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Experiencing the Structure of Experience
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The whole issue of the “structure of experience” or the
“process of experience” as used in Neuro-Linguistic Programming
can be difficult and deadly dull to communicate with words, but
easy to demonstrate with experience. So, we invite you to try this
experiment, right there in the privacy of your own mind and body.
(Note: This demonstration is not designed to change anything in
your permanent experience, but simply to introduce you and your
brain to some of the amazing connections and relationships in your
internal processing that you have probably not been aware of before.)
The objective of this experiment is to demonstrate how your experience,
and your experience of your experience, depends as much on how you
represent it internally, as it does on what that experience is (the
process of the experience vs. the content). Our objective is to
shift your experience of something, a memory from the past, without
changing the content of that experience. This is a small demonstration
of one aspect of the NLP information and skills toolbox. Ready?
Do these steps in order:
Step 1: Recall a past experience that gives you a pleasant
or good feeling. Notice what that good feeling feels like. Notice
also what the picture is, in your mind’s eye, that goes with
that good feeling. If you don’t have a picture that goes with
the feeling, take a moment to think about it, and just let one occur
to you.
Step 2: Look at your inner picture and notice the feeling
that goes with it.
Step 3: Now look more closely at that inner picture and
answer this question:
“Is this picture in color, or in black and white, or somewhere
in between?”
Step 4: If your picture is in color, use your internal visual
controls to make it black and white. Just use your brain to turn
down the color, just as you would on a color TV. If your picture
is black and white, or without much color, turn the color up—use
your brain to make the picture much more colorful. In what way(s)
does this change in color change the meaning or the feeling of the
experience that goes with the picture?
Step 5: If you want, set your internal color control to
wherever it helps this picture have the most positive and enjoyable
feeling for you.
Step 6: To experiment further, notice how bright your picture
is, and make some kind of significant change in this brightness.
For example, have the picture fade out to totally dark or gray,
then try shifting it so that it becomes extremely bright and just
“flashes out.” Notice how these changes in brightness
change the feeling that goes with the experience. Try making a simultaneous
change in color and brightness. What happens to the meaning or the
feeling?
To experiment more, notice where the internal picture is in the
context of the external space of the room you are in. Notice if,
in your mind’s eye, the picture is far away from your body,
if it is right at the end of your nose, or if it is in the middle
distance somewhere. Make a big change in this distance factor. Zoom
the picture off into the far distance, and then zoom it in toward
your head. What happens to the meaning or the feeling that this
memory has for you?
Step 7: In doing steps 1-6 you have probably caused some
significant changes in the meaning or the feeling that goes with
the memory of this experience. But notice that you have not made
content changes about this memory—you have merely changed the
structure of the visual component of the experience. By way of completing
the experiment, set the color, brightness and distance of the picture
to where they feel the best, and then let go of the picture and
its accompanying feeling(s).
Our experience of the external world is built from input from our
five senses, and so is our experience of our internal world. The
above mind/brain experiment operates in the realm of what NLP calls
internal representations. These internal representations are the
sensory events—sights, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes—that
are the building blocks of our experience as human beings. Our experience
of something in our lives—past, present or future, depends
on how we structure and process our experience in terms of our internal
sensory representations.
See related [Article].
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