Visualizing life as a "slice of life" anime

[UberScout]

I've talked about anime, and it's been part of a topic about coping skills before. Gamification has also played a role in my life and it has helped me grow a lot too, believe it or not (if you're not caught up, gamification is when you take your daily schedule and apply game logic to it to trick your brain into thinking taking out the trash raises EXP points, and vice versa)

But recently I've been in a serious anime phase, among some of favorites are Food Wars, Death Note (though I kinda lost interest like four episodes in because it started to kinda drag on; I still think its a good one, just not my kind of genre.), That Time I got Reincarnated As A Slime, you name it, it's on my crunchyroll account.

But the way my daily life has been recently, I've had to get really creative behind the scenes, with my coping skills, because simply clearing my head while sitting somewhere by myself isn't doing much; it's working, but some stressors are stronger than others.

So what I've been doing is I've been thinking and meditating in my head about how this would all look in some sort of dramatic/slice of life/Shonen anime, but in my own style in my head, and playing out different executions of "scenes" and decisions that have a possibility of leading to another "scene" and so on, searching for the best possible route to play out in these scenes and both mentally animating the rest of the scene while riding with it out in reality, at my own pace and at a pace where I can still focus on reality.

The results have been pretty positive so far. Would anyone else consider trying this, keeping it under wraps and not really being vocal about it? If it's been helping me maybe it will help somebody else here, heh.

I don't know what this specifically would be referred to as, but I'd like to think it would have to have a name like "Shonen sight"?

 

[Au Naturel]

That sounds really productive. Unfortunately, I would be of zero help in the undertaking. I lack any useful skills.

There are a LOT of anime characters who have autistic traits.

OTOH, anime is very popular among people with autism.

 

[8398]

Oh, I do that. I particularly like slice of life anime where it's a mostly all female cast and is a comedy like nichijou, azumanga daioh, others. I feel like the japanese are good at romanticizing daily life and the little things in life, it feels more positive. I notice japanese people can actually be that way, my japanese aunt is like that. She is more excitable about the little things, and I want to be more like that. (Not to make it sound like all sunshine and rainbows) But while growing into adulthood I was exposed to a lot of positive japanese attitudes towards life and has made a very positive effect on my life. Anyway! I haven't done what you are describing before but I have vaguely used my imagination almost in that way.

 

[Gerontius]

Fair warning--This sounds an awful lot like dissociation as a coping mechanism.

 

[Aspergers_Aspie]

Sometimes people can try and bully for example bully someone who exhibits traits of being on the autistic spectrum

 

[foliodoe]

Fair warning--This sounds an awful lot like dissociation as a coping mechanism.

Agreed. The buzzwords 'maladaptive daydreaming' get thrown around a lot. I wonder if it's anything like this.

I've always viewed my life as scenes from a movie or a TV show. I've always been obsessed with the ambience and aesthetic of my favorite bits of art/media. Then I've going out of my way in my real life to pursue those things and make them real. I often forget where my passions and obsessions came from - it's easy for me to lose sight of why I chose to live my life a certain way versus another. It all comes down to my favorite films and television shows.

I assume this comes from a lack of socialization inside of real society. Everything is neatly packaged and adheres to a certain login in a fictional realm. Reality is so much more unreliable and messy. When I don't know where to turn for guidance or direction, I invariably end up fixating on a certain artist or cultural personality. Maybe it's because I've never had good role models.

 

[Gerontius]

Agreed. The buzzwords 'maladaptive daydreaming' get thrown around a lot. I wonder if it's anything like this.

I've always viewed my life as scenes from a movie or a TV show. I've always been obsessed with the ambience and aesthetic of my favorite bits of art/media. Then I've going out of my way in my real life to pursue those things and make them real. I often forget where my passions and obsessions came from - it's easy for me to lose sight of why I chose to live my life a certain way versus another. It all comes down to my favorite films and television shows.

I assume this comes from a lack of socialization inside of real society. Everything is neatly packaged and adheres to a certain login in a fictional realm. Reality is so much more unreliable and messy. When I don't know where to turn for guidance or direction, I invariably end up fixating on a certain artist or cultural personality. Maybe it's because I've never had good role models.

I don't want to derail Uber's thread but I agree with you. When I was at my lowest I ... discovered the whole "aesthetic" side of the Internet.
It's easier for me to turn life into a sort of hideaway and try to get by that way. You drew it from films and television; I pulled it from books and music and occasionally some films. It's awkward.
I am almost certain that our society now does not allow people to really be naturally social, very good point on that.
In a way it's not so much masking as it is being like a liquid, changing shape to fit its container. Sometimes this seems very unhealthy for us.

 

[foliodoe]

I don't want to derail Uber's thread but I agree with you. When I was at my lowest I ... discovered the whole "aesthetic" side of the Internet.
It's easier for me to turn life into a sort of hideaway and try to get by that way. You drew it from films and television; I pulled it from books and music and occasionally some films. It's awkward.
I am almost certain that our society now does not allow people to really be naturally social, very good point on that.
In a way it's not so much masking as it is being like a liquid, changing shape to fit its container. Sometimes this seems very unhealthy for us.

I think escapism is a widespread coping mechanism and, like anything else, there's a spectrum that goes from healthy to disordered. I'm reminded of the character Walter Mitty.

 

[Gerontius]

I think escapism is a widespread coping mechanism and, like anything else, there's a spectrum that goes from healthy to disordered. I'm reminded of the character Walter Mitty.

I loved that story!
Another vivid example of literary escapism is in the opening chapters of Babbitt. Sinclair Lewis' pudgy antihero wakes up from bucolic dreams of chasing a fae or pixie in forests right out of Mucha or Parrish, by his ultra-fancy modern alarm clock--his commute to work is given in excruciating detail going through the process of fussing over starting up his car (which is compared to a pirate-ship...it's literally just like a Buick or something)
Babbitt sells real estate; he's fat and middle-aged and has no drive or ambition whatsoever--and infuriatingly enough he does not get any ambition but the story is worth reading. I don't say he's a good man, but read it because he is a mediocre man.

 

[Au Naturel]

Agreed. The buzzwords 'maladaptive daydreaming' get thrown around a lot. I wonder if it's anything like this.

I've always viewed my life as scenes from a movie or a TV show. I've always been obsessed with the ambience and aesthetic of my favorite bits of art/media. Then I've going out of my way in my real life to pursue those things and make them real. I often forget where my passions and obsessions came from - it's easy for me to lose sight of why I chose to live my life a certain way versus another. It all comes down to my favorite films and television shows.

I assume this comes from a lack of socialization inside of real society. Everything is neatly packaged and adheres to a certain login in a fictional realm. Reality is so much more unreliable and messy. When I don't know where to turn for guidance or direction, I invariably end up fixating on a certain artist or cultural personality. Maybe it's because I've never had good role models.

A daydream is only maladaptive if it has an adverse impact on your day-to-day life that is not balanced by the benefit of the daydream. I imagine Stephen King has some serious daydreams and some of them get turned into bestselling novels and movies. If I had the same daydream while assembling explosive widgets for the Army, that could be maladaptive.

 

[foliodoe]

A daydream is only maladaptive if it has an adverse impact on your day-to-day life that is not balanced by the benefit of the daydream. I imagine Stephen King has some serious daydreams and some of them get turned into bestselling novels and movies. If I had the same daydream while assembling explosive widgets for the Army, that could be maladaptive.

Does it all come down to what makes money and what doesn't? Or are those just convenient analogies? I wonder why you reached for those comparisons first.

 

[Au Naturel]

Does it all come down to what makes money and what doesn't? Or are those just convenient analogies? I wonder why you reached for those comparisons first.

What it comes down to is what allows you to live life fully. King's fantasies help him to do what he loves. Our assembly line worker's fantasies might put an end to doing anything at all. They are opposite ends of a continuum of possible results.

Some people may find that an extensive fantasy life is better for them than reality. There's a movie along those lines, "Big Fish," by Tim Burton.

 

[foliodoe]

What it comes down to is what allows you to live life fully. King's fantasies help him to do what he loves. Our assembly line worker's fantasies might put an end to doing anything at all. They are opposite ends of a continuum of possible results.

Some people may find that an extensive fantasy life is better for them than reality. There's a movie along those lines, "Big Fish," by Tim Burton.

That makes sense. Thanks for explaining your perspective to me in more detail. That film Big Fish, ironically enough, really resonated with me. This idea of making your way in the world and making sense of the world through stories. Fictionalizing your own life to make it larger than life. That made a lot of sense to me and still does. Reality is a drag.

 

[Au Naturel]

That makes sense. Thanks for explaining your perspective to me in more detail. That film Big Fish, ironically enough, really resonated with me. This idea of making your way in the world and making sense of the world through stories. Fictionalizing your own life to make it larger than life. That made a lot of sense to me and still does. Reality is a drag.

I think that is what every fiction writer does. Some are better than others.

Tangentially related to "Big Fish," there's also “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber. They did a 1947 movie with Danny Kaye and rebooted it in 2013 with Ben Stiller. I don't think either movie holds a candle to the story.

OTOH, there are times when you have to be real. Very real. You put yourself and those around you in danger if you aren't.

 

[Knower of nothing]

Fair warning--This sounds an awful lot like dissociation as a coping mechanism.

Dissocation sounds intimidating but it's quite alright. The dangers it poses are letting real things slip away from you or falling under some type of delusion. When you gamify life you could for example get the wrong idea about how things like improvement and experience actually work. That could cause nasty cognitive dissonance down the line.
But dissociation itself is normal. The "you" part of the brain can't be up front and aware all the time, that's way too resource intensive.
If you've ever gone somewhere and sort of "woke up" once you arrived, hate to break it to you, but you dissociated for the duration of the trip. If you've ever stared into nothingness in a waiting room until you were mentally somewhere else, you've dissociated. If you've ever watched a movie and similarly "woke up" when someone outside of the movie suddenly makes a noise or speaks to you, you were dissociating. It's that normal.
The emphasis in dissociative disorder is on disorder. Or further beyond, there's dissociative identity disorder which rules an aspect of your whole life.
Coping mechanisms too, are completely alright and near omnipresent in our behavior. Life isn't about suffering through things as inefficiently as possible. The danger here too is when the coping mechanism, which is generally more subconscious and habitual, becomes counterproductive and causes its own stress or fails to resolve the stress its attempting to address.

 

[UberScout]

Fair warning--This sounds an awful lot like dissociation as a coping mechanism.

I understand where that's coming from. Just letting you know I'm not talking to myself at all. I just have a very theatrical thought process. Comes from being in theater club at high school; teacher used to tell me I was her most creative and most expressive actor! Lol.

But still, thank you for your concern, I know you just mean well. I still keep an eye on it just in case though!

 

[UberScout]

You're gonna think I'm delusional, and that's okay. I've been called that before, but on my end I think it's because I forget my phone has a camera... hah.

Anyway

There is a very well-hidden side of YouTube that not many people know of, and I'm not talking about bizarre, brain-meltingly weird cartoons of say, Garfield trying to comprehend being able to process thought, or something like SpongeBob if he was a Chinese cartoon.

No... I'm talking about subliminal tracks.

If you search something like "focus/study, intelligence, energy booster subliminals" on YouTube, you'll come across videos with thumbnails that make them LOOK like remixes of popular songs on the radio...

Oh, there is music in them. But the untrained ears and mind will only hear the song, nothing else.

But if you're like me...

...you'll hear the rain first...
...then a frequency that will upgrade your brain...
...then if you listen close enough you'll hear spoken affirmations that your waking mind will ignore, but your subconscious mind will remember. And the frequencies you hear in the audio will align with then in your subconscious to rewire your mind and brain towards whatever you're trying to do.


So, when I first heard of these not long ago I was a liiiittle skeptical. But one day I was bored and didn't have a lot to do, so out of curiosity, just to see what would happen I typed "anime life subliminal" and found one that looked like it wouldn't be annoying to listen to.

Before I knew it I had been spending three whole weeks listening to that same subliminal track, not even realizing anything much had happened. It hadn't looked like it at first.

Then I started to notice things about myself.

Things that when watched in an actual anime, match up and line up so well with the same kind of visual style and presentation...

When I was in deep, intense focus and concentration, I saw my hands move like they belonged to someone performing a grand craft spent so long mastering and perfecting, thought alone was no longer required to command them. Time would slow down for me exactly when I needed extra time, parts of the world around me glowed with Aura and energy signals that told me in my mind exactly how I needed to move, how fast or slow I needed to be, which direction to move in, and then some.

And if I was REALLY into the cold and wheels focusing...

I would see the world around me in my mind's eye revolve so that only hat was around me could be seen, and everything else ahead of my sight became a dense-colored hurl of wind, while it's gales could tear roofs from homes, still I stood strong like an oak and wasn't moved!

It didn't stop there.

Moments of tension one would see in a Shonen anime, they played out just like they would in that same type of scene. The pace, the timing, the things said, in my mind's eye it took the form of my own slice of life anime, and in my physical eyes, there I saw the same scene, just in the same space I had all five (plus 1) of my senses.


I wish I could tell you all that I thought I was hallucinating or dreaming. I wish I had proof against that. I wish I had my phone camera ready when these moments happen. But I didn't know I would see such results... I didn't know I was going to see any at all...