I know how to touch deeply inside myself and closely observe my feelings.

OK Rolies. I have been consistently doing a vipassana meditation technique which involves concentrating the awareness and paying close, uninterrupted attention to the experience of "emotional feel". "Emotional feel" in this context is defined as a subset of somatic sensation that can reasonably be linked to emotion (I know, it seems like a very fuzzy definition but in practice it is actually quite simple). Other cognitive phenomena which are related to emotion such as mental imagery, internal talk and imagined sound are ignored.
Beyond this the goal is to observe with rigorous precision and absolute non-judgment.
What I have found for myself is that it is incredibly hard to just let an emotional feeling happen and not try and modulate or nullify it in some way. This seems to be true for even the smallest, seemingly inconsequential emotional experiences. I have also noticed that when I sink down into a deeper state, more aware of subtile emotional feel, there is an underlying discomfort that is probably there all the time. As I penetrate the sensations and separate out the physical element I am able to relax into it and experience it in a different way... a way that feels somehow therapeutic.
Is this practice good for me? Well, it certainly is a good practice for concentration. Beyond that I am not at all sure. It certainly is interesting though.

Thanks Rolies.

My understanding is that the neocortex evolved so quickly not by a major leap in complexity but by adding greater numbers of a basic unit of function[V. Mountcastle], the hierarchical temporal memory structure described by Jeff Hawkins in On Intelligence. If this is true then I doubt that there is a loss of connection between the old and new brain. In my view (based on reading one book:-) the cortex is a memory and prediction device for all forms of sensory and motor activity. I see the old brain as providing the drive to survive, be comfortable, reproduce etc. My guess is the old brain rewards us with pleasure when the cortex makes high level predictions and gives unpleasantness for confusion.

The goal of focusing on (and accepting) emotional feel in meditation is not to understand feelings but to become more skillful in experiencing them.

We agree that people confuse their thoughts with their feelings. Thoughts can generate feelings and feelings can generate thoughts. Feeling, mental imagery, and verbal thinking become conflated, hypnotically linked, understood to be part of a seamless inner reality,an illusory "I am." When I become more skillful in separating these elements out then I am less likely to become overwhelmed by strong emotions and can make more rational decisions about what is beneficial.

The idea of many "I's" is not contrary to my model. I just suspect that each one of them is the result of the conflation of somatic sensation (which emotion is a subset of), imagery and verbal thinking.

Meditation can build the stability necessary to stand apart from and be amused by emotion in a way that conceptualization only pokes at.

Thanks for the Hofstader reference. I should finally buckle down and read it.