The Insight of Deep Listening (podcast $)

Neurosensory integration is your ability to sense, understand and organize sensory information from your body and environment.

“The sensory apparatus we know as the ear is simply an external attribute of the cerebral cortex.”
— Dr. Alfred Tomatis, otolaryngologist and originator of sound-based therapies for communication, learning, and listening skills

“The sensory apparatus we know as the ear is simply an external attribute of the cerebral cortex.” — Dr. Alfred Tomatis, otolaryngologist and originator of sound-based therapies for communication, learning, and listening skills

What do you ever really hear in all that you’re listening to? Do you hear all of your thoughts or just the ones that make the most sense? Some of our thoughts come as images or impulses, some as sensations, and others come with words attached. Our first impression often determines whether we focus on a thought or let it drift past.

Not many thoughts are considered in our heads. Most of our thinking just flows past us as a kind of distracted story line. Ask someone for their opinion and you’ll get a burst that will fade away after a few sentences. If your question is not recharged by some act of relevance, reward, or rejection their comments will settle into a kind of closure.

Consider conversations at a gathering, party, or social event. There will be a set of topics which people typically expect to hear about. These will be of short duration which will stimulate many associations. Common topics typically sustain five or ten minutes of discourse, but rarely more.

We mostly use language to focus and form social contacts. There is little original thought or exploration of things that can’t easily be said. This limits us to rather superficial topics. It also limits how we tend to think when we’re on our own. We have similarly short conversations with ourselves, most of which don’t break new ground.

As I write this I’m asking myself, “What is there to say on this topic? What can I say that goes beyond repetition?” I have to create or picture some structure before I start talking. To do otherwise is just to repeat things I’ve already heard. The value of what I say is determined by the importance of the questions it asks.

• Hearing

• Focus

• Attention Deficient, Normal, and Disordered

• Listening Deeply

• Hypnotic Listening

• States of Trance

• Insights and Hallucinations

• Change Grows From Associations

• Beyond Understanding

• Integration Aims

• Integration Skills

• Integration Dreams

My books The Skills of Sleep, Becoming Lucid, and Operating Manual For Enlightenment will help you. Don’t be misled into thinking that integration requires new experiences; new experiences just provide recent evidence. Integration means finding balance. You do this by exploring the boundaries of what unbalances you. This extends across all of your life. Let integration become a habit.