Thinking. (4)

How would you describe your thinking?
What cognitive shortcomings do you have?
What (cognitively) are you good at?
And/or whatever additional insight/tips for improvement you can think of...

Yeah, again, massively state dependant. Bad day, white noise, all thoughts broken and muddled and loud until they're nothing, everything blaring nonsense, mangled between words and voices and images and senses confused...it can get really difficult, massive fantastical, dreamlike; the imagery is bizarre, like ripped up comics and newspapers and movies thrown together, turned up and stretched out to a point like the electric whine from a hundred TVs, and it's physical, like that noise is in the skin. Have so many talking and thinking and feeling at once in all different directions. It's like it all slides up until it blanks out and I don't think anything at all and everything is faraway and I feel like I might be thinking a thousand things at once but because it's so distant it's muffled and fuzzy.

Sometimes have things repeated until I do or say them. Sometimes it's clear and concise and bullet-straight without equivocation and super sharp. It's barely like thinking at all, it's like existing in a state of super consciousness, fully grounded in the absolute present and existing in that uninterrupted flow; the only thing I can compare it to is the Buddhist concept of rigpa, though this is a state acquired when one achieves enlightenment and I can't imagine that one would continue to experience the instability of mental health problems following fully transcending ego. Unless it's possible a separate state achieved it, but that would surely be counter intuitive since the realisation that separation is an illusion should potentially merge any fractured mind-states.

The imagination is vast and often consuming and becomes drawn into inner universes that are fractal-like in nature, supermassive, exponential, worlds on worlds that become so overwhelming that interaction with this tiny flat page of existence is hard, since all is multidimensional and I can't fit myself into onto a thread, therefore communication seems impossible, and normal cognition in relation to the way we interact and perceive breaks down since it is simplified into what seems single celled and plodding in comparison. It moves too slow and is incoherent, like a slug attempting to make words.

Some are good at observation. Memory is compartmentalized; we forget a great deal but can picture objects and places with great detail. Numbers don't store well, though there is a state which can do mental arithmetic with relative ease. Attention depends on what - we can get lost in an activity so completely that we go into a trance, particularly when working on a piece of art though once withdrawn from that state it is very difficult to reenter or complete the unfinished piece unless done so while in that state. Can zone out of conversation and not know what was being said. When watching movies there is such an intense level of absorption that only the movie world exists, only the story and the people in it. Used to be able to read whole novels in a few hours but I haven't found a book for a long time that I've been able to concentrate on like that. I can't maintain my focus to read more than a couple of pages.

And concentration talk has f//ked mine so I'm gonna quit this essay.

Depends on the alter! Do you want us to elaborate?

My advise is to challenge the 'shortcomings'. (i.e. Sonja blocks out negative/bad/painful things, so she has to try to accept/acknowledge/face them)

niva wrote:Depends on the alter! Do you want us to elaborate?

Yes please.

ninchen thinks like a typical child. She comes out and marvels over and gets excited over things like ladybugs, wonders how they see they world, etc. She lacks the perspective of an adult - the world still revolves around her. She likes creating/building things.

Sonja is the eternal optimist. For the negative/painful/etc, she blocks it out, suppresses/denies/forgets/detaches from it, finds the silver lining, etc. She can tell you why poo is great, lol. She is very talented at knowing how others want her to be/how to respond

niva is fast/frantic in her thinking; very intense. Like strobe lights. She will jump from one thought to the next, and each will be as intense as the last. Short attention span. Dwells on things in a close-minded fashion; is very rigid in her thinking. Judges immediately; attacks us, especially jane. She depersonalizes/derealizes under extreme stress. Makes decisions without thinking them through.

Jane thinks in very slow motion; she is delayed in responding because it takes her a while to comprehend what's been said, and then a while longer to decide how to respond/if to bother responding. Her world is dark, cold - the opposite of Sonja's. She can't see the good in anything, has anhedonia, hates herself for it. She twists everything into her being bad (i.e. why bad things happen to her). She believes herself to be toxic/contagious. She is the most prone to derealization, depersonalization, somatoform dissociation - will lose her ability to see, hear, move, speak, and/or think (freeze response); she can 'disappear'. Doesn't trust her mind/thoughts/judgement on anything, except that which confirms her beliefs.

Aiden obsesses, ruminates, gets completely absorbed. He got us great marks in school . He can maintain his focus for so many hours; it's hard to pull him away from whatever he's researching for basic things like eating and sleeping and moving. He wants to know the bigger picture, the other side of the story, the details; he wants proof; he wants to know why. He can lose the big picture by being sucked into whatever he's obsessing about. Like niva, he is very stubborn. He loves #s.

We are almost always co-conscious, so my thinking is influenced by whoever is closest (which gets interesting when Sonja and Jane both have a strong presence at the same time! Or niva and jane, etc.) I try to be as non-judgemental and open-minded as possible. I challenge the others when they lack perspective. I like being proved wrong. I love learning in all areas (not just intellectual/cognitive/etc things like Aiden). I am learning how to help us all.

no-mans-land wrote:How would you describe your thinking?
What cognitive shortcomings do you have?
What (cognitively) are you good at?
And/or whatever additional insight/tips for improvement you can think of...

this isn't tangly btw, but I'm posting with profile so I guess I should italic or something.

one version: really practical and hands on, great at spatial stuff, very co-ordinated, has some patience, uses it to think.

another version: socially capable and inclined to interact or at least doesn't give a ###$, but loses all decent co-ordination, spacial skills etc because the other version won't let access them.

One version has no patience and won't or can't let (some) others apply themselves to certain things.

At least one version hates to engage socially...

I think there are 3 atm but I'm not sure. I think every version insists they are the "host".

Memory problems! Cant memorize a paragraph for a drama class!

Where damage of dissociation, very weak to coordinate a spacial uniformity! for example. Although I can finish a project of many smaller pieces creating a whole; I find it painful and uncomfortable. My mind is stretched when attempting to put the puzzle together correctly, this causes stress overload. My mind drops out at points! drops out like sink holes scattered along a freeway!

Although I have the intellect to write a symphony! intellectual participation is not enough! Im not strong enough to finish or work the project out! My mind gives up! Yet, I can understand the inner workings of a symphony; no problem.

I have written the equivalent of a symphony many times over! Thus, I have experienced these mind dissociative short comings in the real world!

Many times during a project I will switch, and mess everything up!

I find it hard to stay the course. I end up changing the order of the numbers on the number line. I cant seem to go in order for the life of me! I must mess things up, or blank out, or reverse things! and usually it PTSD problems and areas of dissociation that cause problems.

Projects require interaction. As a dissociative, interaction is most destroyed and numb. However, things are getting better!