: In January of 2007 my therapist sent this novel to me with this line highlighted, among others.

She'd been my therapist since 1998, and in the card received with the book she quipped-asked if I'd ever spoken with Thomas Harris. (I hadn't, but his college roommate was my Philosophy prof and good friend for years.)

She asked because of my six trains, one of which is always just for me.

@thedisasterautist So, does that mean you can layer several simultaneous thoughts on top of each other?

I can, although it takes very intense concentration. The most I've ever managed was eight simultaneous threads, but that necessitated what was essentially a deep meditative state... and I'm very susceptible to losing them with the slightest distraction.

@IrelandTorin: I see my thoughts and emotions visually as threads in a tapestry. It isn't like a medieval tapestry on a castle wall but a circle/hoop with activity buzzing on the circumference in 3D, if that makes sense. A number of them are completely involuntary, mostly calculations, evaluations, connections, and possibilities, all of which I can isolate and follow backwards and view and compare-and-contrast to other if need be. Other threads I drive or at least corral and attend to. I can...

@IrelandTorin: ...jump from one to another mostly easily, depending on the environment and immediate active engagements/stressors. I wouldn't say I "layer" them, though I'm not sure how you mean "layer" in context.

There can be up to five active trains for things, like conversations, research, speculation and extrapolation, synthesis, and memory-mining, and then there's one that is passive and permanent which is entirely my mind/intelligence/id or whatever playing.

The caveat, I reckon...

@thedisasterautist Whoa, that's WAY more state information than I work with. The way I think feels *almost* stateless... pretty much the only information I'm keeping in memory are mood and current focus. Nothing else is there until I go looking for it.

Has pros and cons. Pro: excellent focus. Con: completely oblivious to just about everything.

I've been known to forget... um, actually, it'd be easier to give you a list of things I can't forget,

because there's nothing on it.

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@IrelandTorin: Alas, the list of things I don't, can't, and wish I could forget is way longer than what I have forgotten. That said, they're not all stored linearly but rather in the memory palace. Some things come to recall instantly, often involuntarily. Other things have to be jogged, and some things have to be sought by tracing other memories, playing the Six Degrees Game, or jumping associationally.

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