Even before we enter the world, we are already responding to sensory experiences, like the sounds of our mother’s voice. As we develop and become adults, what we receive through our senses becomes part of the background of experience that is so easy to take for granted; until we discover we have a problem, like noticing that the book we’re reading is at the end of our arm. Of course, there are also times when we really appreciate our senses, like the taste of an amazing meal or the beauty of the cherry blossom in the park.
Although we are familiar with the five primary senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, other senses are now included by science. Some of these tend to be unconscious and subsumed into everyday life. Where your sense of touch ends at the surface of your skin, the interoceptive sense tells you about what is going on inside your body. This includes whether you’re hot or cold, tired, or hungry. There’s also the kinaesthetic sense that tells you where your body and limbs are at any time, for example, when you duck your head to enter a low doorway. Dancers and athletes have a more refined and conscious kinaesthetic sense. We tend to think of our senses as the physical sense organs like our eyes or ears, although large parts of the brain are also involved in making sense of the world around us.
The senses in our head are directly connected to the brain in various ways, for instance, vision through the retina at the back of each eye, smell through the olfactory lobes above the nasal cavity, and sound by the auditory nerve to the brainstem. There are specialist areas of the brain involved in processing sensory input, like the visual cortex, and other areas that combine inputs from different senses to give us a joined-up view of the world. Our brain uses the rich combination of senses to make sense of the world, which includes filtering out information that’s not worth processing, as well as anything that conflicts with a consistent experience.
There’s a difference between raw sense and perception. For instance, the eye has a blind spot where the optic nerve passes through the back of the eye, but processing in the visual cortex completes the gap for us. Another is that the image on our retina at the back of the eye is always upside down, which our brain turns the right way up.
Vision is the dominant sense for humans, which uses up to forty percent of our cerebral cortex. In contrast, touch uses around eight and hearing just three percent. Our dominant visual processing is one reason good practice in communication includes advice like, “A picture paints a thousand words” and “Show, don’t tell”.
As far as we can, directly connecting with our senses is an important part of cultivating mindfulness. Coming to our senses directly connects us to the present flow of experience, away from automatic thoughts that previously grabbed our attention. We can use skills like curiosity and beginner’s mind, as if freshly experiencing things for the first time, to break out of the habits and assumptions that limit our perception of the amazingly rich and complex world around us. And we can explore the five external senses as well as internal ones, to really appreciate the everyday miracle of what it means to be alive. We tend to make assumptions about our senses, for instance, that there’s nothing more to explore. But what does it mean to really see a landscape like an artist; to taste an organic tomato like a food connoisseur; to smell a rose like a perfumer?
Although most of us are fortunate enough to have a full range of working senses, how much do we really appreciate and feel gratitude for all that our senses provide? When you think about it, apart from thoughts, the majority of our experience comes through our senses. And even thoughts can be in sounds and images, which, by the way, use the same parts of the brain as sensory processing. There is only this passing moment of experience. We can only fully appreciate the rich aliveness and beauty of the world around us, in all its wonder, when we intentionally come to our senses.
Suggested weekly practice
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Notice as many senses as you can when you go for a walk, the sounds, sights, smells, touch as well as the sense of your body in movement.
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Try some things that expand and stretch your senses. For instance, eating a piece of fruit and appreciating a whole range of flavours, textures, and sensations, or hearing a sound that you consider noise and finding harmonic tones within it.
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Really appreciate and feel gratitude for the senses you have, that we so easily take for granted.
Guidance
Find somewhere undisturbed and sit in a comfortable, dignified, and upright posture, where you can remain alert and aware.
There are two guided practices for this session. You can close your eyes, or lower your gaze while the meditations play.
- Play the first settling practice, then read through the session content, which you can print off if that helps.
- Then play the second practice to explore and experience your senses in clear, direct awareness.
- Suggestion: You could have a piece of fruit or fruit juice to hand to use for smelling and tasting parts of this practice.
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