Colonized Perception

Colonized Perception

Subtitle: when the first-person lens gets trained by feeds, fear, and belonging — and the Eu-Bioma loses its voice

1) Sensory opening

Have you noticed how your body can be fine—breathing, walking, eating—while your perception is somewhere else? Your eyes move, your thumbs scroll, your mouth answers, and yet there’s a quiet feeling: “I’m not here.”
That gap is not “mystical.” It’s a governance problem: who is driving the first person right now—Eu-Bioma or Eu-Avatar?

Eu-Bioma speaks in signals (breath, thirst, tension, fatigue, warmth, hunger).
Eu-Avatar speaks in narratives (status, urgency, comparison, performance, fear of missing out).
Colonized perception is what happens when the narrative becomes more real than the signal.

2) Thesis (direct)

• Thesis 1: Your perception is trainable. Whatever repeatedly captures attention becomes “the world.”

• Thesis 2: Digital environments often reward Eu-Avatar behaviors (speed, reaction, identity display, tribal certainty) and punish Eu-Bioma behaviors (slowness, sensing, ambiguity, rest).

• Thesis 3: Colonization is measurable: it shows up as compulsive checking, reduced metacognitive scrutiny, and a shift from body-signal to metric-signal as the primary reference.

3) Three main sections (with concrete examples)

Section A — How perception gets colonized (without violence)

Colonization rarely arrives as a direct command. It arrives as environment:

• Rhythm: constant interruptions, infinite scroll, “just one more.”

• Reward: likes, notifications, outrage spikes, fast certainty.

• Belonging pressure: “If I don’t react, I disappear.”
  Over time, your brain learns a new default: react first, sense later (often never).

A practical sign: you start trusting the external dashboard (metrics, comments, comparisons) more than the internal dashboard (breath, hunger, fatigue, tension).

Section B — The Eu-Avatar takeover pattern

Eu-Avatar becomes “government” through three doors:

1. Chronic haste (no time for Fruition + Metacognition)

2. Comparison-as-identity (position replaces presence)

3. Micro-rewards (notification = “life is happening”)

Result: Eu-Bioma becomes a support system—a battery. Sleep drops, thirst is ignored, the jaw locks, the shoulders rise, digestion tightens. You still “perform,” but you don’t inhabit.

Section C — Scissors–Rock–Paper: the mechanics of capture

Use this as a clean model:

• Rock (reaction): click, argue, flee, repeat, consume.

• Scissors (story): justify it: “I have to,” “it’s normal,” “I’m like this,” “no time.”

• Paper (Fruition + Metacognition): would reintegrate Eu-Bioma, but gets blocked by haste and noise.

Eu-Avatar prefers Rock + Scissors because they manufacture identity + action.
Eu-Avatar fears Paper because Paper asks the dangerous question:
“Is this sustaining my Eu-Bioma, or draining it?”

That question decolonizes.

4) Teen researcher question (testable)

Question: What colonizes my perception faster: notifications, comparison content, or outrage content?
Simple metric: which one changes my breath/tension and makes me “auto-check” within minutes?

5) Safe mini-protocol (7 days): “Signal vs Narrative”

Goal: detect takeover early (before it becomes crisis).
Once a day (2 minutes):

• Bioma signal (30s): breath short/long? jaw tight/soft? eyes narrow/open?

• Avatar signal (30s): urgency? comparison? fear of missing out?

• One sovereignty act (60s): pick one

• 5 long exhales

• drink water slowly

• 60-second walk

• look far away for 20 seconds

• Record (10s): “Today the government stayed longer with: Eu-Bioma / Eu-Avatar.”

After 7 days you’ll see your pattern: which trigger steals the first person most reliably.

6) APUS (Body–Territory) reset in 3–5 minutes

When you notice colonization in real time:

• Demote the character (10s): “Avatar is a tool, not a king.”

• Open the biome (90s): release jaw 10%, lower shoulders 10%, 6 long exhales.

• Open the territory (60s): feel feet + widen gaze (horizon/window).

• One reintegration line (10s): “I return to the Eu-Bioma before I return to the world.”

7) Closing + CTA

Colonized perception is not “weakness.” It’s training by a system that rewards speed, certainty, and display.
Your freedom starts when Eu-Bioma becomes the reference again.

CTA (1 minute): write and keep:

• “My Eu-Avatar hijacks me when ______.”

• “My Eu-Bioma regains voice when ______.”

Post-2020 publications supporting this blog (no links)

1. Edelson, S. M., Reyna, V. F., Singh, A., & Roue, J. E. (2024). The Psychology of Misinformation Across the Lifespan. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 6, 425–454.
   Supports: shows how misinformation susceptibility relates to metacognitive scrutiny and social goals—exactly where “colonization” exploits attention and belonging.

2. Lorenz-Spreen, P., Oswald, L., Lewandowsky, S., & Hertwig, R. (2023). A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(1), 74–101.
   Supports: consolidates evidence that digital media can shift trust, polarization, and information consumption—macro-level “perception shaping.”

3. van der Linden, S. (2024). Countering misinformation through psychological inoculation. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 69, 1–58.
   Supports: validates “prebunking/inoculation” as a way to restore discernment—practical decolonization via metacognitive tools.

4. Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2021). The Psychology of Fake News. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(5), 388–402.
   Supports: explains why fast thinking + low reflection increases belief/sharing—matches the Rock/Scissors takeover pathway.

5. Maza, M. T., Fox, K. A., Kwon, S.-J., Flannery, J. E., Lindquist, K. A., et al. (2023). Association of habitual checking behaviors on social media with longitudinal functional brain development. JAMA Pediatrics, 177(2), 160–167.
   Supports: links habitual checking in early adolescence to changes in neural sensitivity to social feedback—mechanistic support for “auto-check” colonization.