1.5 THE SOUL ILLUSION

The Rodney Dangerfield of philosophical questions: When a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, is there a sound?

It gets no respect, because it seems to be one of those pointless questions that have no answer. But there is an answer – an answer with profound spiritual and practical implications.

When the tree falls, it produces a series of pressure waves in the surrounding air. The ear drum converts these waves into a mechanical signal which is transmitted by 3 small bones to the fluid filled cochlea – the spiral bony canal of the inner ear. Hair cells of the cochlea are the actual receptors. Each is tuned to a particular frequency of the fluid waves. Hair cell vibrations are converted to electrical impulses, and transmitted along the auditory nerve to the auditory cortex where intensity and frequency of the vibrations are mapped. Neither pressure waves, physical movements of body parts [bones, hair], nor electrical signals are sound. What we mean by sound exists only in the mind of the perceiver.

Perception differs qualitatively from the physical properties of the stimulus. The nervous system extracts only certain information from the natural world. We perceive fluctuations of air pressure not as pressure waves but as sounds that we hear. We perceive electromagnetic waves of different frequency as colors that we see. We perceive chemical compounds dissolved in air or water as specific smells or tastes. In the words of neurologist Sir John Eccles: “I want you to realize that there exists no color in the natural world, and no sound – nothing of this kind; no textures, no patterns, no beauty, no scent.” Sounds, colors, patterns, etc., appear to have an independent reality, yet are, in fact, constructed by the mind. All our experience of the natural world is our minds’ interpretation of the input it receives.

Optical Illusions
In the classic text, Principles of Neural Science, Eric Kandel observes:

“The organizational mechanisms of vision are best demonstrated by illusions. Illusions illustrate that perception is a creative construction that the brain makes in interpreting visual data.... Learning does not prevent us from being taken in by these illusions.”

There is an illusion – though not an optical illusion – that causes otherwise competent individuals to voluntarily chose a path that everyone knows will lead to a bad outcome. The lessons learned from painful experience do not prevent them from being taken in again and again. Our logo was composed with this in mind. It is the Greek letter: Psi, which represents the Psyche, surrounded by an impossible triangle that illustrates the illusory nature of perception.

Perceptual Bias is Invisible to the Perceiver
Consider Dr. Jekyll: He loves his wife, and generally treats her well, except when he is angry at her. The first time he hit her he apologized and swore he would never do it again. Like an alcoholic who swears he will never drink again, he meant it when he said it, but when he is transformed by anger into Mr. Hyde he fails to inhibit the aggression as Dr. Jekyll promised.

As Dr. Jekyll, he has tender thoughts of his wife, and memories of good times past come easily to mind – bad thoughts and images are far away. But when he is in his Mr. Hyde trance it seems that she is always looking at other men and never treats him with respect. Now the tender feelings he has for her are unavailable. The trance formation from Jekyll to Hyde is invisible to him – he believes he is always seeing the world as it really is.

Dr. Jekyll is no fool and yet makes the same error again and again. Like you, he can easily see the perceptual biases of others, but is blind to his own at the critical moments. In retrospect he is full of remorse, but that does not stop him from repeatedly hurting the one he loves.

Because it is the perceptual system itself that is biased, we are always blind to the current bias. Whether we are angry or in love we assume we are reacting to permanent truth rather than to a state-dependent construction of reality. Consequently, we often act in ways that seem foolish when viewed from a different perspective.

To extend the Jekyll and Hyde metaphor to addiction: The rational Dr. Jekyll understands that his relationship with the incentive is a bad deal. Moreover, he has leaned through painful experience that a single lapse invariably leads to loss of control, and so vows complete abstinence. He does fine until he encounters a high-risk situation, which transforms the rational Dr. Jekyll into the impulsive Mr. Hyde. At the crucial moment when decisive action is required Mr. Hyde not only fails to see the danger, but is focused on anticipating the immediate gratification of lapsing.

A Clinical Tale
The clever attorney, Mr. Hasslebring, provides an illustrative example of the Soul Illusion. During our first session, scheduled shortly after his third DUI, he reported that it is now clear to him that intoxication has much greater costs than benefits for him and his family. He stated that our sessions were just a formality because he was already highly motivated to quit drinking.

He had come to the same conclusion before – namely, that drinking alcohol produces bad outcomes for H and his family. Each time he sincerely vowed to change his ways, each time he violated his vow, and each violation led to a demoralizing relapse. Now, in my office, he is about to do it again. He is not stupid, and is aware of his history, yet he is convinced that this time he really means it.

Why can’t a clever attorney learn this simple lesson of cause and effect? As you may have guessed, H has been taken in by the Soul Illusion. He is unaware that experiential phenomena such as perception, learning, motivation, and memory are state dependent, and so when he is in a high-risk situation he is transformed by local conditions and makes different choices than would the version of H I see in my office. Previous painful relapses do not prevent him from being taken in again by the same illusion - in H’s case, “I can have a beer and not lose control.”

A Society of Hasslebrings
The expansive H who was drinking and carrying on with his buddies the night of his most recent DUI was a completely different entity than the remorseful wretch before the judge, or the one who showed up in my office for his first session. Telling this remorseful fellow that he ought to quit dinking is pointless – he knows it. In fact, during an early session he laughed at himself while recounting the rationalizations that set the stage for some of his previous relapses. It is almost like two different people: One seriously believing he can control his drinking, and the other finding it humorous that the first one could be taken in by such obvious denial.

But these are only two of the possible versions or states of H, which also include the tender father H, the angry H, the clever lawyer H, the sexually aroused H, etc. When H is in a certain social context and begins anticipating the taste and feel of a first drink, his subjective reality changes, and at that moment H himself changes. He is no longer the logical, sophisticated attorney who thinks three steps ahead. Local conditions have trance formed him into an impulsive fool who is easily tempted to behave counter to his own self interests. This version of H is now making the decisions, and it is he who honestly believes: “Of course I can have a single drink, two if I want. Screw the uptight rules that assume I am a loser. “

In this state H expects the outcome of the first drink to be positive and it is he who lapses. Soon after the first lapse he recognizes that he has violated his vow and the remorse “trance forms” him – now into the remorseful H, who must pay the emotional price of the relapse. Once again he believes that this time he has learned his lesson and so makes another permanent vow that he will never drink again – and this time he really means it! However, unless he does something differently, this cycle is likely to repeat until he has lost everything.

To the therapist and most observers it is clear that he is different when in the remorseful state than he is when he wants to get high. But regardless of his current state – be it the remorseful H, or the H who expects the outcome of a lapse to be positive, he believes that he perceives objective reality, and that he will continue to view things the same way in the future as he does now. H’s pain is testimony to the power of the soul illusion. He can look at previous examples of the “vowing-abstinence-and-then-relapsing” sequence and recognize that the beliefs he used to justify the first lapse and demoralizing slide to relapse did not turn out to be objectively valid.

A great frustration of being a therapist – and a motivation for developing this kit – is that despite their sincere desire to achieve good outcome, dependent individuals repeatedly make the same errors with the predictable disastrous consequences for themselves and their loved ones. H’s folly is obvious to most observers and even to H when he is in my office and I force him to review his history. You may think he is somehow defective since he continually makes the same error. Be assured that your follies would be equally obvious to H, while to you they remain invisible.