I used to do the calendar thing, too, but not so much anymore. I also used to imagine a specific word that I’d just said out loud in my head.
Oh, I mentioned before that I have a car runner, but I guess I’ll describe him now. He’s youngish, in his teens and he usually wears regular clothes like jeans and a t-shirt. And he can do ANYTHING. He doesn’t need vehicles or gadgets to do it, he just does it. He likes using telephone wires to flip and he always slows to a walk as we drive by a cemetary.
When I’m in bed at night before I go to sleep, I act out (under my breath) possible scenarios with people I may encounter. This includes people I speak to on various message boards. It calms me down quite a bit, and often helps me think about a situation I’m stuck in.
When I’m angry or upset, I tap out a very rapid pattern for hours sometimes on my four fingers, using my thumb.
Whenever I have a soda, I pop off the tab and put it in the can.
(and I’m glad to know i’m not the only one who has done the ceiling-is-now-floor bit)
When I’m alone in the elevator, I dance.
I also sometimes sing the “Are You Being Served” theme song:
*Ground Floor,
Perfumery,
Stationery and leather goods,
Wigs and haberdashery,
Kitchenware and food,
Going up
(doo, de doo doo doo…)
First Floor,
Telephones,
Gents’ ready-made suits,
Shirts, socks, ties, hats,
Underwear and shoes,
Going up… *
Or hum the “Get Smart” theme tune.
My “car-runner” was me on some sort of motorized unicycle on the telephone/power lines jumping the poles and gaps.
What a great thread! This is fun to read and fun to think about!
I had a car-runner too. I wonder if it came from an old Twilight Zone or something. It’s amazing that so many people have this.
I also used to see my life as a movie being filmed. Or, after I first read The French Connection, how a stakeout cop would see it (he’d be really bored).
I grew up on a farm and spent huge amounts of time on my own, with my transistor radio and a tree swing as my best friends. Inside my head I had several different fantasy lives going on. Some were quite elaborate and lasted for months or even years, some were just tryouts and only stayed with me for a few hours or days. Everytime I saw a movie, I’d live in that movie as a character for a while (not as the star, just a character). I’d do that with books too.
When I have cause to stare up at a daytime sky or light ceiling, I try to “catch” and look directly at the floaters in my eyeballs. They always dart away before I can do it. I try not to do this if anyone’s around, because I know it looks extremely bizarre with my eyeballs flicking back and forth.
I used to memorize paragraphs while reading for fun. Sometimes I still catch myself reading a paragraph over and over, even though I don’t start out intending to memorize it.
I used to spell out words in my head. Words I’d be reading, words I’d be thinking about, words I heard on the TV. I was a spelling bee wannabe, read dictionaries for fun and lived for the “Increase Your Word Power” pages that my grandmother would send me. What a waste. I never did anything with that knowledge and now my memory is shot and I can hardly remember my own name.
I try not to step on cracks, and my mom has been dead since 1982! Some things are just TOO ingrained.
I always count stairs.
I must have a fan on next to my head while I sleep. The white noise is crucial to me. Like Meryl Streep and her dial tone in Adaptation, I sometimes hum along with the fan. Only when my husband is gone.
Ok, after reading this I’m either closer to normal than I thought, or I’ve definitely come to the right place. You know, we’re all here 'cos we’re not all there 
I do the my life as a movie dealie too. Have ever since I was a kid. I also tell myself stories before I go to sleep. I have a very vivid imagination.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to NOT to have a song running through my head. (Today’s selection:Love In An Elevator, for now anyway…at least it’s not heinous.) I’ve been that way since earliest childhood.
I’m also a compulsive leg shaker.
If i’m alone, I will talk to myself at times. Especially if it’s something amusing. What can I say? I crack myself up!
I quit biting my fingernails eons ago, but I will still run my nails over my mouth and teeth. Can you say oral fixation?
Too many “Car Runner” freaks and not enough “Life as a Book or Movie” freaks!
Maybe I’m just bitter for not even remotely grasping the concept or appeal of a Car Runner.
Testily, scablet popped another duo of mini marshmallows into her mouth, focusing a deadly stare upon the monitor’s faint glow. Fucking Car Runners*, she hissed.*
I have a car-runner, too. I don’t imagine her often anymore, probably because she was my entertainment on long school bus rides. She could defy gravity. Also, maybe because I took gymnastics lessons as a child, she would do cartwheels and flip flops all of the time.
I picture a calendar of the year as a large circle with me in the middle. Each month is in a different color.
Whenever I eat a grapefruit, section by section using a serrated spoon, I find the largest section. The first section of the grapefruit that I eat will be the section to the immediate right of the largest section, so I get the largest section last.
Oh, and when I’m trying to get to sleep, I’ll sometimes sign song lyrics. I don’t know any sign language but the letters of the alphabet, so I spell out each word.
Wow, I feel so quirky.
pan in to Witchie sitting cross legged at her desk, reading Misha’s post
Witchie: "No shit mish! What's with this car runner crap? The book and movie imagination people are much more interesting!"
end scene.OOOPPPPS…I meant scablet as a matter of fact. misha is one of those evil car runner people. My bad
Well, Witch, I think you just have to accept that there are more of us because we’re cooler. It’s the only logical explanation. 
When I’m driving down a road, I imagine the car sort of leapfrogging over the telephone poles… worse, I inhale as we approach a pole and exhale as we pass it, as if my breathing were making the car jump. this can cause really irregular breathing on some roads, but I can’t help it.
I think of my life as a book rather than a television show or movie. I often compose small events in my life as short stories as well, or perhaps posts on SDMB, even if they’re of no interest to anyone at all.
I also tap my fingers using the first few bits of the alphabet and not counting the thumb. For example, index finger is A. Middle finger is B. Ring finger is C. Pinky is D. Then we go back to the beginning and index is E. And then I start all over again, with middle finger being A. The end result is each time you end at E with one finger more until you do it completely and end with E at your pinky.
I also sing the alphabet set to songs, usually traditional songs like Christmas music, etc. Lately I have had that christmas tree song stuck in my head. You know, “Oh Christmas tree…” etc. So I go “Aaaaa b c d, a b c d, a b c d e f g”… if that makes any sense.
I don’t have the running person in the car, but I do something else instead. If I’m on the side of the car nearest to the inside lines and it is dotted lines, I tap my fingers or perhaps my teeth in time with the dots. If i’m on the other side of the car, I do it by driveways, etc. I hope that made sense.
Also, I mentally read to myself when I’m writing and I ALWAYS pronounce “etc” ect. I type it write, I know what it stands for, but I still mentally pronounce it that way. I’d never say it that way out loud.
I feel so weird now.
I also have a car-runner, except that mine is just a normal person running alongside the car/train/whatever. They don’t have any special powers, they simply follow a path and when they can’t get over an obstacle, the thought just disappears from my head.
I also do the eye-floaters thing, more when I was a kid and had to travel in the backseat of a car for a lot of my childhood… my floater is worm-shaped with little dots around it.
If I get a beat [say, da da dadada] in my head, I imagine a diamond or square shaped object and each beat is one side of the cube/diamond. If the end of each beat lands on a different part, then it’s a good one and I continue. If it keeps ending on the same part, then it’s bad and I modify it a little to fit.
When I’m alone in a house, a room, anywhere, I imagine that there is a hidden camera pointed on me, so I have to behave. Makes me rather paranoid.
If I want to fall asleep at night [I usually sleep with music on], I lie in bed and pretend that I’m on stage, singing the song that is playing. Even if I’ve never heard the song before, I seem to be able to lip-synch PERFECTLY.
I always seem to be tapping my feet to some rhythm. I’ve noticed that my sister does it too, so when we’re both sitting there watching TV, both of our feet are tapping away to some imaginary beat.
I do that too. Or I imagine a giant saw/blade cutting down every tree/pole/tall inanimate object we pass.
Wow, I can’t believe so many of us have car runners. My car runner was a white horse.
She’d run alongside the car and jump over obstacles like intersections. Sometimes, if we were on an elevated highway or a bridge, she’d be a Pegasus and fly next to us.
I was also able to ‘communicate’ with the horse when I was a kid. I don’t do that anymore, but I still see her when I’m driving alone.
My car-runner was just a good jumper. If there was a large obstacle, he’d jump so high I couldn’t “see” him anymore, and then land safely beyond the obstruction.
I also used to imagine that I was trailing a “string” behind me, wherever I walked. If I entered a room and walked, say, around a table to the left, I’d have to exit the room by tracing my steps around the same side of the table. Otherwise the loop that the “string” made would catch on the desk. This would make me extremely uncomfortable. I tried to avoid places that had separate IN and OUT doors.
I have a car runner, too. Sometimes it’s just a regular guy who can jump very high and very far, but sometimes he’s on a horse jumping the obstacles. He can only run on grass or concrete, but not the road surface. I even follow his movements with my eyes- I move them up and over at telephone poles, etc.
I also do the ceiling-as-floor thing, only I don’t need to grab a chair because everything stays in the same place. Even hanging lamps stay the same way, only they’re standing up instead of hanging down, and I imagine having to step over the tops of doorways.
Whenever I read a book or watch a movie I really enjoy, I entertain myself by pretending to be a character from that book or movie. Usually not the main character, though. I think this is really a left-over from childhood. ‘Pretend’ was my favorite game. I actually have this Walter Mitty-ish existence, in which whenever I get bored, like while in a waiting room or standing in line, I imagine being a favorite character.
I used to imagine when I was little that the car was eating the lines painted in the middle of the rain and spitting them out. I’d watch the lines appearing from behind the car as we went down the highway.
I also imagine that certain inanimate objects get lonely by themselves. There can never be a single stuffed animal on a shelf, for instance. He has to have some company. I also regularly assign gender to inanimate objects. A pencil is male, but a pen is female. I don’t know why.
I sometimes imagine a phantom companion, someone who has somehow been caught in a time warp (usually 18th century, often Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson) and now we’re together for some reason. Naturally, I end up having to explain all sorts early 21st century things to them. Usually I do this when I’m bored but sometimes it sneaks up on me. I work near an airport and almost every day when I come out, there’s a plane coming in low overhead for a landing so I find myself rehearsing how I’ll explain that.
Oh oh. I just noticed that I did this.
when i’m in bed watching my clock, I run through all the possible combinations of numbers. like 3:17 (when i noticed i did this) would be 317, 713, 31, 17, 13, 71 37, 3, 1, 7, 3.17, 71.3. rattle through them until the minute changes, do it again