THE WORLD IN THE MIND - ABOUT PERCEPTION, FEAR AND INNER REALITY
Why People See the Same World Through Different Eyes
This is the 4. volume in the series "Our Time"
As a little boy, I regularly had to walk past a huge dog on my grandmother’s farm. To this day, I still remember the heavy iron chain.
The dog lay there calmly.
Yet in my mind, this silent animal became something threatening.
Nothing had happened. The dog had not attacked me. But the world inside my head had already created a danger of its own.
THE WORLD IN THE MIND begins with a simple observation: we do not experience only what happens around us. We experience what our memories, expectations, fears and past experiences make of it.
That is why the same harmless moment can feel perfectly calm to one person and threatening to another. Both may be looking at the same world – without experiencing the same reality.
Drawing on childhood memories, encounters on the road and years of living in a motorhome in New Zealand, the book explores perception and fear, control and distrust, inner restlessness and the growing difficulty many people seem to have finding calm.
Because sometimes what frightens us is standing directly in front of us.
And sometimes it is lying quietly on the ground, attached to a heavy iron chain.
THE WORLD IN THE MIND is for people who want to understand why two people can experience the same situation completely differently – and why thoughts, memories and emotions can sometimes become more powerful than what is actually happening.
This is not a psychological guide, a theory of how people should behave or a quick solution for fear and inner unrest.
Human beings would certainly be easier to understand if it were.
Instead, the book takes a personal look at perception and reality, fear and uncertainty, control and distrust, freedom and loneliness – and at the way our experiences continue to shape the world long after the original moment has passed.
Between childhood memories, life on the road, meditation and unexpected encounters, a recurring question emerges: How much of the world we experience is actually in front of us – and how much of it is being created within us?
Understanding that difference does not make every fear disappear.
But it may help us recognise when the dog is dangerous – and when it is simply lying there.
Bernhard Christoph Lichtinger writes from lived experience – from setbacks, detours, new beginnings and encounters that never needed to be invented. His texts begin where real life leaves its mark.
If you have not yet read a volume from the book series “OUR TIME”, you can begin with one of the following books. Each volume stands on its own and explores a different aspect of our lives.
Volume 2: THE DOG CATCHERS OF BLENHEIM
Volume 4: THE WORLD IN THE MIND