Did you know that people move their eyes in a certain pattern when they are accessing information in their mind. For example, people move their eyes differently for recalling a memory or imagining something new.

Someone once said that “the eyes are the windows into the soul”.  He was right.

This got me thinking and one day I imagined what it would be like to sit facing someone and ask them a specific question. “Can you draw?”, for example. I imagined what it would be like at that very moment if I jumped into the sound waves of the question and surfed into their mind, undetected.

Whoah. We’ve headed for the eyes but have turned suddenly and sharply. It’s the ears for me. Cripes. It’s so noisy in here and were traveling very fast. Suddenly we’re through the ear canal, past the ear drum, only just, and into the …… well, quite where exactly I’m not too sure. It’s vast in here though, endless as far as I can see. It’s like a parallel universe, right here inside your head!

My own eyes are adjusted now and I can see that actually it’s even more vast than I first thought. Generally speaking, its seems like a twilight, but I can make out that there are areas of light and darkness too. It’s noisy also. I notice that I’m floating, like I’m suspended, but I’m able to breathe ok. Cool, I can move around as well – I just think about moving and well I just sort of move. It strikes me that it’s not unlike looking up into a star lit night. I notice brilliant flashes all round; I guess this must be the neurons firing like I’ve read about. It’s a bit like watching lightning in a dark stormy sky or watching shooting stars blaze a trail across the night sky. It feels good to be here. Familiar somehow.

I decide to float in further. It is truly vast in here. And busy too. There seems to be millions of roads criss-crossing up and down and left and right. Bright lights dash around them like a crazy motorway rush hour. As each one sweeps past I catch a glimpse of a sound or picture and sometimes a feeling shivers over me. Coffee. I can smell coffee. I follow it. I notice that I’ve arrived at what seems like a giant library. Only its not books on the shelves – but odd sort of objects. A sort of whirring sound and picture type of a thing; and it’s sparking with many other objects around it. I notice a strange little man. He’s very preoccupied and moving things around dodging the sparks as he goes. “What are you doing I ask?”, without a blink he answers, “Grouping, dear boy, grouping. Easy reference don’t you know”. “What?”, I asked. “Grouping the things he most thinks about. It makes it easier for us to retrieve them. None of us are getting any younger in the department you know”. “We can’t be dashing about all over the place trying to figure what goes with what”. “We bring them together, and bring them close to the front”.

 “Ahhh, so he thinks and you do, a think-a-do process”. I say. “Yes”, he replys but in tone and with a hesitation that implies that he’s just realised who or what he’s been speaking with. “Now you know very well that voices are over there. Now off you go and I’ll group you if I need to”. “And besides I am now officially on my coffee beak”. At this he heads off and opens a door where I can just see many other little men, sitting around and chatting over a coffee. I decide to investigate but am stopped in my tracks by another little man, only he seems bigger and miserable with it.

I follow him instead. He arrives at a part of the ‘library’ and switches on the sign, “Bad Experience” it states. He now stands with his arms folded and waits. Before long, in fact almost immediately, another little man comes running up. The little man stops, he blurts out, “He wonders if he might, well, is it possible, I mean do you, er, can he draw?. The arms unfold and an orchestra of Bad Experience swells up. I can see a School with a teacher ripping up his work, children are laughing. I can see an old woman she’s saying unhelpfully to a young man, ‘no one in our family can draw’. The air crackles with sparking negative things. “He CANNOT draw”. At this the little timid man spins on his heels and flees back from where he came. He dashes past me and I can hear him whining and muttering away to himself. “I knew before I asked.” “No Good”. “Bla, bla”. As he passes I notice he is followed by a swirling cloud of something gloomy, it makes me feel queer as it passes.

A second later, somewhere in the distance I hear a faint and sheepish “No I Can’t”. It sounds like its coming from outside. Immediately, the vastness slumps forward and me with it. “What was that?”, “Oh. That’ll be the cloud of negativity sweeping over him. I guess he’s slumped his head a bit as he answered”.

 “Look” he adds and points around the huge cavern. I notice an overwhelming feeling of inertia, of sniping sounds and negative voices. It's not a good feeling.

“What happened I asked?”. At this point I realise the jolt of the head has flung me deep into another part of the vastness. I notice a brightness and two men who have a striking resemblance to Laurel and Hardy. “Well”, says the larger one and sounding just like Ollie, “That’s another fine mess he’s gotten himself into. Hmmmmm.” “He knows better than to go asking that question using him”. “Who’s him?”, I ask. “Why he’s the one with the sneary snippy little voice”, “That’s right Stanley ”, says Ollie.

“Why if he ever dared to come over here, I’d box his snippy little ears”, “Yeah” added Stan. “Look” I say, “He’s coming back again. Grab him”.

Ollie stretches out a long arm and tugs him over. “Now look here my good fellow. You know better than to do that. You know it’ll only make him feel bad. Now you go and tell him to put his shoulders back, raise up his head and you tell him, positively mind, “That he can do anything he wants to provided he puts his mind to it”. “Isn’t that so Stanley ”, “It sure is”. agrees Stan.

The little man thinks for a moment, looks at Stan and Ollie and looks back towards where Bad Experience waits, arms crossed and foot tapping. “You’re right. Thanks”. At this he takes off at full pelt and flings himself at that part of experience which is where “NO You Can’t” has been stored and added to for many years. Things fly all over the place. The little timid man has found his voice and shouts, “OH YES I CAN”. Sparks light the darkness and things get rearranged. In an instant they are re-labeled. Bad Experience has been changed; for the better.

All the other ‘No’ things are looking on excitedly, “Come on boys”, this is our moment, we’re going over the top". Try as he might, the miserable librarian who guards this part of experience, couldn’t contain the excitement of the positive things and he knew that things would be different after this. But that was o.k, his job wasn’t to judge. He just responded to whatever was thought about and fetched the associated experience. He'd gladly shut this part down and go and work in another more positive part; holidays or the like. Little did he know it then but that's exactly what would happen.

“Well done”, I said to Ollie and Stan. “Why thank you”. “By the way, what exactly are you two doing here”. “Well”, said Stan. “We’ve got a lot of experience of making him laugh and enjoy himself.” “Exactly”, said Ollie, “And we can also show that with friendship and a positive attitude you can overcome anything”. They smiled at each other in that special way. “But he never thinks about us anymore”, “So we just wait in the background and hope that one day that he'll think about us again”. “Yeah. Sometimes we get a re-run on T.V over Christmas”, added Stan with a broad smile and an ever optimistic nod.

I smiled and nodded too, and left. On the way back I thought about what I’d seen and learned here.

Well, there’s something to learn about the more you think of something the more you’ll think of it and also to be careful how you ask yourself for things. Also, that probably, deep in the darkest recesses of the vastness, are nice things you’ve forgotten about and they’re just waiting to come forward. All you need to do is think about them. Often.

When I eventually got back, he asked me where I’d gone. “You asked me if I could draw and then you sort of went into a trance”. “Well can you?”, I asked. “Of course I can”. He boomed. “I can do anything if I put my mind to it”.

“I’ve got some classic Laurel and Hardy – do you want to watch. They make me howl?”. I smiled and nodded.