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Reality Tunnels

12:48 / 18.01.07

Reality Tunnels are referenced all the time, often by people trying to smash them, let's discuss the concept here.

First some quotes and links to make sure everyone's on the same page, sorry, in the same tunnel;

The only "realities" (plural) that we actually experience and can talk meaningfully about are perceived realities, experienced realities, existential realities -- realities involving ourselves as editors -- and they are all relative to the observer, fluctuating, evolving...
...our models of "reality" are very small and tidy, the universe of experience is huge and untidy, and no model can ever include all the huge untidiness perceived by uncensored consciousness.
RAW

Links to Cosmic Trigger and Prometheus_Rising seem appropriate, but there's plenty of stuff out there to be found (maybelogic, NLP sites etc.) so let's add more if they become relevant.

Elsewhere a poster proposed a little modernising of RAW's, arguably notorious, 'Reality Tunnels'.
Since the phrase became a regularly dolled out mantra of the under-initiated it has acquired a surlyu reputation on more progressive boards on the internet, this being one them...may I present Experience Lenses

15:04 / 18.01.07

Wasn't part of the point of the reality tunnel model not "smashing" or "breaking free of" reality tunnels, but learning to switch freely to whichever one is most appropriate for the situation? Like hats. It's a very simple idea, really, but apparently very easy for some people to totally misinterpret and abuse (it might've done better with a less Matrix-ready name, for starters).

As for "experience lenses," I'm not sure if that's quite the same thing, if I'm reading it correctly. Do you mean something along the lines of "we see the world through lenses/filters tinted by our experiences, thus different sets of experiences will present a different view of the world"? It sounds like it's certainly related to the reality tunnel concept, and might be useful, but I think its application and utility as a working model might be somewhat different.

"Reality tunnels" and "experience lenses" both model the way experience and cognition can influence perception, and both models allow for change over time to accomodate new experiences, but I think that the reality tunnel model (or hats, for that matter) better incorporates the "switching" idea mentioned above. One can't, generally speaking, switch back and forth between complete sets of life experiences, but one can selectively focus on a relevant subset of those experiences - that narrowed focus being the "tunnel."

Or I may be misunderstanding what was meant by "experience lenses" in the first place?

19:12 / 18.01.07

It would seem to me that "Reality Tunnel" implies a situation where competing stimuli are blocked out, where "Experience Lens" implies a sort of influence, or coloring of perception.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

21:01 / 18.01.07

Wasn't part of the point of the reality tunnel model not "smashing" or "breaking free of" reality tunnels, but learning to switch freely to whichever one is most appropriate for the situation?

This is how I always understood it. It made sense to me because I had examples of people doing this on certain levels since I was a kid. My mother could go from Stern Mommy to Telephone Mom in the seconds it took to answer a phone during one of our arguments.

The way I look at it, I still need to function at my job, no matter how much counter culture shenanigans I get into after hours. Destroying my 9 To 5 Work Week Reality Tunnel (TM) will just leave me out of work and hungry. Jumping from one tunnel to another, on the other hand, means I can still be Bruce Wayne when I need to, but become Batman when the need arises.

22:02 / 18.01.07

Im going to break away on a wee tangent here but there is a very good reason. As soon as I saw the title for this thread, my first thought was "hats!" so with this little piece of synchronicity in play, I feel moved to tell you all about my experience with reality tunnels and hats

Some time ago, my hat forgot where it was supposed to be. Id just had this dream where my flat was morphing with my friends flat, I was staying at my friends flat, and my hat was there in the morning, shoved under a table like it would have been shoved under a table in a similar position in the room in my own flat. I was a bit surprised because until that moment I had not considered the possibility that objects could forget where they belonged, and this opened to me the possibilties of the nature of matter in conjunction with what we know about the theories of parallel universes.

so, to come back to reality tunnels. My reality tunnel is reassuring. Its nice to believe in laws and logic, but ultimately, everything comes from nothing and we know approximately 0% of anything in relation to the nature of being and undertsanding the metaphysics of how it could all come about in the first place. I guess Im saying that I think reality tunnels serve a function, but theyre not the truth, and perhaps we couldnt ever really begin to fathom the truth.

If we choose to move out of the reality tunnels, however, I think that there is a lot to be explored, and that this site is great at promoting discussion and understanding about the things outwith the things we can immiediately perceive.

Unconditional Love

03:40 / 19.01.07

I read about these at about the same time i read about tunneling in core shamanism, so the 2 have kinda fused in my head, so quite literally they appear to be tunnels that have physical associations, certain clothes, music intrests, moods, language, posture tone of voice.

I think thou that that is all just postmodern candy coating, skins on the tunnel of the journey itself, which for me is the important part, where is this particular tunnel taking me, and do i want to exit there?

I havent thought about these in alongtime mind you, they seem like ephemeral perceptions to me now, descriptors of forces described from different experiences and culture, i am slowly but surely becoming convinced that althou the forces may change from perception to perception they are the same forces that journey with me in the tunnel.

18:13 / 19.01.07

I prefer Reality Hats to tunnels. You can replace 'tunnel' with 'hat' in most examples and it doesn't have the same restrictive connotations.

18:20 / 19.01.07

Are these tunnels paralell in use to the Portal concept, where you change your state of conciousness by choosing which sort of door/opening/threshold/whatever you're going to cross or go through, and doing so?

--Ember--

18:28 / 19.01.07

Different thing- the portals are mostly for dreamwork and visualisation (I think), 'reality tunnels' are a metaphor for subjectivity really.
Reality tunnel is a term coined by Timothy Leary and popularised by Robert Anton Wilson. It refers to the concept that with a subconscious set of filters formed from their beliefs and experiences, everyone interprets this same world differently, hence "Truth is in the eye of the beholder". This is not necessarily meant to imply that there is no objective truth; just that our access to it is mediated through our senses, experience, conditioning, prior beliefs, and other non-objective factors. The individual world each person occupies is said to be their reality tunnel. The term can also apply to groups of people united by beliefs: we can speak of the fundamentalist Christian reality tunnel, the scientific materialist reality tunnel, or the libertarian reality tunnel.

Problem with 'tunnel' is that it implies imprisonment and is difficult to change, unlike clothing or millinery which are easy to change. So I prefer 'fundamentalist Christian reality hat, the scientific materialist reality coat, or the libertarian reality trousers.'

Unconditional Love

18:56 / 19.01.07

Yeah reality costumes seems like a better way to express subjective perceptions, i think perhaps tunnels was chosen because it reflects a common psychological phenomena of the psychedelic experience while tripping, tunneling.

I can see what you mean about imprisoning, much harder to change and also emphasizes a kind of narrowness to experience.

19:06 / 19.01.07

Hmmm, okay. I get the impression that the reason the word "Tunnel" was used is to equate it to "tunnel vision". So yes, it is indeed limiting - and that appears to be the point.

I agree (thus far) that hats would be less limiting, but do they really express what Mr. Leary and RAW were trying to describe wrt perception?

I don't know, of course, since this thread is all I know about it thus far.

--Ember--

19:48 / 19.01.07

As the first person to mention hats in-thread, I should probably say that I didn't intend to propose "reality hats" as an alternative to the reality tunnels model. I was just struck, while writing, by the similarity between the idea of "switching reality tunnels" and the more commonplace notion of "putting on my ____ hat" to play a given role, and I mentioned it to stress the simplicity of the reality tunnels model. While it might be a useful and appealing metaphor, I'm not sure it stands up as a working model.

I agree with EmberLeo that the specifically limiting connotations (in the sense of "tunnel vision") of the reality tunnels model is part of the point. This model assumes that Absolute Objectivity is, practically speaking, unattainable - that no matter what experiences one has had, one will always be looking through the tunnel(s) formed by those experiences. (This is where the "smashing reality tunnels" business really misses the bus.) The object, then, is not to escape or destroy one's reality tunnels, but to acknowledge and account for the limitations of tunnel vision (e.g. by formulating statements in E-prime), and also to allow for the formation of a network of reality tunnels from which to select as needed.

It strikes me that this model also postulates a meta-level where one can choose which tunnel to look through, but those choices are, themselves, influenced by perception and experience - i.e. a "larger" reality tunnel (or perhaps "the totality of ones experience").

Concerning the circumstantial forming/switching of reality tunnels, there's probably plenty to be said about state-specific memory, priming, conditioning/imprinting (a Wilson favorite), and other fun stuff, but I'm too close to the end of the work day to get into it now.

19:58 / 19.01.07

Problem with 'tunnel' is that it implies imprisonment and is difficult to change, unlike clothing or millinery which are easy to change.

Reality tunnels aren't so easy to change, either, if we're talking about any kind of deep change. In all the talk about "switching freely," we shouldn't forget that there is still work involved. (This is another place where the hats metaphor breaks down.) Surface-level changes can be fairly easy, and things like moods and physical wellness can affect one's immediate perception of reality, but making a functional (rather than theoretical) shift in fundamental worldview-level beliefs is no small business, especially if you want to leave the door open behind you to get back (and forth). It's possible, and often necessary, but a lot of what is popularly thrown up as "changing/smashing reality tunnels" or "changing/smashing paradigms" (another one) is more about playing with words than deep structures.

Unconditional Love

20:32 / 19.01.07

A problem i found with the whole notion of swapping reality tunnels was that of using it as a form of escapism to disassociate from very real problems and issues i had, instead it became a substitute for me not facing my issues or treating them as unreal. Its far too easy to use the tunnels as mental vacations or distractions, rather than getting to the core of issues you may have, as a model of experience i found the notion to opportunistic and escapist.

I think there comes a point where reality will catch up with you no matter what reality tunnel you think you can dive down to escape, i also think reality should catch up to people and bite them in the arse if nessecary.

I dont buy into the notion of pick and choose reality any longer, there are very real personal realities that we have and all need to face if things are to change, i like to think that my escape attempts are over and that now there is just me and my own judgement of myself, i dont think distractions dionysian or abstract have ever really ever got me anywhere, turning to face the reality of myself, and there is one singular, is changing me very quickly, leaping like a frog.

Its the journey in the tunnel, not how the walls are painted. (or how you distort your perception of the journey) In my experience.

07:19 / 20.01.07

but a lot of what is popularly thrown up as "changing/smashing reality tunnels" or "changing/smashing paradigms" (another one) is more about playing with words than deep structures.

That's exactly what I was thinking, Lep. I think changing or challenging these things is a long term process. To use a real world example, it'd be hugely difficult for me to change my political beliefs, from their normal green lefty liberalness to those of a say, right-winger who denies climate change. It'd be a interesting experiment, but to really enter that point of view, to really believe it and see it as valid and important..? Tough call. I'd have to reorientate my current media tastes and preferences, be prepared for the influence of these beliefs on my friendships and general conversation.

It's this kind of thing that makes me think talk of "shattering reality tunnels" is often not much more than a buzzword.

Incidentally, Wilson gives some good practical experiments in Prometheus Rising, based on this.

17:31 / 20.01.07

no matter what reality tunnel you think you can dive down to escape

That's not really what they're for, though, is it? It's not about fantasy distractions or blinding oneself to a notional "real reality" - just the opposite, really.

Unconditional Love

20:45 / 20.01.07

My point would be that there is a very real personal reality that lies beneath all the ideas, a personal reality of the culmination of experience, often that cant be processed as perception but only engaged with through experience.

21:25 / 20.01.07

I didn't quite follow that - or rather, it didn't make much sense to me. To help me understand what you're saying, how are you distinguishing (the words) "perception" and "experience?"

Unconditional Love

21:33 / 20.01.07

perception is the reflection upon an experience, its a secondary part of the actual experience itself, the experience involves immediate perception but not reflective perception, if you see what i mean, experience is something that is happening now, it has no past or future tense, it must be experienced, yet abstractions, understandings and perceptions have to take place outside of actual experience, they are in a sense disassociations from experience, remembered experience or presupposed experience as opposed to actual experience.

01:28 / 22.01.07

has anyone heard the term "social chameleon?"
it would seem such people also have difficulty shifting from one reality tunnel to another (no smashing her either), but instead of that tunnel being made of their own perceptions it is constructed by those around them.

Unconditional Love

04:46 / 22.01.07

Not necessarily constructed by those around them, often adapted to, camouflage much like a chameleon, most people do this to some degree, the social chameleon excels in this particular area, can cross into sociopathic behavior thou.

05:37 / 22.01.07

i'm fascinated with sociopahs (my mother claims her mother is one and i have found no reason to argue) but haven't come to a rational codification of them in my mind. what do you think their reality tunnels would look like?

Unconditional Love

09:15 / 22.01.07

i am not wholly sure, its usually classified as antisocial personality disorder, the chameleon like ability can become too conning and deceitful is the main point i am making, the same with switching reality tunnels in the sense of the buzz word version of RT.

13:46 / 22.01.07

has anyone heard the term "social chameleon?"

Their Reality Hat is based on acquiescence and mimicry. It's not that their hat is constructed by other people (that's impossible) but that the way they understand the world involves social interaction as a priority and the belief that you can please other people (and fit in) by behaving like them.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about reality tunnels here. They're not a very complicated concept IMHO, they just show that our understanding of reality is a metaphor and not True Reality. Plato's Cave, brains in jars and all that.
All I meant to show was that we each have our own reality tunnels – and that no matter how spectacularly “real” something may appear, especially on super-strong shamanic entheogens, it’s just one metaphor for whatever it is that might really be going on.
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/rushkoff20061226/

15:41 / 22.01.07

There seems to be a lot of confusion about reality tunnels here. They're not a very complicated concept IMHO

How do you know unless you've worked with them in the way Wilson suggests?

15:48 / 22.01.07

How do you know unless you've worked with them in the way Wilson suggests?

Well, the concept/model is very simple - actually working with it is where it gets complicated.

The confusion in this thread seems to be stemming from different associations with tunnel-as-metaphor, as well as confusion as to what the reality tunnel model is actually modelling.

16:34 / 22.01.07

How do you know unless you've worked with them in the way Wilson suggests?

Erm, I have? What Chiropteran said really.

Chaos is relative

01:53 / 01.02.07

Didn't Grant Morrison address this briefly in Invisibles when he used the term "fiction suit?" I think that the word tunnel can be quite appropriate when viewed as a definition of the singularity of typical human consciousness. I always thought of it as a kind of wormhole and thus the word tunnel was appropriate from a trekkie perspective. The very admission that we can choose our own reality removes any connotation of imprisonment. Sure a tunnel can be confining, but if you exercise something akin to the power of teleportation, which is metaphorically synonomous with the idea of reality tunnels, how can one be imprisoned?

In my experience changing reality tunnels is much easier in dreams than in the relentless slavery system in which I live. Though despite apparent limitations I have still found Wilson's methods effective in transcending imposed limitations of consciousness and human experience.

What Wilson and the others convey is that we don't know anything beyond our perceptions and the world would be a much better place if everyone realized this and stopped fighting over who has the most accurate reality tunnel. Everyone here seems to understand this just fine. The difficulty arises in trying to exist in a reality tunnel where everyone else understands this. That is the most difficult reality tunnel for me to find; The one in which everyone realizes that they are without absolute knowledge and are humbled thereby. I guess my perceptive muscles still need some work because in America it is nearly impossible to find anyone who doesn't think they have it all figured out.

07:24 / 03.02.07

To me, the term "reality tunnel" is all about the metaphor. In a tunnel, one sees in one direction, but does not see what is around one beyond the walls of the tunnel. Still, what that means is that there are no distractions to perceiving in a focussed manner what is ahead in the tunnel. Whenever I focus on something, I'm creating such a tunnel. The catch is to be able to take the tunnel apart when I'm done. I've come to believe that the concept of non-attachment is about the disassembly of said tunnels. If I use a tunnel to focus, all well and good, until I become so attached to what I see that I forget that I'm surrounded by a tunnel.