METAREALITY
REVIEW
PERCEPTUAL INTEGRATION:
The MECHANICS
of AWAKENING
by Gary Sherman
THERE IS A RARE BRILLIANCE IN THIS BOOK ABOUT DISCOVERING THE PROCESS OF
BECOMING SELF-AWARE. THE AUTHOR, A PSYCHOLOGIST FOR FOUR DECADES, HAD
AN UNUSUAL EXPERIENCE ONE MORNING WHILE MEDITATING.
H
e felt an unfamiliar expansion in his body that
he describes as “an open
field of awareness.” In
this state he had a sudden impulse to “speak.”
The first words out of his
mouth were about “perceptual integration,”
and the speaking went on for ten minutes. The
next day while sitting it resumed, and continued
for 52 days, and then stopped. What revealed
itself was a “body of knowledge large in scope
and deep in understanding.”
Fortunately for us, the author had the presence
of mind to record what came through him and
the result is this book, which is less about his
curious experience and much more of a “manual” for awakening. Sherman has distilled the
mechanics of awakening (self-awareness) into
three skills: 1) Take control of your attention;
2) Grounding yourself in the fact of your body;
and 3) Releasing yourself from the function of
the mind. He elegantly and clearly teases out
the inner and outer dimensions of perception,
27 | NEW CONSCIOUSNESS REVIEW