A fun game about yourself.

[stpauler]

There’s an afterlife thread in MPSIMS and it reminded me of a game we played in college. The idea was to close your eyes, follow the speakers instructions visually in your mind, and then at the end, talk about what you saw and this would allegedly reveal more about yourself.

Here’s how it went (IIRC):

Close your eyes.

Make sure to always take notes of your surroundings.

Picture yourself going down a path.

After a bit of time you come across a building to examine.

You decide to go into the building and examine it some more.

You then leave the building to head further down the path until you come to a body of water.

You spend some time at the body of water before continuing.

You head down the path even further until you come to a wall. If you’re able to get a glimpse, what do you see on the other side?

Open your eyes.

It’s a short little walk-through, but now we ask the following questions to examine it further.

What did your path look like?
How fast was your pace down the path?
What did the surroundings look like?
What did the building look like?
What type of presence did the building have?
How did the building feel inside?
What was the body of water like?
Did you do anything with the water?
What was on the other side of the wall

Ok, so now that the questions have been asked (and presumably answered), this is now the time to reveal what the questions were supposed to mean (disclaimer: of course, I have no psychological credentials, neither did any of us, but it opened up discussions on what it could mean.) (P.S. Don’t open up this spoiler box until after you’ve done the above, otherwise it could skew the “results”.)

The path represents your life. The pace being the speed that you feel you go through life. The surroundings of the path are how you perceive the world.
The building represents yourself. The exterior is how you show yourself to the world and the interior represents your innerbeing.
The water represents your sex life. The more involved and interacted with the water you are, the stronger your sex drive is.
The wall is death. What’s on the other side of the wall is what you think the afterlife might be like

So, after you do this, how accurate was it for you? The answers that came up in your “visions” may be completely different from the way you perceive yourself and completely inaccurate, or they may be right on. (I’m obviously not vouching for this test either way, I just thought it’d be fun to share).

[Ghanima]

Well, I had a hard time getting past step one, because I had to keep opening my eyes to read the questions.

Just kidding!!!
I pictured a leisurely stroll along a wooded path, the building was brick and castle-esque. Covered with moss and seemed locked and unused. The body of water was a lake. The wall was a retaining wall with forest beyond it. (Basically I pictured the path I used to walk in Germany when I was an exchange student. Perhaps that biases this experiment.)

I guess I see the world as a wild beautiful place and my pace is one of unhurried enjoyment.
I think the building suggests strength but withdrawal from society. The interior I couldn’t see and didn’t picture, so that’s a bit mysterious.
The lake was deep and I was aware of the groundwater and the streams that fed it as well as the moisture in the air. I’m taking it to mean that I’m sexually satisfied.
The wall…hmm, the elevated land would seem to indicate that I think death takes me to a higher plane, and the forest suggests that it is going to be an adventure in uncharted territory.

Pretty accurate, I guess.

[Batsinma_Belfry]

I do too have a sex drive!!! I just don’t know how to swim.

[VunderBob]

The path goes through the woods. The building is a well kept log cabin, reeking of charm and comfort. Inside, it is clean and a large stone fireplace dominates the large living room. The decor is rustic.

The body of water is a pond, fed and drained by a creek. The drain end of the pond empties into a stream, where there is a small waterfall (just a foot or two). Of course, I’d go skinny-dipping in the pond.

The view over the wall is a small meadow with a couple of grazing animals. The meadow is surrounded by woods, and a hint of other cabins at the woods edge and beyond.
Actually, I’ve done this before, and the representations are BS. What I described is a scene stitched together from about 4 different places I spent time as a kid.

[rowrrbazzle]

Interesting. I heard a different version of this in college about 30 years ago. It had only the water, the wall, the building, and a container in the building. The significance of the common items was different. Here’s how they were all interpreted:[spoiler]The water was your self-image. The larger the body of water, the poorer your self-image.

The wall and how you got past it was problems and how you handle them.

The building symbolized your fear of death. The larger and more complex you imagined it, the greater your fear.

The container was the importance of sex to you. The larger and more ornate the container, the greater the importance.[/spoiler]

[Mithril]

My body of water had a dam, and I spent most of my time examining it. What does that say about my sex life?

[sleeping]

Heh. I did this at summer camp a few years ago and the sex-related question was “Describe water.” Before covering my eyes I had glanced at an Aquafina vending machine so, when it was my turn, I said “Purity guaranteed.”