Carthraziel Posted March 24, 2014 Report Share Posted March 24, 2014 Hello Everyone! I am continuing with a project I started a few years ago where I have been asking people to describe their minds as if it were a physical space. I don't mean what your current state of mind is like, I mean as a the mental space which you live in. To start things off here is mine:"It is a vast, endless space that is harsh and unpredictable in the same way that extreme weather is. It is a space-scape I have spent my life surviving in where a newcomer would perish. It is like moving through a world where only the forms of things exist, there is no light, nor smell, nor texture to give things context. However, even these forms are not concrete, they shift and change constantly. Sometimes it shapes itself around me to become an indoor area, or it spreads out into a vast valley or forest. Sometimes it does more obscure things like form itself into a tight tube so I can barely move or breathe, I am being squeezed in one direction, at other times it becomes a a terrifying silent storm with the blackness forming into tentacles whipping and whirling around me. I have no control over this blackness, it does what it wants, I have just learnt to survive it's many forms. It feels essential that I keep moving, when I stop the blackness suddenly floods with colour and life and texture and smell, it's heartstoppingly beautiful but so intense that I have to keep moving. As long as I keep moving, the intensity can't get me." Here are a few other examples of the variety of responses I've heard to this question: "My mind is like the VHS tape of beauty and the beast i had when i was little. i rewind and rewind and rewind a memory, replaying my embarrassments, the weird way i laughed or the stupid thing i said. from that time in preschool when i raised my hand and when the teacher called on me i had forgotten what i wanted to say and she scolded me, to the time this morning when i acted too needy towards my sister. i rewind and replay these moments until they're fuzzy and the sound is warped and eventually it's just jagged black and white lines and gray snow, but i can still see everything behind it. i can still feel the anxiety and the awkwardness and that heavy feeling in my chest and the burning in my cheeks. like i destroyed that tape from so many viewings and rewindings and pausings and playings, i've destroyed my mind until no happy memories exist, and it's just that heavy feeling and the burning in my cheeks.” “My mind is like a Penrose steps. I feel like I’m forever trying to climb up them, sometimes the gradient is so steep it feels impossible sometimes the steps are more like a gentle slope. I’m drive to try and reach to top.” “My mind is a see-saw in an abandoned playground. Everything else has been taken away, just holes in the ground where each piece of equipment used to be. The ground is a red chalky gravel that hurts my feet every time the see-saw hits the bottom, and the air is crisp and clean at the top. Everything looks old and wrecked from the bottom but the view from up top is like the perfect summer day.” Feel free to be as creative or concise as you would like, or just come here to read other peoples. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonbeam beth Posted March 25, 2014 Report Share Posted March 25, 2014 Hello, carthrazial, I would just like to acknowledge your interesting post and the creative exercise...will return to this, as soon as I am with a more, creative process, and have some real time with it... to respond to you...well wishes moonbeambeth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buzzybee Posted March 25, 2014 Report Share Posted March 25, 2014 Hi Carthraziel, I found your post really interesting and eye opening. Ive sat with myself since you posted this thread yesterday and simply pondered on the question..hmmm and I couldn't come up with an answer. not because I'm not creative, i am and could really see the opportunity to really get in touch with my mind and free flow. But I realised even more, i am more of an intuitive feeling person, so everything that goes on for me, emotionally, spiritually etc, happens through my feelings/ intuative processes. So in relation to my feeling self, I often feel like my body is connected by stands to an unseen life source, one that protects, guides and is all knowing and all seeing (no I'm not religious in any way, more spiritual), I feel safe, like a child in its mothers womb, warm comforted and nurtured, I just intuitively feel that i am ok. Other times, I feel completely disconnected from this life force, like the strands that help me up have been cut, so i feel abandoned, free falling, feeling fear, aloneness, hollow inside, unsafe, not trusting of my own instincts and feelings. I hope this makes sense, it makes sense to me :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonbeam beth Posted March 27, 2014 Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 Hello again, thank you, for this creative exercise... I learnt something quite fundamental, for me, from this experience... Because I create, err, spaces, like installations, places that reflect experiencing... I have found that, i am jealous and possessive of these...and cannot share them... To join in on this creative exercise, I would have to share them...I find I just cannot! This is quite a revelation to me, sorry to you for this...I usually go all in for participation... but you did assist me to learn, this, of myself... well wishes, moonbeambeth.x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carthraziel Posted March 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 Great responses so far And yes Moonbeambeth, this was one of the reasons I began this project in the first place. I thought that if everyone understood where they 'lived' and where those around them 'lived' we might all be a bit kinder to each other. Someone I know described theirs to me as: "It's a big white library. I can go to any shelf and pick a book, then I bring the book back to the table and I can read it. I can't bring more than one book back to the table." After knowing this I then realised this person was only capable of giving 100% attention to one thing rather than splitting it between many things, and I stopped feeling so annoyed with them. Like if I interupt them when they are doing something, their brain has to go all the way back into the library to put the book back, find the one I asked a question about, go back to the table and open that, put that one back and then go back and find the orginal book again. It really became a way for me to understand myself better and to understand other people better. So if you learn things about yourself in the process it's really awesome Also Buzzybee, yours does make sense ) I would life to share a few more descriptions: "I'm the driver on a train/shuttle travelling at light speeds, trying to read billboard posters as they whizz past and relate that to the cluttered collection of CDs, DVDs, HDDs and SD cards lying at my feet in the carriage with me" “My mind is like a glass box in a field. I can see outside of it, I can see how amazing and beautiful everything is, but I can't ever break out of it. I can make cracks, sure, if I hit hard enough. Sometimes I can even slip out just a little bit. But in the end, I always seem to find myself back inside. Someday I'm going to break the cage and go out into the field. I'd like to shatter it, but I think that would end up hurting me more than it would help me. I think it would be better to do it slowly, crack away until there's a hole big enough for me to crawl out.” Would love to hear more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonbeam beth Posted March 27, 2014 Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 Yes, absolutely, my lack of participation is not, coming from, an unwillingness to understand others, and the reality, that they experience... I do very much, want, need, and am driven to understand... I just cannot, give, access to, my installations, my rooms, these are just for, us, me-ness... The rest of myself, I will give the world, willingly, but my rooms...lol, turns out, not...which is strange to me! I am currently asking what is the point, of my building these spaces, outside, here, in physical reality, if I am not going to share them...if Louise bourgeois, took the same approach, I never would have had my first break-through... Well wish once again, moonbeambeth.x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pepsimeg Posted March 27, 2014 Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 I'm the same moonbeambeth As interesting as I find this I would rather keep my place to myself We are a very tight system and we do not like talking about our place much That's not to say I am not interested in others. Thank you to those that can openly share xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carthraziel Posted March 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 Thats ok Emogirl No pressure to share. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILostHer Posted March 27, 2014 Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 My mind is too empty and too full. Black and cracked. My mind is a universe of fear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonbeam beth Posted March 28, 2014 Report Share Posted March 28, 2014 That is sooo cool, jhonyyon, information always welcome, well wish moonbeambethxxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lily-Bee Posted March 28, 2014 Report Share Posted March 28, 2014 My mind is like a lake, there can be turmoil on the surface. I hide deep below in the calm between the colored fishes, I build sand castles there. Special ones with uncommon features. If you look at the surface youll see the dark waves of misery and struggle only, if you look deeper youll see my golden mermaid tail glittering.It is my gift to those who dare to jump in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollo 13 Posted April 10, 2014 Report Share Posted April 10, 2014 My mind is like a BLOODBATH...........WAY TOO MANY Menstrual Cycles.............far too few, considered, intellectually profound, meaningfu thoughtsl.....whilst still retainig integrity and a sense of fairness...............I cannot describe, accurately, your thoughts and feelings.....but this young lady does superbly My mind is too empty and too full. Black and cracked. My mind is a universe of fear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riverspell Posted April 10, 2014 Report Share Posted April 10, 2014 Hmm. I'm trying to understand this exercise. Are we describing our minds or a place our minds go to? I can describe how I see my mind, in a sense anyway that I hope you'd understand, but I can't describe Safety. Safety is too personal to me. Only a few know of it. My mind is....odd I suppose. It changes in accordance to seemingly random events and interference. I was once considered to be ADHD in the sense that facts and thoughts and ideas pop up randomly in my head if they even hold a tiny bit of similarity to the current conversation or environment. Then I have a hard time not just spouting them out. When I'm with my family or close friends it's hard for me to even shut up. My mind is always going, always racing even when it's at rest. Which only makes my chronic insomnia worse. There's a reason I require sedative medications to sleep. I've never really thought about my mind. How I see it. But I've often gotten the sense that it's like a book. A huge book with an unfortunate number of pop-up pages. Most are written in ink that you read as writing but see as images that dance around your head. There's this underlying sensation you feel in your bones that if you stop and consider it, can play out like the loudest soundless music you've ever heard. With the sound mimicking your mood and thoughts. Often creating a chaotic intermingling that makes perfect sense. This isn't a book in the traditional sense. Sure it's got the front and back covers and a middle full of pages, but it's stuffed full of scraps of paper and bookmarks and feathers and plants and seeds and places where the pages roll out a long way with notes and revisions or memories too big for a chapter. The covers are hand tooled leather, getting softer with age and splitting in a few places now covered in duct tape or plant sap and fur scraps. Pop-up pages show up now and then with memories too dramatic to leave to words. Everything is accessible should I need it, save for random patches stapled and glued firmly together. Sometimes it takes a bit of scrambling or frantic page flipping for me to reach just what I'm looking for but it's not often. When I'm alone, unable to sleep or just left to seclusion, I can flip through my pages if I don't have the energy to reach Safety. In the front are loose pages of my relationships. People in my family, friends and those I've only met once or twice. The last are often removed unless I have reason to believe I will see them again. I keep my "readings" of them here as well as information they or others share. A picture too, usually drawn but occasionally a photo. Pictures are drawn on the pages throughout, sometimes even loose and just stuffed in the general space of memory and time they were formed. So yes, I have kiddy drawings intermingled with my better stuff. Not all the text is computer key type. There's handwritten notes and chapters in varying styles and even a spot or two I've noticed of typewriter keys. The handwriting is in ink as much as it is in pencil or charcoal. Mostly I am only aware of the book with only a vague awareness of what's beyond. But sometimes when I'm out and about and I retreat to my mind briefly for a breather, I can become aware of the book being somewhere. Often it is a foggy impression of where I am, the book resting beside me on a seat or clutched in a hand I assume is mine. Other times the book is settled on a desk or lonely chair. My worst sights of the book happen after an extended period in the hospital. I have little memory of my hospital stays, at least in the beginning days or weeks. Often I am too psychotic and stressed to be aware. So when I am able to examine my mind again the book is dusty and strangled in dust webs. When I break the strands and swipe away the dust I find the cover faded and split in a few more places. There will be additional pages inside but with smudged writing and only small spaces of understandable words. Just not sure how to entirely explain how I see my mind. It's the way I organize it. I've always found books a good way to organize, which is why I have a box full of journals. This make sense at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carthraziel Posted April 21, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 21, 2014 These descriptions are really detailed and fascinating! That was the point of the excersise Riverspell, to describe your mind as though it's a physical space or a thing. I can really visualise your book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BVBarmygirl Posted April 26, 2014 Report Share Posted April 26, 2014 My mind is like that scene off the third x-men film: The Last Stand, when Jean Grey's powers are out of her control and everything is bursting into flames, breaking apart, smashing to pieces, even water is rising from the seas, creating a trap around her, cars are flying everywhere bursting into flames, everything whirling round, breaking, uncontrollable, complete and utter destruction, even people getting caught in the whirlwind of chaos and dying. Complete destruction, out of control. I sometimes watch the clip on YouTube because it really is whats going on in my head. I feel like everything is just crashing, breaking, whirling around out of my control. Rogue xxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basimelhabashy Posted May 20, 2014 Report Share Posted May 20, 2014 This approach is sometimes called "folk-psychology" or "commonsense intuition". Regardless of the name it goes by, philosophers and psychologists alike are suspicious about what people claim to know about their minds through introspection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Domino Vox Posted May 20, 2014 Report Share Posted May 20, 2014 My head feels like a race track. Everything is going nowhere very fast. Hard to focus on a single thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Humblegrub Posted May 20, 2014 Report Share Posted May 20, 2014 My mind is like a sponge. Absorbent yet swollen to the brim with information I cannot reach. I know I have knowledge of the workings of the world, but I don't know how I know them. It's all famailar in its workings but unfamiliar in its appearance. My mind is full of things that aren't whole, books with no words, songs with no sounds, a breeze with no whispers. That is to say it all appears normal so it's appearance may be understood but the workings are only known by me. Hidden. On many shelves all alhpabetised and categorised in jars. Each jar tightly closed containing tornadoes and hurricanes and emotional destruction. I no longerbtrt to open the jars. Pretending everything is ok works better for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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