Psychological Notes

As I compose a section of the poem Remembrensenz A Tiemz tu Kum, in which I try to sketch out the range of personas, ego-identities, that shape and have shaped my thinking and my behavior, I have come to realize that because the phenomenology of identity is so ephemeral and complex, I need a framework from which to work. I have begun by defining 10 categories that generate and shape ego-identity. Naturally, there is a great deal of superimposition of the categories, but phenomenologically, an individual category is generally what will trigger an identity-awareness. I have not seen anything like this in any of the psychological literature, so I thought it might be of interest or use to others. Thus…

  1. Sensual identities (driven by the senses; impressionistic)

  2. Emotional identities (driven by emotions such as compassion, anger, confusion…)

  3. Self-maintenance identities (cleanliness, housework, cooking…)

  4. Relational identities (family, friends, social presence…)

  5. Aspirational identities (who we are or strive to be; primary and secondary work identities)

  6. Spiritual identities (ethical, religion-shaped, transcendental/mystical…)

  7. Dream, dreamy, and wishful identities (that emerge and disperse with little immediate impact)

  8. Counter-normative identities (generally suppressed or rejected, operating subconsciously)

  9. Anti-self identities (conscious and subconscious oppositional identities)

  10. Inchoate identities (frothy, effervescent, chaotic)

A phenomenological experience

Another episode where the borders between thought, reality, and dream broke down. As if each thought were tangent to, or a window onto, a whole other world. Images – they seemed like forgotten but internally vibrant dream images – would evanesce up, and it was impossible for me to know if they were dream images or things I’ve experienced in this world. Hazy, just on the edge of consciousness, but brightly ‘colored’. Perhaps simply thoughts that were being amplified somehow. Each seemed to have a whole life behind it.

Perhaps this is a formal description of what I was experiencing:
Fractal consciousness in an n-dimension geometry, each thought a vertex or tangent on another world.

Scary but fascinating, like a taste of higher consciousness. But also out of my control, mysterious, confusing.