How My Mind Works: Part I

As time goes on, it becomes more and more apparent to me that I don't think the way most people do. In this, I mean not only that I think of different things than other people, or that I approach them from a different angle. I have come to believe that I quite simply use a separate means of processing information from the majority of... well, just about everyone. I have a number of odd phenomena in my thoughts that support this idea, but I'll get to those in a later entry.

First, I'd like to discuss how I envision my mind. Many people talk about their minds as mazes, landscapes, file cabinets--one girl even referred to her mind as a cage. My view of my own mind is just a bit more complex than that. Begin by picturing a solar system. Not one of those mobiles we made in grade school, but a full-fledged solar system in which all the planets, moons, and other satellites orbit in all three dimensions. Now, imagine that many of these orbiting objects are close enough to one another that they affect each others' orbits. So far, this is physically possible for an actual solar system. Now imagine that each planet/moon/satellite is connected to those near it (and perhaps some farther away) by bridges of light. The sun, by its very nature, is then connected to everything in this same way (yes, technically it wouldn't be restricted to light bridges in real life, but every metaphor breaks down somewhere and this one breaks down here).

Within the context, all the planets, moons, and satellites in this scenario are my thoughts, memories, and other like mental occurrences. The Sun, my soul. Here's where the metaphor picks up again. The soul, as I see it, does not make up the mind. It does not constitute my memories, does not contain them. I cannot even say for certain that it is how I think. The sun, my soul, merely illuminates the rest of my mind. If another soul were put in its place, something would undoubtedly change, but much of what people would recognize as "me" would stay the same.

To some degree, I suspect that everyone's mind works this way, at least insofar as the soul and the rest of the mind interact. But the difference lies in how I view this. Anyone care to weigh in with alternative models for minds or criticisms that would help refine mine? I'd certainly appreciate them.

God Bless!