The need for a Self-Awareness Maturity Model

Humans and a very few animals are understood to be self-aware. To be self-aware means to be aware of oneself, including one's traits, feelings, and behaviors. A simple test of self-awareness goes like this. Without your knowing it, a mark is made on your forehead . You are then taken in front of a mirror so you can see your reflection. If your hand reaches up to your forehead to rub the mark off, congratulations, you are self-aware. Well, that's at least how it's done for children and apes.

It is obvious that all of us are self aware according to this very basic definition. We recognize ourselves as different from our environment. We don't confuse the reflection to be someone else. But is that it? Are we either only self-aware, or not. Aren't their degrees of awareness? Aren't some of us more self-aware than others? Isn't an increased awareness of the universe, and our relationship within it, a part of our self-awareness?

Fortunately or unfortunately, the reflection of our self in a mirror is not the only reflection we will experience in our life. Sometimes the mirror will not be so flat and polished. And sometimes it won't be clear if the mark on our forehead in the reflection is really a part of us or not. Neither will there be any dearth of mirrors that try to describe us. We will see ourselves reflected in the opinions of our family, friends, teachers and then in the performance reviews by our managers. We will need to constantly reconcile our own self images with these other versions of us.

As we see reflection of our selves, from all these perspectives, I believe we become more self aware. If we honestly look at these reflections and reflect upon them, we will understand ourselves better. If we understand ourselves better, recognize our positives and our negative aspects, it can only help us be happier and achieve our true potential. If this is so, do we not need a maturity model whereby we can measure our level of self-awareness? I think we do and here is a rough sketch of what it may look like.

Level 1: The self is all that matters.
Our early childhood years are spent in this state. We live to serve the self. Our physical and emotional needs are so overbearing we barely can think beyond them. Anticipation is absent and we see others only in terms of what they can provide for us.

Level 2: The self can control the environment to get what it needs.
First, our unconscious realizes that there is some cause and effect between us and the environment. For example we get attention when we cry. Lessons that are hard not to abuse. But very soon we become more conscious of it and are able use these lessons in a very deliberate way.

Level 3: There are others identical to myself.
I think this level arrives once we begin to feel comfortable with our selves and at the same time our capacity for complex thought improves. We are now able to see others. We realize that they get sad, angry and joyful just like us. We are fascinated by these others, like we are when we watch a movie. But we only recognize what we have experienced and relive that memory of our self.

Level 4: The others are connected to my self.
This is the the most important level of self awareness that many of us will never even reach. First, we understand that the self is not isolated. When we are sad we see others sad with us. When we are happy, the joy radiates out. Then, we cultivate relationships with people we share a bond with. And finally, we realize that we can also make our selves happy by making others happy. A much more sustainable and scalable model!

Level 5: The self has a center but no boundary
You can always recognize the 'level five self-aware' by their smiles and their attitude. It is easy to be joyful and happy when you reach level five. Anything is doable. Everybody is important. "I have a dream...", "life, liberty and the Pursuit of happiness", "Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" - these are words of the level-fives. The self begins with them but has no limit. They feel the pain of humanity and celebrate the joys of a nation.

Most will not see level 5 self awareness, but sadly many will not even see level 3. Many will spend only a few moments of their lives in level 4, and most of it in the lower three. Is there a way to recognize these levels and strive to achieve higher levels of self awareness. I think so. I also think the potential of any person multiplies exponentially as they realize the higher levels. I think it is important for individuals to achieve their true potential.

I also think it is imperative for the majority of a society to be level 3. That as a people we look beyond seeing others as means to an end and are conscious of the pains of desires of others.

Do we ever stop dreaming?

Is it possible that we dream all the time, even when we are awake? That we don’t just dream in our sleep, but that we dream as a natural part of being alive. That we become aware of our dreams only in that state between sleeping and awake? If this is true, dreams do not punctuate our sleep, but it is sleep that interrupts our dreams.

Is it really possible that we are dreaming all the time? Well, let's look at why there could be a dream that runs in our mind all the time. It is generally accepted that the conventional notion of the brain as a file cabinet is flawed. The brain is alive and constantly processing the barrage of information we are bombarded with everyday. Our conscious mind cannot really make sense of all the information it receives, as there's simply too much. So how much of this information are we really conscious of? It is generally accepted that consciousness is a very tiny sliver of the whole. So is it possible that our dreams are a filter to the world of our senses. Do our dreams allow us to reduce what we see, hear and touch, to an amount we can handle? And is this the same process we get a peek into, when we 'dream'?

So if there is such a process, let's call it the 'dream process' - what is it made of? It seems the only logical answer is: our sensory experiences. It's the overload of our sensory world, especially vision, that provides the content for this process. The dream process is not different from the conscious process, it’s just the submerged part. It makes sense of the world by making us focus on what will keep us alive. The part we ignore continues to churn inside. It keeps looking to extract anything of relevance, that we may have missed in what we ignored. This churning is really a process of twisting, turning and mixing up of these experiences in every way possible. It is an attempt to see if they make sense or become relevant if looked at differently and in different contexts.

There seem to be three essential qualities to this dream process. One, that it is unconscious. The conscious mind is generally unaware of it. This way we can live without being constantly distracted by it. Two, that it does not form memories. When you remember a dream, you extract a strand from your dream process and make it conscious. In doing so it becomes a memory, one that you can now recall. Three, it does not have any beginning or an end. A dream is really a randomly extracted part of the continuous dream process, we just go in and out of it. While it goes on and on in the background.

I find this understanding of my dream both comforting and disappointing. It makes sense of my dream experience and I am less worried about the question “why did I dream that?”. At the same time it makes me wonder if I will ever know what else I am dreaming, especially while I am awake.