For the sake of simplicity I’m going to use the example of a song that is stuck in your head… I believe this technique is helpful in understanding the mind, uncovering memories, and putting you into deeper states.
The main principle I base this technique on is that the mind is indeed “stratified” into zones of increasing depth… pretty much a Freudian approach you could call it.
You have the surface, which is very small, and constantly changing, this is where “you” reside most of the time, it contains short term memories, etc… and each time you have a thought, it draws from a “pool” this pool being the unconscious mind, the longer you think about it, the deeper it goes…
Thinking of a dog might make you remember your IMMEDIATE dogs, but thinking about dogs in general will eventually remind you of childhood pets long passed, and theoretically if thought upon long enough you will reach a blank point where you have experienced all there is to experience of dogs, right down to your first experience with them…
So for the song technique, on the top you may have a song stuck in your head, and maybe this song won’t shut up. But you know what, the mind functions as a “whole” there are always thoughts associated with thoughts associated with thoughts, etc.
Take this recurring thought and forcibly attempt to change it, negate it, by replacing it with something else. Choose a different song… if you want to go back into childhood, choose the first childhood song that pops into your head, then repeat it.
It takes you into a deeper state more related to long term memory… when you feel like you have a “hold” on this new state of mind, i.e. you have learned from it, stabilized it, and want to go deeper, try to think of another song.
This in theory works with any type of thought, or memory, etc, any concept, any symbol, but we as westerners have songs STRONGLY drilled into the unconscious… so they seem to be the ideal vessel.
To briefly explain what this is like, here is my experience:
I noticed I had a radiohead song stuck in my head and it wouldn’t leave me alone… it goes “you had to piss on our parade” and something about a bull in a china shop… at any rate… I decided I was going to replace this song with something else, the first tune that came to mind is “Dayo” so I sang dayo in my head.
This took me from a world of surface distractions to a world of older memories associated with “Dayo” such as (hypothetically, I just now thought of it) when they all sing that song in the Beetlejuice movie…
when I experienced some “flashbacks” and got into a deeper mindset, I tried to think of another song, the first that came to mind is “Bingo” so I sang the “Bingo” song in my head, BAM… I’ve quite quickly, efficiently, and simply, accessed my childhood, around ages … 3 - 7 ? I recalled being in preschool, I recalled a lot of things…
but I took it another level, I thought of some song in the Cinderella movie and conjured up long displaced memories that must have been from even earlier… quite certainly a borderline post-toddler state…
I then thought of Beauty and the Beast, etc.
This process can presumably be applied in reverse, if Radiohead is stuck in your head, try thinking of what they sound like in the future and make up your own music… etc…
the most beautiful thing about this technique is that it can put you into near sleep states with little difficulty (if you’re sleepy that is), but it does not get you lost.
You may find yourself in childhood saying “where the hell am I?” but then you remember the sequence of events, you go from beauty and the beast back up to cinderella back up to bingo to dayo to radiohead, and its very easy to do.
This really seems like an extremely useful and efficient method of keeping track of and MAPPING your mind.
How many thousands of times have you heard Dayo? Even if you are completely and totally lost in thought, you will still remember “Hey I was thinking of Dayo a while back!” and to get back to where you started you need only think of Dayo once more.
The most valuable thing is that this doesn’t just remind you of childhood, if you let go enough it TAKES YOU THERE, not like in a dream state (though i think it could), but more like you remember what it was like to become a kid, and the more this happens, the more you draw upon the “inner child”… I got to a point where I barely understood logic, I was operating in a very symbolic/emotional state, and I got so immersed that I was kind of worried that I couldn’t “come back” to a level of “adult intelligence”
(i still feel like i’m barely scratching the surface!)