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Quote by James David Lewis-Williams

“Primary consciousness is a state of being aware of things in the world – of having mental images in the present.But it is not accompanied by any sense of a person with a past and future…”

Quote by James David Lewis-Williams

Book:The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

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The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

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James David Lewis-Williams

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“Primary consciousness is a kind of ‘remembered present’…”

Consciousness Upper Palaeolithic Art

Book:The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

Source: The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

“I believe it is reasonable to assume that higher-order consciousness developed neurologically in Africa before the second wave of emigration to the Middle East and Europe.”

Consciousness Upper Palaeolithic Art

Book:The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

Source: The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

“Improved memory made possible the long-term recollection of dreams and visions and the construction of those recollections into a spirit world.”

Consciousness Upper Palaeolithic Art

Book:The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

Source: The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

“Some researchers believe that dreaming is what happens when sensory input to the brain is greatly diminished: the brain then ‘freewheels’, synapses firing more or less at random, and the brain tries to make sense of the resultant stream of images.”

Consciousness Upper Palaeolithic Art

Book:The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

Source: The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

“Once human beings had developed higher-order consciousness, they had the ability to see mental images projected onto surfaces and to experience afterimages.”

Consciousness Upper Palaeolithic Art

Book:The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

Source: The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

“The first two-dimensional images were thus not two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional things in the material world, as researchers have always assumed. Rather, they were ‘fixed’ mental images.”

Consciousness Upper Palaeolithic Art

Book:The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

Source: The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

“For the makers, the paintings and engravings were visions, not representations of visions.”

Consciousness Upper Palaeolithic Art

Book:The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

Source: The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

“In Lascaux and other sites, hoofs are depicted to show their underside, or hoofprint.”

Consciousness Upper Palaeolithic Art

Book:The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

Source: The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

“Under certain social circumstances, which may have varied from time to time and place to place, certain people (shamans) saw a relationship between the small, three-dimensional, projected mental images that they experienced at the far end of the intensified spectrum and fragments of animals that lay around their hearths.”

Consciousness Upper Palaeolithic Art

Book:The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

Source: The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

“The portable animal statuettes were therefore far more than decorative trinkets: they were reified three-dimensional spirit animals with all their prophylactic and other powers.”

Consciousness Upper Palaeolithic Art

Book:The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art

Source: The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art