Attending Listening and Remembering

Written June 1998. Updated May 2015.

We can have our senses focused on what is happening outside of us as well as what is happening inside of us. For example we can hear someone telling a story. And we can go inside and hear our self using words inside our mind. Hearing words in our mind blocks hearing outside words. We may instantly become deaf to the outside world. What we hear outside may reach short term memory. Some or all of what goes to short term memory may go to medium term memory. Some or all of what goes to medium term memory may go to long term memory.

As an example, a person is with another person who is telling the following story:

In the early Sixties, a crisis started in an upstairs dorm in Fraser House. Neville heard the call to form a group at the dorm. The Unit protocol was to quickly form a group and draw upon the wisdom in the group whenever an emergency occurred. It was not the protocol to call Neville and wait for his advice. He happened to come to this emergency and responded fast to the dramatic context. Neville rushes up the stairs…..and finds a crowd outside the door of one of the rooms and the crowd parts….and Neville rushes to the doorway and sees an outpatient wife…..who by the way has no authority to be in Fraser House outside of Big and Small Group times……and she has no authority especially to be in the upstairs dorm…….Neville sees that she is pleading with her husband…..a patient…….with a sort of 'caring concern' …….to calm down….and Neville sees that the husband has his back to the wife…..and that the husband is facing the corner stabbing the wall with a large knife….which he shouldn't have in his possession ….. and he is yelling….…‘I am going to kill her’….with enormous emotion ……referring to his wife……..and on either side of the husband are staff members with knockout injections ready to jab him with a syringe..….containing some sort of powerful narcotic...if he makes any move to kill his wife……and the two staff on either side of the husband yell to Neville: 'Do we jab him?' Even in these dramatic contexts……..consistent with protocols…..staff sought confirmation from others for action…......if possible…..so that's why they ask…'Do we jab him?’.....and Neville sizes up the situation in a flash...... Now to pause for a moment……..that is the context……..I invite you to have a think now……what would you do?…….husband highly aroused and in a very unstable state....has knife……stabbing wall…..yelling he's going to kill his wife….with the placating wife right behind him ……close enough to kill in a flash.....it only takes a split second to turn and kill the wife and then himself and/or the orderlies.... the staff poised to inject the husband with the narcotic…..what would you personally do? Everyone I talked to about Neville said that he was lightning fast....and way ahead of everybody else..... Back in the upstairs room now…..the staff had yelled: ‘Do we jab him?' Do you know what Neville's reply was? Remember...Neville was looking for the free energy in the system.... He was using connexity perception... He was looking for all of the inter-connecting and inter-relating.....and all of the inter-depending aspects.... and he was looking for symbolic significance.......attending to the functional-in-context...... Neville’s response was.....‘Jab the wife!’........Jab the wife! Neville was guided by the free energy in the system.

The Full story is at page 234, http://www.laceweb.org.au/btw.pdf

What the Person Hears Externally (select the following segment with a swipe down with left click of your mouse to reveal the full story again)

What is happening here?

While the storyteller was saying the missing bits, the ‘hearer’ was flitting to attending to words inside his or her own head. Then attention would flit outside and hear a few more words of the storyteller.

This experience is so familiar that people rarely notice that this jumping inside and outside is occurring. They do not recognise they are just hearing disjointed fragments of the flow of what’s happening outside of them.

What May Enter Short Term Memory

In the above scenario the following may be the only bits of the story that goes into short term memory:

Neville Fraser House trouble wife husband knife Jab wife.......Jab the wife! Neville was guided by the

What may Enter Medium Term Memory

Fraser House trouble wife husband

What may Enter Long Term Memory

Fraser House trouble

The above sequence is typical of many people.

In the above scenario, most of the content and significance of the story is lost.

The consequences of this kind of loss depend in part on the context.

Sometimes the consequences may be massive.

The speaker may assume the other has heard and that they have remembered when this is not so.

What the Person Hears Externally and Internally

In the following example, note the presence of a number of typical features of internal mental activity:

ü Occasionally the outside stimulus triggers internal thoughts on somewhat related themes

ü Occasionally thought fragments occur that flit between themes

ü One idea may trigger another

ü Ideas sort of wash in and out of consciousness

ü Idea changing may or may not have coherence

ü The flow of themes and ideas is a very familiar experience, hence never questioned

ü One rarely remembers much or any of this disjointed mental activity

ü The bits of content from outside awareness tend not to fit well with each other

ü The inside bits tend to collapse the outside bits

ü The outside bits tend to interrupt the inside bits and collapse the thread

ü All of the above tends to interrupt forming any memory of inside or outside activity

Example:

The example below shows the words heard by the ‘listener’ in the above scenario. The words shown in red are all of the internally heard segments that are occurring as mental activity inside the supposed listener (talking to one’s self). The externally heard segments from the storyteller speaking are in shown in blue.

Oh... another story....crisis need to go to the loo soon...Fraser House. Neville...That reminds me, have to prepare for the conference in Sydney.....must check what time plane leaves...........must check timetable emergency don’t want any emergencies...have to plan well.....must tell Lucy about women’s circle...discuss whether I’m getting lift to airport....Suzy was really amazed how different I am...something must be working........finds a crowd really need to go to the loo....can’t follow what this story is about...never do understand his stories....what’s the point of telling the stories......wife…..John’s wife is interesting...must make a point of meeting her for a coffee. He said she is interested in starting a woman’s group of her own...perhaps we can do something together... And maybe Wendy would like to meet her....she has that large house and is interested in making use of it... sort of 'caring concern' …mmm...each of these women are carers...they have caring concern about other women....especially those caught up in domestic violence.... husband has his back to the wife…..can’t ignore this issue...can’t turn our backs to it...it’s a huge thing stabbing people getting hurt large knife….and killed....tragic...and the kids when their father kills their mother.....it’s huge.....possibly women in my circle may personally know people affected this way...raise it as a theme....when the energy right....kill her’….it’s all too much really...need to go to the loo real bad....when he’s finish with all this....he does go on...still he has good stuff from time to time...... staff members interesting staff meeting at work...one of the best brainstorming sessions we’ve had....good to have the butcher paper on the window...need to do this sort of thing more often....it was good when we all went away last weekend...really enjoyed all of the brainstorming of possibilities....and the walking along the beach...really good... staff yeh...the staff session at work was good...interesting...yell.......the quality of the discussion .......perhaps I’m taking on new learning...as they say...others noticing I’m different...though I don’t notice any difference in me at all.....really need to go to the loo badly...hmmm had forgotten all about it till now...too engrossed in what’s going on...how long has he been telling this story...don’t know...mustn’t forget to set the alarm for tomorrow... going to kill his wife….yes....must think about domestic violence...our group may be interested in contributing something to any inquiry...wonder if there are any places we could make a submission...check on the internet....must check my emails...may be something more on the Sydney conference.....he said he would text me...must check texts....Alice may have responded to my text...have to remember to let Wendy know when she does....that reminds me ....have to do that room allocation schedule as soon as I meet up with them in Sydney...jab him?' Fred needs a jab every now and then...there is so much more he could be doing....there is all of those things he said he would do as follow on from that brainstorming... response was.....‘Jab the wife!’........what’s that about....this Neville and Fraser House had weird people in it...no wonder they had strife free energy in the system...I could do with some free energy myself to get to the loo now....

How to Stay Present and Attend to Others and Hear Everything They Are Saying

The following website contains experiences that may have a person able to:

1. Hear everything another says.

2. Be able to remember everything another says.

3. Remember how they said it – their tone, inflection, speed, and volume and the like

4. And remember the non verbal behaviour while the other was speaking

5. And be able to repeat back all of the above

Website: Reporting

In the 1980s a group of folk in Sydney used experiential exercises like in the Reporting site above and the first two links below. After plenty of practice they were able to listen to a person speak for 5 to 10 minutes and be able to repeat back almost word-for-word what the other person had said as well as use the same emphasis, speed, tone and the like and to replicate the non-verbal aspects as well.

They were then able to use these capacities to sense the content of everything and if appropriate tune into a very significant in context aspect to respond to.

Attending, Listening, and Remembering are competences that can be constantly improved. Some folk are able to recall word perfect what everyone said during a one hour group meeting. With capacity increasing you can drop out of the context for a split second during another’s pause and access material from inner resources and have the capacity to retrieve what you want and be back with it before the person resumes speaking.

I shudder at the ineffectiveness of social exchange and business meetings where attending, listening and remembering is poor. While words flow, even the speakers are often not listening to what they are saying. This is evidenced by asking them to repeat what they just said. In many cases they cannot do this. When many or most of the group are busy listening to themselves inside their head – only incoherent bits and fragments of words actually spoken in the group are being stored in the attendees’ memory.

Imagine the effectiveness of a group of talented people who also have highly evolved competences in Attending Listening and Remembering.

Resonant Links:

Page 374 Inner and Outer Focus

Page 551 Increasing Awareness of Inner and outer Focus

General Reference Healing Ways Encyclopaedia

Laceweb Homepage

Return to the top