Paradigms and Perceived Reality

Someone asked me the other day to explain what a paradigm is. The example I used to describe a paradigm was to compare it to a pair of glasses. It is through these glasses that we view everything in our world, not through the naked eye but always through our glasses. Everyone’s glasses are different to everyone else’s, this is because they are like our personalised set of sun glasses which filter out or shape what we see through them. One persons glasses could be rose tinted another could have lenses so dark they only make out rough shapes and little detail (as a metaphorical example).




What creates the view through your own glasses is the sum of your life experiences, your beliefs and personal values, this is your paradigm.

Incidentally the popular theory of Neural Linguistic Programming (NLP) often refers to this paradigm as your personal filters on reality. The process of NLP seeks to realise what your filters are and when they colour your responses to situations most. Then seek to override this so that you can take a greater degree of control over yourself, e.g. be brave when you would otherwise be afraid!



So why am I banging on about paradigms? Well it seems to me that your interpretation of what occurs to you during an experience such as Sleep Paralysis or an unexpected Out of Body Experience (OOBE) depends often on your own paradigm. I have read posts by people with a strong Christian beliefs say that sleep paralysis is the work of Satan and he has sent his demons to attack you!  I have read posts by Muslims who believe a similar thing and attribute the experience to an evil spirit from the tribe if Jinn. There are those that believe that what is happening to them is the work of aliens from out of space, perhaps because of their exposure to popular cultural influences. You may have read the post I did once before illustrating the similarities in the description of Sleep Paralysis effects and those of alien abductees’. The same experience is interpreted differently depending on the person’s life experience up unto that point in time.

I’m not trying to discredit anybodies particular view or interpretation. I am just bringing this effect (of the paradigm) into plain view so that we can be aware of it when we examine experiences of our own and those of others. Perhaps this will help in our understandings and finding a common ground with one another.