In one of my recent readings on the subconscious, I came across an interesting point: Certain people, the text argued, have a lot of difficulty relating their feelings to the correct cause. For example, a person’s dog dies and they feel crappy e.g. down in the dumps, stomach tight, aches and pains etc. We (“we” being intelligent readers and authors of this blog – the cream of society really) might say to such a person, “Of course you feel shitty! Your dog just died!” But these people (in extreme cases called alexthymics) have difficulty relating their visceral sensations to their life situation. The don’t “get” that their dog’s death is creating these feelings of sadness.

Seems pretty weird, huh? You’d have to be a class A nut to experience that situation, right? That’s what I was thinking until I experienced it myself, only a few days ago. I was doing a little guitar practice, learning some new songs to back up a singer I (at that time) hadn’t even met. I had a couple days to learn the songs but my schedule was tight and I was a little worried how well I was going to perform in the live situation. I was sitting there, figuring out the tunes, on some level conscious of the upcoming performance, and I actually got the jitters – my body took on a mild tremor. “Jesus!” I thought, “If you’ve already got stage fright now, what’s it going to be like when you actually have to perform.” It was dispiriting. BUt then I realized something. I was hungry. The shakes were at least partly from being hungry, not “stage fright.” I was blaming these physical sensesation on the wrong cause.

As it was, I did the performance a few days later and it ruled. I rule.