Repressed memories, repetitive thoughts. Advice? Practices?

[lmfao]

For a long time now, I've been having repetitive thoughts. My mind imagines myself to be in the same physical locations, over and over again. This list includes

- Various different facilities and rooms and fields in my high school
- specific areas outside of my primary school, as well as the fields there 
- Specific and different areas of this old couple's (who are effectively my grandparents) home
- Virtual locations in video games
-al-Masjid al-Ḥarām in Saudi arabia that I visited
- The village community centre near where I live 

Just writing that list down doesn't communicate the vividness and frequency with which I revisit these places. Doesn't communicate just how intrusive some of it all is. I could spend a long time enumerating all the places that come up. Or writing down what associations and themes that are with each of them. But that would be too long, I'm consciously realising more and more places everyday that my mind is visiting every day. To describe it all would amount to an autobiography. There's just such a large world of images I've built. 

Anyway, within the last hour I had a breakthrough in figuring out the meaning behind two the of the locations my mind repeatedly visits. My mind visits the art room in high school because thats where I would talk to my crush a lot, my mind revisits the D&T department in high school because that's where I found out she was dating and asked out by someone else. 

The meaning behind all the locations I visit. It's all starting to make sense now. Its undigested emotions and memories. Which "deep down I knew" what they represented but didn't actually know consciously. Rather, I refused to let myself know. Weird to experience this first hand. I would call this a facet of honesty. It is a subtle layer of dishonesty and self deception that allows whats obvious in your face to not be seen. 

My problem however
There are still things and locations I cant make sense of. Repressed memory is a bitch. It's so irritating. That I'm on the cusp of grasping something but it eludes me. I feel like I've lost the tangible details or factual account of what events occurred in what location, but some emotional/implicit memories still remain. Does anyone here have any advice or practices for how to bring this stuff up to the surface? 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes my mind is chaotic. Just a massive haze and cloud. Which might be in any or no direction. Completely nonsensical, no order. A tornado of meaningless noise. A massive accumulation of impressions, loops of experience being played over again as well. 

At best it can be channeled into a creative force when doing amateur sketching. Or random obsessions which quickly fade. Threadiness, hairs, webiness, insects, streams of water, is/was a previous obsession. Ended up morphing into thoughts about embryos, inquiry into the difference between definition/resolution and undifferentiated mush/goo. Inquiry into the difference between order and disorder. 

Edited May 27, 2020 by lmfao

[Girzo]

That's just how the mind works. I wouldn't try to assign meaning to randomly remembered locations. I can remember almost every location I have been to in my life and navigate every forest I have walked through. That's a lot of memories, so no wonder they bubble up.

I think most of the memories happen to you because of that skill of navigating physical space you might have and they are not necessarily connected to a situation that has had any emotional impact on you.

[mandyjw]

Confusion isn't what we think it is, it's suffering, a pleasure pain movement. How can a mind that knows it's confused be confused? How do you know you have repressed memories? Why not enjoy the images of places as they come in? Let them be just as they are? Let go of the thoughts about it and the need to solve it. The more you think of it as a problem the more those thoughts will come up and bother you.  If you're curious, let it just be curiosity, no need to add a story about why it might be happening. Sometimes when we let go of our confusion and self imposed need to know the answers we want come in, unexpected, unbidden. 

[Spaceofawareness]

These things likely keep coming up due to unfinished business, or something unprocessed which needs to be worked through, emotionally. Maybe some injustice was done to you, some trauma was experienced, or something which was totally out of your control happened. Repression is a natural defence mechanism of the mind to protect our ego’s from perceived pain of experience. Your interpretation of past events is still locked in the past. It might need to be updated, especially if it has been some years, the person you were then is likely quite different from the one you are now. You are hopefully now strong enough to face those memories again, to uncover them and shine the light of awareness on them. 

The hopeful thing is, when a memory is accessed, it can be reinterpreted with a fresh perspective. Realise that the person that those events occurred to is not the same as the person you take yourself to be today. If you can face those memories and expose them again, you have a chance to see them in a new light, in a new perspective, to see how they made you the person you are today. Facing these things alone is not advisable if there is a strong trauma associated with them, it’s advisable to have a therapist walk you through facing these memories, unless it happened so long ago that you can distance yourself enough from the identity of the one that they happened to, and keep some detachment from the trauma.

Good luck.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Spaceofawareness
Typo

[The observer]

My impression is that you don't have a problem with the memories in themselves. It looks more like a low mood issue. You could have the same thoughts in a higher mood, and they would feel blissful. Try it out. Do a set of Shamanic Breathing. See how you feel right afterwards. You should probably feel an elevation in your state/mood. Right there, start reminiscing about your memories. Notice the letting go and how good it feels. Ideally, you could do the same process while viewing pictures of the places you are talking about, or better yet, by directly going there and visiting your shadows.

[lmfao]

 

On 27/05/2020 at 7:45 AM, Girzo said:

That's just how the mind works. I wouldn't try to assign meaning to randomly remembered locations. I can remember almost every location I have been to in my life and navigate every forest I have walked through. That's a lot of memories, so no wonder they bubble up.

I think most of the memories happen to you because of that skill of navigating physical space you might have and they are not necessarily connected to a situation that has had any emotional impact on you.

@Girzo Yes, much of this is overthinking very meaningless and mundane things. 

On 27/05/2020 at 11:21 AM, mandyjw said:

The more you think of it as a problem the more those thoughts will come up and bother you. 

@mandyjw The curse which everyone who seeks must come to terms with. 

@Spaceofawareness Yeah for sure. Some of the associations are pretty clear, its just dishonesty which prevents you from seeing it. And even if the tangible detail fades away, all emotional memory is in the present moment. 

@The observer Well without psychedelics I guess shamanic breathing might be the new thing to try. 

[The observer]

@lmfao It's a life-changing practice. I used to be depressed, neurotic, obsessive, and a few other things. So, It can be a huge turning point.

Breathing, in general, is crucial. So, if anything, master that.

[lmfao]

@The observer I will do soon enough hopefully. 

[IAmTheHolySpirit]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhH6aDLKqlw

[Raptorsin7]

@The observer What's your shamanic breathing practice?

Any tips or recommendations?

[The observer]

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

@The observer What's your shamanic breathing practice?

I hardly practice it anymore. Mostly only if I feel stressed.

1 hour ago, Raptorsin7 said:

@The observer 

Any tips or recommendations?

I learned about it from Leo's video and then read a little online afterwards. My only tip; Don't overthink it. Just do it.