Midorea V3 Development Merch | Search | Memberlist | Vault | The Forge | Battle! | Temple
   
  
Goody Shop Reward

      Log-In   Not a member? Register Now! 
Midorea Forum Index / The University
Goto page 1, 2, 3  Next
Post new topic   Reply to topic How do you visualize your mind?
Chu
Assistant Admin


Send private message


 PostPosted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 1:57 pm Reply with quote        
This is such an abstract topic, I had to put it here. ><


I was talking to Adam about my complicated problems recently, and I told him that I look at those problems as a mess of tangled cords. Now, when I say complicated problems, I'm talking about any mental issues I have. Depression and anxiety are two, sure, but that's too vague. My constant feeling of guilt is more exact. So is the nagging feeling that I'm never safe, especially in x, y, and z situations. I have a problem with unattributed, unwarranted anger. I'm overly critical of myself - and of others. I don't make friends easily, and it's even harder for me to keep them. You get the point

There are so many issues here that I just can't look at them in any other way BUT a tangled mess of cords. Some are short: problems that can be fixed relatively easily. And then, some are long: deep-rooted problems that will only be sorted out through a lot of therapy.

Let's take anger as an example. That's a long cord for me, in part because I still haven't figured out exactly why it's there, or what triggers it. When I think about my therapy and this huge project of becoming a normal person, I look at that part where anger is, and I know that it won't come untangled for a long time. It's so long and so tied up with everything else that, even if I want to address it first, I'll have to put it off until I clear out some of the mess around it.

So, that's what I'm doing. It's frustrating, but I'm hoping that it's a good approach to things. Visualizing my problems as cords helps me address them in small pieces without getting overwhelmed. It helps me stay focused.

When I think about the rest of my mind, I still see cords - but they aren't these big, black, rubbery bands that bind me to feelings of self-hate and depression. Instead, they're all different colors, and they're loosely bound instead of tangled. In fact, sometimes they're soft strings of yarn or thread. Everything still connects, though. That's just how my mind works. It just... leaves me more room to walk around and breathe.

_________________
Add me on Skype! I'm ewitsChu. Even if we've never talked, just tell me your username in the friend request and I'll accept.

Sharm



Send private message


 PostPosted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 2:07 pm Reply with quote        
That's a really interesting way to look at it. I wouldn't be surprised if you find that inside each of those tangled knots is something that's damaged or something you're trying to protect.

I see the inside of my mind kind of like an endless sky. The air is made up of my mind itself, and my thoughts float around like clouds in it. Sometimes the clouds are made up of fuzzy words that I have to collect and hammer down onto paper or type out to know what they say, sometimes they're a window into a dream and I can walk inside and fiddle with. When I'm having difficulty thinking the thoughts will be wispy and won't gather into anything with substance, and my depression, anxiety, anger and other negative emotions are things like the sky growing too dark to see or a storm. All my thoughts are there but they get harder to reach, understand or control.
Chu
Assistant Admin


Send private message


 PostPosted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 2:15 pm Reply with quote        
Oh wow, I can understand the anxiety in that. Really though, it sounds much more beautiful than my visualization.

When I have trouble thinking, it's like the cords squeeze around the knots more tightly and trap my mind in a stronger darkness. It's more like suffocating in my own thoughts, rather than not being able to reach them. They just get too heavy. If it seems like a thought is escaping me, it's more like I can't reach for it in the mess.

... This is sounding more and more like the normal state of my room, haha.

_________________
Add me on Skype! I'm ewitsChu. Even if we've never talked, just tell me your username in the friend request and I'll accept.

ecco



Send private message


 PostPosted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 2:38 pm Reply with quote        
i never really thought about it before, but when i read the title of your post, a door appeared.

so i guess for every cord you have, i have a door. Except, the doors are not always there. most of the time they're not there. But sometimes they appear into view as out of a fog and that's your chance to open it and look inside - or outside, perhaps.

what makes up the rest of the space appears cloud-like - in... texture? if that makes any sense at all. But it could be dark like shadow or it could be bright! My mind has always been volatile, so changing colours makes a lot of sense to me.

_________________

Sharm



Send private message


 PostPosted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 2:42 pm Reply with quote        
Isn't a clean room/desk the sign of an empty mind? Wink

A big place with string all about sounds pretty cool to me. It sounds like a place to go exploring. It also sounds like your thoughts are much more solid and formed than mine which sounds about right. My thoughts are pretty nebulous, it allows me to make big leaps in logic but I also often don't have any idea why I think what I think or even what I'm thinking until I get it out of my head somehow.
Sharm



Send private message


 PostPosted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 3:13 pm Reply with quote        
Man, ecco, you're really living up to your name, posting while I'm typing a reply twice in a row!

The visualization of my mind is more vague than it sounds, there isn't really any color at all, though as I thought about it to write about here it was a nice sunset sky with fluffy light grey clouds. When I'm really happy or excited I expect it'd be more daytime and when I'm depressed it'd be more nighttime. Either way it'd be endless, no horizon at all.
ecco



Send private message


 PostPosted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 3:18 pm Reply with quote        
hehe, sorry! :P i'll try not to make a habit of it Wink

_________________

Sharm



Send private message


 PostPosted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 3:29 pm Reply with quote        
Not a problem I just like to tease. Smile
Chu
Assistant Admin


Send private message


 PostPosted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 12:21 pm Reply with quote        
Another "airy" mind~ And I'm all doom and gloom. XD

A door is a good way to look at it, Ecco. I've used that visualization a few times, and it helps me concentrate or look at things in a more optimistic way.


Sharm, yeah, I think my thoughts are pretty solid. They're very changeable though. Since I'm always analyzing things, I leave my ideas open to be changed and built upon. The phrase "definitely maybe" comes to mind, haha.

_________________
Add me on Skype! I'm ewitsChu. Even if we've never talked, just tell me your username in the friend request and I'll accept.

Juneberry



Send private message


 PostPosted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 12:44 pm Reply with quote        
I visualize the different parts of my mind in different ways. In terms of my creative ideas (such as characters), I think of that area as a very compartmentalized place. Each character has their own apartment in a giant complex, and each story idea is a file stored in a neat filing cabinet in my brain. For emotions, however, I think of it based on a project we did once in a support group I was in as a kid. It's like a big basket of water. The more emotionally distraught I am, the more of a clouded mess it is, like adding different colored food coloring to it for each emotion, and twisting them together into an awkward cloud in the liquid. The less emotional I am, the more clear and calm I am. And for single emotions, they each get a specific color food dye~

...Ironically, whenever I actually think, I just hear it though. I don't imagine visually. All this isn't visualized. It's just spoken to me with my thinking voice~
Chu
Assistant Admin


Send private message


 PostPosted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 1:02 pm Reply with quote        
I think my boyfriend said that he heard his thoughts more than he saw them... I didn't understand it at all when he first explained it to me, haha. Do different thoughts have different "voices" or tones for you?

The basket sounds like a very interesting visualization. How do you imagine the cloudy mess turning back into clear water? Does it just dissolve or something?

_________________
Add me on Skype! I'm ewitsChu. Even if we've never talked, just tell me your username in the friend request and I'll accept.

Juneberry



Send private message


 PostPosted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 1:30 pm Reply with quote        
Pretty much. It's like when you add clorox to the water. Try it sometime as an exercise if you want~ As I said, it's from a support group exercise we did. We put food coloring in for each guilty thought we had that we didn't say, and added Clorox or a similar bleach when we spoke them out loud. Because all kids with divorced parents for some reason blame themselves at least a bit.

As for the voices, sometimes I do hear different voices! Usually characters though. They do most of my writing for me. In fact, a few of them are putting this into words as I type. It's weird having one of them help explain my own thinking patterns... xD

But...I've noticed that for more upbeat thoughts, the voices are higher pitches than the more depressed ones. And angry ones sound like they're being nearly shouted. Etc.
Chu
Assistant Admin


Send private message


 PostPosted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 3:40 pm Reply with quote        
Ahh, that all makes sense.

And the exercise that you describe sounds very helpful. I may actually try it, myself.

_________________
Add me on Skype! I'm ewitsChu. Even if we've never talked, just tell me your username in the friend request and I'll accept.

Weaseldale
Moderator
Moderator


Send private message


 PostPosted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 5:38 pm Reply with quote        
This is such an interesting topic... I can visualize my mind if I try, not it's not the natural state of how I think. My mind is a room, and it can change size or shape or location or design all the time, but it's almost always a room. Lots of times, especially when I have trouble communicating, it's a large room: all white walls and floor and furniture. It's very well lit. It's difficult for me to find anything in it, but it's not always bad. The couches and chairs are always comfortable. I suppose you could say this is my room when I am anxious, or lonely, or when I am content but not really feeling much of anything. Happiness is a much homier room, and more comfortable. It's colors are more earthy, but also pretty blues and yellows and warm light. There is some clutter to go along with it. Thoughts can appear as images, things or people in the room, or they can be words on the walls or ceiling or floor. The white room has no doors or windows, but the happy room does. Sometimes I can look through them and see what surrounds it, often pretty fields through the windows, and I hear laughter and music through the doorway. Essentially my emotions are the different rooms of my life, but since I haven't ever really tried to visualize my mind so much I don't have a firm hold on what the others might look like. Since emotions are so complex the rooms can always be a little different depending on exactly how I feel.

Like I said though, I don't visualize my mind or thoughts naturally. I really hear my mind either, although I suppose I have a voice up there so that's closer. My mind's voice is normally monotone, although it can be sarcastic or desperate or any kind of tone.

Plenty of times though, I don't have a voice or an image in my mind. I've never really tried to visualize my emotions either, because usually my thoughts are emotions or feelings. Like if something is distressing I don't really think "I am distressed" I just know that is what the feeling I have is. Or when I get anxious around people and am hyper-aware of everything I do, it's not really an actual word or anything, just a feeling and I know that's what it translates to. I always have trouble communicating my thoughts when they're like this though because I don't always know what words I should use to match my thoughts. So... I guess I feel my thoughts? I dunno if this makes sense, but thinking about thinking is hard.

Edit: Oh, and the other time I actively visualize is when I'm imagining things. I have countless worlds I have created that I return to, although I've often forgotten about some until I return to them. Sometimes these worlds start as dreams, and sometimes daydreams. I have dreams that take place in them regardless of where they start as well, in addition to my daydreaming imaginations.

_________________
I am Lady Sprinkles.

Uni has swallowed me whole, in more ways than one, sorry guys. Feel free to PM any questions (or nonquestions {or anything else, no limits here}) you have, although I don't know when I'll get to them since I'm barely on atm.
Chu
Assistant Admin


Send private message


 PostPosted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 6:56 pm Reply with quote        
It's so interesting to hear about all of the ways that people think of their minds.

Ace, do you feel like the way you visualize your mind is organized? It feels that way to me, with everything in its place.

_________________
Add me on Skype! I'm ewitsChu. Even if we've never talked, just tell me your username in the friend request and I'll accept.

Post new topic   Reply to topic Goto page 1, 2, 3  Next



Powered By phpBB Home | Rules | FAQ | Help | TOS | Privacy Policy | Contact us