When Perception Is Reality

Perception is reality.

When it comes to physical health this ancient mantra of eastern philosophy seems distant and unimportant. In western culture it is considered scientific to think of the universe as a mechanical device where our perceptions are irrelevant to what happens in the world, our lives and our bodies. To a western mind the phrase “perception is reality” seems far-fetched and unrealistic, especially to those touched by disease and suffering.


The matter over mind thinking that increasingly dominates our scientific, medical and even popular
culture has banished our perceptions tbo a place of unimportance in how we think about the universe and ourselves. The question of whether our perceptions create external reality is one best left to the
quantum physicists and the philosophers.

However in my personal experience in health care I have come to see that the perceptions that people hold in their minds are critically important to the experience of their bodies. Even though it was barely mentioned in my formal medical education, experience has taught me that things in our mind profoundly influence not just how we experience our bodies but also our physical health.

Contrary to what was emphasized in my training I have learned that every disease, symptom and cure has a powerful subjective component as a part of it's course. This is not to say that all diseases are psychosomatic, but rather that some diseases and symptoms certainly are. Furthermore, even when suffering has a real medical basis there is powerful subjective component that very much influences the experience of the illness.

As anyone who has worked in health care or even merely observed human behavior has learned, different people will react to and experience very similar medical problems in different ways.

Studies have repeatedly shown that if people were just pulled off the street and randomly given an MRI that a significant percentage of adults have legitimate back injuries such as bulging discs. However among these patients with medically similar injuries there would be a wide variety of perception of pain. Some patients would be pain free while others would have severe disabling back pain.

Anyone who has ever worked in a hospital knows from experience how impactful patient perception, attitude and expectation is. The nature of this relationship is no more magical than anything else in science. It is in fact very much related to a burgeoning field of study known as neuropsychoimmunology. Basically, this up and coming field is explaining how the psyche of human beings physically impacts the nervous system as well as the immune system and endocrine system. In this relationship we have an unexplored and powerful scientific basis for mind body medicine.

While neuropsychoimmunology is relatively new and unexplored, its implications are huge. The role of inflammation and the immune system in most disease processes in the body is critical. Pretty much every disease process from heart attacks to cancers to infections to ankle sprains to rheumtalogical diseases and pretty much everything in between is on a spectrum of somewhat modulated by to literally directly caused by our bodies immunology and the inflammation process.

How the psyche and the nervous system interact to modulate inflammation in the body I believe is the theoretical basis of mind body medicine. Through neuropsychoimmunolgy our perceptions are manifested in our bodies. This important truth is left outside of our cultural thinking and our medical heritage and I am quite certain most medical doctors would place it in the dreamy realm of philosophy and not as an integral part of the care of human beings.

The fact is that in a medical profession ruled by pills and surgery our perceptions are not routinely considered a part of disease and healing. But experience shows us that people are more than a collection of chemicals, tissues and electrolytes but also a collection of perceptions, beliefs, fears, regrets and loves. There is now a way of explaining how these two realms interact profoundly to modulate both health and disease. Right now in medicine, the management of those who are ill rarely involves exploration of the patient’s conscious and unconscious perceptions regarding their symptoms, but I believe this is valuable and one day science will back the importance of this up.

Albert einstein once remarked that "reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." I can't speak to the validity of this statement in terms of physics, but I do believe that when it comes to our bodies Einsteins statement holds some truth. At least a part of what we experience in our body is no more than the illusion of our on minds very much framed by our own perceptions. Human beings are a collection of perceptions and experiences that manifest in the physical body and in this way human perception indeed becomes physical reality.