(The middle setting would be *very* advantageous for a programmer, when one has has the intuition, and needs to turn it into working code.)
Cheers!
My favorite technique comes with an explanation of why it works.
It is based on the idea that the small part of the brain responsible for the internal dialogue is the same part of the brain responsible for attention in general, and that as more attention is needed, it takes priority over maintaining the internal dialogue.
It is difficult for the brain to provide the energy needed to even support attention, much less the internal dialogue, so we use lots of brain tricks to shut out data that might be considered extraneous, and thus conserve energy.
For example, when we look at a picture of a person, we do not try to focus our attention on the entire image, but only on a “darting point”, looking at a small part, then another small part, then another, using our short term memory to imagine the whole picture at once. Importantly, when we look at a picture of a human face, the most frequently looked at points are the eyes. Here is a scan of eye movements of the darting point.
So the trick of the technique is to create more and more demand on our attention, which deprives the internal dialogue of the energy it needs to function, so it is quieted. And the longer it can voluntarily be turned off, the greater our control over it becomes.
The technique involves walking. Just ordinary walking is not easy, and demands considerable attention directed towards the legs. The next part is as you are walking, to hold the fingers in some unusual way, it doesn’t matter how, as long as it is unusual enough to attract your attention to your arms as well. Your arms just hang normally as they do when you typically walk, so it’s just the fingers that are odd.
So now your attention is in two directions. But the third part is the real attention grabber. By unfocusing your eyes, you defeat the “darting point” of your visual focus, and instead, everything in a 180 degree view in front of you becomes of equal importance to your attention. Which consumes an enormous amount of attention.
It takes just a little practice to learn how to walk with unfocused eyes, either looking at the ground 10-15 feet in front of you, or over the horizon, but it is not terribly difficult to learn.
So there is the technique. Walking, holding your fingers in an unusual way or ways, and unfocusing your eyes. Not very hard at all.
A few personal observations about the technique:
Don’t carry physical objects in your hands, as it can get annoying. I dislike even wearing a wristwatch when doing this. Rings are right out.
Never listen to music while you are doing this, or you may get a ferocious “ear worm”, the song endlessly repeating in your head. But if you have an annoying “ear worm” on its own while doing this technique, it will totally burn itself out and won’t trouble you any longer. Yippee!, if such things annoy you.
You can do the technique day or night, as long or short a walk as you like, because the effects are generally cumulative. Some people stop after a couple of weeks because even though they are getting a better state of mental focus and unfocus, they dislike the feeling of silence, like some people dislike quiet, so bring a boom box with them when they go camping.
One thing that some people notice after doing this technique for a while is that they start to get unusual sensations. Typically we ignore or block the vast majority of sensory input available to us, and sustained silence is bound to let some sensations we previously ignored through. I’ve never quite understood why a few people find this so disturbing, but a few do. Most just think it is cool.
