I met someone recently who told me she sees colors when she closes her eyes to go to sleep at night. I hadn't heard this before and it sounded like some sort of synesthesia, so I decided to ask Meredith if she experienced the same thing. She told me that she doesn't see colors, but she does do something else when she goes to bed that amazes me and highlights beautifully how she processes information visually.
Meredith said that when she goes to sleep at night, she will review her day from beginning to end and then backwards again, sometimes three or four times in a row. When she is doing that, she files away things that she didn't get a chance to file away earlier in the day. She explained that if things don't get filed away, it is very unnerving and gives her a lot of anxiety. In fact, she explained that her little mental assistant, Merebith, goes around Brainsburg (the city in which she lives) like a janitor picking up all the litter from the day. The "litter" is the bits and pieces of information that she needs to file. Once Merebith collects all the litter, she files it away in the Treasure of Files.
After hearing this, I asked another very visual thinker I know whether she did the same thing at night. She said that she reviews her day starting from the beginning and, like Meredith, files information away that she didn't get to earlier. She agreed that unless everything is filed away, she gets very anxious. For her, she calls this process "clearing the mechanism."
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