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Influenza

15 Feb

Posted by Steve as Other

I want to let you know that multiple cold viruses and influenza hit me and my family over the past several days, so I haven’t been making substantive posts. Time and energy are scarce right now. But I promise you I will be back with a passion this weekend.

So instead of rambling on about cold medicines and fever dreams, I’ll send you to a mental awareness test I found awakening.

Can you trust your mind? I’d love to hear your thoughts about this test.

6 Responses

Jon

February 16th, 2007 at 1:00 am
1

Wow great video on mental awareness. I saw the gorilla but ignored it while counting the balls, but I completely understand the importance of the lesson.
Link Soup

February 16th, 2007 at 6:01 am
2

[...] Apparently, the flu is sweeping the blogosphere. Is it just a coincidence that Steve Olson caught the flu the same week I did, even though he is over 2000 miles away from me and I’ve never actually met the guy in person? Hmm. This could be a conspiracy. [...]
Chris Campa

February 16th, 2007 at 9:57 am
3

Interesting test. I completely missed the gorilla as I was focused on counting the ball passes. In fact, I deliberately avoided noticing anything else other than the people in white. Now if the instructions were to count the ball passes and see what else you notice about the others, then that might have been a different story. So I’m not sure if this is a test of overall awareness or if it is a test of the ability to avoid distractions (which is a constant practice during meditation). Hehe, it could also say something about a tendency towards independent thinking versus “doing what you’re told”.

Thanks.
Edmund

February 16th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
4

Get better soon (and the rest of your family, too). Those Minnesota bugs are among the hardiest. I know because I grew up in Two Harbors, MN and Osceola, WI.
Dragos Roua

February 19th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
5

Nice. I saw the gorilla immediately, but, to be honest, I was trained. I saw several times on the Internet those jokes in which a beautifull, partly naked girl, is staying on a boat deck, watching the sky. The label is: focus on the picture, and then you will see, in about two minutes, a boat :-))

Joking, of course. But it’s always refreshing to observe how the brain really works. One of my favourite activities, by the way…
sydney

February 20th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
6

I didn’t see the gorilla, but my concentration is pretty good so I’m not surprised. An excellent demonstration of attentional direction.