Changing something about where you put your attention completely changes the somatic possibility space.
Body simultaneously acquires and drops different behavioral patterns in reaction.
Sort of extremely eerie to witness from the inside.
Conversation
Put a lot of attention on feelings in the body, and you tend to get reactive, labile, intense.
Put it on thoughts and you zoom in, unconsciously putting most things on autopilot.
Put it somewhere near or around the body, and the body becomes both very relaxed and nonreactive.
2
2
Having to do things like switch on my facial expressiveness (or emotional reactivity) by shifting awareness back into the body is sort of weird.
Probably gets easier with practice, though.
1
1
As for the sorts of inputs you attune to with attention sort of freely floating around, or straddling the body?
Well, that's a whole new category of High Weirdness.
1
1
None of this is more or less of a relevant vantage. Consciousness encompasses all the things you are consciously aware of, by definition.
It's an accident of conditioning or habit that we tend to fixate on thoughts, body sensations etc. - it's all just objects of awareness.
1
1
The metaphysical distinctions between different Buddhisms and Yogas and so on make it fairly clear you can interpret this any number of ways
But the fact that you don't have to limit your sense of self to feelings or thoughts or anything, really? You can experience it directly.
1
Usually, whatever you call your sense of self is, as put it, the point where there is the most pressure.
It's the place you feel as if you're looking *from*.
This moves around a lot. You can learn to move it around deliberately., too.
1
2
But honestly? Just find it, notice it, rest your awareness there and see what happens next.
P.S. May require some actual meditation practice to do this.
1
3
Why would you want to do this? Well, it's extremely relaxing for one thing. I'm getting divorced brutally abruptly, and feel mostly fine.
That is, unless I go absorb most awareness in only feelings and thoughts. That space is a bit messy right now, but sorting itself out slowly.
1
Also, what you pay attention to radically changes your perceptual throughput.
Working on a difficult problem? Do thoughts.
Need to know how you feel? Body.
Need to chill the fuck out? Something not body or thoughts, or a nice body feeling, or whatever.
All of this stuff is just a collection of tools, habits, break points, practices.
There is nothing inherently special about meditation. It isn't even the only way to get to these perspectives.
2