What is your imagination like?

Ok this will be short and sweet, but I have a very real question that has came to my mind today.

How do you think? What goes on in your mind that you have unknowingly succumbed to what is you call reality. The very thing that makes or breaks us all, but is often overlooked every single day.

Ill tell you my experience to get the ball rolling

First off, I talk in my head alot , not like an illness sort of thing, but as a way of learning. I play out hundreds of different scenarios throughout my day about any little thing. I can look at a perspective and look at every possibility that could happen. I even lose myself I suppose in sort of a chess game and go eight moves ahead often daydreaming for minutes.

I also think in physics and computer code more or less just in english language. I believe any object can inhabit one space. Such as in my parking lot outside there "could be" any sports car, person, or even the winning lottery ticket. Or even if u wish it to be so those items can be in my room right now. Because it can.

So what about yourselves? Please enlighten me on your stories.

But remember ... the real center of the universe exists inside each of our minds, always expanding outward in a spiritual multiverse.

LIZ

reply to post by TheLotLizard

First off, I talk in my head alot , not like an illness sort of thing, but as a way of learning. I play out hundreds of different scenarios throughout my day about any little thing. I can look at a perspective and look at every possibility that could happen. I even lose myself I suppose in sort of a chess game and go eight moves ahead often daydreaming for minutes.

I do that too. Amazing how much it helps sometimes when I'm working, anticipating siuations.

reply to post by Trueman


Right? So far it has gotten me through my life pretty successfully.

I am sure there was/is a member on here that does that, I'm sure I read a post about how they would play out scenarios in their head, so much so that they would invent entire worlds and languages and intricate details of it all, imagined in their minds, and they were starting to write it down...

might have been another forum..

me, my imagination is a dark tepid world full of straight lines and curves that only lead back to the origin of whatever thought infected my thinking.

no point making it harder than it already is, navigating in a world full of everyone elses imaginations.. oO

I remember reading somewhere, I don't remember exactly, this idea about what an atom is. This guy said that if we were to invent a microscope that was unbelievably powerful, we would look at an atom and what we would see would be planets orbiting around a sun.

It's late, so I won't elaborate too much, but what we define as imagination is the only reality we know. Our own reality, our own perception. Our imagination has no bounds, an idea can be born out of nothing and expand forever. Added with love, passion; it ignites and that imagination becomes an idea,that idea starts to become words, those words into actions, and so on and so forth.

It's what makes the human race unique. We have this uncanny ability to dream, and believe; love and hope, and we had no technical training in how to do it... we just do.

For lack of a better term, I'm very keen when it comes to other people and their behavior. I feel how they feel, and with that it's easy to 'predict' their next move. For instance, if I'm talking to someone and their voice is shaky, they change their volume, look around the room/avoid eye contact, move hands/feet, chances are they're lieing. Any basic psychology course can teach you this, but I feel this. It's inborn, I just get people.

The way people carry themselves, a handshake, a simple nod of the head as I'm passing by a customer at the grocery store I work in. I feel like where most people are on a sort of auto-pilot, I'm tuned I'm and I'm curious, playing a game with myself to see how well I can read this person today.

OP, as you mentioned, we play out scenarios in our head. We make each action a conscious one, and always think through before any act. We see how certain events will play out, and we try to take the light, friendly, "clean" path compared to the impulsive and 'yolo' lifestyle.

Me personally, im still young so I undoubtedly have a lot to learn, but the things I have learned about myself are far more important than any education I believe I could receive. I spend a great deal of time in my own mind, and I'm happy there. I make sense out of things, and try to see them level-headed and objectively.

I am not a religious person, but I am spiritual. I am a spirit, my body is not who I am entirely. OP, I challenge you to star-gaze more often, and bask in the serenity of a moon-lit sky. Let your imagination run free, let it become you and realize how tiny you are but how massive we are.

If there is a being that would be considered God, it would have to be the essence of imagination in my perception. For, what is imagination? I believe it is creation, out of nothing, but love. But where love exists, so does evil. That is the cosmic balance of our divine being. The driving forces that make us be; desire, dreams, lust, hope, greed, love all stem from our imagination, our thoughts. And our ability to think is what connects us, it's what makes us be. It is constant, expanding forever, and never judging, or hating. Just loving, and growing.

I like the thread a lot. Inspires me to post more on here. Thank you OP for the thought-provoking read and late night rambling, I feel as if I'll sleep in zen. Peace.

My Brain is crazy, and is hyperactive to the point of mental exhaustion a lot of the time. I live inside my mind, it's where i'm most happy and everything is so vivid in there, i'm very much an introvert, don't express myself much and don't really have much to say to anyone who may come across me, but inside i'm crazy active, which I like until something bad is on my mind, because then I just torture myself endlessly!

Sleep is hard for me too, I go to bed, lay there for hours and my mind is just racing, thinking about random things, ranging from silly things, to emotional, to existence, God, the universe, shepherds pie, Batman then when I do sleep I wake up around every hour or so and sometimes start where I left off before I drifted away.

I also have this habit of playing out events in my head with every possible outcome I can think of, my head sees everything as a puzzle, this has been an advantage in the past but it also can cause me a little more anxiety than I usually have.

My imagination has changed somewhat over time. When I was a little kid; all I saw were what if's and infinite possibilities... as I grew older, I only see limitations imposed by the monkeys that were in the cage before me. Sure I could imagine something else and escape into a rich fantasy and even try to live in one... but in the end; what will it matter? Back in reality; responsibility and death always awaits.

I'm a very rational person. Feelings and faith do not factor in how I see the world. The information I receive I make sure there is someways I can be skeptical and factor whether the information is true. My imagination is very abstract and also down to earth. I love thinking of the big picture and what could be in the world. But I also love to read straight forward comments from people. I'm a weird person who dances to his own tune.

What I also notice is that ill find myself talking to someone inside my head. Sounds crazy I know but it sometimes lasts like 15 minutes .

Another thought was about how amazing it is that I can scale the universe in my mind. Imagining vast distances, but also making it feel to me like the size of a beach ball. The universe is where my mind is at any moment usually. All I watch is the documentary channels I love learning its like junk food.

When I was ten (in 1995) I conceptualised the similarity between the action of water spinning around the plug hole in my bath, and the spinning of galaxies around thier cores. I realised two things. One, the only logical reason why stars would gather together around a point, would be a massive concentration of gravity, one which was large enough to keep all kinds of enormously dense objects in its thrall. The second thing I realised, was that the only objects in the universe which had even the merest chance of being responsible would be some variation of a black hole, a kind of giant black hole, much bigger than anything which had previously been discovered.

Given that I was still in Primary School at the time, and not recieving any special tuition, nor had I access to higher learning materials, I conclude that the thought process which lead me to that conclusion was original. It was only much later, when I had access to the internet, and when I was old enough to stay up later and watch copious documentaries on the subject of astronomy and physics (never mind those which combined the two) that I realised that numerous boffins had posited the very same thing (although thier prognostications were based on data recieved from all manner of complicated observational gadgetry), since the early 1970's. They called them Supermassive Black Holes.

I was still pretty chuffed when Hubble found some conclusive evidence for thier existence not too long back.

reply to post by TheLotLizard


I can only think in sounds or pictures i cannot visualise words or numbers at all. I talk to myself in my head all the time, occasionally i think im crazy but i know its just an inner monologue and its one personality bouncing ideas off a clone of the same personality - definitely no different personality's or names! *yet?*

While i do not possess much personal emotions, im very empathic to others and a very good judge of character, i like to play out scenarios in my mind using some one else's personality to find the most approachable way to get what i want/best for any given situation - yes this is very manipulative and usually unintentional, but never greedy or vindictive. Some times i think that my own lack of emotion is why i like to be around people to feed off theirs.

Im intensely logical and things that are not logical make me uncomfortable. I think logic can make me seem cold to others, which i understand.

I can think in three dimensions very well, and can break down the parts of just about anything and understand how it works using my knowledge of mechanics and materials. Im extremely good at 'jury rigging' and can fix just about anything, which gives me great pleasure. I have a wild imagination that can on cue blurt out, often quite amusing, ideas or theorys, extremely creative but also near instant conceptions. The flow of ideas and the evolution of them can take just a few seconds either from nothing or basing of something existing.

I have referred to myself in my own mind in the third person, which i think is a bonus some times to make more realistic decisions.

I believe in a fractalverse, an infinite string passing through scales above and below our frame of reference, as the scale shrinks or expands, the laws of physics, forces and time change drasticly enabling infinite "universes" (aka frames of reference). Do other dimensions or universes exist? yes but they are all connected along the same string of never ending scale. All this makes perfect sense in my mind, i have no idea as to why, it just seems "right" to me.

Do i think of my self as different for all of the above? Yes. Special? No.

Originally posted by TheLotLizard
First off, I talk in my head alot , not like an illness sort of thing, but as a way of learning.

I thought everyone does that? How do you not?

The voices in my head just go on and on and on, and on, there's nothing I can do to stop them. No seriously though it's my own voice lol, unless I decide to let the others in, depends what I'm thinking about. No I kid, I'm not that good at keeping them out. But it's all good stuff I tell ya, well except, anyway best not dwell on that one. What was that? Someone answer that damn phone. Serenity now!

Seriously though I do have episodes of almost manic self talk, as I call it. Can cause some bad insomnia. But it's just cause I tend to stress about things a little too much lol. I am getting better though since the fibro took over, slowed the mind right down haha. The early onset dementia is helping also, I just forget what I'm talking about.

I have a habit, that I actually find a bit annoying, where if I plan to do something, or see someone, I sort of play out what is going to happen, like I would know already lol. Like if I'm going to call someone I will imagine the conversation, what I will say and what they will reply. It's annoying because I would like to just go in without it feeling like all the details have been planned, because it rarely goes as planned, so it's just a waste of energy really. Maybe anxiety causes that? Serenity now, insanity later.

Anyways enough of me, so do some people really not play out scenarios in their heads? To me that would be like going through life blind. Hmm, I guess that would explain a few things though lol? I've never considered myself to be particularly intelligent, done some stupid stuff in my life, although being on teh net makes me feel like a freakin' genius sometimes lol, so much stupid on teh net. It can make you start to despise people if you don't get a dose of reality once in awhile. Have to remember ATS is not a reflection of the rest of the world. (I was talking to myself there). Is it a problem to express every thought in a post? Anyhow I guess that wasn't enough about me after all, you can never get too much of me though right? Right? C'mon, I know you all looove me.

Did I digress?

Originally posted by TrueBrit
When I was ten (in 1995) I conceptualised the similarity between the action of water spinning around the plug hole in my bath, and the spinning of galaxies around thier cores.

So my questions is the following :

Why does water going down a plughole spin in one direction in the Northern hemisphere and in the other direction in the Southern? Which way (if any) does it spin on the equator?

Link here : www.guardian.co.uk...

Otheriwse to respond to the OPs pertinent post : I dont know, i just have this grey stuff that is like kind of stuck inside my head that scientists call a brain and i let it do all the work for me!... I don't bother to think WAYYYY beforehand as in my opinion i am wasting my own time but take every milli second or second as it comes and then act according to what information the grey matter decides to do at the chosen time. (especially as i am a father of a teenager a husband and an active professional in my domain of activity (which is veterinary science) and have many other issues to deal with)

Kindest respects

Rodinus

reply to post by TheLotLizard


I have conversations in my head as well. I'll run through every conceivable way a conversation could go, or so it seems to me. I have found that I can get it figured out about 50% of the time.

Which begs the question, What's the point of having a conversation when you already know what the other person is going to say?

When I'm bored I will imagine people's heads exploding, or come up with crazy ridiculous deaths for people who are getting on my nerves.

I also tend to just turn my mind off sometimes. I'll just stare at a blank wall sit quietly and not think about anything.

This reminds me of a thread I made a while ago that got some interesting replies.
How do you percieve your mind?

reply to post by TheLotLizard


I believe many objects can inhabit multiple spaces. Objects which do this are called "information". And example would be the object called "The number 5". The number 5, if you look carefully, will be found occupying many spaces around your home at once. At certain times it will even appear on your computer screen, your clock.

Imagination is information, not yet committed to form. You go through many scenarios in your head, but eventually one of them, or something like it, comes to pass, it becomes committed to form, to substance. The ability to create whatever you want in this world is tied to your ability to visualize its existence in PERFECT detail in your imagination. The far out stuff, the stuff we dream about but never realize, are the things we can't see in perfect detail. For instance we can visualize the unicorn, but we can't see the perfect genetic detail of why it has the horn. If we could, we could genetically engineer the beast.

Thus, imagination is real power, the deepest real power we have. All those forces which suppress or seek to guide imagine down certain paths alone should be considered as damaging to the human spirit. Imagination is our true creative capacity.

PEace

reply to post by TheLotLizard

Originally posted by TheLotLizard
First off, I talk in my head alot , not like an illness sort of thing, but as a way of learning. I play out hundreds of different scenarios throughout my day about any little thing. I can look at a perspective and look at every possibility that could happen. I even lose myself I suppose in sort of a chess game and go eight moves ahead often daydreaming for minutes.

Yeah, me too. I once saw somebody drop a £5 note and sat in a day dream for about 15 minutes as I played out the life cycle of that £5 note as it passed from person to person, place to place.

It is 'normal' behavior and a lot more common than you might think. Why some people do it and some people don't - I couldn't say. Some people believe that it is a form of social anxiety, a way of escaping the 'real' world around you, the daily grind. I must have been a million different people in my lifetime, not that I am unhappy being me, but everyone likes to dream about bigger and better things.

There are people out there who would tell you that it is bad for you and that you should stop doing it, as if it's that easy. Don't listen to them. Instead, imagine a scenario where they have been covered in jam and left out in the baking hot sun next to a nest of disgruntled and hungry fire ants. Suddenly you will feel much better. Therein lies the beauty of living out fantasy scenarios!

Originally posted by TheLotLizard
I also think in physics and computer code more or less just in english language. I believe any object can inhabit one space. Such as in my parking lot outside there "could be" any sports car, person, or even the winning lottery ticket. Or even if u wish it to be so those items can be in my room right now. Because it can.

Sometimes I see in symbolism. It will jump out at me and completely obscure the original, usually mundane, image. "Signs and symbols rule the world, not words nor laws." Well, they don't rule my world (I still very much love words. Laws? Not so much.) but they do seem to have more of an impact upon me than other people. Of course, everyone is different, proven by your "physics and computer code" statement - something I could never imagine.

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

reply to post by Rodinus


There is no definitive answer to that question. There are theories only, and they abound on both sides of the debate, for and against the effects existence. Some think it is a by product of the same effect which dictates the way air moves around our atmosphere, some refute that. Some think it is more to do with the vessel involved than the hemisphere one is on.

No one seems to want to perform a decent experiment to prove the thing one way or another at the moment. I have devised a simple test which would confirm or deny this idea, but I am unlikely to be able to travel to both the middle of the northern and southern hemispheres at any time soon. The reason? I am as poor as dirt and I hate hot weather. I would love the north, but I would rather cut my nuts off and feed them to a Kenwood blender than travel anywhere with an average temperature of above fifteen degrees C.

The test would go like this. First, have made, or aquire two identical flat bottomed bowls of twenty inches in diametre. Cut perfectly round holes, in the dead centre of each one using a hole saw drill attachment. Get plugs to fit your holes. Place the plugs in the holes, then ship them to collaberators on either side of the equator. Get your minions to take the bowls to precisely one thousand miles from the equator on either hemisphere. Now, induce your collaberators to fill the bowls with precisely the same amount of water, and then place those bowls in a freezer. Freezing the water so that it turns to ice, will completely stop any residual movement of the water, left over from being poured into the bowl, which might interfere with the test. Have your assistants thaw the water naturally, and then release the water by pulling the plugs. That ought to answer it pretty effectively .

reply to post by TheLotLizard


I believe that's the voice of reason you are talking too if you use it to figure something out. I used to do the same thing quite a bit myself... oh you're so quiet. Huh? I said you're quiet... Well, you just interrupted a pleasant conversation

Originally posted by TrueBrit
reply to post by Rodinus

 

There is no definitive answer to that question. There are theories only, and they abound on both sides of the debate, for and against the effects existence. Some think it is a by product of the same effect which dictates the way air moves around our atmosphere, some refute that. Some think it is more to do with the vessel involved than the hemisphere one is on.

No one seems to want to perform a decent experiment to prove the thing one way or another at the moment. I have devised a simple test which would confirm or deny this idea, but I am unlikely to be able to travel to both the middle of the northern and southern hemispheres at any time soon. The reason? I am as poor as dirt and I hate hot weather. I would love the north, but I would rather cut my nuts off and feed them to a Kenwood blender than travel anywhere with an average temperature of above fifteen degrees C.

The test would go like this. First, have made, or aquire two identical flat bottomed bowls of twenty inches in diametre. Cut perfectly round holes, in the dead centre of each one using a hole saw drill attachment. Get plugs to fit your holes. Place the plugs in the holes, then ship them to collaberators on either side of the equator. Get your minions to take the bowls to precisely one thousand miles from the equator on either hemisphere. Now, induce your collaberators to fill the bowls with precisely the same amount of water, and then place those bowls in a freezer. Freezing the water so that it turns to ice, will completely stop any residual movement of the water, left over from being poured into the bowl, which might interfere with the test. Have your assistants thaw the water naturally, and then release the water by pulling the plugs. That ought to answer it pretty effectively .

edit on 30-5-2013 by TrueBrit because: Removed silly quote.

edit on 30-5-2013 by TrueBrit because: Added reply tag.

Good answer TrueBrit,

Anyone up to do the experimant with me?

Just for info, i can do some of the experiment in a couple of months time as will be going to the French island of Reunion.

Warmest respects

Rodinus

I'm pretty sure that walking around in my head would make Alice long for the sanity and order of Wonderland....