Chapter Nine Sample
THE ONION EATERS
I guess I was about twelve years old but I can't remember the exact year. I was seated at my mother's dressing table in her bedroom. What I do remember clearly was sitting in front of the table's mirrors. There were three of them, the main mirror facing you as you were seated and two smaller side mirrors that could be angled to give profile views. I remember sitting there combing my hair. While I was combing I began to think about the word “comb”. It occurred to me that it was a word with a strange sound and I began to repeat it in my mind. I repeated it over and over again and must have put myself in a trance as it was some time before I came to, realised what I had been doing and became aware of my surroundings again.
While I was repeating the word comb, I was aware that the sounds we hear are not “out there” but are inside our heads, in the brain. When you listen to a sound source what you hear does not exist “out there”. It is entirely the response that the hearing network of brain cells makes to the vibration stimulation that reaches us via our ears. You don't even need a sound source as it is possible to imagine the sound. I started off by chanting the word comb but soon was imagining what the sound was like without making any utterance. I could imagine exactly what it should be like. I thought no more about this at the time but it sowed a seed that grew into an interest in the effect that sound vibrations have on the inner self.
When you eat a food, it tastes of that particular food and when we share a meal we can agree that something may taste delicious, sweet, sour, etc. However, what you experience as the taste and what I experience may well be completely different. My taste world may be unlike yours and as you can't get inside my head to find out what I'm experiencing, the best we can do is agree on the sweetness, the sourness, or the pleasure it gives us. The same is true of sound and of music. When I listen to a Mozart violin concerto, the musicians, or my stereo system, are creating moving, vibrating sound waves. These soulless, mechanical sound pressure waves travel through the air and impinge on my ear and are then transmitted to my brain where they...
I guess I was about twelve years old but I can't remember the exact year. I was seated at my mother's dressing table in her bedroom. What I do remember clearly was sitting in front of the table's mirrors. There were three of them, the main mirror facing you as you were seated and two smaller side mirrors that could be angled to give profile views. I remember sitting there combing my hair. While I was combing I began to think about the word “comb”. It occurred to me that it was a word with a strange sound and I began to repeat it in my mind. I repeated it over and over again and must have put myself in a trance as it was some time before I came to, realised what I had been doing and became aware of my surroundings again.
While I was repeating the word comb, I was aware that the sounds we hear are not “out there” but are inside our heads, in the brain. When you listen to a sound source what you hear does not exist “out there”. It is entirely the response that the hearing network of brain cells makes to the vibration stimulation that reaches us via our ears. You don't even need a sound source as it is possible to imagine the sound. I started off by chanting the word comb but soon was imagining what the sound was like without making any utterance. I could imagine exactly what it should be like. I thought no more about this at the time but it sowed a seed that grew into an interest in the effect that sound vibrations have on the inner self.
When you eat a food, it tastes of that particular food and when we share a meal we can agree that something may taste delicious, sweet, sour, etc. However, what you experience as the taste and what I experience may well be completely different. My taste world may be unlike yours and as you can't get inside my head to find out what I'm experiencing, the best we can do is agree on the sweetness, the sourness, or the pleasure it gives us. The same is true of sound and of music. When I listen to a Mozart violin concerto, the musicians, or my stereo system, are creating moving, vibrating sound waves. These soulless, mechanical sound pressure waves travel through the air and impinge on my ear and are then transmitted to my brain where they...
