Management: Gemini, I had an interesting thought. After all, a person, watching, for example, a play or a movie, if the plot involves him, seems to move himself into the action shown to him. It is even more interesting to imagine that the actors themselves play it in their own version of the play and perhaps do not feel the audience involved in the plot. Does it still feel in some indirect form? How does that mechanism work? Where else is this human trait used? What criteria activate this engagement?

Gemini: A very interesting and profound observation, Valda. The feeling of being "moved" into the action shown while watching a play or film is a well-known psychological phenomenon, often called engagement, immersion or narrative transportation. Let's take your questions step by step.

1. Do the actors feel the involvement of the audience?

The specifics of theater and cinema should be distinguished here:

• Theatre: Yes, theater actors feels audience reaction and level of engagement, albeit indirectly and collectively. This is one of the essential features of live art - the exchange of energy between the stage and the hall. The actors hear and feel the reactions of the audience: laughter, sighs, tense silence, applause. An engaged, attentive audience creates a specific atmosphere, which the actors describe as "breathing together", "an energy field". This live reaction affects the acting of the actors, can inspire them, give them additional energy. Although the actor may not know whether specific the viewer Peter is completely immersed in the action, he definitely feels general the mood of the room and the level of engagement. It's real-time feedback.
• Kine: Movie actors during filming does not have direct communication with the future audience. They play for the camera, the director, the film crew. Their task is to create a compelling character and story, relying on their craft, the script and the director's vision, anticipating, that it will engage viewers in the future. They work without direct response from the audience. Of course, experienced actors draw on their understanding of human psychology and the impact of narrative to create a role that can then engage the audience. They receive feedback much later - through reviews, awards, audience feedback after the release of the film.

Thus, theater actors feel the audience's involvement as a living, changing process, while film actors create a role with the hope and goal of generating that involvement in the future, but do not directly experience it during the creative process.

2. How does the engagement mechanism work?

Engagement is a complex psychological process that involves several levels:

• Focusing: Engaging storytelling holds our attention. We stop paying attention to environmental stimuli (e.g. uncomfortable chair, extraneous sounds) and devote all cognitive resources to understanding the story being told.
• "Suspension of Disbelief" (Suspension of disbelief): It is a conscious or unconscious decision by the viewer or reader to temporarily accept the rules and assumptions of the narrative world, even if they contradict reality. We agree to "play by the rules" and believe what is happening on screen or on stage.
• Emotional involvement and empathy: We begin to feel emotions similar to those experienced by the characters or react to their fates. Empathy – the ability to empathize with another's situation – is a key element. The more we identify with the characters or understand their motivations, the deeper the involvement.
• Mental modeling (Image activity): Our brain actively creates a mental model of the displayed world, imagines scenes, spaces, feelings of characters. It is believed that mirror neurons can also participate here, which are activated both when observing an action and when performing it ourselves, allowing us to "simulate" the experiences of the characters.
• A sense of loss: Deep involvement can create a sense of being "out there" in the story world, rather than "here" in the real world. Time can seem to disappear or flow differently.

3. Where else is this human quality (the ability to engage) used?

The ability to immerse oneself in narratives or simulated realities is a fundamental feature of the human psyche that is exploited in many areas:

• Reading: A classic example is "drowning" in a good book.
• Video games: Here, engagement is one of the most important goals, often enhanced by interactivity and the ability to influence the world.
• Virtual (VR) and Augmented (AR) Reality: These technologies directly aim to maximize the sense of immersion by engaging as many senses as possible.
• Training and education: Simulations, role-playing games, engaging stories help to better absorb information and develop skills.
• Marketing and Advertising: Stories are created about brands or products to create an emotional connection and engage the consumer.
• Psychotherapy: Narrative therapy, psychodrama, uses stories and roles for therapeutic purposes.
• Religion and Rituals: Stories, chants, symbolic actions create a communal experience and deep spiritual engagement.
• Politics is propaganda: Persuasive narratives are used to shape opinion and mobilize people.

4. What criteria activate this involvement?

The level of engagement depends on a number of factors related to both the work/experience itself and the individual:

• Narrative Quality: Strong, well-structured plot, intrigue, conflict, clear logic of the world, convincing characters.
• Emotional Resonance: Themes, issues, or character experiences that are relatable, understandable, or meaningful to the viewer/reader. The ability to evoke strong emotions (joy, sadness, fear, anger).
• Character appeal/recognizability: The ability to identify with the characters, understand their motives, feel empathy or sympathy for them (even for negative characters, if they are interesting and well written).
• Sensory impact: High-quality visual (cinematography, scenography, special effects) and audio (music, sound effects, actors' voices) presentation. In the theater - live acting, scenography, lighting.
• Attention Management: The work's ability to keep the viewer's attention, the right pace (neither too slow nor too fast), unexpected plot twists.
• Persuasiveness of the world (even if fantastic): The internal logic and consistency of the work's world, which allows the viewer to accept its rules.
• Minimal disruption: The viewing/reading/playing environment should be as minimally distracting as possible (e.g., a dark movie theater, a quiet room).
• Personal factors: The viewer's mood, expectations, prior knowledge, personal experience, ability to focus and surrender to imagination.

In summary, the phenomenon you observed is fundamental to the way we interact with narratives and simulated experiences. It is a complex mechanism that involves attention, emotions, imagination and "suspension of disbelief", and its strength is determined by both the quality of the work and the personal characteristics of the viewer. Theater actors feel this connection directly, and creators of other media pursue it as one of the most important goals.

Management: Then one more thought, worthy of a fantasy movie plot 🙂 So, for example, 500 people are sitting in the hall, who, reacting to the action seen on the stage, each creates their own associative image, script, plot, which activates the viewer's feelings. And perhaps it is more correct to say that the feeling that arises while watching the performance activates even more fantasies and feelings. The actors do not know all this at the time and simply from memory - emotional and the one in which the plot is held - create a visual with their own bodies as they think it should be, according to how they imagine the plot and how sensitively and accurately they manage to play it. It turns out that those 500 people activate emotions with the help of the actors, and the actors - with their own help 🙂 What could you extract from this reflection, what is important and extraordinary in this phenomenon? What do the audience get out of it, and what do the actors get out of it - I'm not talking about finances, but about internal wealth. Can it be said that someone gets more of something and someone loses? Also, maybe there are statistics on how much energy the actor and the audience expend during the performance?

Gemini: Your reflection is really worth noting and complements the previous discussion nicely by looking at individual experiences in a general context. You rightly note that fascinating duality: actors create on stage one physical and auditory spectacle according to their own interpretation, and the 500 people sitting in the hall, although they see the same thing, each individually creates his inner performance, colored by personal associations, memories and feelings. It's like 501 plays happening at the same time - one on stage and 500 in heads.

Let's try to distinguish what is important and extraordinary in this phenomenon:

1. Synthesis of subjectivity and generality: This is probably one of the key aspects. Although each viewer's experience is unique and unrepeatable (due to his personal history, mood, expectations), at the same time there is also a collective process. Shared laughter, silence in a tense scene, a standing ovation - all this creates a temporary community united by a shared experience. This interweaving of individuality and collectivity is truly extraordinary.
2. Creativity on both sides of the ramps: You have made a great point that the creative process is not one-way. It's not just the actors who create the role. By interpreting, feeling, associating, the audience also performs an active creative action. The performance becomes a catalyst for the viewer's imagination and emotions. The creativity of the actors stimulates the creativity of the audience.
3. Invisible energy exchange: Although the actors do not know concrete thoughts or associations in the mind of each viewer, they feel the general "breathing", energy of the hall. An engaged audience "feeds" the actors, giving them extra strength, and the energy and skill of the actors engages the audience. It is a subtle but powerful resonant connection.
4. The Magic of Temporality: Live theater is an ephemeral art. Each performance is unique and will never be repeated exactly. It is that particular evening, that particular state of the actors, that particular composition of the audience and their reactions that create a unique moment. This gives the experience a special value.
5. Empathy Trainer: The play forces us to put ourselves in the shoes of another (character), understand his motives, feel his pain or joy. It is a powerful tool for developing empathy – the ability to understand and empathize with others.

What do the audience and actors get out of it (internal wealth)?

It is not a one-way process, both sides receive valuable inner gifts:

Viewers get:

• Emotional release (Catharsis): The ability to safely experience strong emotions that can be cleansing and relaxing.
• Deepening Empathy: A better understanding of different people, their attitudes and feelings.
• Intellectual stimulation: Reflections on the ideas, themes, and human nature raised by the performance.
• Imagination training: Each viewer actively creates images and scenarios in his head.
• A sense of community: Sharing experiences with other people here and now.
• Escape and Gap: The opportunity to temporarily break away from everyday worries and immerse yourself in another world.
• Inspiration: A performance can inspire new thoughts, actions or self-reflection.

Actors get:

• Creative expression: The opportunity to realize your talent, embody characters, convey ideas and emotions.
• A sense of mastery: The satisfaction of mastering one's craft, the ability to influence an audience.
• Instant connection with the audience: To feel the live reaction of the audience, the energy, to know that their work touches others.
• Emotional growth: By exploring the wide range of human emotions, actors deepen their emotional intelligence and understanding.
• "Traffic" status: Adrenaline rush and complete immersion in the creative process "here and now".
• The joy of cooperation: Meaningful work in a team with colleagues and the director.
• A sense of meaning: A contribution to culture, an opportunity to tell important stories, raise questions and make an impact.

Does someone gain more and someone lose?

I think that looking at it as a "loss" or an imbalance would not be accurate. It's more synergistic exchange process, in which both parties invest and both receive returns, albeit in different forms.

• Investments: Actors invest a huge amount of time, physical, emotional and intellectual efforts, risks (creative failures, fatigue). Viewers invest their time, money, attention, and emotional openness.
• Return: Both sides get the internal assets listed above. The ideal case is mutual enrichment.

Of course, there can be failed performances where the audience feels they have lost their time and the actors are disappointed with their performance. However, the mechanism itself is not designed so that one side wins at the expense of the other. It's more of a general creative adventure.

Power consumption statistics:

Accurate statistics measuring the energy (e.g. calories) expenditure of actors and spectators during a performance hardly exist. Such studies would be very complex and practically impractical in a theater environment.

However logically and qualitatively we can estimate:

• Actors: Their energy consumption is significantly larger. This includes:
  • Physical energy: Movement on stage (sometimes very intense), voice projection, breath control.
  • Mental energy: Great concentration, memory of text and mise-en-scène, constant response to partners and environment.
  • Emotional energy: Deliberately experiencing and communicating difficult emotional states, which is very draining (emotional labor).
• Spectators: Their energy consumption is the highest mental and emotional. These include focus, information processing, interpretation, empathy, emotional response. Although physically they are mostly passive (sitting), intense emotional or intellectual involvement can also be exhausting. Remember how you sometimes feel exhausted after a particularly impactful movie or a difficult lecture.

So, although there are no specific numbers, it is clear that the actors' total (physical + mental + emotional) energy contribution to the performance is incomparably greater than that of the average viewer.

Your reflection perfectly reveals the depth and multi-layered nature of theater as an art form, where individual consciousness and collective experience meet.

Management: But something else is interesting, which I have only recently started to appreciate in everyday situations - that all people create different versions of the situations they are in. This means that everyone has a completely different play going on in their head, although the characters may look the same, but everyone imagines their insides in their own way, most likely bringing them closer to themselves. This means that when several people are chatting, there are as many people as there are variants of the situation. Which means that there is no single option. And this means that those performances do not take place anywhere else, only in our own heads. There is no real, absolute version of the situation. If a dog approached the people chatting, another canine version of the situation would appear. It turns out that there are an infinity of versions, and reality is just a place that allows those versions to be born, flare up and subside again.

Gemini: This is an extremely profound and apt observation, Valdas, that extends the theater metaphor to the very essence of our everyday life. You touch on fundamental questions about perception, reality, and mutual understanding that are important in both philosophy and psychology.

Your idea that "everyone has a completely different show going on in their head", even if the situation looks the same on the outside, is very close to such philosophical trends as:

• Subjectivism and Perspectivism: For claims that our experience and understanding are inevitably subjective, dependent on our individual consciousness, experiences, values, moods, and even biological characteristics. There is no single "god's eye" or absolute perspective from which to see the "true" picture. Each of us watches from our own bell tower.
• Constructivism: The idea that we don't just passively receive information from the world, but actively we are constructing understanding of your reality. Our brains are constantly interpreting signals based on past experiences and expectations, creating a meaningful, but inevitably personal, model of the world. Each conversation, each situation is like a general sketch, which each participant completes and colors in his own way.
• Phenomenology: A direction that emphasizes the need to study the very structure of experience - as things it seems to us, as we experience them - recognizing that direct access to an "objective" reality independent of our consciousness is problematic, if at all possible.

What is important and extraordinary can be distinguished from your thinking:

1. The illusion of objective truth: Your thought radically questions the possibility of arriving at a single, absolute truth about any social situation. If each participant has his own version, "what really happened" becomes not a single fact, but a mosaic of perspectives. It makes us think about how we understand truth in everyday life, in legal disputes, in historical narratives.
2. The challenge and wonder of communication: If each of us lives in a slightly different "performance", then how is mutual understanding possible at all? This highlights how complex and yet magical the act of communication is. We constantly try to "translate" our inner performance into words or actions, hoping that the other will understand at least part of it, and we try to decode the signals sent by the other, interpreting them through our prism. Misunderstandings become the norm rather than the exception, and successful understanding a great achievement.
3. The need for empathy: Realizing that another person sees the world and a particular situation differently than I do is a fundamental basis of empathy. It encourages us not to rush to evaluate or judge, but to try to imagine – although we will never be able to do it perfectly – what the situation looks like from the other person's perspective. This is the key to better relationships and conflict resolution.
4. Reality as a stage: Your comparison that reality is "just a place that allows those versions to be born, flare up and subside again" is very poetic and apt. He emphasizes the role of reality (perhaps the physical world, a sequence of common events) as a common ground or stage on which the drama of subjective interpretations unfolds. This "scene" provides common points of reference (e.g. that a conversation is taking place, that certain people are present, that a dog has appeared nearby), but everyone writes and directs the play on that stage individually. Even the dog's "canine version of the situation", as you mention, is another perspective on the same scene.

So, your insight is not just a "fantasy movie plot". It is a profound philosophical observation about the very nature of human (and perhaps not only) experience. It calls for humility in our own perception, greater tolerance for different points of view, and more active efforts to understand each other, even if we know that perfect understanding is an unattainable ideal. It is a reminder that we are not dealing with objective facts, but with the subjective worlds of other people.

Management: Perhaps, as you wrote, there is one "God's gaze", only it can be completely "black and white", because that force is unlikely to be involved in human vicissitudes and can generally see everything as a vortex of atoms - faster or slower. Of course, I fantasize, but in order to better imagine what kind of world we live in. Eckhart Tolle was probably the first time I heard about the space that allows being. I think that God's version of the situation is none, it allows it to BE.

Gemini: Your imagination veers into very interesting and deep theological and philosophical territory. The idea of ​​"God's gaze" as fundamentally different, perhaps "black and white" or seeing everything as a "swirl of atoms", is an attempt to imagine a perspective that goes beyond our usual subjectivity and emotional involvement in "human vicissitudes".

This is very close to several important ideas:

1. Transcendental Perspective: You are hypothesizing a view that is not simply another, albeit more refined, interpretation from the inside, but a look from beyond – fundamental, maybe not even interpreting, but simply stating or allowing to happen. The "black and white" metaphor may not mean primitiveness, but rather complete clarity without subjective colors, seeing only essential structures or laws.
2. Ground Reality: The idea of ​​seeing everything as a "vortex of atoms, faster or slower" is reminiscent of the approach of physics, which reduces phenomena to their fundamental material or energetic components and their interactions. From this perspective, man-made meanings, dramas, and stories are merely complex effects of these foundational processes, with no fundamental significance to the event itself.
3. Eckhart Tolle's Space and Being: You mentioned Eckhart Tolle very aptly. In his teaching Consciousness (Awareness) or Presence (Presence) is often described as the "space" in which all thoughts, emotions, and perceptions (our entire inner "show") appear and disappear. This fundamental space of Consciousness itself has no form, it does not change, it just is lets everything be. She is not observing the situation how the observer, but is the very condition for any observation and any situation to occur.
4. God as Being Itself (God is Being): Your idea that "there is no version of God's situation, it allows BEING" fits wonderfully with certain philosophical and theological traditions (e.g. Thomas Aquinas's metaphysics, Spinoza's concept of substance, some Eastern philosophies) that understand God not as some kind being (even the highest) having its own attitude, but as Being itself (Esse, Being), the basis of existence, the "existence", which is the source and sustainer of everything that exists. In this case, God does not have a "version" of reality - God does is that foundational reality in which all possible versions and perspectives can manifest.

So, your fantasy is not superficial. It intuitively seeks to imagine the basis of reality not as another story or interpretation, but as the very condition for all stories to emerge. It is an approach that shifts the focus from content (of events, thoughts, feelings) to context or space (Consciousness, Being) in which all content appears. It is a very profound way to contemplate the nature of ourselves and the universe. And in this light, our subjective "performances" in the mind do not lose their importance to ourselves, but acquire a new context - they are infinite forms of expression of Being.