I don't usually dream in the first person. Well, not always. I don't even find that I dream a situation sometimes. Sometimes my dreams are just a hodge podge of images, sounds, concepts, and emotions. And even when I have a more experiential dream (that is, a dream where I am experiencing a scene taking place, or participating in that scene), there are many aspects of that scene that I do not believe that I fully experienced while dreaming.
But I love retelling my dreams. Even though I suspect that half of the narrative I tell is made up to connect the dots of the random elements I observed/felt in my non-waking experience. Connecting those dots is half the fun. It makes me realize how fallible my memory is. That I feel like I'm remembering the dream. But probably I'm just inventing it as I go along. Or maybe not.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Writing as Thought Crystallization
Grr, I'm falling again into old patterns of not writing things that I desperately want to write because the task of doing them justice is too daunting! My tactic right now is just to get things out. Get practice writing. Once the writing gets easier, maybe I'll start adding an editing phase. For now I'm still just trying to get things out. So here are a few thoughts on writing, language, and thinking.
In high school there was a point when i believed that anything could be "talked out." A few years ago I started witnessing what I considered a Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of sorts, in the way that you often cannot talk about your feelings about something without changing how you feel about that thing. This gets even more complicated when two people are talking about their feelings about each other and each other's feelings.
I also used to believe that thinking and ideas were very separate from language. Well, obviously not entirely separate, but separate in that they could exist independently. That is, I could have a thought or belief that I had yet to put into words. Now, I still believe this, and there are obviously different types of thoughts. For example, I can think about the color blue. Or when you're searching for the right adjective to describe that exact quality in a person (I just had some fun playing the adjective game with R). Basically I was rejecting both the language of thought hypothesis and the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.
But I think I may have been taking it too far and believed that I had ideas or thoughts that were....not quite there. I am starting to recognize more how much putting my thoughts into words helps me crystallize my ideas and concepts. In analytical writing even more so than in verbal language.
Trying to write this post is so funny because I feel like I'm encountering now exactly the phenomenon that makes me want to write it! And that phenomenon is.....that I feel like I have an idea, a concept. Thoughts. It feels like they are concrete. Yet when I go to put them into words, I find not just that I have trouble articulating my idea, but that my idea really was not as concrete as I thought it was to begin with! But through writing I am able to distill my thoughts into clearer, more organized ideas, which I am then able to communicate.
Hence, my newly found enthusiasm for writing.
In high school there was a point when i believed that anything could be "talked out." A few years ago I started witnessing what I considered a Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of sorts, in the way that you often cannot talk about your feelings about something without changing how you feel about that thing. This gets even more complicated when two people are talking about their feelings about each other and each other's feelings.
I also used to believe that thinking and ideas were very separate from language. Well, obviously not entirely separate, but separate in that they could exist independently. That is, I could have a thought or belief that I had yet to put into words. Now, I still believe this, and there are obviously different types of thoughts. For example, I can think about the color blue. Or when you're searching for the right adjective to describe that exact quality in a person (I just had some fun playing the adjective game with R). Basically I was rejecting both the language of thought hypothesis and the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.
But I think I may have been taking it too far and believed that I had ideas or thoughts that were....not quite there. I am starting to recognize more how much putting my thoughts into words helps me crystallize my ideas and concepts. In analytical writing even more so than in verbal language.
Trying to write this post is so funny because I feel like I'm encountering now exactly the phenomenon that makes me want to write it! And that phenomenon is.....that I feel like I have an idea, a concept. Thoughts. It feels like they are concrete. Yet when I go to put them into words, I find not just that I have trouble articulating my idea, but that my idea really was not as concrete as I thought it was to begin with! But through writing I am able to distill my thoughts into clearer, more organized ideas, which I am then able to communicate.
Hence, my newly found enthusiasm for writing.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Sleeping problems
I had a very interesting and terrifying time falling asleep the other night, when we got back from Burning Man.
I would drift into a half-sleep state, which sort of felt like the swaying, pulsing of minimal oxygen deprivation. I would become aware that I was in this state, and that I was paralyzed. Sleep paralysis, I guess. I would try to scream, which would eventually wake me up fully, breathing hard, heart racing. The half-sleep state was scary; I did not want to be in it. I became afraid to fall asleep for fear that I would enter that state again. My paranoia extended to a (pretty irrational) fear of locked-in syndrome.
Eventually I willed myself to calm down by meditating, and then fell asleep.
It was a bit scary, but reassuring that I could calm myself down so easily.
I would drift into a half-sleep state, which sort of felt like the swaying, pulsing of minimal oxygen deprivation. I would become aware that I was in this state, and that I was paralyzed. Sleep paralysis, I guess. I would try to scream, which would eventually wake me up fully, breathing hard, heart racing. The half-sleep state was scary; I did not want to be in it. I became afraid to fall asleep for fear that I would enter that state again. My paranoia extended to a (pretty irrational) fear of locked-in syndrome.
Eventually I willed myself to calm down by meditating, and then fell asleep.
It was a bit scary, but reassuring that I could calm myself down so easily.
Dome cover test run
Woops forgot to actually post this. The dome cover worked great at Burning Man too!
My friend and I went to the park to test out the dome cover. Since my last post I sewed all the quadrants together, and I also attached another 2ft wide skirt to the bottom.
Anticipation Horizon
I like making plans. As early as December I began planning my summer for after I finished my master's thesis and before I started work in September. I was very excited about all of my plans. My summer was going to go like this:
- Finish my thesis
- Relax in Cambridge for a month
- Spend a week in LA
- Go to Hawaii for a friend's sister's wedding
- Spend a week in Seattle
- Spend another few days in LA
- Find an apartment in San Francisco while staying with my roommate's parents
- Go to Burning Man
- Move in
- Start work
And that's basically what happened! I got to spend an extra few days in LA before Burning Man after finding our wonderful apartment, and I'm here again for a week because our lease doesn't start until the 15th.
It is intensely satisfying to me when my plans work out basically exactly as I plan. I get excited making the plans, sharing and anticipating the plans, and reveling in their execution when the time comes. It makes me feel in control.
So what was I going to say about "anticipation horizon?" Mostly just that it's a phrase that I like. It means to me the point in time beyond which I do not have strong emotions/predictions/feelings about what will happen. I may know approximately what is going to occur, but it does not actively occupy my thoughts, so I have few thoughts or feelings about it. For example, before Burning Man I couldn't think much about starting work. Now is the time!
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