Any experience can be explored through the sense fields.
How does it appear in each field? How do these field combine – with the help of the mental field – to create gestalts? What happens if these gestalts are taken as substantial and real? What happens if they are recognized, as they happen, as a gestalt?
I was curious about sleepiness again this weekend, partly due to sleep deprivation, so explored it again. What I find – here now – is a set of sensations located in different areas from the chest up. A set of images – often of dark and flat/blank sheet – that are slowly and steadily sinking. And those sensations and images combines as a gestalt. When these sink with little distraction, there is a movement into sleep.
When this gestalt is recognized as a gestalt – or when attention is brought to just the sensation or mental field aspects – there is no sleepiness anymore. The sensations are there as before. The images are there as before. But there is not the appearance of the gestalt of sleepiness. Or it may be there, but recognized as just a gestalt. And yet, even as the gestalt is recognized as gestalt, if it is allowed to do its thing, it moves all into sleep.
Next time I explore sleepiness, it may appear quite different. And I am always only scratching the surface here. But it is still an interesting exploration. For one, it helps me see and feel – in another area of experience – how the sense fields combine to create gestalts, and what effects those gestalts have for experience. In this case, they create an experience of sleepiness and a movement into sleep.