Mentitation[1] means releasing control in order to gain control
As I’ve practiced my ability to construct mental imagery in my own head, I’ve learned that the harder I try to control that image, the more unstable it becomes.
For example, let’s say I want to visualize a white triangle.
I close my eyes, and “stare off” into the black void behind my eyelids, with the idea of visualizing a white triangle floating around in my conscious mind.
Vaguely, I can see something geometric, maybe triangular, sort of rotating and shadowy and shifty, coming into focus.
No, I insist, not good enough. I try to mentally “reach out” and hold the image in place. I try to make it have three sides, to be bright paper-white, to stop rotating, to be equilateral. As I make these efforts, the image starts spinning more and more. It shrinks, vanishes.
Over time, I’ve learned to take a step back. I continue staring out into the black void behind my eyelids. Instead of trying to control whatever I see there, I simply allow it to come into view with greater clarity moment by moment.
If I want it to look different, I’ve found that I can hold the main change I want made in my peripheral consciousness. “Whiter, please,” or “larger,” or “more equilateral,” or “with the tip pointing straight up.” The image I want comes into greater focus as I do so. I have never tried to become able to create an image wtih unlimited detail or control, because I get a lot of value out of just this amount of visualization ability.
I’ve found that other aspects of mentitation are similar. I have the ability to heard melodies in my head, and to construct new ones. However, if I try to control that melody note by note, I am not able to hear it as a melody at all, and cannot experience it as music. By contrast, if I “stand back” and listen to the music my subconscious comes up with, and offer “conceptual tweaks” to that melody, then I’m able to influence its shape in a way that feels musical.
When I am using mentitation to integrate a pieces of knowledge into my long-term memory, it’s a similar experience. My relationship with my memories is not like my relationship with the memory on my computer. My brain can’t offer me a complete, instant display of everything stored there, in a hierarchical file format, with CRUD capability. Instead, it’s more like my brain is a sort of librarian. I offer up a set of ideas in my conscious mind (let’s say, the definition of a Taylor series), and allow my brain to start coming up with associations, insights, and ways to integrate it. My job is to keep focused on this task, without trying to exert some sort of “top-down” control over how it plays out. There’s also a sense of receptive manipulation of what my subconscious “offers up” to my conscious mind.
Perhaps a simple, rough model for what is going on is something like this:
My conscious mind starts by holding an idea in mind (i.e. the definition of the Taylor series). It has a little bit of capacity left over, and requests memories, associations, and insights from my unconscious mind.
My unconscious mind retrieves a connecting idea, and now my conscious mind’s capacity is full, with the Taylor series definition and the connecting idea.
Now it’s my conscious mind’s job to examine and articulate the connection between these two ideas. As this is done, the subconscious goes to work once again retrieving another connection, which may be with the Taylor series, the first associated idea, or some product of the conscious mind’s work binding them together.
My tentative term for a practice of improving one’s ability to monitor and control their conscious mind in order to improve their ability to remember and understand information.
Mentitation[1] means releasing control in order to gain control
As I’ve practiced my ability to construct mental imagery in my own head, I’ve learned that the harder I try to control that image, the more unstable it becomes.
For example, let’s say I want to visualize a white triangle.
I close my eyes, and “stare off” into the black void behind my eyelids, with the idea of visualizing a white triangle floating around in my conscious mind.
Vaguely, I can see something geometric, maybe triangular, sort of rotating and shadowy and shifty, coming into focus.
No, I insist, not good enough. I try to mentally “reach out” and hold the image in place. I try to make it have three sides, to be bright paper-white, to stop rotating, to be equilateral. As I make these efforts, the image starts spinning more and more. It shrinks, vanishes.
Over time, I’ve learned to take a step back. I continue staring out into the black void behind my eyelids. Instead of trying to control whatever I see there, I simply allow it to come into view with greater clarity moment by moment.
If I want it to look different, I’ve found that I can hold the main change I want made in my peripheral consciousness. “Whiter, please,” or “larger,” or “more equilateral,” or “with the tip pointing straight up.” The image I want comes into greater focus as I do so. I have never tried to become able to create an image wtih unlimited detail or control, because I get a lot of value out of just this amount of visualization ability.
I’ve found that other aspects of mentitation are similar. I have the ability to heard melodies in my head, and to construct new ones. However, if I try to control that melody note by note, I am not able to hear it as a melody at all, and cannot experience it as music. By contrast, if I “stand back” and listen to the music my subconscious comes up with, and offer “conceptual tweaks” to that melody, then I’m able to influence its shape in a way that feels musical.
When I am using mentitation to integrate a pieces of knowledge into my long-term memory, it’s a similar experience. My relationship with my memories is not like my relationship with the memory on my computer. My brain can’t offer me a complete, instant display of everything stored there, in a hierarchical file format, with CRUD capability. Instead, it’s more like my brain is a sort of librarian. I offer up a set of ideas in my conscious mind (let’s say, the definition of a Taylor series), and allow my brain to start coming up with associations, insights, and ways to integrate it. My job is to keep focused on this task, without trying to exert some sort of “top-down” control over how it plays out. There’s also a sense of receptive manipulation of what my subconscious “offers up” to my conscious mind.
Perhaps a simple, rough model for what is going on is something like this:
My conscious mind starts by holding an idea in mind (i.e. the definition of the Taylor series). It has a little bit of capacity left over, and requests memories, associations, and insights from my unconscious mind.
My unconscious mind retrieves a connecting idea, and now my conscious mind’s capacity is full, with the Taylor series definition and the connecting idea.
Now it’s my conscious mind’s job to examine and articulate the connection between these two ideas. As this is done, the subconscious goes to work once again retrieving another connection, which may be with the Taylor series, the first associated idea, or some product of the conscious mind’s work binding them together.
This repeats ad infinitum.
My tentative term for a practice of improving one’s ability to monitor and control their conscious mind in order to improve their ability to remember and understand information.
In some sense it is similar to Jungian active imagination