Self-Presence

Self-presence is also an experience of presence. How can we characterize it? We may first define it as a state of mind, in which distraction and scattering of attention are absent. The distracted person is unable or unwilling to dwell on a scenery, a work of art or a useful and fine looking thing such as a well-crafted knife. The eyes or the hands do not rest with it. We may illustrate this state of inattentiveness by observing persons going through the various halls of a museum and casting a furtive glance at the paintings. Their vision jumps from one painting to another without looking at their pictorial quality, without noticing the unity of their formal elements and without being aware of the subjective thoughts, emotions or even memories that their perceptions evoke. The distracted visitors’ vision does not come to rest in the act of looking at the paintings and in the attempt to understand the characteristics of their subjective reaction to the experience.