There are several cognitive activities that any normal person could perform that are nonetheless virtually unused. The result of this is less productivity and less happiness.
You might think that no normal person can remember a hundred things in less than a hundred minutes. I asked a teacher why children are usually not taught how to remember. The answer I got was this: "How would you tell them apart?" I hope that isn't the real answer.
It is not just a matter of learning some new skills. The very way we think has been biased by our upbringing, largely through language. There are words and phrases that alter our perception. Some of these inventive modifications of language are the work of those promoting products and services. Others are the work of those attempting to promote political and social ideas. Also, there are words that are missing altogether. Here is an example of the latter:
Our language does not have a word that conflates feeling and thought; but it is obvious that some thoughts are also feelings. The word suspicion is an example. If we pay close attention to thoughts, we can find that most thoughts, if not all, are also feelings. Huge feels different from minuscule.
There are advantages in having this awareness; yet, expressing it verbally can require many words because the right word is not in the lexicon. This absence is due to the widespread assumption that thoughts and feelings are entirely different and distinct. They are not always distinct. The omission of words, and the invention of words and phrases, has effects on our thoughts and feelings that often go unnoticed; but where would a writer or speaker be without this sensitivity?
Being aware of the feelings inherent in thoughts, and being permitted to refer to them in the combined sense, would allow people to better understand each other.
Here is another culturally supported restriction: Many people believe that words are essential to thinking. This is simply incorrect. When asked the question, many academicians say "Of course. You can't think without words." If we get most of our information by reading, it can seem that way.
There are other modes.
Mathematicians, inventors, experimenters, and many others have imagined all sorts of things without words. These include at least pictures, suspicions, and conclusions.
In trigonometry, you may not yet know the name for these two kinds of isosceles triangles:
They both have two sides that are equal in length to each other (thus the name isosceles triangle), but the two equal sides compare differently in length to the third side in the two different triangles. The triangle on the left has a third side that is longer than each of the other two sides, whereas the triangle on the right has a third side that is shorter than either of its other two sides.
You didn't discern this from a name, or any other kind of word. Likewise, imagining whether two separately seen mechanical parts can possibly fit together is not decided by a stream of words. Deciding at first glance that you do not trust a particular stranger may come from warning signs that are not put into words before the distrust is felt. Conclusions are routinely reached through perceived evidence before a proof is written, or even before key phrases for such a proof cross your mind.
Thinking without words can become a habit of mind, as it has with several people who I know. This is particularly useful in the practice of mnemonics (those planned ways of remembering things) explained here:
https://www.futurebeacon.org/memory.htm
Much time and work might be involved in choosing a scene, an object, or an action that is to stand for, and remind you of, some particular other thing; but after such a decision is made, the time it takes to recall a helpful mnemonic can be almost arbitrarily short.
Understanding perception is very valuable. Volition and belief can affect perception. Consider this picture:
This is a picture of a white sphere in a black void. The void is a particularly empty volume of space in which no stars are visible behind the sphere. The following description illustrates that there is at least one feature of perception that operates independently of the famous five senses:
The action begins with the sphere being about two feet in diameter. The sphere begins to rapidly race straight away from the viewer. The sphere also increases in size just as rapidly. The net result is that the visual image of the sphere always remains the same.
Time passes. The sphere becomes as big as a house, then as big as a town, then as big as the moon, and then as big as the sun. This might continue.
The picture does not change, but the perception may continually change if the viewer wills that action or believes that it must be happening. Of course, very few of us were brought up to believe that white things in the sky might behave this way, but we still need to realize that perceptions are partly the result of something we do, or the result of something that we are prepared to do. They are not merely the direct and sole result of what we observe through the senses.
Now, I must mention an ancient and virtually unused capability.
When spoken language was in its infancy, there was another mode of communication. It was imprecise, and not effective enough to slow the progress toward spoken language. It was based on body language, apparent mood, and a sensitivity that is not widely understood. Evidence of this sensitivity has been appreciated by science in our culture only relatively recently. With considerable work, the average person can learn to develop this sensitivity. It works without the famous five senses. They are weak signals.
These signals are responsible for the objective demonstration of remote viewing and telepathy.
The main obstacles to acquiring these skills are the widespread habits of mind that shape how we think.
Remote viewing is a natural phenomenon that can be learned by any normal person.
For decades, the United States and the Soviet Union kept their remote viewing activities top secret, but since 1995 it has all been declassified.
Learning to perform tasks involving weak signals requires knowing that the effect in question is scientifically proved, and it requires you to thoroughly expect to learn how to do it. If you are certain that there is nothing to weak signals, you will not learn to use them. This is well known. You should also be aware that manifesting events that are difficult or unlikely in our society is highly dependent on your belief. Your actions are consistently different when you truly want and expect some particular event to occur.
I recommend that you begin your adventure with remote viewing. Imagine you could describe what is in a room before entering it, or describe a park that you have never visited.
There is a wonderful introduction to the subject by Paul H. Smith shown here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIE2BClEok0
I have read his book, which is mentioned at the end of his online introduction. I bought it from Amazon. It is extremely thorough. The characteristics, the feelings, and the science are clearly described.
A training manual produced by the Stanford Research Institute is available here:
https://remoteviewed.com/files/CRV%20manual%20full.pdf
It provides a free online process involving stages of performance in great detail.
Another very interesting book, "Memoirs of a Psychic Spy: The Remarkable Life Of U.S. Government Remote Viewer 001" by Joseph McMoneagle is also available on Amazon.
It isn't just remote viewing and telepathy that are unused by most people. Also unused are presentiment, precognition, and the communication features of the Ganzfeld experiments (all are carefully explained in Paul H. Smith's book).
If you understand the scientific experiments, you are likely to agree that the people of the Earth are cognitively "not all there."
In addition to the features of cognition mentioned above, there are features of cognition that are well precedented, and in fact famous, but are mistakenly thought of as available only to the exceptionally gifted. These include at least creativity, inventiveness, and technical skill.
Unfortunately, negative self talk is very effective in defining your personality. Statements to yourself and others like "I am not a technical person" or "I am not an inventor" or I am not creative" tend to convince you and make you a person for whom such attributes are off limits. Such classifications are too often welcome in many cultures.
In this arena, belief is enormously important.
In grammar school, and in the first year of high school, I was regarded as a stupid kid. At the age of 17, I joined the military to escape my family life, and learned that things that are very difficult to do are not impossible. At the age of 21, without a high school diploma, I decided that I should go to college. I got myself a high school equivalency diploma and applied to a four-year college as a music major and was accepted (the last to be accepted in the winter semester). I was accepted on the basis of fast improvement rather than accomplishment. I went on to study math and chemistry and psychology. For most of my life until retirement, I ran my own businesses. I had studied mnemonics.
When computers came out, I googled unfamiliar words with search terms like define anthropomorphic. You can't stop a person from knowing what anthropomorphic means.
You might be tempted to regard me as exceptional. The exceptional part was belief.
If you do a lot of thinking without words, you will discover your creativeness and inventiveness.
Without a conscious knowledge of these features of the human mind, the evaluation of evidence and the appreciation of the world we live in is limited.
Chapter 1 - Violence and Feelings
Chapter 2 - Involuntary Memories
Chapter 5 - Achieving Tranquility
Chapter 8 - Cancelling Limitations
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