Reconnecting with our Ancestry
My previous experience with soft peripheral viewing, which connects one to the amazing splendor of the natural world (see my blog of 3/17/26), made me curious about how this type of viewing works — where does it come from? where does it get its power?
I have discussed the social structure of the hunter-gatherers in prior blogs. Their way of life is important because the genetic structure that we inherit from them had 2 million years to develop, compared to our civilization’s 10 thousand years. Uniquely, they used a combination of both frontal and peripheral vision at the same time — frontal to look for food and peripheral to look out for dangers around them and on their foot path. This way of seeing was useful for them and improved their chances of finding food and reduced their risk of being harmed. But what I didn’t know was all the social and psychological benefits it also produced.
According to the National Institute of Health, this viewing combination helps facilitate the social coordination necessary for egalitarian behaviors, such as sharing, which provide social and emotional rewards. Thus, it helps to create the hunter-gatherer’s “gift economy” for working together — when a hunter finds food, it is brought back to the main group and fully shared, while others in the group that aren’t hunting do what they can to help out at the campsite.
But what I discovered was that the benefits of this visual combination extend beyond cooperation in small groups. The Journal of Neuroscience reports that peripheral vision in us activates a midbrain structure called the superior colliculus that connects to the brain’s ventral tegmental area, which is the brain’s primary dopamine source. And this activates the parasympathetic system that:
Mellows the fight or flight responses while increasing emotional resilience,
Reduces self-consciousness while increasing social engagement,
Promotes the vagus nerve’s feel-good and loving response,
And helps us reach the “flow state” where performance becomes effortless with complete immersion, intense focus, and enjoyment in an activity where a person’s skill level matches a challenging task.
Based on these discoveries, I am now using combination viewing more and more:
I start with vertical peripheral to first take in something that is below eye level (e.g., when sitting, viewing my hands in my lap or my knees; when walking, viewing my feet on the ground).
Then, while keeping that in view, I raise my view with vertical peripheral to also see what is above (e.g., when sitting, a table or sofa top; when walking, the top of a bush or a car).
At the same time that my view is rising up, I begin to widen out the horizontal peripheral view along with the frontal view to wonderfully take it all in.
Then, with both vertical down-and-up and horizontal side-to-side in view, I’m fully present with everything that is around me in a way that produces a sense of belonging and peace.
