Perception is defined as: "the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information." This sensory information is your mental processing which determines what your perception of reality is. Perception is usually done in two phases; internal perception, and also external perception. How you process these thoughts when they enter your mind will determine your mental perception.
Rene Descartes asked the question: "Do I exist?" Freudian psychology claims that "self perception" is an illusion of the ego. So, the question remains to be asked; can our perceptions allow us to experience the world as it really is? And can we "really" relate to another point of view instead our own mental perceptions?
Internal perception (proprioception) relates to the perception of our bodies such as: sensing limbs such as arm and legs, the feeling of sitting or standing, hunger, feeling excited or tired.
External or sensory perception (exteroception) is the perception of events or activities outside of our bodies such as: sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. All of these sensory perceptions are permanently entered into our minds to be recalled each time a sense is recognized. These are the external senses which drive our lives, and plays a part in our emotional perceptions of life.
The most philosophical problem with perception is the way in which we gain our knowledge. However, in order to better understand our perception we must first look at our metaphysical viewpoint. Is our viewpoint to reality: "direct realism, indirect realism, or idealism? How we perceive these external perceptions will then determine what our outlook, or viewpoint is.
Extrasensory perception (ESP) is another type of perception to be considered. ESP is the ability to "acquire information by paranormal means; independent of any known means." This term ESP was coined by Duke University researcher J. B. Rhine to "denote psychic abilities."
ESP has sometimes been referred to as the sixth sense. This sense is all about: gut instinct, hunch, or intuition. Parapsychologists usually regard such tests as the "ganzfeld experiment" as compelling evidence for ESP. Whether this sixth sense has any influence on our perceptual senses is undetermined; due to the disputed evidence base.
Among the most common beliefs is that our third dimensional perception starts in early childhood as "naive realism," in which you believe that what you see, is also true about yourself. Many people carry this naive realism around with them the rest of their lives unable to perceive things in a different point of view.
The ego also plays a big part in our perception of reality. The ego is what controls our image of self. Any time a fear based emotion enters the mind the ego is alerted to rectify the situation. Our rational mind kicks in to alert our perceptions of a fear based emotion entering the picture.
Now, the third dimensional mind does what it does best; the mind remains totally alert even when it's not required. Our ego has just sent off a false alarm, which requires us to take a quick perceptive look at our self image. Are we being threatened in any way? Is there something we need to do? The mind then goes on to rationalize out imagined fears until infinity, and beyond.
If we feel that our self image has been invaded our perception narrows, and our viewpoint is also limited. Now, we're left holding the emotional bag at a snipe hunt; where of course there's nothing to hunt. Each time this emotional game is played (in the mind) our beliefs and perceptions are tested and re-tested all over again. Soon we're left doubting our own perceptions, and our instincts.
Each time your perception is tainted by the ego (and the mind) your sense of reality is distorted from a false sense of fear. The intuitive mind is usually shut down when fear enters our thought patterns; as our sense of self has been threatened yet again.
Now, the whole ball game starts back over again. Each destructive emotion begins to overlap each other until we're constantly living in a blind state of reality. Your mental time or "reality" is spent in a state of mental fear; worrying about what could or might happen next.
Your mind begins to re-live your regrets from the past, and worries about the future. Now, the present moment is lost in the shuffle of the mind. Destructive emotions such as: regret, fear, envy, and jealousy begins to form and take over the mind. So, we learn to live in the battle of these destructive emotions. Sometimes depression enters the picture; which totally obscures our perception of reality.
A low "perception of self" is the most damaging perception which is instilled into the mind over and over each day. With a low sense of self reality is viewed through rose colored glasses; everything is distorted and out of focus. There is no clear perception.
With a low sense of self your abilities are now drastically limited. Your mind has already advised you of your failures; so why should you even try in the first place? You already believe that you've failed even before you got started. So you live in your false perception of mind; trapped in a cave like a mental hermit. Everything remains the same or gets progressively worse because of a false perception of ourselves and reality.
As we live our lives we gain insight and information, and from these insights we obtain truths in which we firmly believe in your minds. These are the hard and factual truths in our minds with no way for them to be discredited; or is there? Are we living in a figment of our own imaginations, and are we actually seeing a true reality?
I've always heard not to believe anything that you've heard, and only half of what you see. So, we can probably take these hard and factual truths (in our minds) and throw out half of these; because they're only "our" perception.
The best way to increase your perception of reality is to live as close to the "moment" as you can. Throw out fear based emotions of the ego in the mind the moment they're recognized. Have no regrets from the past, and no worries about the future. Enjoy each day which is given us, and be emotionally present in the moment.
Your mind will soon learn to purge itself of destructive emotions as new "positive" thought patterns reclaim your serenity. Your perception of reality is ready now to explore new uncharted territory.
Who knows, maybe this is all just a dream of the third dimension and our perception of reality is just lacking.