Warping in Our Wonderland (the "Mind Twists")

[ruleofthumb]

Stone: I have hesitated to make this topic because I worried that talking about this would make it happen to me more. Take that as a warning, especially if you’re prone to intrusive thoughts.

 

There’s these phenomena that happen in our Wonderland. We call them “mind warps” or “mind twists”. I think the term “Wonderland warps” would best describe what they actually are, but I prefer “mind twists” because that sounds cuter.

 

What do they look/feel like?

 

For me, they tend to look like ravines, canyons/plateaus, water-less moats, sinking ground, sinking "gravity pits", and more rarely, rising hills (which look like sinking gravity pits, but inverted). Some function as portals. If you experience them, they may look/feel different than mine. Mind twists can take many forms. Fundamentally, they are intrusive, annoying, and impede progress. They are not Wonderland obstacles meant to be overcome (think of a monster in an RPG-like Wonderland), but faults of a mind imagining wonderland.

 

My first experience with a mind twists was a series of ravines inside ravines. We were walking to the castle when a fissure (which initially looked like a mirage) formed in the ground out of nowhere, growing into a ravine. I fell into that ravine, then a ravine inside that one, then a ravine inside that one, until I placed myself back where I was supposed to be. However, the fissures kept following me, and no matter what I imagined, they would form again.

 

Example of endless ravines:

Spoiler

This, but forever.

 

Would show up regularly during my visits to Wonderland, until they became less common, and then mostly stopped.

 

More recently, I've been dealing with gravity pits and canyons. A gravity pit is continuously sinking ground that looks like a model of gravity.

 

Example of a gravity pit:

Spoiler

 

Canyons and moats (usually very deep, but without water) have formed when I've wanted to get to a simple destination. For example, we wanted to go to a pool a few days ago. We were walking to the parking lot when a deep canyon-like moat formed around the pool. The moat also somehow widened the distance between us and the pool, so not only was the pool more difficult to get to, but it was now also farther away.

 

Why do I get them?

 

I'm thinking my mind twists are at least partially (and maybe mostly) caused by intrusive thoughts. I also think it might be my mind trying to cope with rendering views it doesn't have the energy to render. It's a lot easier to imagine being annoyed falling through grey and black infinite ravines than to imagine a giant castle erected in vast flatlands. It's a lot easier to imagine a pool farther away than close up.

 

As my Wonderland has gotten more mundane, being based on real world places instead of fully imagined, I've experience mind twists less. Whether this is because the places I've been to in realspace are easier to render, or because I'm just more experienced with dealing with mind twists and imagining Wonderland (and my Wonderland just happens to be more mundane), I don't know.

 

What do I do about them?

 

You can treat mind twists like intrusive thoughts and cope with them like you would intrusive thoughts. However, certain intrusive though coping strategies don't work for me (at least the surface level versions of the strategies). For example, simply labeling intrusive Wonderland phenomena as "not real" or "just thoughts" doesn't help me.

 

Three approaches have worked:

 

• Don't think about them. Don't remind yourself of them.
• Don't ignore them, but do disregard them.
• Treat them as a Wonderland obstacle.

 

The first approach is the most obvious and also the one I'm breaking right now. I've omitted mind twists from diary entries, notes, and progress reports for this reason. If I go back to read these things, I don't want to remind myself of them.

 

The second approach is what I have tried most recently. When the moat formed around the pool, I didn't ignore the moat, I didn't try to make it go away, and I didn't imagine myself somewhere else. I simply walked where the ground was (or, would be). It looked like I was walking on air, but I was disregarding the moat and walking where I had planned to walk anyway.

 

The third approach was how I dealt with a ravine once. Instead of trying to escape the ravine, I was able to land on the ground of the ravine and walk through it with my headmates. This succeeded once, but also failed at least once, when new ravines kept forming despite me trying to land on the ravine ground.

 

Do you get them? What do you do about them?

 

Do you get (or have you in the past gotten) mind twists or something similar? What did you (or do you) do about them?

[Gloomynoon]

This sounds very interesting. I have not experienced this. I believe it is due to our wonderland being pretty much a small circle if you were to look at it from above. Around it seems to be a dynamic sky dome that makes it look like theres stuff out there, but there really isn't. We are thinking of going on full on adventures in the main wonderland, rather than making temporary places to explore like we have been doing. If and when we do that, I think it will be useful to keep this in mind. Thanks!

 

Something similar I guess would be wonderland noises. If I were to imagine we were in an incorrect season, for example summer. I would end up hearing cicada noises in my mind for a little bit.

Another thing is, sometimes when I'm visualizing my tulpa. If they do something specific there's an extremely rare chance they'll be repeating the movement like an animation on loop. However, this is rare.

[Glaurung26]

Hm 🤔 haven't had them pop into wonderland yet. My dreams however...it's that scene from the Animorph books where the "zones overlap" in checkerboard fashion defying all sense of realism. I imagine it might be unnerving to have these pop in while you're in your waking wonderland. Maybe I don't passive focus the wonderland enough on a grand scale. We generally "manually" visualize our walks.

[ruleofthumb]

9 hours ago, Gloomynoon said:

Something similar I guess would be wonderland noises. If I were to imagine we were in an incorrect season, for example summer. I would end up hearing cicada noises in my mind for a little bit.

Another thing is, sometimes when I'm visualizing my tulpa. If they do something specific there's an extremely rare chance they'll be repeating the movement like an animation on loop. However, this is rare.

 

The repeating motions sound similar, depending on how it happens (I don't want to be presumptive). It reminds me of when our Wonderland will keep doing something glitchy. The cicada noises too, if you really don't want to hear them.

 

This is super tangential but I love cicada sounds.

 

8 hours ago, Glaurung26 said:

My dreams however...it's that scene from the Animorph books where the "zones overlap" in checkerboard fashion defying all sense of realism. I imagine it might be unnerving to have these pop in while you're in your waking wonderland. Maybe I don't passive focus the wonderland enough on a grand scale. We generally "manually" visualize our walks.

 

I haven't read that scene but it sounds like it would be cool in a dream but frustrating in Wonderland. The mind twists are usually not unnerving. They're just really annoying. What do you mean by manually visualizing walks? Like focusing more on little details and individual objects as you walk by them? I might want to try that. I've done very little reading on Wonderland specifically so most of my strategy is intuitive.

[Glaurung26]

I usually create a custom plane of existence that's hand crafted more than spontaneously generated realm, minecraft style. Beyond that is static non-existence until I require it to be something else. Kind of like visually writing a book in my head. The only part that matters is what we are currently existing in. I could see how errant thoughts could creep in and muddle things but I generally have to focus more consciously to do stuff, so that's why I imagine I haven't had anything super weird crop up yet. If my subconscious mind was in charge it absolutely would, my mind likes to drift all over the place when left to its own devices. I hope that clarifies. 😅

 

The rest of the time I'm co-piloting with Darron in real-space. 😊

[ruleofthumb]

@Glaurung26 I see. That makes sense.

[GrayTheCat]

I have experienced spontaneous ravines forming before, but the meaning behind in my system or possibly just myself it is pretty dark. It's connected to my depression-

 

Spoiler

The ravine is a symbol for giving in, losing control, and giving up. It can be tempting to fall in to see what the end is, but it's not safe. This is an intrusive thought that I know is bad not because the canyon itself is bad, but dwelling on this depressive train of thought is bad.

 

I instead walk away, talk to my headmates, or do something else. If I'm struggling with this intrusive thought too much, odds are good there is other anxiety/depression symbolism being shown and I could be having a panic or depressive attack. If really bad I'll usually turn to a crisis hotline. It's totally worth it, I promise.

 

I have doubt your mind twist is similar to my ravine imagery. Symbolism can be stereotypical and have similar meanings across systems, but the specific meaning is almost always unique. Additionally, some systems can have symbolism with contradictory meanings, it doesn't mean one is right and one is wrong, it simply means those symbols have different associations to them.

 

Since it's still reoccurring, I don't know if you figured out what it represents. If you have a feeling or issue you're trying to bottle up, it's possible the twists are your unconscious mind's way of trying to bring it up. You don't have to explore the twist to understand it's meaning (if it were my ravines, that would be counterproductive), instead it's worth asking what feelings/thoughts you could be dealing with in your everyday life and if there's a correlation between those thoughts and feelings and the mind twists. For instance, maybe you're struggling with school or there's someone in your life you don't like to think about.

 

I think it's also possible it's a short out of your visualization visualization, but I wonder if the mind twist or gravity pit could be what's causing that in the first place. One of the things I will never forget about the ravine is other intrusive thoughtforms ran in fear away from it, and I don't think I really struggled with other intrusive thoughts when it appeared. I know weird symbolism can increase or decrease visualization in general, we had a servitor that kept breaking until it was allowed to expand into its own wonderland room. Sometimes intrusive thoughts have weird effects on the rest of wonderland.

 

However, that doesn't rule it out either. If my mind's eye is exhausted, usually it will only simulate a limited number of objects and the wonderland gets dark. Even though my mind's eye isn't the best, blurriness is usually an issue with not understanding how to draw the form or what it looks like rather than the mind's eye cutting out. If it's really bad, it will cut out completely and I do my best to talk to my headmates via just mindvoice.

 

---

 

Ultimately there are a few tricks we have for reoccurring intrusive thoughts-

• Understand what it means and resolve any underlying issues. Odds are good (for us) there's an underlying issue that needs attention. Resolving the issue usually resolves the intrusive thought. However, be careful not to get too caught up in the meaning, some can simply be symbols of fear and not much more
• Give it its own space. We had an annoying and for us scary intrusive thought we called "the square". After trying to figure out what to do, our Sub. Rep. created a mini wonderland for the squares to spawn.
• Take care of yourself. If a break is needed, go ahead and take one. Intrusive thoughts can dissipate pretty quickly, sometimes drinking water, grabbing a snack, going outside for a bit, etc. Can help make it go away.

[ruleofthumb]

@Cat_ShadowGriffin Thank you for the suggestions! I can't be sure if they mean anything specifically if it's just the mind annoying itself. We are taking a break from Wonderland for unrelated reasons but we'll see what happens when we go back.