December 28, 2007

Reticular Activation System (RAS)

Reticular Activation System (RAS)

It’s a common phenomenon. You look for a new car, something not like anyone else’s, something unusual.  You pick out what seems to be a unique, unusual choice of a special red car and all of a sudden, there it is– your red car, the one you thought was only yours.  It’s on every street corner. It is at every stoplight.  You see three of these red cars driving down the freeway.  You never saw these cars before.  What happened?  How did all of these people get your unique red car at the same time?

Well the fact of the matter is that your brain is seeing the red cars that were always there.  Since you picked out this car for yourself, that car has become special for you and now you are noticing what was really there all along.

It’s called the “Reticular Activation System” or RAS.  It is the part of your brain that automatically filters out what is not important to you and brings your attention to things that are important to you. 

In this context, we will now hear a sermon or read a book containing some piece of information we had studied in the Scripture and it will reinforce and personalize what we had studied. borrowed

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