Why Your Feelings Aren’t Real
Using the Physics of a Rainbow to Master the Process of Thought
When you look up after a storm and see a rainbow arching across the sky, your senses tell you it is a “thing.” It appears to have a specific location and a defined shape. It looks so substantial that you might imagine walking toward it to find where it touches the earth. Yet, as you move closer, the rainbow remains elusive. No matter how far you walk, you can never reach it, touch it, or lean against it.
This is because a rainbow has no independent reality. It is not an object; it is a process.
The physicist Dr. David Bohm used this analogy to describe the nature of our internal world. A rainbow is the result of a specific relationship between sunlight, moisture, and the position of the observer. If you remove the rain or change the angle of the light, the rainbow vanishes. It does not “go” anywhere because it was never “there” as a standalone entity. It was a temporary phenomenon born from a set of conditions.
The Components of a Feeling
This insight provides a profound lens through which to view our emotional lives. We often treat our feelings—anxiety, joy, or sadness—as if they are solid, physical objects we “carry.” However, much like the rainbow, our feelings are a “Feeling Rainbow”—a vivid phenomenon that appears real but is actually a byproduct of two distinct ingredients:
The Raindrops (Physical Sensations): These are the raw, somatic experiences—a racing heart, a tightness in the chest, or a flush in the cheeks. On their own, these are just physical data points.
The Light (Thought): This is the mental narrative we project onto those sensations. When the “light” of our thoughts hits the “moisture” of our physical sensations, the Feeling Rainbow appears.
Without the active process of thinking—the labels we apply and the stories we tell—the feeling has no medium through which to exist. The feeling only maintains its shape as long as the “weather” of our thoughts remains the same.
The Angle of the Observer
A rainbow also depends entirely on where you are standing. Two people standing a mile apart see two different rainbows because their relationships to the light and water differ.
In your internal world, you are the observer. Your perspective—your past experiences, your ego, and your current mood—is the “angle” that creates the specific color and intensity of your feeling. When you realize that the feeling is a projection based on your current mental position, you stop seeing it as an objective truth. If you shift your perspective, the “rainbow” of that feeling must, by the laws of mental physics, change or disappear.
Developing Proprioception of Thought
Bohm argued that we can develop “proprioception of thought.” Just as your body has a sense of where your arms and legs are without you looking at them, you can develop a sense of your thoughts as they happen.
Instead of being swept up in the beauty or the terror of the Feeling Rainbow, you can begin to “feel” the thinking process as it creates the emotion. You recognize the “light” hitting the “rain” in real-time. When you see the process happening, you are no longer a victim of the result. You realize that while the sensation in your body is real, the meaning you’ve assigned to it—the rainbow—is an optical illusion of the mind.
Conclusion
The next time you are overwhelmed by a powerful emotion, remember that it is a temporary intersection of thought and sensation. It may look real, and it may color your entire horizon, but it does not stand on its own.
When you stop trying to “catch” the rainbow or fight it, and instead observe the process of your own thinking, the feeling loses its grip. Without the constant churn of thought to sustain it, the Feeling Rainbow eventually dissolves, leaving behind the clear sky of a quiet, grounded mind.