Not living in the here and now?

[Bamboo]

I don't tend to see the pineapple, many times even if I am eating it, I am imagining that it is another person eating it, I taste it through layers of removal. I might have imagined eating pineapples all the day before and now I have a pineapple and I say to myself "okay now you're really getting to eat pineapple, enjoy it, experience it!" yet in my mind, I am now eating mangoes.

Do you WANT to be someone else eating a pineapple, or does that just happen on it's own?

Begs the question, if I could be anyone eating a pineapple, who would I be?

 

[heart]

Do you WANT to be someone else eating a pineapple, or does that just happen on it's own?

It just happens, has since I was a girl. Someone else, in a different time etc.

 

[Domino]

I don't tend to see the pineapple, many times even if I am eating it, I am imagining that it is another person eating it, I taste it through layers of removal. I might have imagined eating pineapples all the day before and now I have a pineapple and I say to myself "okay now you're really getting to eat pineapple, enjoy it, experience it!" yet in my mind, I am now eating mangoes.

Very well said.

That's hard to understand, but I think I do something similar to bolded *1 above. Sometimes I relate to my body as "a transport/communication/manipulation device" and I do something I call "letting the machine run." Basically, I've found that my body is remarkably well programmed for a variety of tasks, that if I were to try to consciously control, I would screw up, like catching a thrown object. I just think, "catch" (not actually verbalized) and let go. Eyes start tracking, feet move, arm goes up and then something is in my hand.

But I'm still there while I do it.

Something like that occurs with me too (I really like your "machine:run" mode description - you'll have to elaborate on it, as it's totally alien to me) but even when I'm, say catching a ball, I'm still not aware of my surroundings. I'm catching a ball with someone else's hand, analyzing and processing it as if it were not happening to me.

*2 brings up the question, what do your dreams feel like? Sounds really uncertain.

Strangely enough, my dreams can feel more real to me than anything IRL (or should I say, waking life). That's why it's such a torture when my head's a mess and I can't escape.

*3 - sorry, but that sounds like it must be really confusing. Also, how the heck do you drive a car?

haha! Good point! Well, as a mechanic, I was perhaps more aware of what was going on than at most any time in my life, but again, never at 100%. Even in the middle of high-speed drag races. There's consciousness, there's "me", but then there's huge amounts of smudge and blank area and the dream state. I've done crazy things in the dream state.

I also have to say I'm never more aware of my Present than when someone is touching me. I go through most of my days without being touched by anyone except maybe my sister. One of my doctors told me to go out and wrap my arms around a tree and just hold on until I felt "present" to combat my already natural state of disconnect.

If someone I don't know/don't like is touching me, I'm practically 100% present because I find unwanted touch oppressive.

If someone I'm familiar with is touching me, it's like little islands of awareness.

If someone I love is touching me, it's a strange mix of being painfully acutely aware of them and myself, and the dream state.

Good stuff to know. Still don't get it, but subjective experience is like that.

PS sounds like a nice evening. Seems like you remembered it ok.

I did remember, and I'm grateful for it. The moments of sanity and peace stand out to me, like the liturgy of everyday loveliness. I have to say I was incredibly present and I never wanted to leave that moment.

I envy Ss, and esp SPs because they can stand in the moment and not be shoved out of it. Drawing the marrow out of the bone, as it were.

 

[Jeffster]

Thanks to beyond for bumping this topic. Reading this stuff is really fascinating. Even if I can't understand what it's like, it's still cool to read about. I'm with Quin though, I might get a bit dizzy if I thought about it too much.

Hopefully, more people will chime in, this might just be the greatest topic ever.

 

[Tallulah]

I don't tend to see the pineapple, many times even if I am eating it, I am imagining that it is another person eating it, I taste it through layers of removal. I might have imagined eating pineapples all the day before and now I have a pineapple and I say to myself "okay now you're really getting to eat pineapple, enjoy it, experience it!" yet in my mind, I am now eating mangoes.

This is such a good explanation. I've always lived in a world of dreams, imagination, being someone else, or being an idealized version of myself. Always, since I was a very small kid. I can't remember not imagining some amazing version of the future or the past, where I was someone different, or some altered me. It's what drew me toward acting. If I were holding the pineapple, I probably would have focused on the pineapple as I decided to eat it, but then as I eat it, I will think "Yum, fresh pineapple!" and then my mind would start to make other connections based on what i'm watching on tv or browsing online, etc. There's a commercial for a breast cancer walk, and instantaneously, I thought about how I don't really relate to all the sentimental stuff that goes along with illness-survivor-awareness, then I put myself in the place of thinking what I'd feel like if my mom hadn't survived her bout with breast cancer, and then I imagine what it would be like to have a terminal illness--I put myself IN these places, feeling what it would be like, all in the space of a few seconds. Jumping from thought to thought, world to world.

I might hear a song on the radio and imagine myself singing it, playing it, becoming the lead singer, doing interviews, auditioning, etc. And I can really put myself in those places, imagining dialogue, situations, places, everything. I'm never really in the here and now.

 

[Lady_X]

Whow! That's how it is to be INTJ? Very well explained, I can almost imagine it. So the perspective for NT is on the probable future, while for the NF it is in the improbable future...

true i guess...i prefer the "ideal" future but yeah...usually improbable...but not always...someone has to try...you have to see it before you can do it, right?

 

[kelric]

I've always lived in a world of dreams, imagination, being someone else, or being an idealized version of myself. Always, since I was a very small kid. I can't remember not imagining some amazing version of the future or the past, where I was someone different, or some altered me.

...

I'm never really in the here and now.

I'm very much in agreement with Tal on this one (not a surprise ). It's more of an issue of where my focus (what of it there is) is. Back to the pineapple... I like pineapple. But it's not like I'm really going to savor it when I'm eating it. I'll almost certainly be thinking of something else - and if I do think about the pineapple, I'm not thinking about the flavor, texture, or anything like that (unless the salad bar people at the grocery store cut it too close to the core and I have to take time out to chomp through the woody part, like I did yesterday... ). I'll think about where it was grown, how it was processed, if it's been artificially bred for store-friendly traits, if it's really as fresh as I hope it is, and whether it's been treated with chemicals so that it looks better than it really is... *then* I might spend a fraction of a second analyzing whether it's really tasty or not. Then I might think for two fractions of a second about how tasty a really good, fresh pineapple would be, and how I'd pick it, what kind of knife (or what kind of machine) is best for harvesting pineapple, etc. - but I'd probably get lost long beforehand on a tangent about pineapple farming in Hawaii, how close to Hawaiian volcanoes pineapple can be grown, etc.

And that's if I wasn't just eating like a robot, completely preoccupied with something else. That's been known to happen too... okay, pretty often - it's the case more often than not.

Anyway, time for me to go to bed here soon - good night . Back to work tomorrow .

 

[Bamboo]

But not without a few mis-steps. The first was pursuing vipasana meditation which nearly drove me to madness with the empty-mind concept always out of reach.

If something is out of reach, that implies you're grasping for it.

 

[garbage]

When I eat a pineapple or any other food, I usually just scarf it down without paying attention because I can't stop thinking about what I'm going to be doing after I'm done eating.

Pineapples!!

 

[Bamboo]

When I eat a pineapple or any other food, I usually just scarf it down without paying attention because I can't stop thinking about what I'm going to be doing after I'm done eating.

Pineapples!!

Lol.

I don't think I was really clear when I first wrote that I was imagining the pineapple. I don't think I even mentioned eating it. It's all good.

 

[Costrin]

I go from

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[YOUTUBE="_Twokr090WM"]HORSE the Band - Bunnies[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Bamboo]

Something like that occurs with me too (I really like your "machine:run" mode description - you'll have to elaborate on it, as it's totally alien to me) but even when I'm, say catching a ball, I'm still not aware of my surroundings. I'm catching a ball with someone else's hand, analyzing and processing it as if it were not happening to me.

Ok I will. later. bug me if i forget. i'll compare it to the above.

Strangely enough, my dreams can feel more real to me than anything IRL (or should I say, waking life). That's why it's such a torture when my head's a mess and I can't escape.

try lucid dreaming. takes practice, but once you do it you'll like it.

Well, as a mechanic, I was perhaps more aware of what was going on than at most any time in my life, but again, never at 100%. Even in the middle of high-speed drag races. There's consciousness, there's "me", but then there's huge amounts of smudge and blank area and the dream state. I've done crazy things in the dream state.

hella cool.

dream state?

makes me think of sleep note typing going downhill.

 

[Bamboo]

@costrin

lol. i do that too actually....

 

[Costrin]

Hmm....

Its kinda like I'm playing a video game. I'm controlling my body, but I'm not actually my body, I'm not actually there. I don't see, feel, hear things myself, its the character in the game that is. When I feel pain, its as if my health meter is going down. I want to stop it naturally, or I'll lose the game, but the player doesn't experience it first hand.

Furthermore, not all my attention is on the game, the player exists in his own world, and that draws attention away from the game, but there is no pause button, so sometimes it gets the character in trouble. But playing the game is itself boring, but discovering and understanding the programming of the game is interesting.

 

[Domino]

Ok I will. later. bug me if i forget. i'll compare it to the above.

I'll await with interest.

try lucid dreaming. takes practice, but once you do it you'll like it.

Is that where I imagine I'm Tallulah's back-up singer and wailing on my axe like Pete Townshend?

dream state?

The Aborigines call their creation story/Genesis "dream time of the world", when everything was magic and chaos and coalescing matter. Gods and spirits roamed the land. I feel as if I'm permanently locked into the dream time. Physical experience is always filtered through the fairy dust, even when I don't want it to be. I think not being able to pin myself down to one point in space/time is what causes this transience.

I remember an ISTP I was seeing. He told me to dream about him so he could finally get at me. I was more real and present (and accessible?) in my unconscious self. He was welcome to invade.

My ESTJ mother told me recently that I live and have always lived "up here" - *said tapping the side of her head* - in a land of removal. She's never surprised when I say I've spoken to my dead Grandfather or felt the presence of things long gone or soon to occur. She's grounding for me.

I feel as if I'm straddling the line between the past and the future. The present doesn't seem to exist except in flashes as it passes by. It's like an old film projector, flickering scenes, reeling through.

makes me think of sleep note typing going downhill.

LOL! You'll have to explain that one!

 

[nightning]

I don't get it. Where is this non-here and now?

For example, I can imagine something that isn't here and now. Like, lets say, a pineapple. I'm thinking about this pineapple and I can 'feel' the texture and see the color and even 'taste' it although I'm really just projecting it in my head and there aren't any pineapples around me. If I'm not imagining something, then all that's left is the texture of the keyboard and the chair I'm sitting on and these words being typed on the screen.

I guess what I'm asking is what do you see (feel, hear, etc.) when you "look out?" The future?!? Where else could you be besides here and now? Or do most people not spend time "looking out"?

Confused.

Depends on who you ask...

Ne person (NP, especially ENTP) will start thinking about all sort of crazy things he/she can do with that said pineapple. For example imagine schemes to make money off of a pineapple throwing contest.

Ni person (NJ) will focus more on a specific aspect or attribute of a mental representation of a pineapple and see how that specific aspect links to other things. For example pineapples is for eating, you get canned slices of pineapples and those typically have a whole down the center because they're de-cored, then it reminds you of donuts, chocolate glazed donuts and now suddenly you want hot chocolate.

Si person (SJ) tends to recall his/her past experiences of pineapples. How much a nuisance it is to cut it open and get at the meat. Why didn't he/she buy canned pineapples instead or eat something else. But then at the same time thinking about the last time he/she had a tree riped pineapple and how those taste so much better than the canned stuff and resolve to hack at the darn thing anyways.

Ok so I mentioned the pineapple above (I like using weird examples). I can imagine the pineapple in my head. To me "out there' is a different space than the space where I would see (or feel etc) the pineapple. When you "look out", do you see it in the same space as you see the pineapple? That doesn't seem to make sense in my mind.

I'm Ni dominant, if you ask me to imagine a pineapple floating in space I can visualize it no problem. But I wouldn't normally do that unless I'm trying to draw a picture of a pineapple or something from memory.

The thinking and thought process of Ni rarely utilize physical shape, smell, texture etc of the imagined object. Instead I focus on symbolized attributes... For example if you imagine a pineapple you can probably see the spikes on the outside waxy surface. I don't "see" spikes. The thought that pineapples have spikes goes through my head... the next thing I think about is spikes in general. Not necessarily related to pineapples but just anything related to spikes. Could be sharp metal nails, or those homemade hand grenades with nails inside of them.

I suspect you focus more on the physical things like images where as I go by related concepts based on the word.

Thanks to beyond for bumping this topic. Reading this stuff is really fascinating. Even if I can't understand what it's like, it's still cool to read about. I'm with Quin though, I might get a bit dizzy if I thought about it too much.

Hopefully, more people will chime in, this might just be the greatest topic ever.

Funny, I thought your blog is the greatest thread around... You want this thread to replace your blog? *chuckles*

But yeah, I'm not sure how I managed to missed this thread the first time around. Lack of Se probably...

 

[Domino]

Floating Ni space pineapples ftw!

 

[velocity]

linear conceptuality of time is an illusion

 

[Domino]

linear conceptuality of time is an illusion

Precisely.

I think Ns may be responsible for the non-local behaviors of quantum physics too.

 

[Grayscale]

as they say, life is a journey... forget the destination so you can pay attention to what youre doing now, youll often find you end up in the right place anyways


the idea that people can control their future to a great degree is a little foolish. principle of approach is what matters because we simply dont know what will happen. unfortunately, most people do not seem interested in refining their principles.