EXPLAIN HOW YOUR MIND WORKS!

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My mind may be close to the opposite. I find it hard to idea-think, and do so sluggishly. I find it easier to go into the sensory realm "beneath" regular thought. When I can read at all, I may be able to translate from written to auditory more or less quickly, but I can read a page twenty times before starting to get meaning out of it. (And when I do get meaning, it often lodges in the back of my head where I can't find it until that knowledge is triggered.)

I reach my hand in the air and stand in line. I could use a vaccation from my brain, thanks!

It had a mind of it's own. We don't always see eye to eye but neither of us can live without the other, so we try to keep each other happy. I would be much happier if it would do what I told it to do. Likewise, it would be happier if I would just stay out of the way.

(More serious reply mode: on.)

Before a certain time (about age 20) I had the racing-thoughts and internal-monologue-that-wouldn't-shut-up thing going on. And, as far as "brain on fire" thing -- I remember getting that during intense computer-coding sessions, or when intensely designing a project in my head.

But, after that time things quieted a down a lot. Not much racing, and not a lot of word-like thoughts in mind these days. That was really unhelpful for things like jobs and school, but on the upside it made some other kinds thoughts/perceptions (or whatever to call them) more accessible. Hard to explain. It seems kind of like what people mean when they say "right-brain stuff."

And, that simplified some things in a good way. I always found strict, abstract ideologies frustrating, since they would seemingly always lead to at least some horrible conclusions, like "the elderly, disabled, and orphaned should be killed and made into Soylent green in order to sustain the more productive members of society." Or, "slavery is ok, if it's based on IQ rather than race." -- Trying to think of ever-more-convoluted arguments to 'patch' such stuff was not very satisfying.

Now, I couldn't keep all that abstract stuff in my head at the same time even if I wanted to. But, that leaves a simpler way to look at certain things, and it doesn't feel like a compromise or a second-best solution. I think it's actually what a lot of people do in every-day life: just trying to do "the right thing" for a situation as it lay in front of them at that moment (without worrying about ideological considerations). (OTOH, I think politics deliberately pushes people away from that as much as possible. So, I guess what "most people" do depends on the 'realm.')

Sometimes it is a gentle stream, slowly flowing without flotsam, and nothing to be seen.

Sometimes it is linear, your words lead to mine, slight pauses, but all follows in coherent verbal fashion.

Sometimes it is a tree, still except for an occasional breeze.

And sometimes it is symbols or colors without sensory components - no visual, no sound or taste or touch or smell - only invisible fireworks.

Wow, your mind seems like a peaceful beautiful place, very poetic.

My mind is a highway. The thoughts are road signs with trees flying by unnoticed in the distance. It is in a pepetual state of construction, undergoing improvements. Occasionally there are accidents with 50 car pileups and everything comes to a standstill.

Same for me. I'm used to having a lot of thoughts, but too many just stress me out. It's like omg stop thinking!.

i can not understand how my mind works. things seem to occur to me "magically" without me having to deliberately think about them. my mind tells me things that i never knew --- without me being present in the process of my thought.

my mind works automatically without my stewardship, and i watch what i think as the only member of my mind's audience.

i guess i have some influence on what i think, but i can not see how i control what i think.

when bosses give me specifications pertaining to what they wish me to program, i just sit back and let my mind automatically design a mechanism that satisfies the requirements that they express.

i do not personally exert any mental effort in the process of my calculating the code necessary to achieve their required specifications.

i watch my bosses (in the third person) ask me how i would program a system that would perform the actions they want, and i watch my automatic reply and i copy what i idealized in my response to the request.


when i am thinking on my own with no obligation to influence anyone else's expectations,
i like to count things.

when i am on my own and doing my own thing, i automatically count things and quantify things.

one example may be when i see a brick building.

if i see a brick building, i work out the size of an individual brick, then i extrapolate my sense of the area of an individual brick to my perceived idea of the area of the bricked portion of the building (with respect to the windows and mortar area etc), and i tell myself how many bricks are in the building.

i then think of the weight of a brick and multiply that by the number of bricks i determine to be in the building.
i also think in a similar way about the number of windows and how much they would weigh, and i imagine the amount of concrete stanchions that support the building, and the weight of the concrete floors.

when i have an idea of the total weight of the building, i will then look somewhere else to see something new.

another example may be when i walk through the bush, and i see rock faces that have crumbled over the years.

i see sandstone rocks embedded in the ground, and i stop and look at them and i note the shape of them, and then i look at a nearby rock face to work out where each one fell from. once i can piece together where all the rocks on the ground originally fractured and fell from, i then wonder what circumstance caused them to split off and fall from the rock cliff they once were a part of.

i try to think of what it would be like to walk where i am walking say 10,000-100,000 years ago, and i am very happy when i am in those situations where no one demands any sense from me and i can let my mind freely relax and attach itself to whatever my whim desires.

my mind can not work out much to do with human interaction, and i know that there is no solid evidence that can be seized upon and relied upon when i have a question about things to do with people's feelings and attitudes.

my mind grips tightly to solid evidence and it is an anchor point for my mind to tether to in order for me to excur more widely in my speculation surrounding that circumstance,

all evidence pertaining to social reality is like a spongy and morphing blob of "maybe this and maybe that", and so the prong of my anchor of belief just rips through it like jelly as i am buffeted with indecision relative to what i try to determine.

i can see and walk on the concrete of my speculation of the geological world with faith, but in the quagmire of the "possibly this, or possibly that" foundations of social analysis i sink and can not move.

i hope i make sense but if i do not i do not really care anyway.

iMind™. It just works.

How vivid!

It may seem peaceful (and I suppose it usually is - I quite like it in here ^_^), but imagine being a tree when the people around you want you to be a car.

You'll have to be more specefic.
Cause i'm not completely following you =o

Oh I don't even know where to start. I tend to think if someone else borrowed my brain, they would barf from the overwhelming speed of the thoughts. I can have multiple lines of thought going at the same time. Is that a thing other people can do? I think it's like I have a certain amount of brain power and it must all be used at any given time, so I can either be thinking 5 or 6 different things and have trouble concentrating on any particular one, or I can try to watch tv, listen to music, read a book, eat a snack, brush my dog, do my homework, and think about one thing I can focus on. I've actually caught myself trying to do all those things at once, not well, but I tried lol. Yes I'm crazy

mine needs some help.

My mind is something that constantly hears its own noise, blasting away in the confusion like a machine gun.... and though it tries to quieten this discomfort it only finds in doing so makes more and more noise.

My mind is like a runner on a endless track called "Life" and there’s no stopping for breaks on this race... just endless thoughts thinking "how did I get here? Why do I have to run?" repeating again and again until I finally fall over.

My mind doesn't think happiness is really that important . It thinks its a con-trick used to make species feel very obliged to reproduce, kill enemies, fill their guts with food, search for the "greener grass" on the other side, find a small apartment to file themselves away into a respected life and at all costs never say "why" when feeling good.
( dont get me wrong I still have fun... I just dont think it should be the overall meaning to my life )


My mind doesn’t really have a side when It comes to morals... every argument has about 348 sides and to be honest I think its going to take my whole life to figure out what people think is right anyway.

My mind is still the same overall serious and truthful five year old it started as.

Well that was fun.

Gurdjieff said something like "the mind is like a carriage"... there are the horses, the driver, and the passenger. When you are talking about your mind moving "too fast," who is it that is saying that? The driver, or the passenger. Perhaps your driver must get the horses under control? Maybe the driver is pushing the horses, and the passenger must get the driver under control?

Last edited by tall-p on 27 Dec 2010, 4:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.