Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS)

Long before we consciously see, hear, smell, taste, or feel something, our perceptions go through unconscious processing processes in developmentally older but functional parts of our brains. These parts of the brain, which, incidentally, hardly differ from those of mammals, are responsible for satisfying survival-necessary impulses, such as food supply, sexuality or safety. Impulse desires are expressed through unconscious emotions, such as desire, joy, disappointment or fear. The whole organism is immediately adjusted to the respective requirement, so that we are always in balance, whether at exertion or at rest. All this takes place unconsciously and without our arbitrary intervention. What penetrates at the end of this process through the "gateway to consciousness", the thalamus, to the association centers in the cerebrum usually does not correspond to reality, but to what we unconsciously desire, love, hate or fear.  How many of these "underground impulses" penetrate into our consciousness as feelings is very different individually. Emphasized rational thinking people believe that they are less influenced by the unconscious proportion of sensory sensations than sensitive and sensitive people

 

The majority of neuroscientists today believe that our thinking and actions are mainly determined by unconscious sensations and emotions. One of the world's most respected brain researchers, the American Michael Gazzaniga, goes further, saying that the  feeling of a unified consciousness, the feeling of acting independently and making decisions is just an illusion of the firstthingthat  our brains themselves produce and with which it "permanently misleads us". Human consciousness comes about in the interaction of numerous subsystems that interact dynamically; Consciousness, which appears to us as "I", actually corresponds only to the need for explanation of our dominant half of the brain.  Gazzaniga is convinced that consciousness and moral action can only develop in "we", i.e. in coexistence and in the exchange of experiences.

 

In people with sensory processing sensitivity, these subconscious processing processes are more intense, deeper and longer lasting. Their behaviour is characterized by  sensitivity,empathy,  helpfulness  and  the need for stability and social cohesion. People  with SPS show a right-brain dominance. They  tend to think supernaturally,have a richimagination,  a pronounced aesthetic feeling for the arts, are creative  and have a good sense of space and body. They listen to themselves and tend to follow their intuition and feelings. Primary, unconscious stimulus processing is highly sensitive to the "mammalian brain". They see,hear,  smell and taste more sensitive and react reflexively to unexpected processes.

 

More and more people in Western affluent societies are reconsidering their real needs, some on the traditional bourgeois order of values and the longing for homeland, the others on centuries-old treatment methods and the diet of the Stone Age people. More and more young people prefer archaic forms of coexistence and swear by the behaviours of natural peoples and primates.

 

Does man lose his status as a rational and conscious being. Threatens the end of evolution  or feel some human beings threatening changes more sensitively and sooner than others? Is the increasing sensitivity and reflection on the essentials, the retreat to existential needs and the adaptation of behavior to the limitations of our habitat part of the process that began hundreds of thousands of years ago, when early humans had to make common cause in order to survive; an expression of the human sense of values and norms. Do these people have evolutionary properties? 

 

According to the American philosopher Ken Wilber, every evolution of consciousness is preceded by an involution, i.e. an apparent regression. People are developing new  guiding ideas that enable a more sustainable life in line with their habitat and limited resources. Does such a movement have a chance or does it fail at the pace of progress? The Corona pandemic should have shown the last optimist of progress, that it cannot continue in this way. The selection mechanisms of nature will force us to rethink.