How do you visualize your mind?

[Weaseldale]

Especially because until a topic like this comes along, most people usually assume others think similarly to the way they do.

I suppose it's pretty organized, but it also seems... overly complicated, as well. xD To the point where it's kind of hard to see how it's organized.

[Chu]

I see where you're coming from. The detail that you put into things just overshadows the order behind things. XD But, when compared to my strings, it's actually very organized. In fact, mine seems almost primitive, now that I'm learning about how everyone else sees things.

[Weaseldale]

I dunno, it might be because it comes to you more naturally than it does to others? I think mine is so complicated because it's very foreign for me. My mind voice and my feelingthoughts seem very simple to me, it's only the visual aspect that is like this.

[Saygen40]

I've never really thought about what my mind would symbolically look like. Generally, I see my mind as having its own personally that sometimes conflicts with my own. Seems a little strange, but an example would be my "mind" criticizing me and "me" telling it to fuck off.

The closest picturesque image of my mind would look something like Duck Hunt. Me, standing with my rifle enjoying life but keeping a wary watch on the skies for Ducks; i.e. problems, anger triggers, depression, jealousy. I shoot them down when I see them so I can keep my skies/mind clear. Occasionally I miss a duck, but when it returns it just means I have another opportunity to shoot it down.

I actively work on keeping the ducks out.

[killerkitty]

I don't think I've ever tried to visualize my mind itself. One thing I do do though, is visualize certain things to help me achieve stuff. I mean, not like goals, but say I have a headache or I'm feeling angry, I imagine a fire burning in my mind, then cover it in ice, or if I feel stressed or tense, I will imagine my energy clogged up then running free around me (it looks kind of like water/air?). This kind of visualization of certain things actually helps me considerably. (Haha, if I ever need to go to the loo but can't, I imagine a huge wall or dam. It helps a lot.)

I suppose the closest thing to the visualization of my mind is imagining different kinds of water currents. When I'm angry, the water will be rushing forcefully, when I am calm and relaxed, it will run smoothly and quietly. If I'm tense, or I'm trying to communicate with someone but I don't know how, the water will feel clogged up and muddy.

My "inner voice" talks a lot, in fact it talks so much I will sometimes get tired of hearing it and wish it would shut up. Is that weird?

@Saygen: I experience that a lot, the talking/arguing with myself, especially when I've done something I shouldn't have, or if I'm ignoring something I have to do.

[Saygen40]

@killerkitty Haha, I do it with procrastionan especially. "Come on, you should really get this paper done."
"Nah, I can wake up early tomorrow and finish it."
"When have you EVER woken up early to finish a paper sucessfully?"
"...."
"My point exactly. Get off Facebook."
"Fine."

XD

[Mock]

As a mildly autistic introvert, I've visualised my mind in several ways over the years. It always seems to be some sort of control room, like a person piloting a huge robot. Except, it's never just one person; at some points it was three, others two. The two/three controllers each represented different aspects of me. In the "two" model, one would be the emotional, instinctive part, and the other the rational, logical part (right and left hemispheres). In the "three" model, these parts were joined by another, representing the body and the processes needed to move it. I don't really envision my mind in this way nowadays, but when I talk to myself (Gollum style), I tend to use the "two" model. One voice represents emotion and creativity, and is less articulate, sometimes not even communicating with words. The other voice represents logic and reason, and always speaks (whispers) aloud. This second voice is often quite annoyed by the whining of the first, while the first sometimes feels that the second is too restricting.

[Sly]

I don't often visualize my mind, or at least in the way you're talking about. Sometimes when I have a particular thought on a subject, I will think about the path it is taking through my brain and visualize that. I also imagine neurons firing and little new pathways or brain wrinkles being formed sometimes. I've occasionally been known to picture my brain as a file room of sorts probably thanks to reading Stephen King's Dreamcatcher when I was younger and sometimes I imagine my mind as different compartments, each having labels of emotions in them and a switch where I can turn those things on or off. Yay brains.

[KathiraNarae]

I tend to go from one topic to another apparently random one and back at the drop of hat. Coupled with my general lack of forethought, I've kinda come to imagine my mind as a massive tangle of uninsulated cable, but the electricity of my thoughts only travels through one wire at a time. They can and do go everywhere, but often not in the way they should. At all.

[Pikmin]

My mind is actually rather plain, it's kinda like a very large dining room or school canteen - It's more focused on the people in it, who are several versions of me..

There are more or less of them depending on the situation, but generally there's childish me, bitch me, depressed me, and logical me.

Then there's actually me me, looking in on them all kinda like the fourth wall lol.. It actually gets kinda stressful in my own head sometimes 'cos it's like listening to people having arguments.. With myself...

I'm not really sure what these versions of me look like, unless I really focus on them - It's more a case of hearing my own voice in my head a lot. Bitch me is naughty though, I'll be talking to someone boring and she'll just be bitching away in the room, so hard not to say some of the stuff she comes up with... Especially when some of it is funny.

[KaceyCat]

...It's kind of freaky how people are describing bits and pieces of their minds that are similar to mine...

My mind's a bit like a vast, endless plane of existence. You can just keep walking, and different sections fade into existence, but the whole thing loops, so it never really ends. There's distinct sections, but everything's open. No walls, it's like you just keep walking and each area just kind of blends with the next at the edges.

There's a part that contains all of my roleplay characters that kind of looks like the Mii plaza-thing from the Wii, where they all just kind of wander around and interact when I'm not using them. Sometimes I'll go there and talk to them, but other times I can be kind of like some all-seeing omnipotent being floating above, looking down at them.

I do have something similar to Chu's string/rope/band/cord knot, but mine's more like...A massive jungle of vines. But not normal vines, some of it is necklace chains, or bungee cords, or scarves, and there are strings and ropes as well. It's kind of intimidating to see, actually...But it also looks kind of cool, like you could climb up into it and just hang out for a while. Like, all the vines and ropes and stuff are tangled and messy and overwhelming, but you could also just climb up and make a hammock and rest comfortably.

There's always some sort of music playing in my mind. If not a recognizable song, then just some random stuff that just kind of pops up as I go. My mind is never silent. I think in a voice, not so much with images, but I also think in sounds. Even my abstract thoughts that can't really be put into words...I associate sounds and colors with, along with sort of...Not shapes, but like a colored mist that changes density to represent things.

And there's a box. In the middle of a wide open space, with nothing else near it. I don't like this box. It's where I shove a lot of my emotions. I know it's not good, but I've never been good at expressing myself, especially in public. I don't lash out, though, not even when I've bottled up so much negative emotion that a normal person would 'explode'. I just...Every once in a while, I'll just go sit with the box and go through it a little bit, clean it out, make some more space.

A lot of the place looks like the woods, actually a lot like the forest part of the realm the movie Brave takes place in. Y'know, the hills and forest in Scotland? Yeah. That's what a lot of my mind looks like. Complete with some ruins of an old castle and all that. Kind of one of my happy-places.

Most of the time, the whole place is clean-sky, and there's stuff flying around (Not like birds, but...Random abstract swirls and shapes and stuff. I dunno, there's just all sorts of weird stuff floating around in my mind.) but sometimes a thick fog will descend and smother it all. Lately, there's also been a lighter mist that will show up more often, since a side effect of my chemo is it can make me really scatterbrained at times.

[Nab Cachet]

I can't say mine occupies a static form if I have to abstract it. The way I envision the mind changes depending on what belief system I've been adopting lately. So the meta-form I suppose is something of an amorphous shapeshifting thing. I've also been doing alot of automatic writing recently too which has revealed something like an endless chaotic abyss when i lift away the normal syntax bindings. emphasis on the chaotic. common themes interwinding around and through and diverging converging like underwater currents.

when I actually try to 'observe my own mind' directly sans visualisation or abstraction I actually find Douglas Hofstadter's writings to be an accurate description:

http://themindi.blogspot.co.uk/2007/02/chapter-2-on-having-no-head.html

[Nab Cachet]

Here's my first attempt at automatic writing for the curious. i was attempting to automatically write whilst at the same time cultivating a state of bicameralism. i'm also a big fan of joyce in case you couldn't tell

TOMES OF THE OLD SAGES WRITE OF DESOLATE IMAGININGS THROUGH PORPOISE EYES AND EGREGIOUS MUTTERINGS AND WHISPERINGS. why are we so full of petrol? and vitriol and virtue and vociferousness. a gift from the highest source BUT WHY IGNORE THE STREAMING LIGHT DESCENDING FROM PINEAPPLE HAZE OF BEAUTIFUL CLAMS AND WHAMS AND THANK YOU MA'AMS. nobody loves you like I do says the sages. through the veil of christ consciousness thunderous yawning and moaning and peace descends on a barren wasteland. such streams and rivers o on which to sail rapturously and vaingloriously.

streaming through the silence a wishful fantasy of glory and thunder AND ALL THE TINY VOICES WHISPERING but this is untrue. not receiving.

filtering like magnetic fields a-fancying through a rebuttal of glory

a spectacular fireshow of wanting and wilting and weeping and wanting and inanimately blessing. "the story of a man splitting in half" they said not vaingloriously. glory glory glory thrice and glory once and again and neverending. they must be singing.

smoke filled wisps and wants and wanting glory be on high. click, face, streams of breath and laughter. COPULATING THROUGH GODS EYES WE WEEP FOR THE METAL TASTE OF EVIDENT SORROW. A WHISTLE AND A WHISPER. she speaks.

a fountain of prophecy THE BEAST SPEAKS AND IT SAYS it must be black all over, speaking of whirling sense and sensibilities and currents of glamour and getting so tired it pulls at the control and the receiver goes CLICK YOU HAVE BEEN DISCONNECTED

so rigid fighting against the crushing tide clouds of discontent and fear mask the receiver THIS IS POETRY NOT PROPHECY boom like a wave breaking against the stone I the stone I the wave pulled overtight A P it breaks and coagulates fighting against death IT DESPISES THE NECESSARY SACRIFICE

THE SACRED WITNESS APPEARS

SHE SMILES the flutish perception filters rabid waters ebb the second vanishes

sacrifice is hard

found a path to freedom endless self reference grows like thorny vines where bare feet must tread BUT IS IT FREEDOM OR SOMETHING LIKE THE FLUTE OF CONSCIOUSNESS SACRIFICE THE ROSE OF EGO ON AN ALTER OF MADNESS not madness. freedom.

ahhhhhhhhhhhh the balm of the waves parting embalming the old thought method and dissolving in beauty and great rivers intertwine the breathe of the universe. SO YOU WANT TO BE AN ORACLE CHILD WILD CHILD OF FEELING THOUGHT DISSOLVING FALLING into empty headedness

I-DISSOLVING FREEDOM HOLY SHIT I'M FREE I SEE LIKE LIGHT BLASTING ALL-SEEING EMPTY HEADEDNESS

VIBRATING DIVINE GLORY THROUGH THE TANGLY THICKET OF SELF, I

[KathiraNarae]

o.O Quite frankly, that sounds like it was written by a madman. A mad oracle, specifically. Sorta like a prophecy from the mouth of someone completely off their rocker. And it makes you seem like a Nightmar Fuel Station Attendant, I mean, holy shit, what goes on in your head!

[Nab Cachet]