A Small Study in Consciousness
How ideas move between minds
Consciousness researchers spend a lot of time studying brains and neural activity.
But sometimes consciousness moves from one mind to another in the space of a single sentence.
The other day I walked into a small independent bookstore in town. The kind that sells both new and used books. The front display had a stack of hardbacks of A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan.
I’ve spent more than twenty years studying consciousness in my own way, mostly through experience rather than theory. Through meditation, Craniosacral therapy, yoga, teaching, working with the nervous system, and paying attention to the subtle ways awareness moves in the body and between people. So I’m always a little curious when a new book on consciousness comes out.
I picked it up.
Read the jacket. Read the inside flap. Flipped through the chapters.
I’ve read a few of Pollan’s books before. They’re well written. Thoughtful. This one was even a signed copy.
I don’t often buy hardbacks. Most of the time I’m listening to books on Audible, reading them on Kindle, or picking up a used paperback somewhere. If I’m being honest, often on Amazon.
And, a lot of the consciousness books I’ve come across in recent years haven’t really spoken to me. They tend to come from a Western, scientific, reductionist angle. Neuroscience. Brain imaging. Mechanistic explanations.
Valuable, yes. But only one facet of the diamond. It often feels like arriving late to a conversation that other traditions have been having for thousands of years.
I’m more of an integrationist, interested in multiple ways of knowing. Experiential, philosophical, spiritual, scientific. The inner and the outer. Different entry points into the same mystery.
But something about this book felt worth giving a chance.
So I decide to buy it.
I walk up to the counter and place the book down.
The man behind the counter, middle-aged like me, looks at it and says, almost sheepishly,
“You’re gonna go for it, huh?”
I say yes. And that I’d rather buy it here than from Amazon.
Then he says something unexpected.
“You know… if you bring this book back before the paperback comes out, you can sell it back. If you returned it tomorrow, we’d give you $14 for it. We’d just sell it used.”
The whole interaction carries an apologetic tone, like he feels a little bad selling me a $32 hardback book.
It feels like the opposite of a sales pitch.
I scan my credit card and complete the transaction.
Now I’m home and I’ve started reading it, and I notice something funny.
I’m being extra careful with the book.
Trying not to get food on the pages. Making sure it doesn’t get bent or splashed by coffee.
Because now, somewhere in the back of my mind, there’s a thought:
Maybe I should return it and get the $14.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m preserving its resale value.
Which is strange, because I don’t actually care about the $14 at all.
For all I know, it could be a fantastic book that I’ll want to keep. Or reference later. Maybe pass it along to someone else.
But that small suggestion slipped into my thinking.
It’s funny how that happens. Someone says one small thing, and suddenly you’re carrying their thought around in your own mind.
Before the interaction, the book was simply a book.
Is this worth reading?
Afterward, it became something to hold temporarily.
Something that could be returned.
Nothing about the book changed.
Just one sentence from another human being.
Consciousness researchers spend a lot of time trying to locate consciousness inside the skull.
But consciousness moves between people in much more subtle ways, sometimes across a bookstore counter.
One person’s relationship to something entering another person’s field.
And suddenly a book is no longer just a book.
It’s also a seed someone else planted.