The Wild Aura

Exploring Human Perception Through the Power of Play

Two workshops, one curious experiment, and what I’m learning about the extraordinary relationship between our brains, our bodies, and the way we experience the world.

There’s something I’ve been thinking about lately: What if we’re so focused on getting things right that we sometimes overlook what’s actually happening?

It’s a question that followed me home from Wimberley, Texas, where Nikki Williams and I recently facilitated our second three-day Human Resonance Mechanics workshop. Over the course of the weekend, we explored the science and practice of human perception through a series of hands-on exercises designed to help participants become more aware of their bodies and the world around them.

One particular exercise has stayed with me, not necessarily because of what we discovered, but because of how differently people responded when we changed the way we approached it.

During our first workshop in Pennsylvania, I introduced an activity I’d developed to explore whether participants could distinguish between freshly cut biological ivy and visually similar artificial ivy without seeing or touching either material. We recorded 100 classifications, with an overall accuracy of 45%. When I facilitated the exercise again in Texas, nine participants completed 90 classifications, with our workshop records showing 60 correct responses, or 66.7% accuracy.

That’s an observed increase of 21.7 percentage points.

Now, I want to be careful about what those numbers actually mean. These were informal educational exercises, not controlled scientific experiments, and several things changed between the two workshops. We can’t conclude that participants were detecting some previously unknown biological signal, or that any one change caused the difference in results.

But what made the experience so interesting to me wasn’t simply the numbers. It was the shift in how we approached the activity. In Texas, we removed some of the structure, spent more time exploring sensory awareness, and created an atmosphere where nobody felt particularly concerned about getting the right answer.

We made it playful.

And that got me thinking about something much bigger than ivy leaves.

Your Brain Is an Incredible Pattern Organizer

One of the things I love most about studying human physiology is realizing just how much our bodies are doing without us consciously directing them. Every moment, your nervous system is receiving information, monitoring changes, and helping your brain make sense of what’s happening both inside and around you.

Your brain is an extraordinary pattern organizer. It constantly compares incoming sensory information with previous experiences, looking for similarities, differences, and clues about what might happen next.

Neuroscientists study this process through concepts such as predictive processing, which describes how the brain uses prior experiences and expectations to help interpret new information. Rather than simply waiting for sensory signals and responding to them, the brain is continuously making predictions and adjusting those predictions as new information becomes available.

Think about walking into your house and immediately noticing that something feels different. You might not recognize what changed at first, but eventually you realize someone moved a piece of furniture. Your brain had developed an expectation of what that room should look like, and something no longer matched.

Or consider how easily you can recognize the sound of someone familiar walking down the hallway. You’ve heard those footsteps enough times that your brain has learned to identify the pattern, often before you consciously think about it.

These are ordinary experiences, but the physiology behind them is remarkable.

What’s equally fascinating is that our brains don’t simply receive information; they interpret it. And interpretation is influenced by memory, expectation, attention, and context. Sometimes those interpretations are accurate, and sometimes they aren’t.

This distinction between experiencing something and understanding what it means has become an important part of what I teach during our workshops.

Understanding How We Sense the World Around Us

During Day Two of Human Resonance Mechanics, I guide participants through a series of exercises focused on exteroception, which is simply the nervous system’s ability to receive information from the external environment.

Sight, sound, smell, touch, and temperature are all examples of how we gather information about the world outside ourselves. Although we rarely stop to think about it, these sensory systems are constantly working together to help us navigate our surroundings.

To understand exteroception, it helps to introduce another concept called interoception. While exteroception relates to the outside world, interoception involves sensing and interpreting signals associated with the internal condition of our bodies. Your heartbeat, breathing, hunger, and sensations of internal discomfort are all examples.

Then there’s somatosensation, which includes our perception of touch, pressure, vibration, temperature, and body position.

These aren’t completely separate experiences. Our nervous system integrates information from multiple sources, creating the unified experience we recognize as being present in our bodies and interacting with the world.

Imagine stepping outside on a chilly morning. Your skin detects the cooler air, your nervous system processes the change, and your body may respond with goosebumps or muscle tension. At the same time, you consciously recognize that you’re cold. What feels like one simple experience involves several coordinated physiological processes.

During our workshops, I like to begin exploring these concepts through the hands. Our hands contain specialized sensory receptors that allow us to detect subtle differences in pressure, texture, vibration, and temperature. They’re incredibly sophisticated sensory tools, yet most of us rarely pay attention to what we’re experiencing through them unless we’re actively touching something.

When we intentionally direct our awareness toward our hands, however, we may begin noticing sensations that normally fade into the background. Participants often describe warmth, tingling, pressure, pulsing, or subtle changes in sensation when they bring their palms toward each other without touching.

I’ve experienced many of these sensations myself, and they’ve fascinated me for years.

What’s important to understand is that experiencing a sensation doesn’t automatically tell us what’s causing it. Changes in skin temperature, blood flow, muscle activity, sensory processing, and attention can all contribute to what we perceive. Research on somatosensory attention suggests that focusing on a particular part of the body can influence how sensory information is processed and brought into conscious awareness.

In other words, sometimes becoming more aware doesn’t mean we’re receiving entirely new information. It may mean we’re finally noticing something our nervous system was already processing.

There’s another fascinating area of neuroscience that builds on this idea: peripersonal space.

Peripersonal space refers to the space immediately surrounding our bodies, particularly the area where we can interact with nearby objects. Our brains maintain representations of this space by integrating information from different sensory systems, helping us anticipate and respond to things approaching our bodies.

Imagine someone suddenly reaching toward your face. You don’t need to wait until their hand makes contact before your body begins preparing to respond. Your brain is already processing information about the approaching movement.

Researchers have identified neural systems involved in representing this nearby space, and studies suggest that these representations can change through experience and tool use. It’s a remarkable example of how adaptable our brains are.

This doesn’t mean our physical nerves extend beyond our skin, or that peripersonal space establishes an ability to detect invisible biological fields. It does, however, demonstrate that our perception of the world involves much more than the simple act of touching or looking at something.

And it provides an interesting scientific foundation for exploring how attention, expectation, and sensory interpretation influence our experiences.

Which brings me back to the ivy leaves.

The Ivy Leaf Exercise: From Pennsylvania to Texas

When Nikki and I began developing Human Resonance Mechanics, one of my priorities was creating opportunities for people to experience the concepts we were teaching rather than simply hearing about them.

I love learning the science behind something, but I also believe there’s enormous value in exploring an idea through direct experience. Reading about sensory processing is one thing. Sitting quietly, bringing awareness to your body, and noticing sensations you’ve never consciously paid attention to is something entirely different.

That curiosity inspired me to develop an exercise using two materials: freshly cut biological ivy and artificial ivy.

The question was straightforward. Could participants distinguish between the two without seeing or physically touching them?

In June 2026, during our first workshop in Landenberg, Pennsylvania, ten participants completed ten classifications each. We used a rotating platform with a divider to organize the presentation of the materials, and participants were blindfolded throughout the recorded exercise.

Out of 100 classifications, 45 were correct, giving us an overall accuracy of 45%. With two possible answers, the nominal chance benchmark was 50%, so the group did not demonstrate above-chance performance.

Still, I found the experience incredibly valuable because of the conversations it generated.

Participants described a variety of subjective sensations, including warmth, coolness, tingling, pressure, expansion, and contraction. Some felt they could distinguish between the materials, while others had difficulty deciding what their sensations meant.

One of the questions that emerged was whether noticing a sensation and correctly interpreting it might be two different skills.

Think about the physical sensation of butterflies in your stomach. Depending on the situation, you might interpret that feeling as excitement, anxiety, anticipation, or nervousness. The bodily experience may be similar, but the meaning you assign to it changes with the context.

Our brains are constantly taking sensory information and attempting to explain it. Sometimes we make accurate associations, and sometimes our expectations lead us in the wrong direction.

I began wondering whether this distinction between detection and interpretation was something worth exploring more intentionally.

When we arrived in Wimberley, Texas, for our second workshop in October, I decided to approach the exercise differently.

This time, we removed the rotating platform and divider altogether. We simplified the presentation and spent more time allowing participants to familiarize themselves with their subjective sensory experiences beforehand.

Throughout the day, I guided attendees through exercises involving coins, crystals, and partner-based sensory exploration. Rather than telling people what they should feel, I encouraged them to notice what they actually experienced. We explored different sensations, discussed how people interpreted them, and allowed room for curiosity without placing much emphasis on performance.

By the time we reached the ivy exercise, it felt like a natural continuation of everything we’d been exploring.

There wasn’t a dramatic buildup or a sense that everyone was about to take an important test. Participants were simply invited to continue noticing, exploring, and making observations.

We recorded nine participants completing ten classifications each, giving us 90 total attempts. According to our workshop records, 60 classifications were correct, resulting in an overall reported accuracy of 66.7%.

One participant recorded a perfect score of 10 out of 10, while another recorded just 2 out of 10. That variation was especially interesting because it raised questions about how differently people might experience and interpret subjective sensations.

The 10/10 result is noteworthy, although it represents only ten classifications and would need to be replicated under stronger experimental controls. The original notation for this participant also requires confirmation against the target sequence before the score can be treated as independently verified.

Across the group, the recorded accuracy increased from 45% in Pennsylvania to 66.7% in Texas, a difference of 21.7 percentage points.

Here’s how the two exercises compared:

Because we changed a few aspects of the exercise and worked with different groups of participants, we can’t fully determine what produced that difference. Conventional sensory cues, including subtle differences in how partners presented the materials, also weren’t independently eliminated.

The results are observations, not proof of a particular perceptual ability.

Nevertheless, the experience left me with some interesting questions, especially about how attention and expectations influence the way we engage with unfamiliar experiences.

One observation that stood out involved a participant whose recorded accuracy was only two out of ten. When reviewing the classifications, I noticed that eight of the ten responses were opposite to the actual targets. If every classification had been reversed, eight would have matched.

We’d noticed a somewhat similar pattern during our first workshop, and it brought me back to the distinction between sensation and interpretation.

Could someone develop a consistent association between a particular sensation and a material, only to discover that their interpretation was reversed?

It’s an interesting possibility, but not something our records can establish. We didn’t systematically document the sensations associated with each response, and patterns like this can also occur through chance or response preferences.

Still, the broader question has stayed with me: How often do we experience something in our bodies and immediately assume we understand what it means?

What Play Has to Do With Perception

Of all the differences between our two workshops, the one I keep returning to is the shift in atmosphere.

In Pennsylvania, the exercise was more structured and ridged. In Texas, we gave participants more room to explore, become familiar with their sensations, and approach the activity without feeling especially concerned about the outcome.

I can’t say that play caused the difference in our results, but the experience encouraged me to think more deeply about the relationship between curiosity, attention, and learning.

There’s a growing body of research examining how curiosity influences motivation, exploration, and the way we acquire information. When we’re curious, we’re motivated to investigate uncertainty and seek out experiences that help us understand something better. Play can create opportunities to experiment, test possibilities, and learn without every action being tied to an immediate reward.

Of course, the relationship between pressure and performance is complicated. Some situations benefit from structure, focus, and clearly defined goals. Play isn’t a magical solution that automatically improves our abilities.

But I do think there’s something worth considering about the difference between approaching an experience with curiosity and approaching it with the fear of getting something wrong.

Think about how differently these two questions feel: What if I fail? and I wonder what will happen?

The first directs our attention toward an outcome we’re worried about. The second invites us to explore.

And while both can motivate behavior, they create very different relationships with uncertainty.

I started thinking about how often we carry that same performance pressure into everyday life. We want to make the right decisions, follow the right routines, meditate correctly, heal quickly, and constantly feel as though we’re moving in the right direction.

Even the things we do to support our well-being can become another responsibility.

I’ve experienced that myself. It’s easy to become so focused on where we’re trying to go that we stop paying attention to what’s happening along the way.

And sometimes, when we loosen our expectations, we begin noticing things we hadn’t considered before.

Not because we’ve suddenly unlocked some extraordinary ability, but because we’ve created room to observe, question, and learn.

There’s something wonderfully freeing about that.

Bringing Curiosity Into Everyday Life

One of the things I hope people take away from our workshops is that sensory awareness isn’t limited to a particular exercise or environment. We can practice becoming more observant in the middle of ordinary life.

You might notice how your breathing changes during a difficult conversation, how your shoulders tighten when you’re rushing, or how your stomach responds when you’re anticipating something important.

These are all opportunities to become more familiar with the relationship between your body, your emotions, and your interpretation of what’s happening.

The practice doesn’t need to be complicated.

Find a quiet moment, sit comfortably, and bring your attention to your hands. Notice their temperature, any pressure where they rest, or subtle sensations in your fingertips. Then slowly bring your palms toward each other without touching and observe whether your experience changes.

You might notice warmth, tingling, or pressure. You might not notice anything unusual at all. There’s no particular sensation you’re supposed to create.

Instead of immediately trying to explain what you’re feeling, simply observe it.

When you’re finished, ask yourself what you actually experienced, what meaning you instinctively assigned to it, and whether another explanation might be possible.

This is a simple way to practice separating observation from interpretation.

And it’s something we can carry into so many areas of our lives.

When an interaction leaves us feeling unsettled, we can pause before deciding what the other person meant. When an unfamiliar experience challenges our expectations, we can become curious instead of immediately labeling it good or bad. When something doesn’t work out the way we’d hoped, we can ask what the experience might teach us rather than treating it as a failure.

To me, that’s where this work becomes especially meaningful.

It’s not simply about noticing sensations in our hands or attempting to distinguish between two ivy leaves. It’s about developing a more curious relationship with ourselves and the world around us.

Looking back at these two workshops, I don’t see our first exercise as a failure or our second as proof of success. I see two experiences that gave us different information and helped us ask better questions.

The first encouraged us to think more carefully about the relationship between sensory experience and interpretation. The second introduced questions about preparation, attention, expectations, and the atmosphere in which people learn.

Neither exercise established that humans can reliably distinguish biological from synthetic materials without conventional sensory information. And we still have plenty to explore before making conclusions about what influenced the recorded results.

If we continue developing this activity, I’d love to incorporate more standardized target presentation, stronger controls for ordinary sensory cues, and better documentation of what participants experience before making their classifications.

Because I don’t think curiosity and scientific rigor need to compete. In fact, I think they belong together.

We can be fascinated by unusual experiences without immediately deciding what caused them. We can appreciate the intelligence of the human body while remaining open to learning where our interpretations might be incomplete. And we can take our questions seriously without taking ourselves quite so seriously in the process.

More than anything, these workshops reminded me how much I love creating opportunities for people to explore without feeling pressured to prove something.

To be curious. To experiment. To make observations. To get things wrong and learn something anyway.

I think there’s a lot of freedom in remembering that we don’t need to have every answer before we begin exploring.

Sometimes the most meaningful discoveries happen when we’re willing to approach something differently, release our expectations, and see what unfolds.

And maybe that’s something worth practicing beyond the workshop, too.

Because life doesn’t always need to be another test we’re trying to pass.

Sometimes, it can simply be something we’re here to experience.

With infinite love and curiosity,

Anna Zahn
The Wild Aura

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A Note About the Workshop Exercises

The activities described in this article were conducted as part of educational Human Resonance Mechanics workshops in Pennsylvania and Texas in 2026. They were designed to encourage hands-on exploration of sensory awareness, perception, and interpretation, rather than to serve as formal scientific studies.

During these exercises, participants completed a series of blinded classifications involving biological and artificial plant materials. The numerical results presented here are aggregate observations from those workshop activities. No participant names or individual performance records are disclosed.

These exercises were not conducted under a standardized research protocol, and the findings have not been independently validated. Differences in participants, procedures, environmental conditions, and potential sensory cues mean the results cannot establish an ability to detect biological materials without conventional sensory information or demonstrate that a particular teaching approach improved performance.

I share these observations as part of my personal experience developing and facilitating educational exercises, with the intention of encouraging curiosity, thoughtful discussion, and continued learning about human perception.

Further Reading

For anyone interested in exploring the neuroscience behind these concepts:

• Predictive processing: How the brain uses previous experiences and incoming sensory information to interpret the world.
• Interoception: The nervous system’s representation and interpretation of the body’s internal condition.
• Exteroception and somatosensation: How we perceive information from the external environment, including touch, temperature, pressure, and movement.
• Peripersonal space: How the brain represents the space immediately surrounding the body.
• Curiosity and play: How exploration, uncertainty, and intrinsic motivation contribute to learning.

Selected academic references include Andrea Serino’s Peripersonal Space as a Multisensory Interface Between the Individual and the Environment (2019) and Chu and Schulz’s Play, Curiosity, and Cognition (2020).