Do you play mind games in your own head: as a kid or adult?

[nschlaff]

I know this may sound strange or even psychotic, but I really like to play games in my head. I make up the games as I go. One day I was eating dinner in front of very beautiful, tall and thin trees. So I imagined myself extending the trees infinitely in all directions, simultaneously curving them and curling them in every direction around each other. I am curious if this is an INTP trait or just an individual thing.

I also play with vectors in my head by pretending that my eyes are scanning the environment with a million tiny vectors. I got this obsession with vectors after studying vector calculus. Do you see recurring patterns around you throughout your daily life? If so, what are some of these repeating patterns.

 

[pjoa09]

I used to destroy my environment while walking on the street.

 

[Architect]

No, not that I can recall. I've always regarded games as a general waste of time, and playing games in my head would be even more so.

 

[Beholder]

I do things like that all the time

 

[intpz]

No, not that I can recall. I've always regarded games as a general waste of time, and playing games in my head would be even more so.

Same here. The only times when my imagination runs as wild as that is when I'm talking about something far-fetched. Or as the trees expanding, etc., is when I wanna do something, then I can construct and move things in my mind, see how they would work, etc.. I love that visual 3D kind of imagination of mine, and the best part is that I can imagine anything when I talk, which means I can entertain myself without losing what the guy's saying.

 

[MsAnthropy_Indefatigably]

I do this a lot especially after playing certain video games for long period of time. I then pretend I'm still in the video game and do whatever the actions in the game would do. For instance, I like Beautiful Katamari, which is this game where you essentially roll up different things in your environment from smallest to largest and eventually you can roll up the entire planet (on certain levels). I always look around at all the smallest things in my environment and figure out what would be rolled up first and last.

Sometimes the "games" I play in my head are weird like, I won't have a sip of this drink in my hand until I see a red car drive by. Or I'm going to pick up these clothes off the floor next time the cat meows.... I don't always follow through to the point of "OCD-ness", but that's usually where the idea starts to do or not do something trivial.

Is that an "INTP" thing or just a weird human trait? lol

 

[intpz]

So far seems INTP, except Architect. And I don't know if I'm an INTP.

 

[shrub77]

I used to pretend I was using the force on my english teacher.

pushing her through walls, lightning and the works.

 

[Hadoblado]

I like to imagine that the eyes of people I'm talking to are rotating vertically in their sockets.

As a kid I would continuously play counting games with my steps and try and find a pattern of car passing to step ratio.

On long car trip I would imagine I had the condition of Cyclops from the x-men (lasers shoot from his eyes whenever he opens them). I would then spend the car-trip chopping everything I saw in half with my lasers.

When I'm bored with no visual stimuli present I will sometimes start at two then double until I lose track.

I find the sound of the tree branch game appealing, I might try it next time I have the opportunity.

 

[Ionosphere]

Years ago, if there was a dot on the car window or a spec of dust, I would imagine it as a laser and would cut anything it crossed. I would decide which cars, buildings and people got ripped in half and which didn't by turning my head in different directions to change where the dot appeared on the outside world.

Perhaps not the most common 'game' to play but it was interesting at the time and helped me just 'zone out' on long journeys.

 

[Pilot the Cannibal]

I think everybody does this, no matter what their personality type. It's just the product of a bored imagination.

The vector thing sounds kind of cool, though.

When I was younger, I used to do this thing where I would blink twice at someone if I liked them and look away from someone I disliked. I felt like I could "absorb" the qualities and images of the good people into my memory and so I would be more likely to end up like them in the future.

Also when I was younger I used to pretend that a robot named Dexter lived inside my head, who was employed by me and ultimately controlled whether or not I had good or bad luck. Whenever something went wrong, I would blame him. I even fired him a couple times, but I always ended up hiring him back because all of the other robots I tried to hire were even more incompetent.

 

[catatonic]

I started it when I was kid until now.

 

[Wolf18]

Years ago, if there was a dot on the car window or a spec of dust, I would imagine it as a laser and would cut anything it crossed. I would decide which cars, buildings and people got ripped in half and which didn't by turning my head in different directions to change where the dot appeared on the outside world.

Perhaps not the most common 'game' to play but it was interesting at the time and helped me just 'zone out' on long journeys.

I used to do that, too.
Other games I play:
Mental Chess. This is actually EXTREMELY difficult, especially without an opponent.
Tetris. Works extremely well at any time.
The Binary Code game. Works great while bored in class. It involves counting in binary code. The farthest I've ever gotten is into the 1000100's, I think. Highly recommended.
Observe the other people on the city bus. Figure out their occupation, marital status/kids, where they're going, and anything else. Lots of fun.
Anyone else play these games?

SW

 

[The Gopher]

I used to play games where I would fly or drive objects out the window when I was in the car or train. That way I had to adapt to the terrain quickly depending on what vehicle I was using.

 

[Infinite]

When I'm in the car I play a little game where I have to make a figure (like a videogame character) jump over cars as I go past. I have to reset the score if I 'hit' a car. On the train I imagine chopping down trees too. Then I get paranoid and think everyone's staring at me.

 

[Starswirl]

Half my days I'm playing these games. When I'm in a boring lecture I imagine what would happen if gravity began to change, or how the building can be deconstructed in an orderly fashion. When I'm bored and see a pattern I play with it in my mind, extending it, changing it, imaging little people on it and their societies. I also play the "car hopper" game, although instead of imagining a person jumping I move my head and eyes to "move" a speck of dirt or dust on the window.

 

[Nezumi]

I tell myself stories to fall asleep. I have a few different worlds that I've developed over the years, and main heroes in them. The world are very complex, I could probably write a book or four on them.

 

[joal0503]

I tell myself stories to fall asleep. I have a few different worlds that I've developed over the years, and main heroes in them. The world are very complex, I could probably write a book or four on them.

ahhhhhh...i dont necessarily TELL myself stories, nor are they recurring settings that I find myself entering...but i noticed the other day....

when im slipping into that oh so wonderful brink...where im losing consciousness, falling into sleep...i dont consciously start to visualize events...but I generally ALWAYS find myself doing so...

its a sort of visual dream, before im sleeping...again tho, it never feels like its a concsious thought, as much as it is some sort of pre sleep neuro routine of some sort.

colloquial mind games...fuck those. i dont have the time or desire to participate in such useless bullshit.

 

[Nezumi]

ahhhhhh...i dont necessarily TELL myself stories, nor are they recurring settings that I find myself entering...but i noticed the other day....

when im slipping into that oh so wonderful brink...where im losing consciousness, falling into sleep...i dont consciously start to visualize events...but I generally ALWAYS find myself doing so...

its a sort of visual dream, before im sleeping...again tho, it never feels like its a concsious thought, as much as it is some sort of pre sleep neuro routine of some sort.

My mind has always run too fast to fall asleep, and when my parents wouldn't read books to me anymore I started to replay the ones I liked since I had a good memory. This evolved into making my own stories, which came to have their own worlds.

I think I know what you are talking about though. Like the kaleidoscopic of images and pictures that show up on the back of your eyelids/in darkness when the mind starts to slow down and rest.

 

[Back2Basics]

No, not that I can recall. I've always regarded games as a general waste of time, and playing games in my head would be even more so.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

 

[Rikki Riziati]

I never had the thought to play games, but if left to my own thoughts for too long (seconds), I'll drift off into thought of different possibilities in multiple situations. I often find myself picking one person and attempting to depict their life outside of the few moments I've met them. I can also agree that just before sleep I seem to enter a world of my own creation. I usually have to force myself to come out of it because I'll lay awake in my world for hours.

 

[Nezaros]

Not really. As a kid I used to think up what basically amounted to fan fiction for various TV shows / video games, and later on would often imagine an Impossible Chain of Events involving various aspects of my surroundings exploding and causing mass destruction, but now I pretty much just think on practical matters when I have nothing to do. Analyze the universe and myself, all that jazz. Maybe I've played mind games (not what I was thinking of when I read the thread title, by the way) in the past but I can't recall any just now.

 

[Sorlaize]

WHOA
I just curled the screen in front of me and the side ends rolled like parchment.

awesome.



I'm tempted to give myself challenges sometimes. Like put stakes on the outcome of something and say "if this happens then I'll definitely do this.." in response to outcomes of things like dying in computer games

but not so much these days.

I used to make my eyes go a little out of focus to play with the outlines of things near me. It actually makes my vision better. I don't like being so conscious of this though; the outlines of everything not in focus.

I used to pretend I was using the force on my english teacher.

force choke? that sounds fun


I actually used to do the Naruto handsigns..

related.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj7jSWEOdIk