Finding the Quantified MetaSelf
Lived Inquiry exploration of the discovery of a powerful Transformative Technology Ecology of Practice
The following is a lived inquiry exploration of: How I Accidentally Discovered an Ecology of Practice Using Exponential Technologies. This new practice changed my life in profound and wondrous ways and gave me renewed hope for the transformative potential of emergent self-tracking technologies.
Here is the story of my journey of discovery and a summary of the amazing results.
The Journey
Due to a shortage of post-surgical rehab facility beds during the Covid pandemic, I was sent home early from the hospital after a heart procedure and had to take charge of my own rehab and healing. Though I did not have any in-home support I was able to get an Apple Watch with the capacity to monitor my heart and to automatically call emergency services if something happened to me. The watch, in tandem with my iPhone, also helped me keep track of my medications, my nutrition, my physical activity, my sleep patterns and all my vitals. Because I had limited mobility for extended periods of time I used smart home technologies to adjust the light and room temperature remotely. I also used smart light bulbs and smart speakers to create healing atmospheres with light and sound. When it looked like there were possible environmental influences on my condition I started to track air quality and found correlations between fluctuations in the environment and fluctuations in my vitals and symptoms.
Gradually I began using more smart health, smart home and smart habitat technologies to monitor my condition and environment and help support my healing and hopefully accelerate my recovery.
These smart technologies not only supported my healing and recovery but led me to the discovery of so much more.
Because I had so much to do without the energy to do it, I had to double up on my tasks. So I did my stress reduction mindfulness and perception practices while I took my vitals and did my physical therapy exercises. During this process I found myself experiencing states of consciousness I had not experienced before. That alone was quite noteworthy given that I have experienced a wide range of different states of consciousness over my many years of practice with multiple spiritual traditions, all types of drugs, including psychedelics, and extended psychological research into altered states of consciousness.1
The Results
When I combined these emergent technologies with my regular mindfulness and perception practices, I discovered a whole new reality field being created:
Combining them appeared to be able to induce profound transformative experiences that included an experience of being deeply present in a body while being equally present to my own observer-witness self that is not of the body.
These combined technologies and practices also appeared to have a powerful potential to induce and nurture an Embodied Interconnectedness and Ecosystem Awareness, or a deep visceral sense of the interconnections between all dimensions of our individual and collective interior and exterior realities.
In addition, these emergent technologies appear to have profound regenerative potential when used consciously in this way.
On a more concrete level this combination of awareness practices with the 24/7 long-term data recorded and analyzed for multiple dimensions of my being and the world around me in my daily life appears to have given me an exponentially greater capacity to change my behaviors…I found myself able to change behaviors in a matter of a few weeks or months that I have unsuccessfully struggled to change for years.
For example, I have had trouble going to sleep for a long time. Having the capacity to track when my melatonin levels peak and feeling that peak in my body gave me a deeper capacity to change my behavior and sync up with that physiological rhythm.2
I have also been able to gain some degree of control over my own heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), blood pressure and blood oxygen levels and the ability to sense the balance or disparity between my sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
After months of experimentation I discovered that all these vitals could be controlled using specific breathing and awareness practices.
This discovery of being able to control all these vitals was significantly helped along by my use of the Breathe component of the Apple Watch Mindfulness app. Using the setting of one minute duration at 4 breaths per minute, I discovered I can lower my heart rate and blood pressure, increase my HRV and blood oxygen levels while also balancing my nervous system. The key I discovered was to focus on breathing deeply in and out of my lungs, following the rhythm of the metamedia component of the app, which is a visual and haptic rhythm created by an animated opening and closing digital flower pattern.
The Ecology of Practice
Over time these transformative technology practices and experiences evolved into a deep ecology of practice.
This ecology of practice and resulting transformative states of being and becoming would become what my dear friend and colleague Jonathan Steigman has aptly dubbed “The Quantified MetaSelf.”
Essentially, I ended up experiencing these new forms of healing and new states of beingness by combining lived inquiry, mindfulness and perception practices with exponential technology-based Quantified Self3 and Quantified Self-in-Place4 self-tracking5 practices.
This combination of material and perceptual realities appears to help us more deeply embody our Observer Self and expand our awareness into previously unseen dimensions of our Collective Self. These four dimensions of Self awareness make up what we are calling the Quantified MetaSelf:
Our physical self quantified with technology
Our Quantified “physical” Self interconnecting with our physical environment,
Our Observer Self bearing witness to both these dimensions at once
Our Collective Self expanding this awareness to our connections with other and all sentience beingness
Below is a brief overview of each dimension of the Quantified MetaSelf Ecology of Practice and the data domains in each one that I explored and worked with.
Quantified Self Dimension
These are the data domains I explored and tracked within the Quantified Self dimension (above).
Quantified Self-in-Place Dimension
These are the data domains I explored and tracked within the Quantified Self-in-Place dimension (above).
Observer Self Dimension
These are the data domains of Observer (Witness) Self awareness that I was able to connect with and explore in relation to the Quantified Self and Quantified Self-in-Place dimensions of experience. These are also areas of practice that I combined with my self-tracking processes of the other dimensions and data domains.
Collective Self Dimension
These are the data domains of Collective Self awareness that I was able to connect with and explore in relation to the Quantified Self, Quantified Self-in-Place and Observer Self dimensions of experience (above). These are also areas of practice that I combined with my self-tracking processes of the other dimensions and data domains.
Sample Practice
Perceptual Awareness Flow Practice
A foundational perception practice I found extremely transformative is to consciously experiment with our perceptual flow of awareness as we take our vitals. I adapted this practice from the work of cognitive scientist John Vervaeke.
The goal of this practice is to observe our perceptual field as we shift our awareness between different forms of awareness while checking one of our vitals.
The following is a breakdown of these different forms of awareness using the examples of taking our blood pressure and heart rate.
Scaling Up/Down Awareness Flow between:
Scaling Down Awareness - a focused awareness on details in a mindfulness headspace. A kind of scaling down of our perceptual field.
i.e.: When taking our blood pressure we can focus our awareness on experiential details like the feeling of the blood pressure band tightening around our upper arm.
Scaling Up Awareness - a scaling up of our perceptual field, seeking the bigger picture and a contemplative headspace.
i.e.: As we take our blood pressure we can shift back and forth between the experiential details and a more wholistic and systemic awareness like how the blood pressure squeezing is affecting our whole body, sensing into a more gestalt awareness.
Looking Through/At Awareness Flow between:
Looking Through Awareness – the mediums we use to perceive self, other and world; when looking at an object of awareness through a pair of glasses, a camera or a computer screen these intermediaries can tend to become transparent in our awareness
i.e.: When checking a vital like our heart rate with a smart watch we can see a visualization of our heart rate and look through it to the internal sounds and sensations of our pulse which is being reflected on the screen.
Looking At Awareness – the objects of our awareness; looking at the glasses or camera or screen themselves and seeing them as being objects in our awareness
i.e.: When checking our heart rate we can shift back and fourth between the experiential looking through the visual representation (described above) and looking at the display as an object in our awareness in and of itself…basically shifting from watching the heart rate visualization to feeling into what is behind it and in our body.
This is just one of the practices that emerged from my journey into the transformative potentials of these emergent new forms of exponential technologies.
Technologies
The following are some of the main technologies I used in this research journey:
Tools
I chose the Apple technology ecosystem because at the time of the start of my journey it appeared to be the most advanced in terms of offering a strong focus on exponentially-based health and wellbeing features and applications across multiple domains with a deep orientation toward human thriving and transformation. The advanced integration of its products and services across the entire Apple ecosystem also affords the potential to comprehensively track the multiple dimensions of the Quantified MetaSelf.
I hope to share more about the tools, theories and practices I explored on this journey in future postings.
Special Thanks
My deep gratitude to research sponsor Kim Silverman and co-sponsor and co-researcher
, without whom none of this research journey would have been possible.And thank you for taking the time to explore this work. I hope it touched you in some way. I try to make as much of my work open source as possible. If you would like to support this work I would be deeply grateful for whatever form you feel called to offer…be it through likes, shares, comments, being a subscriber (free or paid) or through direct donation to help me continue this work.
NOTES
I studied states of consciousness with consciousness research pioneer Charles Tart as well as performing my own lived inquiry research for over 40 years, experimenting with a multitude of consciousness-altering practices and substances.
The app that I used to track my melatonin levels is called Rise Sleep. The app consistently predicted my energy and melatonin levels at precise times of the day and night, varying only a few minutes off the mark.
The Quantified Self is a movement of people who use technology to track and record data about their lives, with the goal of self-knowledge and improvement. This data can include anything from physical activity, physiological vitals and sleep patterns to mood and diet.
The Quantified Self-in-Place is a term used to describe the use of quantified self practices to study and improve the health and well-being of communities and places. This can involve tracking data about the environment, such as air quality and noise pollution and their relationship to individual health and well-being.
Self-Tracking is the practice of collecting and analyzing data about oneself and any and all dimensions of one’s life. This data can include anything within the Quantified Self and Quantified Self-in-Place domains and beyond. Self-tracking can be done using a variety of tools and devices, such as fitness trackers, wearable devices, and smart home devices.
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19904.51205