I am getting back into the Feldenkrais lessons/explorations again through a friend studying to become a Feldenkrais practitioner and also classes just down the street.
These sessions are great opportunities to explore body image and how this mind creates an image of the body and uses it in different ways.
Some of the things I notice…
- Thoughts create a visual image of the body. This one is most easily noticeable when the eyes are closed, but can also be noticed as an overlay over the visual perceptions when the eyes are open.
- This image provides mapping for sensations
- It is used for anticipating or remembering movements, visualizing what can be or was
- It serves as a guide for attention, for instance when we are instructed to bring attention to our left foot
- And it also serves as a map for a sense of subject and object. Each of these are located in different areas of space and the body, creating a sense of distance between the two, which also makes it possible to differentiate the two. Without a sense of distance between them, no subject or object.
- When I explore the sense of subject and object, I notice the visualization of a fuzzy boundary around the head area serving as a location for a subject, seer, and doer. And the rest, such as other locations of the body and also the wider world, then becomes object and seen. If attention is brought to this sense of subject, the boundary shifts (usually to slightly in front of and above the head) and what previously appeared as subject now becomes an object. The specifics of how this works is probably different for different people, and changes over time as well.
- All of this happens on top of basic visual thoughts of extent or space, which allows us to experience perception as spread out in space and located in different areas of space. These are basically visualizations of space, which allows us to map perceptions on top of it.