Now, I want you to watch this video and keep track of which cup the ping pong ball is under.
Which cup is it under?
Most people, when they watch this video, correctly identify that it is the bottom right cup that the ball is under. But do they notice the brief appearance of a dog figurine, or the red cups being swapped out with pink cups?
If you successfully tracked the progress of the cup with the ball under it, you may not have noticed the dog, or the red cups being swapped out with pink ones. This is not to say that the dog and the cup change were not ‘seen’ by you. They were part of the video you were looking at. Rather, it is the case that we tend to see those things that are in our thoughts and not see those things that are not in our thoughts.
That is, we tend to only notice and be consciously aware of those things in our environment that are related to our thinking.
Another way of thinking about it is that, unless you have a yellow car you probably noticed very few yellow cars when last travelling by car. But if you were thinking about yellow cars, or own one yourself, you may have been surprised by the number of yellow cars on the road.
Our thoughts directly influence what we see!
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