Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with imagination

Am I meditating or is this something else?

reticulatedspline — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:24:31 -0800

Am I meditating or is this something else? So I have this... thought exercise? technique? ...not sure what to call it... this thing I do. I usually it when I'm in bed to help me fall asleep faster, though I have done it other places: during yoga, on the subway, etc.

Basically I close my eyes, and allow images to form in my mind's eye. It's sort of an actively passive exercise, since consciously thinking about what I'm seeing- or thinking about anything for that matter- or trying to control what images form, breaks it. It's definitely something I consciously decide to do, and am aware that I am doing, but once I've started doing it, any actual thought breaks it.

It's always very random stuff. People, faces, objects, behaviors, and sometimes just various shapes. They start off sort of grey, blurry and indistinct, more the suggestions of the shapes and objects, than anything. If I'm good about just going with the flow, not thinking about anything, they gradually become more distinct and more visible (hard to verbally describe what you see in your mind's eye, but its sort of like the difference between seeing something through a pane frosted glass and then having the glass gradually become more transparent) and if I can hold the right mental state for long enough they lose the grey tones and start to be in vivid distinct colors. They also tend to start off taking up a small portion of the space in my mind's eye, but towards the end can grow to be fill the entire space. And when I get to this point it really feels like seeing the thing for real, rather than just imagining it. By the time I get to this point, I feel incredibly relaxed.

If I'm in bed, I usually fall asleep very shortly after I get to the stage where I'm experiencing this level of realism. This is why I find it particularly effective as a bedtime exercise. I've gotten to this point a few times while elsewhere too, most usually in Yoga during the final shavasana, but since external stimulus tends to break it up I generally don't have much luck getting beyond semi-distinct shapes when I'm in a public place.

I've been doing this for years, as I said, mostly to help me fall asleep. I mentioned this to a friend the other day and she said it sounds a lot like meditation, what with the need for me to cease all conscious thought for it to effectively work.

I've never actually tried to meditate, so I wouldn't know. However as I understand it, meditation generally doesn't involve falling asleep, and that seems to be the eventual destination of this thing I do if I can keep it up long enough. I also have never heard meditation described as an intensely visual experience, which this most certainly is. In fact, it's pretty much all visual and nothing else.

Any gurus/yogis/whatever out there who can tell me if what I've been doing counts as meditation or if it's something else?

Do movies shape the way we imagine things or vice versa?

Senor Cardgage — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:56:09 -0800

Do movies shape the way we imagine things or vice versa? I notice that when I dream/daydream/concept that I often think very cinematically (meaning imagining things staged/put together/"filmed" even in a motion picture narrative style). What I wonder is if one type of visual conception is a result of the other. I notice that when I dream/daydream/concept that I often think very cinematically (meaning imagining things staged/put together/"filmed" even in a motion picture narrative style). What I wonder is if one type of visual conception is a result of the other.

For instance, are the more cinematic conventions of imagination simply the way we as people imagine things and of course filmmakers eventually found ways to express that kind of imagination with technology OR are we so surrounded by ideas expressed in that visual fashion that we adopt them in to the way we conceive things and that informs the way we imagine and dream.

Also, I've often wondered after seeing pieces of ancient artwork if the flat-plane 2d style was also a product of the way we imagined and visualized the world around us or just technical limitations of the time. Did the advent of proscenium space thinking force a reconception of space for people in their own thoughts?

Sorry to go all late night dorm-room bongsmoke on you guys, but I've wondered this for a really long time and would love to get some different viewpoints from the hive on this.

Runnin' around

Anonymous — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:57:21 -0800

I am curious about a childhood habit I had of daydreaming, or fantasizing, I suppose, while... running (for lack of a better term). Has anyone heard of this phenomenon? I don't mean, I would go out for a run, and then daydreamed while I was running. I mean, it was a bit like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, i.e. I was daydreaming about myself in adventures, exciting scenarios, in T.V. shows I liked etc. Except, in order to have really intense daydreams I'd literally run back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, in my bedroom. Probably I could do it for anywhere from 20 minutes to over an hour. To me, the daydreams would be extremely "real" this way: I'd tune out the world around me and really see (and hear) my daydream world around me. I mean actually I would not see the room around me and would see what I was imagining.

I never had a problem with mixing up daydreams vs. reality though - there was the real world and then there were these stories I'd tell myself. On the other hand, I could, in a way, measure things very clearly, and when I was somewhat older, very consciously, about myself by what happened in the daydreams (what I aspired to, what I feared, etc.).

My question is: has anyone else experienced something like this? Is it documented at all? Or something similar?

I suppose the niggling question I have is that, since my daydream world was so intense and satisfying, in a way, is it possible that the imaginative "adventures" and risks I took might have replaced real-world "risks and adventures" that would have been of a similar emotional character (though obviously not realistically the same)?

(If there are questions by any chance they can be directed to fo11ow0p@gmail.com.)

List of most visited online newspapers, magazines and literature websites (blogs allowed)

omnigut — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:50:36 -0800

I've seen a list of the most popular websites, and another of the most popular blogs, but for these three categories (literature, newspapers, magazines) I've found a list hard to track down. I'd like it ordered in order of popularity, but a top-ten (or top-hundred) would be fine too. Thanks! For various reasons, I'd like to know if people have lists for either of those topics; newspapers, magazines, and literature websites.

On the side, I've also got an article reviewing how writing websites will change writers/creativity - fiction guides, writer's block removers, creativity impulses, poetry generators etc etc. Any ideas where I should submit it? It must be to an online site.

Thankyou everybody!

How does your creativity work?

archagon — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:10:19 -0800

How does your creativity work? For the longest time, I assumed that the only "real" way to generate interesting narrative ideas (characters, settings, etc.) was to essentially pull them out of thin air, and that any other method was artificial and clunky. I simply had no idea how artists like Imperial Boy managed to create such rich and imaginative paintings.

Recently, I discovered that I'm also able to think creatively, but only if I'm actually looking at something. For instance, I can easily think of a bunch of settings, stories, and characters while examining a photo or object, but hardly any if I'm working from memory. Is this typical, or was my original assumption correct? How does your creativity work?

How do you read vividly?

Tufa — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:07:58 -0800

Since I began a reading life (at about age eight), I have had a problem: my mind automatically places action in just a few places familiar to me from my life: my house, the main street of my hometown. Whether the action in a novel takes place in 16th century Scotland, or the Black Forest, or under the Unisphere. Are there ways to get around this, or to learn to read fiction more actively, and, fantastically/creatively? Do you actively visualize a setting when you read? Do you see anything at all? (Does viewing a movie adaptation change this?) Do you study a historical novel's setting and time before or while you read? I have been reading Obama's Dreams From My Father, and searching on Flickr tags when he mentions a place name. It helps.

"Embrace your code with the elegant grip of Python...-" Wait, what?

curagea — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:45:34 -0800

An overly romantic person in a non-romantic world... help! Let's start with some background:

I am SERIOUSLY romantic. I think in romantic terms and sometimes want to do something purely through intuition and emotion. It's not like "Oh, thine eyes shine with the stars", nothing overly cheesy, but I'm one of those people who stares at the night sky and dream of the beyond, the city lights, the freeways, and how everything comes together, who's watching from that building across the street. Then I stare down at a stray cat on the sidewalk and think "Where are you going, kitty in the streetlight? Were you searching for the meal that never came?" Or I could go on a journey and never come home, finding enlightenment along the way. Stuff like that. It doesn't help that this romanticism seeps into my daily life so that I view even the most casual banal things in a romantic light ("the car blinkers throb in impatience...").

Which leads to me feeling alienated. Growing up with a huge imagination and no one to share it with, I always felt like the odd one out. I rather stare at the city lights and compose the next poem in my head, but this may happen at a CompSci get-together, the most recent case being a rooftop party for Microsoft recruiting candiates. Since I'm a CompSci major, I encounter a lot of techies, but true to stereotypes, they are mostly "hurhur, GTA!" or discussing tech-related jobs and code. And I honestly can't relate to them, I can't think like them, leading to me drifting off to the side and sitting alone.

Don't get me wrong: I like technology. I can code well and learn programming languages; currently I'm fairly fluent in Java, C/++, Python, and hopefully Ruby on Rails soon. I like following the latest tech trends. But I'm also a very artsy person, in fact more creative than technical, and love to talk about philosophy and other similar subjects like how the human mind works, even if I barely know enough about these things. I want to talk in my "natural" language - full of imagery and description, rather than "That was AWESOME" (which I feel is terribly overused). And I have a head full of ideas that aren't remotely CompSci-related.

Sad thing is, even the more "artistic" people - poets, artists, and writers - that I've met so far don't have that romantic edge that I have. Their world is full of postmodernism (highly unromantic IMO) and increasingly, digital media (by the way, I'm talking about Berkeley). It's like human romance/true love is a dying art or something. So I'm left feeling like I don't belong to ANY group at all, and no one can love as I can. There's a few people that I find solace in, but I'm emphasizing "few".

Am I overthinking? Am I just old-fashioned, a modern Thoreau or Robert Frost or Shakespeare? Am I putting a romantic or philosophical spin in the wrong places? I've long accepted that it's not necessary to fit in a group, that I could even form my own niche and be the sole member, but sometimes.... it gets lonely.

Umm, so where abouts is the off button?

chrisbucks — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 06:50:58 -0800

I can't stop thinking, and it's destroying my life! I over think and over analyse every damn situation, it's causing me major depression and stealing my sleep, so how do I stop? Pretty much I over think everything, to the point that it's starting to ruin my academic career, my job, my relationships and everything else!

I find sleeping difficult, because my thoughts tend to peak later at night, as do my creative ideas, so I stay up late frequently, often I'll decide to go to bed, but eventually get restless and go back on the net or read a book. I'll be about to fall asleep then I recall something I read earlier in the day, or something that someone said, so I find myself compelled to go look it up, or 'resolve it' to myself.

It plays havoc with relationships or even potential relationships, seemingly small issues snowball because I sit around pondering how I could have done XYZ differently, or how I should do so and so tomorrow and spend a lot of time pre-judging how I should handle certain situations. I'm sure if you check out my ask.mefi history you'll see a pattern of that kind of stuff (there's some self analysis going on!)

My last few relationship messed up because I dwelled on details too often and never allowed myself to just enjoy where I was...

I suppose it doesn't help that I don't have many friends to distract me, I wouldn't say I'm introverted though.

Sometimes this over active brain I have is very useful, and I don't want to just lose it, but there are times when I wish I could just find the off switch and go into idle mode and just enjoy existance, instead of worrying about details.

Ideally I just need to get laid and chill the ____ out, but I was hoping or a more internal solution that was immediately accessable. Therapy, medication and assorted other things are workable solutions?

I don't actually recall a point in my life where things weren't like this, but I'm pretty sure I was happy at one point...

Relevant biographics: I'm a 22 year old male, media graduate (or close to it) in NZ.

Scientific name for ability to see random stream of images?

Malad — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:39:39 -0800

I and some others I've spoken to have the ability to see a plethora of random images or movies (and sometimes sounds or other sense-imagery) in our imaginations at will. These manifest when we relax our minds a little and will the images to come -- they might be connected or not, bizarre or not -- a lot like dreams, really. What is the scientific name for this phenomenon and how common is it?

Make the demons in my head go away

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 13:11:00 -0800

How do I get terrible images and memories out of my head? I'm one of those guys with an extremely good, vivid, image-based memory. Show me a picture of something, and I can call it up in my mind at will. I can see every detail; it's like I'm watching a movie in my head. I'm a creative guy, in a creative field, and I also have a vivid imagination and capability for empathy. Get me started, and my mind can go anywhere. Most of the time, I can make this work for me quite well.

Ever since I had my own children, I've been ... tormented ... by stories of violence, especially to children. I can see the images in my head; I can't escape them. The recent case of Christopher Barrios in Savannah, Georgia, is a perfect example; I can't seem to let it go. I can't get that little boy's smiling face out of my mind. I can SEE the crime all happening in my imagination. I have the entire horrible movie playing on a loop inside my head. All made up. The mind just filling in the blanks. I can't control it.

I'm not crazy. I *know* this is irrational. I *know* this is my imagination getting the best of me. I *know* this is all inside my head. I *know* this is related to my empathy for my own kids.

I just feel anxious and icky and horrified for days after hearing another story. I think of these poor kids, the imagination goes crazy, my love for my own kids gets mixed in and ... ick.

I don't believe in magic or the wishy-washy areas psychology, and I generally like my imagination, so I'd like to keep it. I just need tools and strategies to smooth out the rough edges.

How does someone like Stephen King do it? How do you walk around with images of real horror in your head and still have enough mental energy to, like, just take out the garbage, mow the lawn and keep on truckin'?

Overactive imagination. Disorder?

treepour — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 11:58:01 -0800

Overactive imagination. Disorder? 35 years old, male, anxiety disorders out the wazoo (panic, OCD, social). For years, I've noticed another aspect of my psyche that doesn't quite fit what I imagine the "normal" footprint to be, but the psychiatrists to whom I've mention it have always dismissed my concern over it as just another way of generating anxiety. I'm prepared to accept their explanation, but I'm also not sure I've really been able to accurately articulate what I'm experiencing. What I'm looking for is accounts from other mefites who have had similar experiences (described below) and possibly sought a diagnosis and/or help for them.

For most I've my life, I've experienced incredibly vivid mental imagery. I've never believed in alternate universes, had imaginary friends, etc. I've never constructed intricate fantasy worlds and/or scenarios that I feel in danger of confusing with reality. It's all images, but I don't seem to have much control over them.

The imagery ranges from abstract to cartoonish to vividly realistic, and is generally fantastic or surreal in character. The images almost never form stories or narratives, tend to vanish or morph into something else as quickly as they arise, and there may or may not be any connection between successive images. They often reflect my moods -- if I'm in a good mood, I'll sometimes see pleasant images, if I'm feeling especially anxious, I might see horrific and disturbing images. They can be particularly strong when I'm falling asleep -- sometimes, drifting off to sleep, I watch them morph from one thing into another, and am unsure when this process stops and dreaming begins. Sometimes I catch a flash of an image whose detail is far too complex for me to take in completely before it changes into something else.

I tend to actively engage this faculty when writing poetry (which I'm pursuing in graduate school right now), so I don't want it to go away completely. But at times, it's invasive, and the images are strong and vivid enough to be significantly distracting. And the fact that I don't seem to be entirely in control of them also bothers me. I guess I shouldn't expect to be in complete control, since they're probably welling-up from my subconscious -- but I would at least like to be able to tune them out better than I can.

Anyhow, I know I'm writing to audience of IANAMHP's or IANAP's, so please understand that I'm not wanting the hive-mind to diagnose me. Rather, I'm curious as to whether anyone out there has experienced something similar, what was/is useful for you in coping with it, and whether you've pursued it with mental health professionals (and, if so, whether or not you found it helpful to do so).

Phew, that was a lot. Thanks for reading!

How do I improve my ability to form mental images?

philosophistry — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 17:39:23 -0800

How do I improve my ability to form mental images? I've always had difficulty reading fiction. When I read novels, all I get at the end is an impression of what happened.

I've always also had difficulty reading screenplays and "seeing" what's going on.

My belief is that I don't form clear enough mental visions of things. If someone said "two young people are walking down the street" all that appears in my head are two vertical poles vibrating across a sidewalk. I don't see the girl's nice hair, nor the guy's solid physique. Nor do I see the weather, the clouds, the lamp posts, the windows, the whites of anybody's eyes.

When I wake up in the morning sometimes, I get some strange lucid moments where I can really see settings. So I believe the potential is in my brain somewhere.

Some exercises I've tried recently include the following:

- Playing Brain Age, specifically the following training exercises: Time Lapse, Triangle Division, Syllable Count, Low to High, and Head Count. The idea is that by improving my mental scratch, short-term memory, I can hold more things in my head simultaneously

- Listening to Audiobooks. With audiobooks I can close my eyes and let the details unfold. Also, I feel that when reading books, I get stuck only seeing words.

- Representational Drawing. I'm great at abstract drawing, but to have an idea for something then represent it is something I'm working on.

- "Feature-generating" cognitive exercises. I sit down and present myself with something to visualize, like "two young people are walking down the street" and I start dictating things for me to see, "okay, show me the clouds, show me their eye colors" etc.. and eventually I find the picture slowly comes into focus.

Is there any good places to look for help with this?

Do you picture a calendar in your head, or am I just strange?

printchick — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 18:40:40 -0800

An am-I-alone-here-question: What does the calendar that you picture in your head look like? For as long as I can remember (or at least as long as I knew my months of the year), my mental calendar has always been monthly, and seemed to start with the month of August--maybe because I was born then, or maybe because the school year started around then. The calendar just kind of continues on, one month next to the other, side by side, with January/February as kind of a halfway point. The end of the calendar is always in July, and then it just kind of starts over again in August. Think of a line of monthly calendar pages, all lined up, in just that arrangement. This is what I picture when I try to envision/plan for vacations I'm planning, pregnancies of relatives of friends, birthdays, etc. For what it's worth, the pages are always white. And it's not like a kitten or Far Side theme or anything.

Is this crazy? Do other people's mental calendars look similar, or do you picture something different? Do you even envision such a calendar?

"Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?"

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 05:15:18 -0800

When do daydreams become harmful to your way of life, and is there anything you can do to prevent them from making you miserable in the "Real" world? I'm a pretty creative person, and I've always had an overactive imagination. It's proven to help me out tons during photoshoots (i'm a photographer and model), so I suppose I'm thankful. However, I've started noticing that my daydreaming is becoming more frequent, more vivid and well, more real. I've always had them - at least for the last 10 years, possibly earlier but I didn't pay attention. But lately they're more... "powerful", I guess is the proper word.

On a 1-10 scale, 1 being suicidal and 10 being completely 200% content and happy with my life, I'm at about a 4 or 5 - maybe even a 6. I'm usually not depressed about my life, but I'm doing something that I love and will (hopefully) pay off one day as far as financials and benefits. Only a few things need to change for me to be happier (more money, more benefits, less work).

However.

I've noticed that whenever I'm not busy and not thinking about 20 things at once (which is usually how I operate), I immediately fall into a daydream. I have no control over them - as soon as my brain shuts down the "work side", the "dream side" kicks on the generator and I'm plunked down in the middle of something already going on. Usually the daydreams consist of, for lack of a better phrase, "alternate universes" where overall, my life is far better. Sometimes book and movie settings, characters, etc are present. Sometimes, not. But the things that happen in the daydreams are things that can't possibly happen in the real world - they're too mystical, too unrealistic, too fantastical. This isn't the case but it's a good example of what I mean: I wouldn't have a crush on a celebrity... more like, I'd have a crush on a character the celebrity played and the movie setting in which the character lived. The only way I can explain this - and I haven't seen this movie since it was in theaters, so I might be way off - is to compare it to The Matrix... just not as superheroey.

Using that same 1-10 scale from before, my "alternate" life is about a 9, and it's making me hate my (real) life more and more. It's becoming harder and harder to shake that feeling and at least once or twice, I've woken up and have been depressed because I'm not "There" in the daydreams - I'm here in reality.

Yes, I can work to improve my (real) life - work harder, make more money, downsize my responsibility, make more friends, etc. I recognize that and I've been working on it. But is that going to help?

My questions, finally: When do daydreams become harmful to your way of life? And if they're harmful, how do you make yourself stop daydreaming - or at least, how do you put a cap on what you do/don't daydream and how frequently you do it? Does everyone daydream this much? Is this happening because I work too much? Is there any way that I can make it chill the fuck out? Am I going crazy?

How would you test if someone has trouble conceiving of new ideas?

PinkStainlessTail — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:16:48 -0800

Putzface_dickman's question below and some issues I'm having with a co-worker prompt this: if you suspect someone of having no imagination, what's a good way to "test" them?

Imaginary Friends

grumblebee — Mon, 15 Dec 2003 17:34:24 -0800

Do any of you -- as adults -- have imaginary friends? [more inside.] I'm not sure I should admit this, but I've had them all my life. Now these aren't the kind of imaginary friends that I believe are real. I know they are imaginary. Usually, these creations have been shared between me and a close friends. We talk in their voices, make up stories about them, etc.

My closest friend for many years now is my wife, and we have a whole pantheon of imaginary friends. Some of them have been "alive" for so long now that they seem like real people. We are very emotionally invested in them, and when we talk to each other on the phone, we often ask to speak to the characters too.

As I'm nearing 40, I doubt this trend will ever end. I'm not worried about it or anything. It's harmless, really fun, and it brings us closer together. It gives us a mythology that's shared by us alone (which is why I won't go into any details about the imaginary friends, except to say that one is a dinosaur that lives in our bed).

But I am curious as to whether other adults do this too. The only other case I know of was recently exposed on an episode of This American Life about two grownup sisters who have an imaginary duck called Duki.

http://www.thislife.org/pages/archives/archive03.html(search on the page for Duki)