A Less Scary Form of the Sixth Sense
When I used to think of the sixth sense, I immediately associated it to magic and the ability to see dead people (obviously influenced by the literal movie 'The Sixth Sense'). After reading more about it and being introduced to more examples of how it is displayed in our daily lives, I have developed a more complex understanding. Whether it is 'feeling' someone's eyes on you, turning the car around because you had an inkling of a feeling about not shutting the garage door (one that I have felt way too often), or getting a call from someone that you had been meaning to call all day, our sixth sense is represented in many forms.
"My life and the world's life are deeply intertwined; when I wake up one morning to find that a week-long illness has subsided and that my strength has returned, the world, when I step outside, fairly sparkles with energy and activity; swallowing are swooping by in vivid flight; waves of heat rise from the newly paved road smelling strongly of tar; the old red barn across the field juts into the sky at an intense angle" (33).
This quote, along with many others throughout David Abram's book The Spell of the Sensuous, discusses the impact that many things have on our perception of the outside world. Here, he writes about the effect that climate and mood has on someone's energy and health, as well as how a positive mood can alter our perception on the environment that surrounds us.
"My life and the world's life are deeply intertwined; when I wake up one morning to find that a week-long illness has subsided and that my strength has returned, the world, when I step outside, fairly sparkles with energy and activity; swallowing are swooping by in vivid flight; waves of heat rise from the newly paved road smelling strongly of tar; the old red barn across the field juts into the sky at an intense angle" (33).
This quote, along with many others throughout David Abram's book The Spell of the Sensuous, discusses the impact that many things have on our perception of the outside world. Here, he writes about the effect that climate and mood has on someone's energy and health, as well as how a positive mood can alter our perception on the environment that surrounds us.
For sure this is one of the most important points on the discussion of a topic such as the 6th sense, there is always a very strong need to contextualize it. As it seems to be a sort of placeholder sense, it is shaped by so many forces such as individual experience and culture. While I also think of things like ghosts and UFOs right away, it is good to understand why our minds go one place and others another.
ReplyDeleteI guess for our class, "the sixth sense" has become literally that a _sixth_ sense, any way of sensing or knowing something beyond what we know through the other 5 senses. And as you realized Brooke, there are things you have known not through the other 5. I like James' idea that it's a "placeholder" term to cover whatever kind of knowing different people know without the "normal" 5 senses. And we also need to recognize that some our class do not feel a need for such a placeholder, either because they haven't been aware of having experiences beyond what they knew through the 5 (see Elizabeth Shelto's post on the 6th sense) or that what they know through the 5 senses is more than sufficient (Oskar Mattes' post on the 6th sense).
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