occult, paracosm (inner world), advice request 

@frameacloud my experience is... it's *very* strange to think about it in these terms.

while it may be difficult & require effort for me to get specific details, most of the time it takes *more* effort and attention *not* to be involved in a paracosm, once the seed has taken root. I had to train myself to stop seeing woo-stuff in the mundane world--although once I trained myself that way, it was easy to maintain, and it's been difficult to reverse.

occult, paracosm (inner world), advice request 

@frameacloud I think about Johmarr frequently, and it's... very persistent; I don't forget stuff once I've invented/discovered it, it just becomes part of my memory-bank. same with Norton; although again I have made a deliberate effort to *not* come up with new material for it outside of dreams, I revisit and add/revise it in dreams (without doing it lucidly/intentionally) about... twice a month?

occult, paracosm (inner world), advice request 

@frameacloud I don't seem to have any appreciable energy cost to maintain these things, and I didn't when I was seeing the woo-world all the time. the more attention I put into them, the more absorbing they are, but that's true of every sufficiently complex thing--reading, writing, playing a game, watching an ongoing TV series. it's just, orthocosms don't have an externally-set endpoint, so I can just keep them going indefinitely.

Follow

occult, paracosm (inner world), advice request 

@frameacloud but again, I have been told repeatedly that I am unusual in this respect. for me, any kind of imaginative effort is--almost effortless, once begun. it may be difficult for me to maintain my attention, but that's a matter of interest and training for me.

so my answer is it very much depends on the person, but it seems likely that it's also something that can be trained into greater capacity, like exercise or learning a skill.

Sign in to participate in the conversation
Awoo Space

Awoo.space is a Mastodon instance where members can rely on a team of moderators to help resolve conflict, and limits federation with other instances using a specific access list to minimize abuse.

While mature content is allowed here, we strongly believe in being able to choose to engage with content on your own terms, so please make sure to put mature and potentially sensitive content behind the CW feature with enough description that people know what it's about.

Before signing up, please read our community guidelines. While it's a very broad swath of topics it covers, please do your best! We believe that as long as you're putting forth genuine effort to limit harm you might cause – even if you haven't read the document – you'll be okay!