Mind travel ~ Journey into Your Unknown

by Raghav Bubna

“So many thoughts… you know too much to be happy.” ~ Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear

Overthinking is only human and we all go through it one way or another. Our minds are capable of great leaps of thoughts and imagination, which sometimes can prove difficult to turn off.

As thoughts have the appetite to consume us, it is only when our thoughts seem against our well-being that we realize their potential to affect our lives through our minds.

While we all encounter this we may have our own manifestations to cope with. Such tendencies of our minds cause anxiety about the future and regret about the past. While neither has the ability to affect change they can cause stress.

Stress has known and diagnosed effects upon our bodies. It is an uneasy feeling that originates in the mind and amplifies under anticipation of a set of outcomes we can’t stop thinking about; until it transmutes into the flesh and manifests in a host of forms from insomnia to loss of hair or sex-drive to name a few.

As we attach our emotional charge to a particular thought, it gains the power to affect us. An idea is bigger than even the person who thought it up, may even be true in its creator’s experience within his own mind.

Coping mechanisms

Music is known as a good means to combat stress. I believe this is because it can move us by talking to us through vibrations; a language that transcends both body and mind.

Reading similarly has the effect of gluing us to a story from time to time, where we turn tirelessly as though we were traversing the landscapes of what we read.

These examples of music and reading bring out in essence their common denominator – change & progression – which activates our imaginations as we travel through texts or verses in our mind screen.

If we only observe how music and reading affects our mood instantly, we find that they move our mind towards a state of balance. This is because of the stimuli they offer the mind offsets it from its prior dispositions onto a new-leveled playing field.

Thoughtful application

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” ~ William James

Imagine if we could use this potential of the mind to intensify certain thoughts that we sometimes fall at the receiving end of, in order to amplify the lighter and happier emotions of our minds.

Travel reveals an interesting indication for its capacity of change. The difference is that, in our minds it happens at the fractal scale and requires delving into its subtleties to even observe.

While physical travel may involve moving through new places, cities, landscapes, states or countries. It removes us from the routine of our regular lives by the change of scenario it offers. We are never the same again as we will never be at that same time and place again. While this is true for every moment of our lives, we are unable to see it when burdened with the worries of our lives.

As in moments of despair, stress or worry the emotional charge is so great that it suspends us in our minds, not allowing us to move of their charge and we remain fixated on our thoughts. From this space it is only harder to find a solution then if we were to travel to a calmer mind space.

“You can never enter the same river twice” ~ Indian proverb

Journeying through the depths of the mind

Thoughts are transient to our nature just as the flowing of water is to the river, and symbolizes the impermanence and constant change that takes place.

Travel while great in the physical world, is even more spectacular through our minds! As there is an ocean of inspiration that resides within us, the ability to move mountains in our minds is the same force that allows us to move past the obstacles that block our path.

It instills an agility of thought that enables us to not have an instant reaction based solely on emotions. Rather a balanced response to anything life throws up by having the ability to move past our self and isolate the issue.

Most commonly we may think that traveling within the mind implies astral projection or conscious dreaming, however why wait for that moment of pristine synchronicity or dreams when at any time we can simply jump in and blast off into the universe on board your very own mindship?

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