a9Memory Streaming

Duration: 6-10 minutes.

Objective: Allow your conscious mind to fully relax and get lost in the exercise and experience at hand. Flowing in stream of consciousness, allow new types of sensory thoughts to pop through without trying to consciously grab or control them.

Instructions:
Set a timer for 6-10 minutes, and find a comfortable, peaceful place to practice.
Select a memory from the past year or year and a half which is fond and has some sensory variation to it. For example: a walk in the park with a friend after it rained (that’s just one example, but something like a calm day in the office won’t work well for this, since you were only in one setting most of the day).
Select a starting and an ending point to the memory (If I’m using the memory of a hike with friends… Starting point: when I got out of the car. Ending point: when I got back into the car).
Next, relax as much as possible, and allow yourself to verbally recount the chosen memory as if you were currently there, experiencing it in first-person, present tense. Describe how things looked, felt, sounded like, etc. Allowing yourself to get “lost”, drifting into the memory of this day as much as you can.
After, dissect the processes your mind went through in retrospect.

Post-Exercise Inquiries:
If I had to pick a moment from doing the memory stream that stands out as more visual than the rest, what moment would it be?
What about that moment stands out as particularly more visual?
What components of visual thought can I be subtly aware of?
Carefully dissect any presence of potentially visual thought, making sure to note down if anything feels beyond what you’re normal experience is.

Notes: Just like snapshots, this exercise is not particularly a memory exercise. So do not worry or fret if you cannot remember certain aspects clearly. Simply let your descriptions roll right past those spots that feel a bit fuzzy.