Psychological Benefits of Practicing Invisibility
photo by Karla Souder
What superpower would you want? The ability to fly? Wallcrawling? Telekinesis? The superpower most animals seem to want is invisibility! It’s what keeps them alive to see another day. Can you see the animal in this picture?
Invisibility isn’t just about not being seen, but is also about not being smelled or heard. Think of the scentless fawn who can safely hide “invisibly” in the tall grass while it’s mother is away. Or think of the soundless walkers—those from the feline families who “invisibly” sneak up behind their prey.
To increase the feeling of truly being a part of the natural world one benefits dramatically by thinking in terms of senses and invisibility, because that is the way the animal kingdom functions. It is easy to see how if we learn how to be more invisible to animals we will be able to see and experience much more in the wild than ever before.
That’s what practicing visibility does for us. But, what does it do to us? The very act of practicing being invisible in nature, even if one is really bad at it, is that the practice itself shifts one into a non-ordinary state of ego consciousness. So even if you are sneaking around, trying to be all invisible and every single bird, mammal, amphibian and everyone else can hear, see and smell you coming a mile away, it still is of benefit to you to do it!
Just the experience of a non-ordinary state of consciousness in nature helps our psyches. How? Clearly, practicing invisibility through silent walking, natural camouflage and expanded sensory perception is NOT like eating hallucinogenic mushrooms to expand one’s consciousness, or any other sort of dramatic chemical or otherwise induced state of altered consciousness. That’s not what we’re talking about. Instead, we’re talking about a subtle shift towards a non-ordinary state of consciousness which can allow our unconscious to become a bit more accessible to our normal waking ego consciousness—somewhat like in the way we have communications with lesser known parts of ourselves when we dream at night.
Another shift is that nature runs on “nature time” which is far different than 21st century human timeframes. When we practice invisibility, we naturally slow down to a speed more like animals use. That puts our bodies and psyches even more in synch with the environment around us. We learn to move when the wind rustles the leaves, and to stand still when the other sounds are still, so as to blend in.
When you believe you are invisible and you do the things that support that—like silent walking, slowing down, attention to how you look and smell– you become truly a part of that ecosystem for the time you are there, rather than the clumsy visitor— the tourist— just passing through. Your psyche can tell the difference. Something in you reawakens. And you’ll know it when you feel it.
Perhaps this change towards an intensely tuned, slowed, outward physical behavior and inward psychic behavior takes us back to our childhood experiences. Human children are instinctively and passionately drawn to hiding games (being invisible) because, just like bobcat kittens or any wildlife youngster, they sense their vulnerability. Rescue trackers who seek to find lost outdoorsman— adult or children— report time and again that lost people often have the seemingly irrational urge to hide, making the rescuer’s job that much harder. I and others can attest that after awhile of practicing invisibility out in the woods, one gets strong urges to hide, for example, if one hears a car coming. I think it is because this shift in consciousness harkens our psyches back to a different time and way of being, and manifests a latent prehistorical behavior in us back to the surface.
Invisibility, a superpower? A latent skill waiting to be rekindled? A door to the unconscious psyche? There’s one way to find out! Come, learn some of the outer skills of invisibility and see for yourself. And the animal in the picture- a Whitetail Deer, facing left, head down.
