At school, we were asked to do the exercise in pairs. One of the partners closes his eyes, the other approaches him from behind and tries to establish what they call mental contact. It was possible to touch the partner’s shoulders, neck, back, hug him, etc.
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After establishing the so-called mental contact, we were asked to move away from the partner and stand somewhere (any random point) in the hall. At the same time, the noise was turned on so that our steps were not audible to the partner with his eyes closed. The partner’s goal is to find his partner without opening his eyes. The partner who is standing in the hall can at the same time perform movements as if he were pulling a rope from his partner and as if mentally directing his partner towards himself.
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I didn’t understand the exercise at all, and I couldn’t reach my partner or direct him when we switched roles.
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At the same time, many couples managed to direct each other.
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Are there any studies on this topic? Is there any scientific-based evidence why this exercise could work.
5 comments
The brain is an amazing thing armed with imagination. I’ve experienced this as well.
I’ll be the wet blanket and say that sounds like something that wouldn’t survive experimental scrutiny. I suspect the ones that couldn’t find their partner were the ones that had their eyes tightly shot and couldn’t see anything, while the ones that did find it just closed their eyes which still lets you see hints of light and dark. Try it for yourself: Gently close your eyes and move your hand around at arm’s length. If your hand blocks part of a light source, you can readily tell when that happens. Add in that it was “noise” which could still let someone hear fabric swishing from the rope pulling motion and perfume/cologne scent trails, and I’m not surprised that some were able to find each other.
None of the couples that couldn’t find each other should get wound up that their love isn’t true or something.
Your brain manages a lot of complex information regarding your environment and when deprived of one sense you can focus more on other senses which can give you information that can help fill in the mental picture of what’s happening. This is how those of us with vision impairment can navigate familiar spaces with relative ease. Some people are better at this than others innately and some of us get really good at say discerning a parents footsteps from other adults. I used to be able to pick out my mom’s footsteps on the cold polished stone of my school. I don’t have that need or experience and can’t as easily distinguish her footsteps anymore. Some people will require more practice to get good at this. Firefighter regularly practice working in absolute darkness to find victims quickly while crawling on the ground navigating different buildings. Some people just never seem to nail this skill and that’s okay too. Not everyone needs to be good at possible skill.
We did this in our acting class. Was carpeted and I swear there was no sound coming from the majority of us. We all managed to “sync” for lack of a better word. With our assigned partners. I still don’t understand how.
One thing that *does* have plenty of scientific evidence — the placebo effect is a *powerful* drug.