That’s how I picture it. The relationship of the cube to the ladder seems significant.
The cube is green and opaque. It nearly fills the white space, which is spherical and fades away (as opposed to having a sharp boundary). The cube floats and is rotating on all its axes.
The ladder is yellow fiberglass, with D-shaped aluminum rungs. It is partially extended, to a length of about 24 feet. It sits on concrete pavement, leaning against a red brick wall.
They are great clusters of purple iris, lining the south border of my driveway. They look very nice and have a slightly sweet aroma. They please me; they are the direct descendents of the iris my great-grandmother first planted. (I suppose I should admit, in my imagination there are 2-3 times as many iris as I presently have.)
It’s a thunderstorm; it will be here soon. There’s severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado watches all over the area. The wind burst is coming through now, and you can see the cloud line looming in the west. It’s massive and there’s extensive lightning, with a lot of ground strikes. I’ve unplugged all the electronics and gotten out the wind-up radio and piled the sofa cushions in the hall and gotten as ready as I can. So now, just watch and wait and take cover when it comes through and hope we don’t get anything bigger than an F1.
It’s the Percheron next door and he’s eating some carrots I’m handing through the fence. He’s just munching away while I chat with him. He always gets the most carrots and apples; he’s the biggest of the lot. He’s friendly, large and in charge.
I guess now I hit reply, and read further…
Ouch! LOL.
Jealousy issues?
Oops! I had them as separate scenes…
Okay, my white space is inhabited by a cube, rotating slowly, of inderminate size. This cube is apparantly solid, and rainbow hued, with shifting colors. And oriented so that it’s rotating about an axis through two opposite corners, with that axis being vertical to the horizon. I’m guessing it’s about 100 meters or so from me, since I can see it clearly, and it’s just as clearly out of reach. I’m going to guess that the cue is about 3-5 meters on a side.
Ladder? Well, it’ll have to be a ladder from a fire truck, since it’s so high up. And since the cube is rotating, the ladder isn’t actually pressed against the cube, just close to it.
The flowers are under the firetruck. Smelling sweet with a hint of diesel, from the ladder truck. I’m sorry they were in the way, but someone told me that I had to get a ladder there, dammit. 
There’s a storm? Is it calm or violent? Aren’t all storms, by definition violent? Otherwise it would just be raining or snowing. Since it’s a storm, however, the wind is making the ladder truck shake, and I’ve got concerns about the lightning hitting the ladder. I’m not worried about it hitting the cube, since that seems to be still rotating slowly while the winds blow, and the lightning flashes. Visibility is being degraded, of course, as the rain is driven in sheets.
The horse is obviously looking for shelter. It’s trotting back and forth around the fire truck, looking for someplace to get in from the storm, or at least some person who can help it and reassure it. I’d say three adjectives for the horse would be: agitated, scared, and wet.
Enjoy!
Okay, I’ve now read the rest of the thread.
I have just one thing I want to add:
:eek: My ideal mate is agitated, scared, and wet? :eek:
[Spoiler]The cube is your self-image.
So, I perceive myself as ancient, immobile and only slightly affected by the world around me. (Hemi-demi-semi accurate, I think) I wonder I my younger self would have been newer. Still strong and immutable, I think, But perhaps shiny and bright. Erosion is a bitch.
The ladder is your ambition.
So, my ambition in integral to my self, yet does not reach beyond it. Very accurate, I think. But the ladder leads to the top, and I have not looked there. Probably significant, as well. No doors or windows visible. You can’t look into or out of my self. I never thought about the inside of the cube. I never even considered if the cube served some function.
The flowers are your friends and loved ones.
Not a part of self, independent, and wide spread. They are an element of the world in which I live, not a part of me. Hmm. They are not flowers from a garden, nor are they tended, nor are plants removed. They are who they are. Could be very true.
The storm is your problems and conflicts.
Vast, and distant. Unlikely to affect my stone fortress self. My self becomes a shelter to me, against my problems. My friends are sheltered in their own places in the world. (The tufts of grass. Friends come with their own selves, and their own shelter.)
The horse is your ideal mate.
And my mate too uses my self as a shelter. She neither flees, nor challenges me, but remains near my self. Well, that certainly does not describe my ex wife.
[/spoiler]
TrisThe cube is opaque, not too big, floating in the middle of the white space. It’s black, and an edge is facing outward. The ladder is leaning against the black cube. It’s brown, wooden, and much bigger than the cube. The flowers are on the left side of the bottom of the ladder. The colors vary: red, yellow, purple, green. They don’t have a scent, but they’re very pretty. The storm is somewhat violent. Loud thunder, strong winds, chilly rain. The horse is standing adjacent to the ladder, not doing anything. He’s kind of bored.
I did this once as a Party game. People seemed to enjoy it.
I got bored after the flowers.
The cube is white, but visible because of radiosity. It is floating and I am looking at one of it’s vertical corners (i.e. two of it’s side faces are visible to me)
The ladder is also white, propped up against one of the visible sides. It isn’t floating.
The vase is on top of the cube. It is white, but it has daffodils in it (yellow, of course)
All that is imagined as rendered by the Half-Life render engine. (i.e. a bit of aesthetically pleasing radiosity in the ‘scene’)
Ok I’ll play if you have time. I haven’t read the rest yet:
The cube is about 6" white/grey opaque floating about two feet in front of me and I’m looking at one of the pointy corners.
The ladder is a library ladder leaning on the bookshelves a bit off to left.
The flowers are to the right, red hibiscus, very pretty, no smell, they make me feel loved.
Wild violent storm, lots of wind, rain lashing at the window, trees bending left and right, lots of leaves swirling about.
The horse is plodding slowly up the hill, it’s tired, old and wet but still strong.
Well hell I just read the spoiler.
[spoiler]
White floating cube: Perfect, pure, um… gravity defying.
Ladder against the cube: To get over my self image.
White vase with daffodils: Dude, wait, what?
Bored with the rest: Nuff said![/spoiler]
It looks like a cube on a white piece of paper. The ladder is leaning on the side of the cube. The flowers are blue and red, and around the base of the cube. The horse is an Appaloosa, about a year old. The storm is just a rainstorm, no thunder.
Now to read the thread.
Regards,
Shodan
Okay, this just goes to show how getting on a certain track can pretty much invalidate any general applicability of this kind of thing (not that there’s any validity regardless, but you’ll see what I mean).
Since the first direction is to imagine “a white space,” I pictured the planetary construction area of Magrathea.
My cube is floating in the air, could be held in one’s hand, and is opaque black. I’m viewing a flat side, not an edge.
I didn’t know if the ladder was supposed to be in this setting or if it was the part of an independent mind picture. Looking ahead to a reference to “this scene,” I decided the former, so I’ve got a worn wooden ladder floating next to my cube.
So, I’m picturing Magrathea, and items suspended in midair. I’m sure you can guess what kind of flowers I’m imagining, and why they amuse me.
Since we are in a sense indoors in my scenario, I’m picturing my “storm” as a quite calm collection of clouds at the top of the room, such as have been sighted in NASA’s VAB, only on a larger scale.
Now, if the next item had been a whale, I’d know just what to picture, but somehow the horse floating/falling seems wrong, so I put it into the car with Slartibartfast and Arthur. It’s glossy and dark brown, confused, and cramped in the vehicle interior.
There, I dare you to analyze me on the basis of all that, except to conclude that I like reading Douglas Adams and have a great sense of humor.
The cube: White, floating, stationary. About 2 feet on each side, I’m facing a side.
The ladder: Old wooden ladder going up into an attic in a rickety old house.
The flowers: A field of white, yellow and purple wildflowers, they are pretty and are faintly fragrant. The scene is very calming.
The storm: a big o’l Midwestern thunderstorm - giant billowing black clouds, lightning jumping from cloud to cloud, whipping winds and rain.
The horse: A black stallion, galloping in a field.
Is it wrong that my ladders and flowers (and eventually storm and horse) were all sharing the white space at the same time?
Who actually decides what these items represent? Since you said we have to imagine them, I can imagine they represent absolutely anything I want, or that they represent nothing at all.
Games a total crock, I heard of one which used the sun which was supposed to represent parents, that one is a crock too.
Now if you were to tell folk after they had gone through all these imaginings what the analagies are, the important thing would not actually be the analogies themselves, but rather their reactions to this information and how they fit those analogies into their imaginings.
So we have a cube, I’m not at all concerned with what it is, what it is made of or its size, its a cube.
We have a ladder, which is another object.
The flowers are plants, and there are many types, it is a category of flora.
The horse is a mammal.
The storm is a weather phenomenon.
As to my reaction to these analogies, I could make up almost anything I want,
I could decide that the ladder represents faith,
I could decide equally that the ladder represents practical ability.
This sort of thing is pretty harmless amusement, however, it is used in modified form by some quasi religious groups, but in the end its no more than tealeaf reading.
I wrote mine in WordPad as I read the questions, so here’s the copy/paste:
Transparent. Can see all the black lines. Floating. Medium. Facing a side, tilted to see top edge.
Leaning in midair. Yellow. Wooden. Cartoony.
A small blue bowl of purple petunias, with large glossy dark green leaves, in a bowl. They are very pretty. They make me feel nice.
Purple clouds. Calm. Lightning in distance. Ominous. Still see some sky, horizon. Pinks and blues there. Peace.
Horse: Brown, earthy. Piercing eyes. Looking at me. Strong. Large. Solid. Serious.
Ha, I am definitely most influence by the first image - the setting. I Googled “the cube” and found an online test with a very significant difference - the setting for everything is a desert. So now my cube is a metal box of supplies, my horse is a saddled cowboy’s horse, the flowers are cactus flowers, and so on.