When I was studying photography back in 1982, I remember my instructor, Tony Tweg, encouraging fellow students and me to go out and look up, to change the gaze and explore different perspectives. Now, Tony was suggesting this for different angles of our subject matter, the things we intended to photograph!
I worked that out pretty quickly; I played with different angles and so on. However, years later, I took it a little further and researched the benefits of looking up at the sky for mental health, as I really enjoy gazing up at trees and always feel better for doing so!
I learned that our visual brains have several distinct systems. One of them is more specialised for the interaction space in the lower visual field, which means the other is specialised for the visual field above the horizon. Think about our day-to-day activities: they seem to involve a lot of looking down, including bending the neck to look at a tablet, phone, or computer! This can’t be good for you, certainly not all the time. Obviously one has to look down when walking on an uneven track like I was the other day, but I balanced it out by looking up too.
The neuroscientist Fred Previc argues that this second visual system, which defines ” extrapersonal space “, can be explored more in his fascinating book, The Dopaminergic Mind in Human Evolution and History, along with many more technical articles. The distant vistas above the horizon are especially well-developed in human beings. So, what does this have to do with looking up?
Well, Previc goes on to argue that this area of the brain is strongly activated during religious experiences, meditative activity, dreaming, and, by extension, any artistic or creative activity that encourages us to reach beyond the bounds of time and space into the infinite and eternal. For me its a blissful experience to look up, almost a natural antidepressant.
I learned something else: when you misplace something or forget what you were going to say, look up at the roof, breathe and then relax. If it’s important, it will come back to you!
As Previc has suggested, meditative states, trances, and mystical or religious experiences are often accompanied by upward eye deviations, which have a powerful effect on people.
If you are feeling a little down, low energy or overwhelmed, change your view, change your gaze, and activate that part of your brain that is crying out for something different. Look up when its safe to do so, make a mental note to do this every day, and see what happens. It can’t hurt, that’s for sure.
Anne Clark. Dip. Lhc. Author/Retreat Facilitator.