Mind's Eye Cinema
Visualising tomorrow to understand today
Setting the Scene
How does your movie end ? Are you the protagonist or the antagonist ? Do you sit in the theater of your mind as a viewer or are you the hero of your own story ?
Your inner movie exists within you through your thoughts and experiences, it is influenced by the world around you, every waking moment is captured through your senses and is directed by you and produced for you. It is this inner power innate within us all that can be harnessed for clarity and inform present decisions. By editing on the fly, we can use this concept of our inner movie to help us navigate and experience the world as we see fit.
Moment to moment we can fast forward our movie to help inform our current state of now, in order to make better choices and to produce a block buster of portions that you can be proud of presenting to the world.
Act I: Understanding the Inner Movie
The inner movie describes the continuous stream of thoughts, memories and projections as seen through our minds eye. It is this inner world we experience through consciousness as influenced through the collaboration of actors that exist within our story line. There are dramas, sagas and sometimes love stories but one main truth is that you are always the star of your own movie and it is up to you as to which role you chose to play moment to moment.
We are wired to mentally project into the future and it is through this cognitive ability which allows decision-making, planning and emotional regulation to take place for us.
Endel Tulving's research on episodic memory lead to the concept of "Mental Time Travel", as described by Thomas Suddendorf and Michael Corballis. This concept describes how our episodic memory allows individuals to mentally project themselves into the past and the future.
Likewise fast forwarding and rewinding our inner movie allows us the same cognitive ability and it is with this ability that we can further enhance our here and now.
“Remembering is mental time travel.” — Endel Tulving
Act II: The Power of Fast-Forwarding
Imagine for a moment you are confronted by a task so intense that it takes all that you have to formulate a simple thought let alone a complex solution. Through consciously "rolling your movie forward" this affords you the chance to both buffer your emotions and simply just observe how the various versions of your movie plays out. With this insight into the future, the movie that you chose to produce is within your direction with no need for retrospective editing.
Under duress or stress we tend to default to a mode that has been built over time to protect us from harm, by psychologically attending to your projected inner movie variations this has the net effect of quelling your instinct to default to this modus operandi by supplying yourself with viable options to proceed.
Act III: Techniques for Effective Visualisation
Visualise your inner movie as vividly as you can, see the world from an objective vantage point as if watching yourself through the lens of a camera. The effectiveness of watching the moments play out as an observer gives you insight into how you present to the world and how others see you. By using this knowledge, the choice is yours as to what sort of role you want to play. Does this role portray the type of character you want to be ?
Defining your character is an arduous process of inner reflection, soul searching and trial and error, but once this chosen characters attributes are realised and absorbed into your very being, playing this role in your daily life becomes something that you simply are.
Conclusion: Embracing the Inner Director
The inner movie of your life has limitless possible conclusions and it is within your power to create the masterfully tailored scripts that imbue your chosen character traits into the storyline. By using mental time travel, the ability to massage and direct your life is within your reach and control.
Become the person you have always wanted to be through visualisation of your parrallel storylines in times of stress, to help overcome and navigate toward a positively charged future where you become the main character of the story. One who has the control over the narrative and editing process and one that can provide direction amongst chaos.
"Life’s like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending." — Jim Henson