Scotoma ... Mind Sees What It Chooses To See

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Every now and then some lyrics or movie quotes get inextricably stuck in my head. What follows is that the quote becomes my status message on FB, Gtalk, Twitter and just everywhere. I just keep thinking about it as though a record player's needle got stuck. Apparently its some kind of a cognitive itch called earworms/ ohrwurms that cause songs etc to get stuck in out head. Having been a student of psychology I love reading up these bits and pieces of research and  then boring people with them.

So yeah, one of these quotes which got stuck in my head was "Scotoma ... Mind Sees What it Chooses to See" from Da Vinci Code. "Scotoma” comes from the Greek word skotos (to darken). The concept originated in the field of optics where it means blind spot which mind tries to fill up. Used in psychological terms, it means our ability to believe and disbelieve whatever we chose to.

I believe our mind shows us the world in the light of who we are, what we are made of and how we see ourselves. While at times it gives us hope where there is none, at other times it doesn't let us accept harsh realities of life. In the end its just scotoma ... our mind sees what it wants to see ...