I handed Bill the information that Joe wanted. A few days later, I asked Joe if Bill had given it to him. When he replied that he hadn’t, I said I would find it for him. Thinking that Bill might have put the information on his desk, I turned towards his office to look inside.
However, it wasn’t there! It had disappeared. Confused, I walked over to the wall where the door should have been, and stared at it. Blank. Perhaps they had covered it up? “Nope, no office has ever been there,” said Joe.
I knew I had seen the office right where that wall currently resided, but since it obviously wasn’t there now, I decided to pretend that it existed but, perhaps in another realm, and somehow not in this one.
I know, I read too much science fiction, but it was more satisfying than thinking I had not seen it, when I knew I had. I knew the answer to where the office was would reveal itself, eventually.
The mystery solved itself a few days later. Walking to a class, I turned and saw the open door to the office right where had I thought it was. At first, I allowed myself to pretend for a moment that I had stepped back into the realm where the office door existed.
Not so – or at least not in this instance. Instead, I realized that there was another wall in front of the one where I had looked before. Yes, it was in the exact direction that I thought it was, but not in the same space.
Here’s the point. Perception is fluid. It changes based on who we are, what we were thinking, what we are noticing, and what we think is real.
Nobody sees the same thing the same way. Actually, we don’t even remember things the same way we experienced them either. Perception is fluid.