NLP: Expanding Perception and Sensory Awareness

Let’s briefly review what you already know and smoothly transition to new concepts. So:

NLP is a way of thinking. When constructing buildings, we usually use bricks, cement, wood, and iron. With just these four materials, you can build countless structures, but all are limited by the properties of those materials. Architects decide what to build, but what do we call those who work with the materials and the construction process itself? Builders, material scientists? NLP is not about what to build, but how and from what to build.

Modeling: A Way of Perceiving the World

NLP is about modeling. This concept suggests that philosophical, religious, psychotherapeutic, physical, political, economic, mystical, and other ways of describing the world are not absolute truths, but models—different possible ways to perceive this complex world. This is because we don’t perceive the world directly, but through our senses, and our consciousness is limited.

From my subjective point of view, there is no such thing as an absolutely objective opinion. That’s why everything written here is, in a sense, a lie. But if you allow yourself, just for fun, to consider this perspective as valid, you may discover it offers certain possibilities.

There are models and descriptions that can help me achieve a goal. If they do, the model is considered effective in that context. If something doesn’t work, it just means the model isn’t suitable for that situation.

Consciousness Is Limited

I won’t go into detail about indirect perception, but I will say a few words about the limitations of consciousness. Psychologists and neurophysiologists, after many experiments, determined that consciousness can hold about 7 ± 2 units of information at a time. Small things fit in easily, but larger things must be distorted, generalized, or excluded. The world is vast, and it simply can’t fit into our consciousness all at once. So we create models: philosophical, religious, family, and so on.

The Map: Each Person’s Personal Model of the World

As you might have guessed, everyone has their own personal model of the world. This model contains everything a person knows, as well as their attitude toward those things. This personal model is called a map. On this map, what’s important and unimportant, right and wrong, what you want and don’t want in life are all marked.

Maps Can Change

But don’t think of your map as something fixed forever. The world changes, your perception changes, and so do your maps.

Flexibility: The Ability to Easily Change Your Map

Some people have a hard time changing their views, while others can easily adapt to changes in the world and update their map. This ability is called flexibility. Flexibility doesn’t mean “changing your mind during an argument”; it means that when you realize your model isn’t effective, you can change it, rather than stubbornly sticking to what doesn’t work.

Consciousness Filters Incoming Information

Back to the limitations of consciousness: since it can’t process everything we perceive, it filters out what it considers important from what it deems unimportant. This is determined by your map. For example, you may already know about the “Sorting Gates” filter.

One Filter: Perceptual Channels

Humans have five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. In NLP, these are referred to as:

• Visual (V): What we see—images, pictures, movies.
• Auditory (A): What we hear—speech, wind, water drops, intonation, timbre, pitch.
• Kinesthetic (K): What we feel—touch, internal sensations (muscle, stomach, warmth), and meta-sensations (emotions like joy, love, happiness, grief).

Sometimes kinesthetics are divided into three parts: tactile (skin sensations), internal (muscle, stomach, warmth), and meta-sensations (emotional evaluations, often felt in the chest, neck, or head).

So, in summary:

• Vision (visual system)
• Hearing (auditory system)
• Taste
• Smell
• Skin sensitivity (tactile sensations)
• Internal sensations (muscle, stomach, warmth)
• Meta-sensations (emotional evaluations)

Developing Sensitivity

Today, we’ll focus on sensory sensitivity. In a way, this is about expanding your perception—learning to notice things you previously ignored or didn’t even realize you could notice.

Sensitivity is like the quality of a radio receiver. If the receiver is poor, you mostly hear static and a few loud stations. If it’s better, you get more stations and less noise. A top-quality receiver picks up almost everything, with minimal noise. If your “receiver” is bad, you might not even know what else is out there. The higher your “class,” the more choices you have.

Every way of perceiving gives us a piece of the world. These are our first and main gates of perception. Any skill is connected to high sensory sensitivity—the ability to make fine distinctions within one or more channels.

Walt Disney, the famous animator, could distinguish almost ten times more shades of a color than the average person. A good French winemaker can identify not only the grape variety but also the year and region by taste. Any good musician must have a very fine ear. Even a machinist or mechanic must feel their machine and parts well to achieve high results. An experienced mother can tell what her baby wants just by the sound of their cry.

Expanding perception means learning to see, hear, and feel things you previously missed, increasing your ability to perceive. The most important things in this world are often tied to the finest distinctions. Any mastery, again, is connected to very high sensitivity.

However, the more you notice fine distinctions in one channel, the less you notice in others at that moment. For example, if you focus on the sounds around you, you’ll pay less attention to what you see and feel—at least consciously. Developing sensitivity means learning to tune all your channels as finely as needed. The ability to see the big picture or thousands of shades of birch leaves, to hear all the noises around you or the subtlest nuances of a voice’s intonation…

Expanded perception is the ability to manage your perception so you notice everything you need. It’s the art of filtering out the unnecessary and finding the tiniest details. This is, above all, an art, because it can only be developed by putting your soul and individuality into it. No two masters are alike; each does things their own way. Every good chef is unique, every good artist paints and sees the world in their own way.

It’s a high art to notice what others miss, to pick up on things unavailable to others. But perhaps this is just a property of individuality, since everyone has their own perception. So let’s try to expand our perception as much as possible.

When it comes to communication, a good communicator is, above all, someone with very fine perception. They can notice the slightest changes in voice timbre, intonation, movement, facial expressions—everything that gives them extra knowledge about their conversation partner. The art of communication is a high skill.

For now, here are some exercises to expand your perception and develop each channel. I recommend starting with the channel you are least developed in. People usually prefer and develop only one channel, but that doesn’t mean they have high sensitivity in it—it’s just stronger compared to the others, not as strong as it could be.

Exercises

Synesthesia

1. Color Field: Choose a color—yellow, blue, red, violet. Imagine a space filled with this color. Nothing else, just the color.
2. Sounds: Now mentally enter this space, immerse yourself in the color. Try to hear what sounds, melodies, or intonations “accompany” this color. Avoid words or phrases—just pure sound. Let the sounds become as loud and clear as possible.
3. Feelings: Now focus on your internal sensations that accompany these sounds and the color. Where in your body is this feeling most noticeable? Where does it start and where does it move? Try to feel it as fully as possible.
4. New Color: Repeat the process with another color or shade: color field, sounds, feelings. Continue until you’ve explored at least 7 colors.

You can also start with a “pure” sound or sensation and determine what images correspond to it, and so on.

Layering

This technique helps you “build up” and develop overall sensory sensitivity. Start with your strongest channel and imagine something in it. Once you’ve done that well, add the next strongest channel, and finish with the one you’re least comfortable with.

For example: V – A – K. Imagine a birch tree: how it looks, its white trunk with black marks, green leaves, darker branches. Then, hear the rustle of its leaves, the sound of the wind. Now, imagine how the birch feels: the coolness of its trunk, the roughness of the bark, the smell of its leaves. You’re building up your perception, starting from your strongest channel.

Do this at least 7 times.

“Journey to the Past”

Our memory works similarly: it starts with the most memorable thing and then fills in the details.

• Recall a childhood toy as vividly as possible—how it feels, smells, what sounds it makes.
• Imagine holding it in your hands, feel its weight.
• Now look around—most likely, you’ll find yourself in a memory from your past, able to see, hear, and feel what surrounded you.

Do this at least 3 times.

Visual Channel

If you want to further train your visual sensitivity, try these exercises:

• Notice Differences: We often don’t realize how we get results. For example, a cashier presses buttons, the register beeps, and a receipt comes out. We don’t know how the result was calculated. The same goes for perception—we get a result from our unconscious, but don’t know how. In this exercise, practice being aware of what happens inside you and how the result is formed. For example, compare two letters “A”—find at least 3 differences (more is fine, but not less). Do this at least 5 times.
• Visual Memory: Take several objects, arrange them randomly, look at them for a few seconds, close your eyes, and try to recall the scene as vividly as possible. Open your eyes and compare. Repeat until you can recall all objects. Try this with magazine photos, scattered matches, playing cards, letter cards, and more. Practice with faces—look at someone for a few seconds, try to recall their face, then compare. Try to remember the smallest details visually (not verbally). Do this at least 7 times.
• Visual Construction: Practice imagining things you’ve never seen. For example: a pink elephant with green polka dots; yourself with violet eyes; your neighbor with bright green hair; your neighbor bald; a photo negative; an oak tree covered in tomatoes; your neighbor dancing the lambada. Make sure you can clearly distinguish and examine these images. Do this at least 7 times.

Auditory Channel

• Internal Voices: Practice distinguishing your internal voices. We often don’t notice that we talk to ourselves in different voices. What are the differences? Try to find at least three differences (more is fine). For example, you might have a “Skeptic” voice (dull, slow, monotone, coming from the left), an “Enthusiast” (fast, loud, from behind, high-pitched), and a “Joker” (quiet, high, childlike, fast, from below). This is a great exercise for becoming aware of your internal processes. Do this at least 3 times.
• Listen to Music: When listening to music, try to focus on one instrument at a time—guitar, vocalist, drummer, bass, keyboard, flute—making the rest background. Or, in a crowded place, focus on individual voices and sounds. For example, on a bus, pick out the engine noise, tire sounds, a conversation behind you, two kids talking in the corner, outside traffic, the wind. Do this at least 3 times.
• Recall a Melody (Auditory Memory): Try to recall and “listen” to a song, melody, musical piece, or conversation in your mind. Recreate all the nuances of the sound or voice. You can also play a recording, then try to recall it, then listen again and compare. As you improve, try longer or more complex pieces, and focus on individual instruments or voices. Do this at least 7 times.
• Auditory Construction: Imagine how your friend would recite a poem you’ve never heard them say; how a flute would sound with ocean waves; how your last name would sound backwards. Then, try imagining your friend reciting the poem when they’re sad, happy, interested, surprised, or excited. Add more instruments, or imagine your friends saying their names backwards. Try to “hear” these in your mind, not just say them. Do this at least 5 times.

Kinesthetic Channel: Skin Sensitivity

• Awareness: Take several pieces of fabric and try to identify their differences, listing them clearly (e.g., thick/thin, soft/hard, smooth/fuzzy, dense/loose, silky/rough, weave type). You can also use pieces of clothing, paper, or wood. Do this at least 7 times.
• Choice: Take 5-6 pieces of different paper of the same size, and try to identify them by touch alone (number them for checking). Do this at least 7 times.
• Blind Game: Take small piles of different grains (millet, buckwheat, rice, poppy seeds) and, with eyes closed, try to tell how many grains are under your finger—not by counting, but by feel. Normal is distinguishing 1 to 7 grains.
• Cheater’s Game: Take pieces of thick paper and mark them by pricking or scratching numbers with a needle. Try geometric shapes or different numbers of dots. Try to identify them by touch.
• Paints: Take 4-5 pieces of the same paper and color them with different materials (pencil, pen, marker, gouache). Try to identify them by touch.

Kinesthetic Channel: Internal Sensations

• Awareness: Recall several internal sensations and describe them in terms of warmth/cold, trembling/vibration, pulling/pressing, direction (toward/away), stationary/moving. Do this for at least 20 minutes.
• Weighing: If you have a scale, put an object in a bag and try to estimate its weight by feel, then check on the scale.
• Pulse: Try to feel your pulse in your right thumb. If it’s hard, rub your finger or press it against something. Then, try to feel your pulse in each finger of both hands, in the center of your palm, and move the sensation through your body. Try to move the pulse from one hand to the other, or from your hand to your foot, without losing the sensation.

Kinesthetic Channel: Meta-Sensations (Emotions)

• Recall an emotion or feeling and describe it in terms of quality (tingling, warmth, cold, vibration, relaxation, tension), warmth/cold, trembling/vibration, pulling sensation, stationary/moving, direction (toward/away). For example, sadness might be a warm, pulling sensation in the shoulders, a vibration in the center of the body, starting in the throat and moving down to the solar plexus. Do this for at least 7 emotions.

Kinesthetic Channel: Taste and Smell

To train your sense of taste and smell, try focusing entirely on “just taste” or “just smell.” Concentrate on the smells around you and their subtle nuances. Imagine you’re a dog, for whom smell is the most important sense. The whole world is made up of smells, and you’re immersed in this world of aromas, where every object and person has their own unique scent. Do this for at least 20 minutes.

In Summary

1. People constantly filter information from the outside world.
2. One of the most important filters is the channel of perception: vision (visual), hearing (auditory), and feeling (kinesthetic).
3. Any mastery is connected to high sensory sensitivity.
4. Expanded perception is the ability to manage your perception to notice everything you need.
5. A good communicator is someone with very fine perception.