Thursday, March 1, 2012

Stream of Conciousness

There have been a few times that i’ve heard of an exercise that... I think... is called “Stream of Consciousness” or at least its supposed to demonstrate your stream of consciousness. The way it works to my knowledge is you take a piece of paper and writing implements (fresh blood and a raven quill.... J/K) and you put to paper whatever jumps into your mind AS it jumps into your mind. There is no controlling or focusing, you just put down what it is that you think as you think it. So yes, your thought could change mid-sentence and you would in fact write a different thought halfway through your sentence. It can be really hectic, but really exposing of what is going on “up there.” I’ve also heard it done with pictures I believe. Draw or doodle whatever comes to mind and morphe as the thought morphes. Im terrible at doodling, so I just do my thing switching between Chinese and English and enjoy the heck out of it. My version was definitely more controlled than the experiment I just talked about, because I like to mostly finish my sentences. I was also choosing words that I felt encapsulated my moments. Very interesting results. One thing I think that is just fabulous about the activity is that it shows how many unrelated thoughts we can have bouncing around in our domes. Its stuff like that that keeps me up at night. An inability to resolve ideas and an equally frustrating inability to let them go. Mostly. Its enough to make one an alcoholic. But more of lions and less of lambs, or perhaps more of lions and of lambs depending on your paradigm. I was reading the third book (just started it... again) in the Chronicles of Narnia (The Horse and His Boy) and one of my sleep disturbing thoughts of the evening was the idea of belonging and blood. Its an old idea (like Dracula old), but many cultures share the idea of truth being in the blood. Anyhow, “the Boy” otherwise called Shasta finds out that he isnt actually the child of this mean old fisherman in the southern reaches of the continent and confesses to “The Horse” that he’s always had a yearning to know about the Northern reaches. The Horse (called Bree) tells him matter-of-factly, of course you do, its in your blood. I think my blood is bitter. I know it tastes like copper and what not, but I’m at a juncture of life where I have a frighteningly dark view of the concept of belonging. Its like I estrange myself to some degree from the groups that I can be a part of, the groups that I THINK I want to be a part of I can’t be a part of because you kind of have to be born into them (ethnicities/ social strata bla bla bla) and then there is the third kind where you have to be found, and im just too darn good at hiding. Scary right? Ever thought of a castle dungeon? Dark dank, smells like nasty men, mould and general funk. I’ve always had this sympathetic fear for the person who is stuck there and then the castle is conquered by a different kingdom and everyone is let go, but he’s forgotten somehow, and then the castle collapses down on top of him once they leave. How emo does that make me? maybe I should dye my hair.

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