Mind changing--not changing your mind...

[Vraith]

A preface, since it might not seem as odd/fascinating as it feels otherwise...[[and maybe it really is neither]]
I've said in posts before...I'm NOT a visual person, I'm a word person.
I CAN do visual, but it is work/effort I have to intentionally DO. [and often seems not worth the effort since the words work just fine].
Also, folk may have noticed...though I don't think I've put it down...I spend
a lot of time observing my own brain/thoughts...watching how/what "I" think from a second/third person perspective. I'm fairly sure everyone does that to some extent...some more aware of doing it than others, some care about the implications of it more or less than others...but I do it, like, non-stop...I don't know if that's odd or just not talked about often.
Either way, I only mention it, and the non-visual thing cuz it impacts how strongly and strangely the following affected...may continue to affect...me. [and to frame the question at the end]:

I'm old-ish. I've been to lots of places, especially built places with massive buildings, but also places with mammoth natural features...like trees, mountains, canyons. I've lived in a number of them.

So...I had very long lay-over in Milwaukee earlier this week. I went out to stroll about. Then, for no real reason except waiting to cross a street, I glanced up at the building opposite. Not that impressive...only 7 or 8 stories high, but fairly long...most of a block. Just another building...big like every city's buildings are big. Whoop-de-doo.
BUT...in some way, my brain suddenly...shifted.

It FELT similar to the tracking/process that happens when watching [usually in SF, sometimes in CSI/Crime shows lately] scenes where a map/diagram/field, usually on a screen/monitor, starts adding layers/directions/dimensions.

It didn't "look" like that in my head...I wasn't "visualizing" such a thing...but what my brain was doing seemed to occupy the same paths/rooms/state that those effects do when I'm seeing them.

AND...the building instantly became HUGE...amazing to build, look at...the scale just kept growing in my head. NOT the actual size/space...there was no illusion/hallucination...but my apprehension/comprehension of those spaces and sizes. At first, a few seconds, it was just "WOW, that's BIG." But then my head decided that wasn't good enough, and started "counting" it in terms of my house.
As in
" FUCK! Those two windows are my living room plus kitchen wide and high as those plus the upstairs bedrooms!...NO...more than half as tall as my Tulip Tree!"

And so on...

That was a little unusual for me...but not completely unprecedented. I often judge distances based on my definitive memory of the length of the field behind my high-school, which was precisely 150 yards.

It turned weird when it STOPPED being related to my house, or remembered/known scales and I started just apprehending the space/size.

Big whoop, right? [especially for the folk I suspect exist that just always think/see like that...la-de-freaking-da].
But to me it was...and may be more than just was....
Cuz since then [though it's only been a few days], when my brain is idle [or idyll]....and sometimes when it ISN'T...my head keeps noticing things in terms of size, angles, distance, relative positions.

For me, this is more than just a different "viewpoint." [which is just an angle on the same]...it's a different environment/enframing.

I'm not sure how much [or if] it is important...if it alters anything in meaningful, permanent [or semi-permanent], insight/possibility-revealing ways....
but it is extremely curious, different, and unexpected...

So...the question is...anyone else had a thing like this happen? Not just changing your mind/opinions, but the feeling [or fact...] that something in the foundation/mechanics of how "you" WORK/function/THINK has changed?

[Rau Le Creuset]

Not really in the same way as you.. more temporary. On Halloween i went out and bought the movie The Conjuring. and when i got home from a friends place I went to my basement turned off all the lights and and put it on, this was around 11 o'clock. During the movie I Noticed... and to some extent felt my mannerisms change.. about 40 minutes through the movie i noticed myself listening to the everyday sounds of my house. pipes creaking, fridge making ice, wind knocking stuff around outside.. all that noise surrounding your house that you are able to ignore everyday.. kinda sounds silly.. but i almost jumped out of my chair when i heard a bump from the first floor (im usually quite calm and level headed with horror movies and such.) The worst was when the movie was done and i had to walk up both flights of stairs to get to the top level of my house in the pitch black.. i swear i almost ran. i was fine by the time i got into my room though.

so.. i guess i can almost know what ur talking about?

[Vraith]

so.. i guess i can almost know what ur talking about?

Yea, I think you kinda do...I've had similar to what you talk about, and maybe I shoulda/coulda used something similar to analogize...
It's like what you describe...only hit harder, and from a blind side...
[if that makes any more sense than what I originally wrote].

[Avatar]

Sounds like an acid flashback to me.

Perhaps not so much a change in your perception as noticing how your perception has changed.

(Because you don't usually. Notice your perception changing I mean.)

--A

[Vraith]

Perhaps not so much a change in your perception as noticing how your perception has changed.
--A

Exactly, I think. Not the thoughts, the mechanics of the thinking.

Honestly, I haven't had any sudden/new/revolutionary ideas or alterations in worldview, or revelatory insights [heh...yet, anyway]. But it's about a week now...and things are still, noticeably, being processed differently.
It's kinda fun.

[Avatar]

I don't get pictures in my head. Ever. I'm a text only kinda guy.

The closest I can come to a similar experience is sorta an...unfolding. When I think of a certain thing or concept or whatever and a specific aspect becomes the focus, and then all the things that lead up to that aspect becoming apparent and forming this sorta causal chain that just gets longer and longer...

And sometimes I amuse myself by seeing how far back I can trace the origin of a random thought by reverse engineering the associations that produced it.

--A

[Linna Heartbooger]

So...the question is...anyone else had a thing like this happen? Not just changing your mind/opinions, but the feeling [or fact...] that something in the foundation/mechanics of how "you" WORK/function/THINK has changed?

Well, yes, but p'raps not quite what you mean.
I, erm, have a lot of things built in to my usual way of thinking where I thoroughly IMPEDE MYSELF from thinking effectively.
Every now and then, a lot of these "walls" drop off, and I just think way, way more effectively for several days or more.
And I think about more problems, too, in a more active rather than passive way.
I really like those times; they're fun.

Anyway, yay, brain periodically working like crazy on spatial reasoning and comparison stuff sounds fun, vraith - enjoy.

Oh, also... that one author ussusumiel and I regularly gush about... Modessitt... he does a lot of descriptions of scenes and what-not that engage spatial reasoning... and show you what it's like inside the mind of one of those "the folk you suspect exist that just always think/see like that."
I've thought of joking that "I feel like I'm getting smarter when I read his books"... but it wouldn't be all a joke.

...BUT...in some way, my brain suddenly...shifted.

It FELT similar to the tracking/process that happens when watching [usually in SF, sometimes in CSI/Crime shows lately] scenes where a map/diagram/field, usually on a screen/monitor, starts adding layers/directions/dimensions....

This was surprisingly helpful in understanding what you were describing. I think.