You inadvertently drop mental curtains over certain of your senses every day by not directing your conscious awareness to them.
Thus, various forms of stimuli in your environment go totally unnoticed.
So-called people with 'one track' minds are most effective at doing this.
The more 'multi-aware' you are, the more concentration is necessary to shut down your other senses.
Concentration is a relaxed focusing of you attention in one area without being brought back to another area desiring shutdown.
One New York dentist distracts his patients from experiencing pain by having them concentrate on adjusting the volume and tuning of a certain station on a radio headset while he is drilling their teeth.
In the middle of a football game, a player may sustain a painful injury, but only become 'aware' of it after the concentration on the activity subsides! Through hypnosis, it has been shown that one or more of your senses can be temporarily shut down, but there are other techniques that can accomplish the same thing without hypnosis.
To have the sense of feeling disappear in your arm, stroke the skin on the back of your one hand and arm with the fingers of your other hand, while suggesting that the sensation of feeling disappear.
Stop after about a minute; then repeat the process.
Practice this exercise for 5 one-minute trials per day, and soon the suggestion will become so real that a pin stuck into your skin will not be felt.
Hold an object in front of you, and bring your conscious awareness into focusing your total attention to it.
Notice small details, scratches or imperfections about it.
What makes it different from other objects?
Question yourself about it and don't allow any distractions to interrupt your thought.
Do this exercise for about 60 seconds, and you'll notice your sense of hearing go dormant.
With practice, you'll be able to read in the noisiest environment without distraction.
Next, stare at a spot in the room and simply listen to all the different sounds filling the atmosphere.
Key in on each one and question yourself about them.
Conjure up a mental picture about the originator of each sound.
In about 60 seconds, you'll notice your vision go dormant.
Sometimes this happens while reading.
Daydreaming starts and an awareness of the reading material ceases.
To cut off hearing and vision, concentrate your attention (which doesn't mean grimacing with a tense frown on your face) in a relaxed way on an inner mental image of what your room looked like as a child, seeing as much detail and clarity as possible while inhaling slowly to the count of five.
Hold it for 12 counts and then exhale slowly to the count of 10.
You can also switch off one of your senses by visualizing its sensing fibers leading to an imaginary gate in the brain.
At the gate, there is a switch box with a lever to turn the sensing fibers either on or off.
See yourself turning off the switch at the gate.
Repeat this several times a day and eventually the technique will be mastered and that particular sense can be consciously switched off.