

Changing the top idea in your mind is performing inception on yourself - nicholasjbs
http://blog.hirehive.com/changing-the-top-idea-in-your-mind-is-perform

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Tycho
On the subject if Inception...

I injured my shoulder playing football last week, with the result that lying
down in bed can be quite uncomfortable. This means that I wake up quite a few
times during the night, presumably as I toss and turn during light sleep
phases. An interesting side effect of this is that I get to remember all
dreams that I have during the night, not just the last one (usually the only
one you remember cause it's the one you wake from).

Now, one surprise was how lucid some of these other dreams were. But more
fascinating was that the content of the _first_ dream was basically 'the top
idea on my mind' from that day (and every day unfortunately, but that's
another story). You see I hardly ever dream about the top idea on my mind, at
least I didn't think I did. The dreams I remember are usually related to some
minor point of the day. Otherwise it'd be great cause you could always choose
what to dream about just by thinking about it a lot... well anyway my theory
is that you dream about your top idea _first_ and then forget about. By the
time you get to your last nightly dream you're onto those minor issues at the
end of the stack.

Also suggests that when people wake up with solutions to problems, it wasn't
the subconscious, but rather something they consciously worked out in a dream
they later forgot.

I don't think it'd be possible to perform Inception on yourself waking or
dreaming, but perhaps one strategy would be identifying what really IS the top
idea. You may think it's money matters, leaving you helpless to free your mind
until resolution arrives (which could be out of your control), but maybe it's
really something else like you haven't planned what to do once the matter is
settled. Take your thoughts as far as they'll go, follow up every avenue of
inquiry to a reasonable end, and then they'll leave you alone.

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jdc
Also key to the likelihood of an idea capturing your mind is how it
emotionally engages you.

In fact, I could go farther, stating that ideas alone can't be in the tops of
our minds, but rather, some idea-emotion hybrid.

"Top intuition" is the closest phrase I can think of.

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da5e
Good point. Since I read Graham's article I've found myself often saying, "I
don't want this at the top of my mind." The things that sneak up there are
usually strongly emotion-based.

Clarifying and writing things down is also a way to clear them from your mind.
S, the mnemonicist Luria described, had trouble forgetting so he would write
things down so he could discard them.

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Estragon
Seems like pg's essay performed an inception on this guy already. :-)

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nicholasjbs
Ha, yeah. I realized that right when I finished. Somehow I don't think I'm the
only one, either.

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samstokes
From the article:

> the number of words it takes to state a thought is directly proportional to
> how clearly you understand it

This agrees with my experience, and is a powerful thing to recognise.

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WCC
There are so many other factors involved that the number of words barely means
anything.

Culture, audience, complexity... These things all dwarf understanding when it
comes to expressing an idea.

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samstokes
I agree, but I don't think that negates the point.

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StavrosK
I really hope "inception" doesn't become a thing...

