Blog Entry #4 by Marilyn Herasymowych

Marilyn Herasymowych

A new science called cognitive science is exploding with new information on how humans think, and how our thinking gives rise to our behaviours.  Cognitive science covers a broad spectrum of science, including brain research, thinking, neurobiology, biochemistry, and psychology.  The discoveries emerging from cognitive science are challenging the foundation of what we believe as a Western culture, and what it means to be human.  For example, we now know that our minds are embodied, that most of our thinking is unconscious, and that nothing we think about or experience is emotion-free.  This changes the way we think about our ability to exercise free will, and whether or not we can be rational without engaging our emotions.

For me, there is no question that this is true.  Especially now, with the experience of two cancer diagnoses, treatment, surgeries, and a protracted recovery.  As a result of my first cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, I was given the gift of observing what it might be like to die.  I was in the hospital, watching myself desperately trying to get enough breath to sustain myself.  My lungs were screaming in terror, my chest in shock as water drained uncontrollably off my right lung.  It was Wednesday, March 25, 2009, only two days after my first chemo treatment.

I vividly recall having a chest tube inserted into my right pleural cavity to drain the water off my lung.  At first, it was all so new to me, something I had never experienced.  I had allowed student nurses to be present during the procedure, so there were a lot of people surrounding my bed.  I was listening to what the doctor was saying, and imagining what it all looked like.  It didn’t take long before I could breathe easily again, as 2.5 L of water drained quickly off my right lung.  All seemed to be going well, and everyone left while I rested.  Then suddenly, I was watching myself struggling to breathe.  I was no longer in my body.  Somehow, I was outside of my body, standing slightly beside the bed, calmly trying to figure out what I should do.  I saw myself frantically pressing the call button.  I saw the nurse rush into the room and clamp off my chest tube to stop the fluid from draining.  I watched everything going on with no fear, no emotion, no curiosity – simply watching and thinking what I could do to help.  There was my body flailing, desperate to breathe.  And there was me watching as if there was no problem.

In his book, The User Illusion, Tor Nørretranders describes how John Wheeler, a famous physicist, summarized what he believed humans knew about the world.  His model is called Wheeler’s U (shown below).

Wheeler's U

Wheeler believed that the way in which we observe the universe also helps to create it.  For example, if we think in linear ways, we will see a linear universe; therefore, we will create a linear universe.  When faced with complex non-linear problems, we will try to solve these problems in linear ways, without understanding why our solutions do not work.  If we consider that we are also running in an unconscious mode most of the time, it is small wonder that we cannot seem to solve complex problems or take advantage of complex opportunities.  In the situation with the chest tube, I was the observer watching my body (the participant) flailing, desperate to breathe.

But I have also been on the other side, a participant, unable to find the observer in me.  When diagnosed with breast cancer less than a year after being diagnosed and treated for lymphoma, the world as I knew it imploded.  I was too traumatized to observe what was going on during the surgery to remove the tumour.  When the day of surgery arrived, I lost it.  I couldn’t hold onto myself, and I became a crazy person, totally irrational and out of control.  I went to bed the night before in tears, crying so hard that I couldn’t breathe.  I woke up in tears, needing Henry to help me to get dressed.  I cried in the waiting room at the diagnostic centre.  I cried when I was given a needle with the radioactive tracer.  I screamed when the technicians inserted the surgical wire that would guide the surgeon to the tumour.  I cried when I got into the car and Henry drove me to the hospital.  I cried while I waited to be admitted into the hospital.  I cried while getting changed for the surgery.  I cried while being wheeled into the surgical waiting area.  I cried when the surgeon came to talk with me, and again when the anaesthesiologist came to discuss my situation with my leg weakness.  I cried and cried and cried, and cried some more.  Then, it was over and I couldn’t cry anymore.

Wheeler’s U demonstrates the degree to which we are thinking and acting from our unconscious.  In their book, Philosophy in the Flesh, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson state that most cognitive operations in the human brain are largely unconscious.  In fact, it is thought that the estimate now used of 95% unconscious is a serious underestimate.  They call these cognitive operations the cognitive unconscious, and describe it as all of the unconscious mental operations and structures involved in language, meaning, perception, conceptual systems, and reason.  This 95% below the surface of our consciousness shapes all of our conscious thought.  Lakoff and Johnson call this cognitive unconscious a hidden hand that shapes the stories we tell about the experiences we have.  Superimposing this 95% unconscious on Wheeler’s U, you can see that the majority of our waking moments is actually unconscious.  If we are not aware of how much we do that is unconscious, we can find it very difficult to think and act in a conscious state.

Wheeler's U and the Unconscious

That day in the hospital with the chest tube, I think I touched death, or at least the impression of it.  As I observed myself, I was “holding death lightly”, as if it were a new-born child lying patiently and contentedly in my arms.  This is an example of melding the observer with the participant in Wheeler’s U, from an unconscious state to a more conscious one.

With the breast cancer surgery, I couldn’t lift myself from an unconscious state to a more conscious one.  The trauma was too great, and I succumbed to what was happening, living the nightmare as a pure participant, totally operating from my unconscious.  I was numb, unable to breathe, unable to smile, unable to talk.  I got better after a few days, but I still couldn’t lift myself into a more conscious state.  All I could do was lift the experience into a more conscious state.  I could dissect the experience, but I was still completely gripped by the trauma.  I kept thinking about how breast cancer is a killer.  I couldn’t get it out of my mind.  I kept seeing my mother’s face just before she died, writhing in agony as cancer ripped out her humanity and her soul.  I was losing my grip on reality, drowning in fear.

To find the eye in the storm that has become my life, and to regain some sense of control, I use all of the forms of systems thinking I have available to me.  Any form of non-linear systems thinking brings the cognitive unconscious to a conscious level, and with it a sense of control and calm.  Systems thinking brings us out of an observer role in a system, and into to the role of a participant-observer within the system dynamic.

Wheeler's U and Systems Thinking

According to Lakoff and Johnson, unless we gain an understanding of the cognitive unconscious, and its effect on our thinking and actions, we cannot easily create new ways of thinking and acting.  The key is to bring the cognitive unconscious to a conscious level, to bring us into the role of a participant-observer within the situation in which we find ourselves.  Once we are conscious of the fact that we are operating from our cognitive unconscious, we can make choices about what we want to do with this knowledge — how we think and act.

I have few choices now in terms of what I can do with my life.  None of these choices, in my opinion, are good choices, and all of them are hard.  The trick for me is to be able to live a life worth living, while in the grip of two incurable and advanced cancers, and the side effects of treatment.  To me, this means living both the participant and the observer experience simultaneously.  I don’t know if I can ever shut off the fear and anxiety that is now so much a part of my life, and deeply embedded in my unconscious.  But, this cancer experience has shown me that it is possible to hold both places together, as I did when I had the chest tube inserted in my pleural cavity.  The participant and observer don’t necessarily cancel each other out.  Rather, they find a way to co-exist.

Note: If you’d like to know more about Marilyn’s cancer journey, check out her blog at www.cancerbrokeallmypencils.com.