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Our experience is not directly formed in the way that we understand this formation with our minds.
Any experience is first composed on non-conscious lower (I mean simply less complex) levels and then passes on to higher (only in terms of complexity) levels to be more and more refined, until it reaches a coherent form and enters our conscious mind.
Even the seemingly simple expression “I do not feel so well now” describes the final result of an experience that had initially been shaped in our non-conscious depths, then gradually underwent more and more complex refinement, until it reached a form that could be read by our mind and so could be expressed verbally.
A very important point about this magnificent mechanism is that each level upon which our experience is built has a certain kind of independence, in terms of how the experience is edited – we could say that each level has its own language.
On the less complex, lower levels beyond our mind and consciousness,
we have just the raw experiential data brought in by our senses; on the more complex higher levels there occur all those processes of association, combination, connection and interpretation which give the final shape and meaning to what we are experiencing at a certain moment.
So, the higher more and more mental levels cannot understand the more primitive language of the lower levels, which has more to do with our body and emotions – and contrariwise.
As a metaphor, I would suggest the image of a tall building, of a factory
with several storeys (Theodorou, 2018a; 2018b). At ground level our senses bring in the raw material of our experiences.
On the floors above the ground level, the editing of this experiential material takes place.
Now, let us imagine a kind of elevator that carries the experience, as it gets elaborated, from each floor on to the next, until it reaches the higher floors, where the experience gets its final complex refinement and enters our conscious mind.
To persist with this metaphor, the functionality of this experiential factory greatly depends on how this elevator works, since it connects the different storeys of our experiential factory.
NOTE:
this text is an excerpt form my 2nd book translated in English “Shadow: our silent companion through life’s journey”
*** “The Hereticals” is a series of live videos that I do in fb and I upload also here, in my web-page, as well as in my channel in You Tube.
*** All of “The Hereticals” are on concepts that I think are horribly abused by internet, social media and pop-psychology (love, forgiveness, interconnectedness, positive thinking, the power of our thoughts, etc).
*** I do not claim at all that what I say about such concepts is any kind of “truth”, I only present my personal approach.
NOTE: All of “The Hereticals” are based on and refer directly or indirectly to the theory and philosophy underlying Gestalt therapy and especially its existential aspects.