Mindscapes and Mind Palaces
Mindscapes are a concept that I have found really interesting lately. My own definition of a Mindscape is “The visualization of the way in which ideas/concepts, memories, and emotions are stored within the mind, and the visualization of their retrieval and interactions”. It’s similar to the idea of a Mind Palace, but those are more associated with memories than they are emotions, and when prompted to describe their Mind Palace, people seem to be more likely to talk about a library or some actual palace than what they actually experience.
To summarize the information I’ve found so far:
A lot of Mindscapes are very unorganized, and the people describing them to me find their own to be a pain to navigate.[1]
They are often very physical (possibly because I’m prompting them with the word scape).[2]
Most information is held visually, not auditorily or by other sensations.
Very few people don’t have any Mindscape at all. The only people that I’ve asked that report not experiencing any kind of Mindscape are my parents and my sibling.
I’m worried that Mindscapes could increase compartmentalization, specifically with library-like ones where ideas are books or scrolls, not something more amorphous like algae or different colored streams of water.
I would like to learn more about Mindscapes, so if anyone has some good resources, or even better if you could share your own experience, I would appreciate it a lot. In the comments I will share some more examples that my friends have given, so if you’re interested they should be there.
- ^
Here I’m specifically referring to my friend who said to me “memories feel like portals [because] there are surface level entry point memories, and then there are tons of memories that i have to go through like [a bunch of] portals to go deep enough for the one i want”
- ^
It’s possible that imagining a Mindscape as physical in the sense that it’s held within three physical dimensions might be decreasing the dimensionality of associative structures, or otherwise increasing compartmentalization.
This is very interesting. Some questions I have are:
Is the mindscape something that you need to intentionally create and visualize in your head, or does it appear effortlessly?
Does the place look the same every time you use it?
Can you store things reliably in the mindscape, like a memory palace?
For me, retrieving memories often just looks like a black screen for several seconds before the memory appears. I can tell my mind to create some kind of visualization while it does this and it does create something (like rifling through a bunch of folders), but it’s unclear to me if this is helping or not.
Some answers to your questions:
I went through and tried asking a couple of the people that gave me more vivid mindscapes, but it doesn’t seem like something that they have going constantly. I don’t know what the actual qualia of having a mindscape is like, so I can’t say for sure, but I think it’s something that’s entirely visualized after the memory is retrieved. If not, then I think that they’re usually intentionally calling up the visualization. Whether this actually helps with recall I have yet to find out.
I believe it looks mostly the same, barring intentional changes or shifts in your immediate state of mind. Maybe people with less vivid mindscapes have more variation though?
It sounds like it can be but usually isn’t, especially since some visualizations have a more chaotic method of recall as opposed to methodically perusing a library.
I think the way I retrieve memories is mostly the same, when I’m intentionally trying to call something up. I haven’t actively tried visualizing the process within my mind though, so I’ll try that to see if it helps or not. Interestingly, although I don’t have a clear construct for memory and concept storage, I do have a very clear picture when I’m feeling emotions. It’s watercolors on a blank white background, with the watercolors dispersing as if they’re suspended in water.
I am baffled by the concept you’re describing and struggle to believe it is common. Visualizing the contents of your own brain? Huh? What?
So I guess put me down as a data point for “no mindscape”.
As one of the people who gave the library example of my mindscape, I think it’s quite uncommon for this to be something you constantly visualize when remembering things. I for one had never really thought of this before prompted, and thus came up with the library as a way to explain how my mind works, encompassing my strengths and weaknesses in recalling and storing memories. So I think you can consider these more as novel explanations. They’re still valid exercises to try and “formalize” how your mind works to be able to compare with others and stuff
I suspect that it’s less common in luminous/rational communities, since a more luminous person might be more likely to see the formation of a mindscape and go “No, that’s not what’s going on.”
I don’t have enough data to actually verify that theory, but of the 3 rationalists that have answered, none of them have mindscapes.
Luminous?
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/ynMFrq9K5iNMfSZNg
Count me (level 2 aphantasia, vivid dreams, if that matters at all) as no mindscape as well I guess. I feel like my mind is supposed to be this excellent thing that can get any info at any time (even if this is not true in ways like, I don’t think I could list literally every aspect of a game without forgetting a little bit), if you asked me about a game mechanic or anything, so dimensionality feels like it’s not how I’d picture it.
“Memories feel like portals because there are surface level entry point memories, and then there are tons of memories that I have to go through like portals to go deep enough for the one I want (or usually didnt want).
Ideas float around kind of like algae in water- when I’m having thoughts or ideas they’re in the big void, floating around (it’s like having someone rant to you with your eyes closed).”
“My mind is kind of like a big ocean with certain things floating to the surface when I need them.”
“Yeah pretty much a filing room or archive for most things. Large sections of broad categories like memories that are then sorted down into good, bad, who, when, where, how I felt. My memory loss is like redacted pages, there’s bits n pieces.
The only thing that’s different is how my real time emotions look I think? Like my anger is explosive and overwhelming, there is no filing or organizing sometimes.”
“My mind is a tornado full of letters and words at the edge of a cliff. My thoughts are formed by leaning over the side of the cliff and picking words from the tornado.
(...)
For me, I can’t get to the eye of the storm (subconscious) because the cliff is holding me back.”
“I think the library visual works the best for me. (...) Memories are ofc different books, different shelves have different labels. If a memory can be labeled under several labels, that means there are several copies in different shelves meaning its easier to appear at random, which tracks for recalling memories. Books that I don’t bring out often grow dusty making it harder to read the title to find it, and also makes them harder to read cuz pages fall out or whatever so I gave to piece things together to understand them.”
“I like to think of mine as sorta a dart board mixed with a clock. I try to associate things with phases of the day (...), I find myself throwing a dart at the board and just going with whatever it lands on.
(...)
So in my brain ill initially take a thought, task, etc, and assign it to a spot on the board (we’ll use the example of eating lunch at noon just for the sake of conversation). And then once noon comes around, I’ll look at noon, have decision paralysis on what to do, either first or just point blank period, panic, and throw a dart at the board with my eyes closed. Which may result in doing something that is elected for a different time completely out of sequence—like cleaning your room at 4am when you’re supposed to be sleeping. Or taking a nap when i should have been studying for tests for school.”
This specific anecdote sounds much more like a visualization of executive function than a Mindscape in how I defined it, but it’s still interesting and tangentially related.
“I kinda think of it as like a wheel of random information that spins and what it lands on is what I’m thinking of.
And sometimes when I can’t sleep, I just imagine every thought or memory I had of the day and putting it into storage and watching it disappear for the night.”