What goes on in other people's minds?

Miss T

I am curious to know what other people think about....I know some people visualise a lot, especially if getting PTSD flashbacks. If a psychiatrist asks 'are you hearing voices?' isn't the truthful answer 'yes' as we all have self talk, planning, learning, worrying, reflecting on the past and arguments, in particular. Then, there are clairadiant voices, those of Earthbound spirits as well as those who have passed over. My current favourite is the creative voice, imagining, daydreaming.

Eagle Ray

Wow Miss T, what an interesting question.

I am currently listening to the Telepathy Tapes podcast which gives multiple examples of incredible mind abilities of people with autism, especially those who are non-verbal or minimally verbal. There is strong evidence for telepathic abilities along with other abilities. The podcast includes scientific testing along with reports from parents and teachers. I’ve long suspected I’m on the autism spectrum and have worked with autistic children, including those who are non-speakers who tend to have particularly powerful mind abilities but are often grossly underestimated. I can vouch for those kid’s abilities to really read others and pick up on things many neurotypical people are not aware of.

My mind is often solving problems. I used to do a lot of classifying information in my head, like a collection of data on specific topics, which I would say is one of my autistic tendencies. I have had multiple clairsentient experiences including knowing when a relative was passing on the other side of the country at the exact time it happened, including feeling a sensation of struggle and release in my own body at the exact time of death, even though I did not have the actual information this was occurring at the time, yet I knew what it was. These sorts of experiences are fairly common for me. I’ve experienced very clear precognitions as well and my dad used to get these. I experience the world through instinct more than conscious thought, but have gradually become more conscious over time. I have been frequently dissociated but underneath that my instinctive nervous system is still thinking in its own way through impulses/feelings/sensations/intuitions.

My mind is very active which I’m sure is partly linked to a lifetime of hypervigilance due to circumstances from birth onwards. I have experienced flashbacks and I’m deeply affected by trauma triggers, often for a long time after something happens, but I’m getting better at self-soothing and recovery. I persevere a lot in my mind and don’t tend to stop until I’ve solved a problem. I do think my mind needs a bit more rest space. I do some meditation. I’ve done the Theravada Buddhist style which is the first I learnt. More recently I’ve been working with imagery, not so much conscious visualisation but dropping more into a waking dream state where imagery emerges spontaneously and tells me stuff. I learned this type of altered consciousness state through sound healing sessions I used to attend that would activate my brain this way. I’ve done a course with a trained shaman from the Shipibo tradition and this has further enhanced this ability. These ways of being with the mind are totally normal in many cultures but have been disconnected from a lot in Western societies.

My mind sees everything as animate, so I experience the world in a very dynamic way. Even objects feel like they have a life force, presence or character to me. Everything has a valence, so if I’m cataloguing photo images, for example, I experience dissonance if the number I’m giving an image doesn’t fit with the feel of an image. It’s almost a bit synaesthetic. I’m very sensitive to the emotions of others so I’m often wondering if other people are ok and what I can do to help them. This is in large part conditioning from my childhood circumstances, but I think I would have turned out a highly sensitive person in any case. I have suspected I may have mirror-touch synaesthesia. I have mild prosopagnosia (face blindness) so I can sometimes not recognise people’s faces (but I feel people’s energy powerfully).

I find pretty much everything interesting and don’t get bored, so it’s very easy for my mind to find meaning in the world. I love photography so I imagine future photography ideas and projects. I see patterns, forms and colours around me. When I was writing music I would be creating song ideas in my car and sometimes music just came spontaneously to me while on a walk. My mind naturally wants to create. I make a lot of connections and think very laterally.

I would love to hear how other people think 🤔

Kind regards,

Eagle Ray

Miss T

Thank you @Eagle Ray for all the detail in your response. I can't believe I neglected to mention musical interludes! Dr Miraca Gross, the deceased Professor of Gifted Education said about ESP, is it a gift or a special need. There is a lot that is fascinating about human and animal experience. Warm regards.

sbella02

Miss T,

An interesting thread you've started here, and I've really enjoyed reading through Eagle Ray's response too. I'm here to offer my own experience. I think my brain works in quite a fast, strange, and very roundabout way as I seem to have many unusual rituals and ways of moving about in the world, so here's some insight into how I think.

I'm a very creative person too, so a lot of the time I'm viewing the world through some kind of creative lens. If I'm on a bit of a writing kick one week, I'll be absorbing features of the world as if they were scenes I had to describe in a story. If I've been going through a painting phase again, I'll be asking myself how I'd represent certain objects or people with acrylic paint. I also write music, so I'll hear different instruments in everyday objects or lyrics in passing conversations that I store in my mind for later. I think in this sense, the world (or certain aspects of it) become my muse really.

I don't think my mind ever truly rests. I like being (or at least feeling) busy, and my brain really reflects this. There's so much going on, all the time. I've never been able to switch off all the noise and think purely about "nothing", such that it surprises me when I hear people say that they can do this. I can't conceptualise not thinking about anything at all. I've either got a constant stream of dialogue (my own or spoken in another person's voice), some kind of music, or just ideas for something creative. Daydreaming is also a big one for me. Most significant events in my life I've already replayed in my mind for days beforehand so it becomes more predictable and familiar for me when I'm there. Perhaps it's a coping mechanism.

I'd also say that I'm constantly analysing language in my mind too. I'm quite linguistically inclined, I've always loved learning about language. Sometimes I'll hear a word and it'll trigger something in my mind and I start to think about its root and where it's been built from, and I end up drawing connections between words and phrases that I never thought to connect before. One I thought of the other day was "au revoir" in French, which consists of "au" (at), "re" (repeated or done again), and "voir" (to see), so this phrase is very literally saying "at next sight". I thought that was a really cool revelation.

On the subject of clairsentient experiences, I would say I've had several notable "premonitions" in my life. I don't know if I necessary believe in the supernatural on the whole but I feel like a part of me does for this reason only. A few days before a school peer passed away, I experienced this intense warm, foreboding feeling in my forehead and I knew that something unusually bad was about to happen. I've had experiences like this since, but they weren't as prominently held in my mind as that one was.

I would say my mind is very people-centric too. I'm always fascinated by what people are thinking, doing, and the motivations for certain behaviours, and how groups of people can still exhibit very similar behaviours despite being in wildly different geographical locations. I suppose that's why I'm in psychology. I also think a lot about my own behaviour and why I do certain things too - as a result, I tend to overexplain and overshare which can get me into trouble sometimes.

I'd be interested to hear if others also have similar experiences as me and Eagle Ray, or completely different experiences.

SB

sbella02

And another thing to add:

I also tend to give life and personalities to objects, like Eagle Ray. It's why I struggle to get rid of things, I get really sentimental and tend to feel bad throwing things out, because I feel like they deserve to be loved, cherished and to have a meaningful place in the world. I hate wasting food for the same reason - it made it onto my plate for a reason, and I feel bad when things can't fulfil their intended purpose. When I was younger, we had to remove a tree from my old backyard, and I cried for hours because I felt terrible for the tree. I'm overly empathetic towards objects and I'm not really sure why or where this comes from.

Eagle Ray

Hello SB and Miss T,

SB, when I was 16 I had a very similar experience with a tree. There was a wattle tree in the backyard and its roots kept growing into the septic system. So my parents decided it had to be removed. I came home from school and it was gone. Like you I just cried and cried. I was broken-hearted. The personification of objects is very common in autism but I’m sure it’s not unique to autism. It’s often referred to as animism, the same word used in anthropology to describe this phenomenon in various cultures. In Japanese Shinto experience, for example, the Kami spirits inhabit trees and places in nature so plants/trees/rocks etc are animated. It makes so much sense to me and it’s how I feel the world. Even mundane things like staplers, toasters, light fittings etc have a personality to me 😂

With regard to the supernatural, I’ve got to a point where I don’t have a concept of supernatural anymore. Everything is an experience which to me is natural even if it is not yet explicable via the standard laws of physics (and it’s known that the standard laws of physics cease to apply in the realm of quantum physics). I’ve had some experiences I’m not sure whether to write about because they can freak some people out, but I’m well and truly at a point where these kinds of experiences are not frightening. They’re actually very meaningful and the more I’ve become attuned to such things the more whole aspects of existence have opened up to me.

SB, I love how you are inspired by everything in the world around you in relation to your creative pursuits. It means the world is always interesting and rich with meaning when you can experience it that way. I think your genuine interest in people makes you a wonderful person to be working in the field of psychology. I think if you can find people and the world interesting it’s like everything is always ok. I’ve just remembered a friend telling me years ago about the last words of an elderly lady just before she passed which were, “Well it’s all been most interesting”. These words were a bit different to the last words of my uncle’s friend. He was on his death bed and he beckoned my uncle to come closer. My uncle said, “What can I do for you mate?” He replied, “Get me a blonde” and then promptly left this world 😂 Sorry, I just had to tell that story 🙈

Thank you for sharing your experiences. I too would be interested in whether others have similar or very different experiences.

ER

sbella02

ER, I'm glad you have had similar experiences - I've always felt an attachment to certain inanimate objects, or that they have unique personalities!

That's a great way of thinking about the "supernatural" - that it's still something "natural" due to the fact that it is occurring in nature. The world is predictable, even with so-called "supernatural" experiences.

Thank you, that means a lot. I think psychology really resonated with me for many reasons, but particularly my empathy, experiences of the world, and fascination with human behaviour.

What a funny story. It's so interesting how peoples' perceptions and experiences can shape how they view the world, and how this can manifest in funny ways during their final moments on this Earth. In a similar vein, I visited an Ancient Egypt exhibition at a museum recently, and it's so interesting to me how they tended to view death as very exciting and transitional. They prepared extensively to give people the best possible afterlife, and I think that's a really meaningful and unique way of viewing something that can be so often seen in modern society as tragic.

SB