Really scared when meeting myself in my palace...

[top]

I’ve been practicing visiting every area of my mental (parents house) palace for a while, really submersing myself in all the senses, from sight, sound, touch, and even smell. I’ve been doing this away from the actual house while I was at school.

Now, I’m home from school, the same place my mental (parents house) palace is. When I walk through my memory palace, I feel like I’m actually in there. I feel like I’m alive there/here. I always see in first person as well.

The issue now, has been that when I go exploring my memory palace, I have a sort of interference when my physical body is actually there. Like now, while I’m home for summer. Currently, I’m in sitting in the living room with just a dim light on. When I visit my palace in my mind, and I get near the location I’m physically at, I get really scared/creeped out. I’m creeped out SO hard right now as I type this…

It’s really scary because as I’m sitting down here, I feel like I’m also standing up right next to me, looking down at me… I see my self from that perspective, standing up, looking down… typing. I’m just really afraid to look right and see what’s there. I don’t know, i know it’s stupid but it’s really messed up…

Anyone have any experience with this?

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Another thing which could possibly explain this is something that happened some time ago, when I was so deep in my mind that I believe I was actually lucid dreaming… I had no sense of my physical self. When I was walking around in my palace, I was exploring every nook and cranny of my house with a deep level of sensual awareness.

I came to a part where I entered the bathroom. I looked at the sink, felt the cold marble as i lay my hands on them, and as I slowly looked up, I saw the mirror over the sink. That was probably the scariest moment of my entire year, at least.

Now, since I always ‘see’ in first person, I don’t really know what I was wearing or what my hair looked like or anything. But the mirror should have shown me. Instead, I saw this huge, massive, scary dark figure… like a really muscular monster. That’s really weird as I’m not particularly muscular, and am light in complexion. That scared me so badly, I jolted back to my physical self instantly, still scared.

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I’m a very healthy person with a healthy lifestyle. Besides those two things I listed above, there’s nothing bad that’s happened. It’s just those two things…

Any idea what this is about, or if you have any similar experiences?

[octaveslur]

Is this only happening when you use memory palaces? If you have visual or auditory hallucinations in other contexts, that would be a concern. Some people with epilepsy or schizophrenia experience autoscopy or doppelgänger sensations.

But if it only happens when you actively use memory palaces, maybe it just means you’re really good at it. I wouldn’t worry about it. People who meditate a lot often see things in the process. It’s when it intrudes on your normal life that’s a concern.

[top]

Thank you for the feedback!

Is this only happening when you use memory palaces?
Yes.

If you have visual or auditory hallucinations in other contexts, that would be a concern.
I have never had visual or auditory hallucinations.

I looked up autoscopy on wikipedia and it (oddly enough) seems to mention both symptoms I’ve had (only when I’m visiting my memory palace).

“Autoscopy is the experience in which an individual perceives the surrounding environment from a different perspective, from a position outside of his or her own body.”
That’s exactly it, I see it from a different perspective (like a double of my own body), but I’d expect that for anyone who walks through their memory palace.

“Heautoscopy is a term used in psychiatry and neurology for the reduplicative hallucination of “seeing one’s own body at a distance”. It can occur as a symptom in schizophrenia and epilepsy. Heautoscopy is considered a possible explanation for doppelgänger phenomena.”
This is it. I see my own body at a distance of however far I am from my physical self when I’m in my palace. This again, is a very new phenomenon as only now have I been visiting my memory palace from actually being in there. I used to live apart from my parents house when i went to school.

“Another related autoscopy disorder is known as negative autoscopy (or negative heautoscopy) a psychological phenomenon in which the sufferer does not see his or her reflection when looking in a mirror.”
This isn’t what I have but it’d odd that a mirror is related… as in my odd experience I explained earlier about seeing something that was clearly not me when I looked at the mirror in my mem. palace.

Again, I’ve always had a healthy body and mind, and never before have I experienced anything like this stuff we are talking about regarding epilepsy and doppelgänger phenomena.

I’m not sure if this is a reason for concern…

[coloridus2]

Interesting. I do this sometimes, but everything happens involuntarily.
I have been trying to map my dreams in the last months(someone says it is possible).
In most of the dreams I notice a strange thing. There is aways a dark place, where I can’t go.
Could be a wall, or a box, or a place on the city. Seems like my “dream-self” is scared of reaching this place, or looking at this thing. Maybe you have just looked in this “dark place” and stopped before realizing the truth? Should you go deeper and look again?

[top]

That’s an interesting perspective. I don’t know what ‘truth’ I would find as my issues seem to all revolve about self-identity… like seeing my psychical self from another perspective, or seeing my self in the mirror.

In regards to your “dark place”, the closest manner in which I can relate is actually quite tangent to the subject at hand.

My hypothesis is that your dark place, where you “can’t go” is simply parts of your palace/memories which you don’t have as vivid a memory of… you don’t have enough details about that area… you don’t know what’s there… the lack of information is the darkness which you experience. That’s why you can’t go there.

The reason I say this is because I can do this thing in my mind that helps me understand and build mechanical objects (im an engineer go figure), something I subtly call “exploding”. It’s like seeing an extremely detailed blow up diagram of an object in my mind… like I was staring at it dismantle harmoniously in real life. Imagine we went for a walk and your favorite car was driving by. I would see that car in my mind, where everything then “explodes” in a very systematic way, showing as to how the car works. The doors of the car open wide, screws start coming off, and the side panels come out, leaving the innards such as the engine and parts under the hood exposed. All this is trivial, as I have already seen the exterior of the car. Everything is clear. However, once most of the exterior has been peeled off, my mind starts extrapolating data from my past information of the car, perhaps from commercials and pictures of the car, as it tries to dismantle the inner layers.

However, there will be a point where I subconciously no longer have any data to go off of… That’s generally when you get into the guts of the car which I don’t know, such as when I explode the engine or the mechanisms connecting the gas to the engine. THIS is my equivalent of your “dark place”, a place which feels dark in my mind, which I know for me is just a void of information… my mind doesn’t know what could be going on there, so it’s dark as it tries desperately to understand the system that lays beneath it.

I researched this phenomenon a few years ago, and I ended up at a severe autism forum where someone was explaining the way they could see things and it resonated along the same frequency as this. I hope that makes sense!

[memsid]

Hello
I am sid. I am new to memory palaces.

I am new but I think you should at least read what I think is happening to you.
I think some thoughts or events or places have great impact on how we think of something or how we remember it. Like I have changed many houses in the same society which have the same interior layout so the setting of our furniture is same in all the houses. But when I come out of my memory palace which is my house I always come out of my first house. But when I first came out I had not decided to come out of which house. It was kind of set by default. I think its like that because it was my first home ,which has a great impact on me.

Maybe something or thought has a great impact on you about how you think about yourselve. Maybe some part of you want you to be big and bad which defines that big muscular and black image.

I hope you understand what I am trying to tell you.

[iforgotmypassword]

Hi! Interesting topic!

Your thinking is different from mine. When I go through memory palace, I don’t concentrate on myself or what do I look like in memory palace, I just search for information which I stored there before.

When I meet a mirror, I can’t see the reflection. Or I see it very blurry (and I can’t see myself there unless I concentrate on it and imagine myself there).

By the way, I would not recommend you imagining yourself in your room while going through your home-Loci. I tried this and made me not feel good. It gives you feeling of being separate from your body, which is unpleasant.

While Loci-ing; try to imagine yourself disappear from your real-life room and appear in your Loci-room, this might help (and you won’t see your clone there)

WARNING, FOLLOWING TEXT MIGHT FREAK YOU OUT, DONT READ IF YOU FEEL YOU COULD FREAK OUT

I think we’ve just discovered the dark-side of Loci method. A perfect way to freak yourself out is to imagine yourself in your room (where you just are at the moment) and imagine grim reaper behind you.

[Wessells]

I don’t think that I ever had a problem seeing myself in one of my memory palaces. It is not any different than seeing any person?

Maybe I am less ‘inside’ a memory palace. It’s not that I’m completely there, but even then. I don’t know, I don’t think I ever encountered this problem myself and I doubt I’d find it strange or scary.

[Bateman]

Never had this happen, but I only used my house maybe 10 times as a memory palace when I was just starting out to memorize cards. It did feel a bit distracting, because I would imagine the card next to me or something, and I could almost feel it(some placebo effect, like if you imagine ice on your arm you can sort of feel it). I then stopped using places I go to regularly, to not have to deal with ghost imagery and seeing things that aren’t there(never happened, I have to focus specifically on looking in my imagination to see the cards I stored there, I don’t just randomly see them when I walk into the place).

I don’t think it’s common, but it has a very simple solution. Don’t use the place you are in at the moment. It might feel a bit weird, or to some people scary, but it’s really not a major issue with memory palaces. They aren’t dangerous.

Bateman

[r30]

@top

“Autoscopy is the experience in which an individual perceives the surrounding environment from a different perspective, from a position outside of his or her own body.”
That’s exactly it, I see it from a different perspective (like a double of my own body), but I’d expect that for anyone who walks through their memory palace.

Wikihow: How to have Out of Body Experience (OBE) 1. Visualize every detail of the space around you. Make sure you get a good look at your surroundings before you lie down. Now try to recall and feel the location and shape of every object in the room, as it looks from where you are resting.[2] 2. Visualize the space around you as seen from a different point in the room. Once you have the image of the room clear in your mind's eye, shift that perspective to try to see that image as though you were standing over or near your body. In some ways you should already feel like you have left your body. 3. Rise from your body to the spot you were visualizing from. Stay very relaxed, but be forceful in your will to gently bring yourself to that point. Feel yourself moving up and over to that space, and visualize your perspective changing. Then open your astral eyes.

This was method 3 of 4. I have no idea if 1,2,4 work, but method 3 is actually "visualizing yourself next to you". I mean this tutorial confirms top is right: OBE is just a matter of visualization. What I am interested in is whether it counts as genuine OBE.

OBEs can be induced by brain traumas, sensory deprivation, near-death experiences, dissociative and psychedelic drugs, dehydration, sleep, and electrical stimulation of the brain,[4] among others. It can also be deliberately induced by some.[5] One in ten people have an OBE once, or more commonly, several times in their life.

This wiki page makes it seem like it is very hard to induce, if only 1 in 10 people have it during their life. It makes seem like what top described isn't a real OBE.

What do you think? Is OBE just a matter of one’s concious visualization skills or does it have to be more like unconsciously induced like when lucid dreaming, hallucinating or something like that? Or is it the same thing and just much more powerful when you are hallucinating?

[raykidwell]

I use the following as memory palaces:
My house including front yard and back yard
My workplace
Places I frequent often like the local zoo
Places I haven’t been to in a while (California Adventures)
Places that I have never been to (Australia)

When I use my memory palaces, they are Images that I have complete control over

I control TIME
For instance, I can determine at what time the exist
If we have rearranged the furniture, I can choose to continue using it a the past setup
(or I can choose to change it to the new setup)

I control SPACE
I can make anything whatever size/shape I want

I control WHO OR WHAT CAN ENTER MY PALACE
I can place whoever or whatever wherever I want

I personally have never had any unwanted items in my memory palace,
BECAUSE I AM IN COMPLETE CONTROL

Now, you might choose not to be in complete control and have other things affect your palace
That should be your choice

My choice, I make my palaces the way I want them to be

Ray

[Nerto]

If I were you, I would just use another palace, or skip the rooms where I´m likely to be when I use it.

[r30]

I wonder whether too much time spent in Horror Palaces can make you mnemophobic :-D.

[coloridus2]

Interesting topic. At some point in my life, mnemotechnics have become more than just memory tricks.

There is an exercise I want everyone interested on this subject to try. I will describe it:

1-Every day, before sleeping, when you are lying in the bed, believe you can see with closed eyes. Visualize your surroundings as if you could see them(with your eyes closed). Do this 5 minutes every night, for 3 weeks. You will start seeing everything with your eyes closed, in a dark shade.

2-Than change the position of your bed. But continue visualizing your previous position. This will be the beginning of a technique for mental teleporting. It’s what the Buddhists call “moving without moving” maybe.

It’s interesting that now I can just close my eyes and expand the size of my surroundings, or move to another place. I’m not saying I can do this easily, but it’s easier to do this at night when everything is dark and silent.

r30, I think this obe exercise is very similar to what I am doing.