Deautomatization

The process of automatization, as a result of which an activity is carried out unconsciously, can be reversed through a resumption of the conscious mode of carrying out this activity, either to overcome some disability or the effects of an intoxicant or to improve performance or perception. Contemplative meditation is said to manipulate attention in this way, so that the perception of what is perceived is attended to, not the cognition of that perception.

When the process of deautomatization or depersonalization is intentional, the aim is thus to dispel blindness and reveal a new perception, variously referred to as enlightenment or illumination. Activities and perceptions, previously carried out automatically, are now invested with attention as they were when the automatic behaviour pattern was first built up. This "shaking up" may lead to an advance or a decrease in the level of organization.

Deautomatization has been related to the mystic techniques of renunciation and contemplation. For example, in contemplative meditation, the the technique is to manipulate attention in a way which is that required to produce deautomatization. Unusual perceptions of meditation subjects are then described (Arthur J Deikman) as sensory translation, reality translation and perceptual expansion. Imagery and thought are just such as observed in children and in primitive cultures - more sensuous, full of detail, with colour and vivacity of image. There is a decrease in distinction between the self and the object of observation.

Again, renunciation requires the attempt to banish from awareness the objects of the world and the desires directed towards those objects. This results in "starving" the perceptual and cognitive structures of nutriment which would tend to produce unusual experience. Decrease in responsiveness to distracting stimuli as measured by disappearance in alpha rhythm is noted in these cases. Long-term deprivation or decreased variability of stimulation would again produce the effects typical of deautomatization. There may be temporary stimulus barriers, such as have been postulated as operating in schizophrenia, which would produce a functional state of sensory isolation. Contemplative meditation and renunciation combined therefore have a powerful effect, the mystic becoming more and more committed to his goal as, the world having been abandoned, there is no other sustenance.