Proprioception is the sensation that we have of our own bodies. It is a general function more than a special sense, and it is normally a component of all perceptual systems (J. J. Gibson), whose goal is the exploration of surroundings, in order to survive in the environment. We can define it, therefore, as a mechanism of self-sensibility.
I am a dancer and I always heard about this concept during my formation, and tried to investigate what it was exactly. At the same time, I was developing the awareness of my body (also very important in dance), but in a practical way. Last year I realized that both ideas were the same, but with different names. Then, I understood that this is what I want to develop in my life and what I had been doing it since long time ago, even if I didn’t know it.
Since I was a child, I wanted to be a scientist and investigate about something (it was not very clear yet). Now I do it. I investigate with the unique tool that I have, or better, that I am. While scientists investigate their issues from outside, I do it from inside, so I can be sure of the experience in itself. I feel the experience, and precisely, the experience is to feel.
So I explore my body. My goal is to perceive sensations and to analyze them. This analysis starts feeling the different parts of the body, for instance a determinate muscle or the sensations that something external to me produce on them. It is not easy to explain with words, but that’s why I want to write this blog. Maybe all these ideas are not in order while I describe them, but once, they will be.
I have spent lots of hours in my room trying to connect my body with my mind, discovering even very small parts of my body. I can be for a long (very long) time lying on the floor traveling through my body, it is amazing, there are always new things to be felt.
On the other hand, I consider my body as one within human species, so somehow, I try to understand how human body in general is. My exploration is made with my body because I can have conclusions directly from it, but my interest lies in the human being.
I have to make clear since the beginning that I conceive mind and body as a whole, both work in the same direction, which is life itself. The “Cartesian dualism”, which separates them in two different things, is nowadays rejected by most of scientists, but I think that however, in our daily life they are still separated. Mind (and consequently brain) has a supremacy oven the body. Some people could allude that this is not true, because we live in a society where body has a lot of importance. I say to this that the way in which body is shown generally doesn’t have anything to do with real body. It is shown as a superficial thing that can be dominated by our mind and normally associated to a false sexuality. When I talk about the body, I never refer to this kind of body, but to our container, to what we are, to the place where we live.
