The second "I"?

[donq]

[note-this is my very raw thought. Apologies for any unclear points]

Louis Armstrong sang, "I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself what a wonderful world... The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky. Are also on the faces of people going by. I see friends shaking hands, saying, 'How do you do?'. They're really saying, 'I love you'".

It seemed Louis Armstrong was aware of those blooming roses, pretty skies etc. Was he aware that he was aware all of that?
Though I'm not a big fan of phenomenology (the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness) but let me quote it a bit here:

Obviously I can be aware of blooming trees, rainy mornings, and the cries of playing children,
but I can also be aware that these are seen, smelled, and heard, that different perceptions are taking place,
and furthermore that I am the one experiencing them, just as I may be aware that I am hungry, tired, or happy.

More than that, why I didn't feel the same as Louis Armstrong did? Sometimes when I saw friends shaking hands, saying, 'How do you do?', I had a feeling that they were just pretending to say, 'I love you'"?
So, am I aware that I am aware (differently from Armstrong)? This question brings us to nowhere. As words are as slippery as an eel (yes, this simile is kind of old, sorry).
Let me focus here only on the pain.
I am aware of my broken arm. More than that, I am the one who is experiencing the pain. So, "I" am in pain.
But somehow there's the difference between the second "I" and the first one.
The second "I"?
And after I am aware of this second "I", I have to ask myself what's wrong with my second "I"? Are there still the third and the fourth "I" and so on?
I read somewhere that "there are the crucial distinction between feeling painful without pain and not feeling painful with pain.
An example of feeling painful without pain (let's call it here "the fake pain") is Hypochondriasis or illness anxiety disorder, which is worrying excessively that you are or may become seriously ill, even you may have no physical symptoms. Hence, the nocebo effects (a situation where a negative outcome occurs due to a belief that the intervention will cause harm).
Not feeling painful with pain is found in patients who suffer from a rare neurological syndrome known as
"pain asymbolia", also called pain dissociation, is a condition in which pain is experienced without unpleasantness.

Though I know the example above (about feeling painful) are about physical pain, I still have a feeling that this is where spirituality comes to play. To deal with the second "I', and works with both physical and mental pain.

[gruntal]

This reminds me a lot about lucid dreaming which I have never been able to do. Plus my dreams are memories or projections but physical sensations are always imaginary. A nightmare might be most unpleasant but actually I am just laying in bed fantasizing pain and suffering.

[donq]

Hi George,

I've never had a lucid dreaming. At least, as far as I can recall. Dostoevsky is called one of the great psychologists on unconsciousness. He said that you don't ask question in your dream, for example, you might talk to your brother who passed away long time ago as if he's still alive. He also said that no matter how much you got hurt in your dream, you will be okay after you wake up. However, some researches disagree with him about the latter.

On a winter morning in early January 1981, Xiong Tou Xiong, a twenty-nineyear-old man, was found dead in the bed of his Portland, Oregon home. He had not been ill; his death was sudden and unexpected.
There were death records in St. Paul showed that four Laotian Hmong refugees had died suddenly in their sleep. A mysterious pattern was beginning to emerge: all of the victims had died unexpectedly; all were men between the ages
of twenty-five and fifty; all were apparently healthy; and all had died while they were asleep. Also, in all cases for which autopsies had been conducted, findings were negative. Sudden deaths among the Hmong continued throughout the mid-1980s, but no medical cause could be found.
-from Sleep Paralysis: Night-mares, Nocebos, and the Mind-Body Connection

So, we might really die while we are sleeping which someone (including me), think those who die this way are so lucky.

[mojomojo]

I remember, a short time after getting into spirituality, been very aware of the I behind the I, as if you were watching yourself going through your daily activities, and to be honest, I didn’t like it.
What proof do we have, who the I behind the scene really is.
I also read about this tribe in Africa who could disassociate from their body, putting themselves in this trance like state, and under go an operation without any anasethic.
Of course I had to find this out for myself, an accident in work, where a bundle of steel rods were falling and one was going to cut into my wrist.
I had plenty of time to pull my hand away, but left it there, to this day I have a two inch scar across my wrist,I felt no pain during the incident or during the healing.
This separation of the two I, also happened when a slipped disc hit a nerve in my lower back, I was given a powerful pain killer, which gave the very same effect, again I didn’t like it.

I have always, from a young age wanted to die in my sleep, I guess every body does.
Might have something to do with the fact I had witnessed two brothers and a sister been buried before I hit seventeen.
In the last five years both parents have gone.
It seems when you reach a certain age, death is never far away.
My latest concern is my wife, if she goes before me, how will I handle that, the only alternative, is not the most pleasing, what a conundrum.

[donq]

Hi Robert,

Good points! We all hate our pain. But pain is there in the first place to prevent us from the real harm. We suddenly pull our hand back as soon as we've just touched fire. If not, we would be like those patients with "pain asymbolia" (who don't feel pain) and might lose our whole hand.

As for "the second I" or "I behind I", many people believe they think their own thought but spiritual practice (as for me, mindfulness) teaches us to reconsider about it.

As you said (you didn't like it), sometimes it really could backfire. For example, those who start practicing mindfulness might be able to "observe" and "see" their own thoughts (feelings etc.) but still so cling to them in one way or another (I've seen my own thought that I wanted to have a drink, but I said no to it. Yeah!. Okay, I have to give myself a drink for that triumph!). In fact, the real purpose of mindfulness is just observe and let go any of it.

Yes, this brings us to what you warn us from time to time. We also have to be careful with spirituality. It has its downside, too.

[mojomojo]

Hi Monty,
I read once that life is nothing more than struggle, pain and suffering, with the occasional periods of happiness.
Once we accept this we are not so disappointed, but most people expect it the other way around.

It was the disassociation between the two I, that I did not like, the separation.
For some strange reason, when I practised meditation, I would always end up with uninvited guests, the constant feeling of been looked at, can be quite unnerving, maybe it’s that which puts me off.
It’s one of the reasons I don’t practice anymore.

[donq]

[This might or might not have something to do with the topic we are talking about. I mean I somehow feel it might but cannot put a finger on it yet.]

I prefer psychology to Neurology. Kind of brainless mind, more than mindless brain. Anyway, recently I've found that Neurology could also answer some tough questions.
Psychology and spirituality teach us that if someone did you wrong just once, but you think about it ten times, it means you will get hurt ten times, too.
And what about physical pain?
Psychology tells me that "expectancy shapes experience". If I expect my pain is bad, then it will be worse than it should be. I used to suffer from migraine for more than 20 years. When looking back, it had something to do with I tried too hard to fight it. For example, if you got a headache, you fight the pain "too much" than you should. Neurology tells that it will "often creates a behavioral loop by narrow-focusing away from it, which engages the sympathetic nervous system, which heightens arousal." Simply put is, don't fight it, just take your medicine, and forget about it.
In other words, in normal situations, the pain will eventually dissipate by itself. But when we fight it, "the pain may take on a life of its own in our brains". Hence, unnecessary stress.
And how I could go cold turkey after my 20 years of migraine suffering, it might be like this: when I felt my migraine was coming, I just took some aspirin/paracetamol. And that was that. I didn't fight or think about my migraine anymore. First, acupressure helped me a lot. I got better and better. And finally, I don't even have to take any aspirin for my migraine anymore.