Taking NZT
Be prepared for this to sound a little nutty. As I continue to play with a variety of states of mind and meditation, I'm finding hacks that allow for faster changes and self development. In particular I've gotten into the habit of using the mind palace technique to remember sequences of cards. The basic technique requires that one imagine a familiar place, like a childhood home, and take a tour through that home placing the objects to be remembered. One can get better recall with the elaborative encoding technique where one creates unforgettable imagery around the placed objects that tie into deeper associations. These images might create disgust or induce laughter but this is exactly how the elaborated upon objects can be recalled so well. Seems useless to be using this memory technique for random sets of cards or numbers but I feel like it can be used for remembering complex information and also "thought structures" (which I will elaborate upon). But who cares about remembering complex information? It is all at our fingertips now. We are in an age when everything can be recorded and almost instantly referenced. Let's just assume I found something worth remembering and calling upon. But first:
Carl Jung and Paracosms
I want to flesh out the architecture of the mind to such a point that I can easily call upon whatever info I want without relying on random associations that I just so happen to make as a peculiarity of my history. Instead I want to live mindfully, deliberately. Carl Jung and his process of individuation requires an exercise in free association as a way to connect the conscious with the subconscious. Through active imagination you discover parts of your psyche.You learn more about yourself but you also get in touch with the weaker, underdeveloped parts of yourself. It's as if you've spent all your points on strength and stamina for your rpg character but failed to put anything towards charisma. The process of individuation is akin to rounding out your rpg character.
The active imagination technique is also a strange but cool way to write a story, perhaps beginning one's paracosm. Imagining worlds calls for a ton of detail which is why I think it is important to use our experiences irl to fully elaborate/decorate our paracosms. Exploring other languages and cultures can aid this process. Every extra piece of culture one imbibes allows for a more rich experience. I'm basically taking a somewhat blanket approach just as I do with parkour. I basically do whatever comes to mind with the training environment at hand and after a time I consider "what are some of the physical attributes or movement phrases I'm missing? Perhaps I have not inverted in a while, or engaged my lateral chain?". So with mind/skill training I'm doing the same thing, finding out what parts of my psyche or overall ability levels are lacking and need attention while also largely participating in a foundation set of skills, staples if you will.
Informative/Performative
One needs to adjust input and output levels. It's definitely the case that people take in too much and miss out on the performative aspects of life. Yes, get the informative, but then tie it to the performative. So I'm constantly implementing these concepts with my behavior. For example I spend a little time watching this video of monkeys climbing and jumping. I imagine actually BEING these monkeys, emulating the five senses to take on the mind of the animal. Then I call on it when I'm out training which results in moving more organically without as much human forethought or hesitation, just pure animal instinct. This is actually very similar to some of the tibetan rituals involved in "deity yoga" in which the practitioner takes on the attributes of a certain deity or role model. Mine just so happens to be a monkey 🐒
Spells, Patches, and Programs
Watched The Matrix recently. You know the part where Trinity downloads the helicopter program? This is what I'm creating! It's an architecture for specific states of mind or behaviors. It's pretty obvious we do things like this in daily life all the time. Using one of these programs is like casting a spell in the sense that you may say a few words or phrases that trigger a preset thought node. And using the memory palace technique, one could potentially store an unlimited amount of these programs. In the spirit of Carl Jung, it feels appropriate to participate in each archetype for a bit in order to let them develop. So as an active practice, individuation would entail searching for archetypes through media, books, etc and taking on the thoughts/feelings for a little bit. From there we create patches (in the programming sense) using phrases or imagery that call up these archetypes.
As an aside, this is all very useful for creating and calling upon characters in improv. As I was saying before, I think humans all do this but we don't necessarily describe it this way. Instead we kind of just go with the flow of things and we have participated in certain archetypes enough to function smoothly, for the most part. We can also get pigeonholed into being a certain way for a long time, which I think goes against the process of individuation and makes us over developed in one area.
A Final Analogy, The Meta-World
I've been reading a book called The Magicians lately. It shares many similarities to CS Lewis's Narnia series because it has a meta world (or linking room) which serves as a waystation before entering countless other worlds. So one part of our mind is like this meta-world, a place where we can observe our thoughts, behaviors, and memories in a detached way. We are then forced into other "worlds": states of mind and actions in our daily life. So the practices I have described thus far are ways to prepare for out departure into these other worlds. We can spend time in our meta-worlds getting out the right clothes and gear and putting on the appropriate lenses. I think all this mumbo jumbo cashes out as higher adaptability and a more varied experience than is likely to occur if one were to just Forrest Gump their way through life. More on some of my thought structures and archetypes as I develop them.
