programming, which is based on earlier events and perceptions from our personal history file. The linear, left hemisphere of the brain may have a different interpretation of the meaning of an event or an imprint than the right hemisphere has for the same event.
Emotionally charged material is more likely going to be in the right hemisphere, whereas the left hemisphere is going to be more concerned with logic and facts. So to answer your question, the evaluation is going to be different, even though the process is the same, in each hemisphere.
Tim: Is that a linear sequence, or is that happening all at once?
It is linear, and it is very quick. The amygdala responds to an external stimulus, and the emotional evaluation is prior to conscious thought, which happens somewhere else in the limbic system (a complex set of structures in the brain responsible for emotions). We respond emotionally before we become conscious of what is triggering the emotion.
Which is what happens with the imprinting of old beliefs. As a child we are imprinted with beliefs about ourselves, and the world in general, based on a particular event. Then as an adult we might hear a loud noise, and we are terrified. We don’t know why we are terrified, we just react and respond because the brain gives the evaluation before the thought is even conscious.
Tim: The other part of the question was, as the retina receives the light to a certain portion of the retina, there is a certain amount of deletion at that point. In this linear process does that deletion process continue?
A: The amount of information received by the optic nerve is about 1/200th of what is received by the rods and cones, so we begin with a certain amount of deletion even before the brain begins the process of evaluation.
I am sure the brain doesn’t delete anything it perceives, and at the same time I am sure it sorts input for current importance. My brain has already learned that if I see somebody who is a foot and a half taller than I am, I should probably go into my “nice mode” and quickly get into rapport with him. (Laughter) For very good reasons, the brain evaluates important survival information very quickly. Does that answer your question?
Tim: Pretty much. Just as there is a certain deletion at the rods and cone stage, there is some of that information that gets sorted out and is not passed on. Does that process of deletion continue with the analyzers, organizers, and evaluators?
Yes, the brain sorts for important information in a particular context.
To put it in Neuro-Linguistic language, it is deleting, distorting, and generalizing. It is how we make meaning out of what is coming in. We delete information to prevent being overwhelmed, we distort it through our filters, and we make generalizations about the meaning as the information goes from input to response.
Linda: If I get this correctly, the first part of the process is mechanical, visual, and then it becomes perceptual.
A: Yes, in the beginning, the process is very mechanical, it’s just input. When the input gets to the portion of the brain where it is initially sorted into the separate hemispheres, the input is still the same. It is not until the information goes from the analyzing cells, to the organizing cells, and on to the cells that co-ordinate the input into perceptual meaning that it becomes an emotional evaluation.
Linda: Is it at that point where we can learn to insert personal choice by being aware of both perceptions?
M: Yes, exactly.
Linda: Beautiful. This is going to give me more choices in working with my clients.
M: That’s what I have discovered. I am using it with nearly every client in my private practice. It is having a significant impact for my clients, whether they are dealing with a panic attack, a learning strategy, an identity crisis, or a relationship issue.
How Perceptions Are Formed
I had one client that came to me because his new job required him to speak in front of large groups. He knew he was well qualified for his new position, but had a sense of anxiety whenever he thought about being in front of a group. By using The Hemispheric Eye Model, he was able to identify an event that had been out of his conscious awareness that was causing his anxiety.
Once he was able to access the information that had previously been out of his conscious awareness, he could bring it into consciousness where he could learn from it. He was then able to do the emotional healing that allowed him to be comfortable while speaking in front of a large group of people.
We will share other specific examples throughout the seminar about how this new model works for emotional healing.
Understanding Hemispheric Specialization
A: We want to be careful here that we are not confusing the use of The Hemispheric Eye Model (THE Model) with psychoanalysis, and yet it has been said that the goal of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious. The techniques used with THE Model have the ability to do that quickly and easily.
It is important to recognize the difference between a model and a technique. A model applies to, and can be used in, many different contexts. A technique is a sequence of steps designed to achieve a specific outcome.
Submodalities and neurological levels are also good examples of models because they can be applied to many different areas.
One of our main purposes here is to help you become so familiar with the concepts of The Hemispheric Eye Model that you can use them in a variety of situations.
THE Model helps us understand what is happening, out of our awareness, that is running our internal programs. What THE Model offers is, “OK, so this is what we are conscious of in our mind’s eye.” Now the question becomes “What else is there? What’s in the other mind’s eye that might be useful?”
It’s also about having the ability to integrate the information completely by choice. I can react in my habitual way to a fear or a challenge situation, or I can shift over to see what information is in my other hemisphere.
Another good question is “What are the resources the other part of my brain may have?” The intent is to pull together the experiences of both hemispheres. The Hemispheric Eye Model is a precise way of finding out what is in our unconscious perception of a situation. Then we can bring it up to consciousness, shift it, and then let it go back to automatic in a way that leaves us more resourceful and with more choices.
Chris: Would this be where the difference comes between being optimistic or pessimistic?
M: I think that filter comes from our experience. Optimism and pessimism are contextual filters that are supported by beliefs. Any time we learn a new way to think we are creating a new strategy, as well as unhooking old beliefs.
If there have been times during the formative years when it was not OK to be attending to an emotional state, or it was not safe to think and be in a thoughtful state, the filters often become habituated. For myself, one filter was the frustration I went through trying to learn algebra. We will talk this afternoon when we do the memory strategy part of our workshop, about what it was like knowing that I was smart, and yet experiencing the frustration of saying to myself, “I don’t have a clue about what I just read!” Now I know that there was no translation from the printed page into my visual system.
Understanding Hemispheric Specialization
At first, it was difficult for me to understand how to get the other mind’s eye to “see” the pictures. There was a sense of being sure the image was in there somewhere, I just was not seeing it consciously. It took a willingness to practice and knowing that, if I just stayed with it long enough, eventually I would be able to have both images. Then one morning I woke up and an image of a cat appeared in my mind’s eye, and suddenly there was also the word “cat” under the picture. I said, “Wow, I can see the word!” It was so exciting, and it is still there!
The other day we got a new cell phone, and Al told me the phone number. In the past I had never been able to consciously create pictures from someone just telling me something. As Al told me the number it was like a typewriter in my brain, I just saw the new phone number being printed as I looked up to my left. I still remember it precisely whenever I need the number. I am so excited about this, because now I can hold precise digital information in my mind’s eye and remember it days and weeks later, when I choose to recall the information, which I had never been able to do before.
In the excitement of my new ability to remember numbers, I have changed some old limiting beliefs about myself as a person who can’t learn algebra. Now I would have to say that I am optimistic about learning algebra, if I ever find a need for it in my life. (Laughter)
I encourage people who have not been able to have control of their internal pictures to practice. It does work, and it works even better when we are able to use both sides of our brains.
A: There is an example I like to use to explain how the two hemispheres of the brain bring information together to create a single experience. When Marilyn and I got married, there were certain things that I brought into the condo. I had a bedroom set, a toaster oven, and an easy chair. She had certain things already there, such as a couch and a microwave. I had a TV and she did not. We both brought valuable items to the household. If I had brought the same things she had, we would have two couches, two microwaves, and two refrigerators.
And no TV.
It is a lot like when couples get together and they bring individual qualities into the relationship. Marilyn has certain skills and resources and I have others, so we are bringing the best of each of us together to make a full unit. The brain is similar in that it is taking information coded in the left hemisphere and information coded in the right hemisphere and bringing it all together to create one perception.
Information can flow back and forth. Not only can I see a fluffy image, but I can also see the digital word. The important thing is that now I have more ability to use left brain filters, right brain filters, or both.
When some people get stuck, there is often a strategy in place that they have rehearsed and practiced that helps them stay in a stuck place. What is missing are these: They don’t have the information about the strategy to help them get unstuck. They have not rehearsed the new strategy. They may not know that it is possible to change. Once there is a strategy in place to develop the flexibility, and someone has practiced it for a while, that person will have more choice. We grow up unconsciously modeling particular individuals, and sometimes we don’t develop the kind of flexibility that allows us to have the information from both hemispheres.
So just for fun, let’s experience an unconscious pattern. Everybody put your hands together, interlocking your fingers, and just notice which thumb is on top. Comfortable and easy, isn’t it? Now switch hands to reverse which thumb is on top, and notice how weird that feels. Now go back to the comfortable way, and then back to the new way. If we were to continue this about ten to fifteen times, you would not be able to tell the difference. (The group continues to switch hands as Marilyn keeps talking)
My son broke one hand playing football, and he said, “Oh, mom, I can’t do my schoolwork.” Being a mom, I said “Guess what? You have a left hand, you will do your schoolwork with your left hand, and it will work fine.” He was able to write with his left hand, but not as well. As he practiced over the time he had the cast on, he got better at writing with his left hand.
Jay: I had a similar experience. I broke my hand during my junior year in high school. I found it put me on the sideline for sports, and it forced me to write with my other hand. I found that, because it forced me to write with a different part of my brain, my grades changed in just the way that you would expect from what we have learned so far. I got better at things that I had not previously been good at, because I was now being forced to write with the other side of my body and to process with the other side of my brain.
A: Nice example. Thanks. Jay’s story reminds me of something very interesting I would like to share with you. A research scientist named Marcel Kinsbourne taught volunteer test subjects to balance a small metal rod on their index finger until they were proficient at it with each hand. Next he came up with a series of test phrases for the subjects to repeat out loud while balancing the rod, using one hand at a time. Kinsbourne found that the subject’s ability to balance the rod was dramatically affected while balancing the rod in their right hand as they repeated the test phrases. When they balanced the rod with the left hand, they could repeat the statement and continue balancing the rod.
Motor responses (movement) for the right side of the body are controlled by the left hemisphere, and the motor responses for the left side of the body are controlled by the right hemisphere. The major speech centers are in the left hemisphere, so the test subjects had difficulty balancing the rod with the right hand because the extra task of repeating the test phrase began to overload the conscious mind in the left hemisphere. The same side of the brain was now trying to accomplish two tasks, that in and of themselves, required multiple tracking. This caused the conscious mind to go beyond the seven (plus or minus two) items it is capable of consciously tracking at any given moment.
When the task was shared in the same hemisphere, the person was not able to do the task. How does it feel now? (Referring to the group still switching how they clasp their hand together)
Chris: I’m starting to lose my ability to tell which way was the natural way.
M: Interesting, isn’t it? This is a good example of just how adaptable we are as human beings and that we can shift unconscious patterns.
Greg: Don’t we tend to switch our dominant side at times?
A: Yes, in fact that leads us right into the next topic which, I believe, will answer your question.
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