u/_WalkingOnBothSides_

I've procrastinated heavily on my full moon ritual because I'm struggling. I feel like I'm faking it. Lately, whenever I engage with my practice, I end up judging myself for escaping into a fantasy world I don't actually believe in and then I judge myself that I can't simply let myself enjoy my fantasies. I don't seem to get anything but aesthetic pleasure out of my ritual utensils at the moment and I'm kind of afraid of betraying myself.

This might be heavily influenced by my current life circumstances. There's just nothing happening. I've been living very isolated for about a year now, spending my time with arts and deep dives into my intellectual interests. It's great overall. I'm quite content with just existing and loneliness has become very rare for me because I enjoy my own company so much. It just makes it hard to stay connected to my craft because there's not much to reflect upon. It's hard for me to find any intentions to set and I don't want to force myself to do so, but not doing it also feels like giving up on actively creating the life I want and falling back into passive indifference. Even meditating is like torture at this point because I constantly feel like waiting for something to happen - whatever that means.

If anyone relates, what are your go to practices in times like this? How do you stay in touch with witchcraft in everyday life, when you're basically all by yourself? What are some thoughts that allow you to hold on in times of doubt?

Whenever I try to "revisit" my memories, I myself am not in the picture (I have aphantasia as well, so there's no actual picture, but you get what I mean). Usually, there are no people at all. When I try to manually add the aspect of "me" into the memory, it's always from a third person perspective. I remain an outside observer.

I just had the sudden realization that it's the same with imaginations and fantasies. I'm absolutely incapable of imagining something through my own eyes. Let's say I think of dancing around a bonfire, then it's as if I watched someone that might be me doing it - I'm not inside the body that does the dancing.

Is it the same for y'all or does this vary among us? Asking out of mere curiosity!

EDIT to clarify: I'm not asking about the memory aspect, I'm aware that this the hallmark of SDAM. I'm asking if the same phenomenon applies for imagination/future events for you, not only past events.

First of all, I'm unsure if my question has anything to do with SDAM at all. It could also be autism related, a totally different issue with memory or just a personality quirk, who knows. As I find many questions about memory in general in this subreddit, I still thought it's worth discussing it here.

So what I mean by context-dependent memory in this case is that even the semantic facts about my own life events often are only available when there's an external trigger. Someone shares a story about themselves and suddenly my brain pulls up some memories because they are marked as relevant to the conversation. Of course, these memories don't bring any emotions or sense of reliving with them - that's what we know about SDAM. The point is that I really feel like I wouldn't have access to them without this specific context at all and they also get buried again pretty soon after the conversation ends. Whenever someone asks me to introduce myself, I don't know what to say and feel like nothing but an empty shell, but while trying to relate to someone else, I'm quite surprised about all the content of my life I wasn't aware of only moments ago. Or maybe I know something about myself in a conceptual way and during conversations, my brain is suddenly able to fill in some blanks and find proof for those concepts. It's almost overwhelming, because it's so different from my thought process when I'm alone.

I'm aware that this context-dependence is pretty normal to a degree and occurs in everyday life. I just feel like I'm far more "dependent" than average - which might be a misestimation though. I would just like to know if anyone relates!

I'm aware that aphantasia describes the lack of voluntary visualizations and that things like hallucinations don't fall into that category. I still wonder if involuntary mental images can have an impact on aphantasia.

Due to my meditation practice, I've been experiencing some hypnagogic images shortly before falling asleep for a few weeks now and they seem to become more complex and intense over time. This is absolutely wild to me, as I've never seen anything but pure black behind my closed eyes up to this point!

So now the question is...is it worth to make some sort of a training method out of these experiences to increase my ability to visualize or should I just enjoy the ride because the two phenomenons aren't connected whatsoever?

I'm fine either way, I would just love to hear from some of your personal experiences!

I hope this post is okay. I'm not asking for a spell or interpretations, but rather if anyone relates to this feeling and may has some inspiration to offer.

I had a great beltane celebration last week. My ritual was mainly focused on willpower in general and commitment to my craft. It was intense, so I felt quite drained the day after. Since saturday though, I've had this sense of energy bottling up inside of me. Not energy like "Just do some exercise." It seems to be connected to the ritual, like I'm supposed to do something very specific with it, but I just can't find any direction. I've tried to meditate and journal and also to let it flow into some creative work for my altar. Something still feels off about it and I'm just lost.

Maybe I should mention that I don't work with or believe in deities. Any similar experiences you're willing to share or ideas on how to get in touch with this vague feeling would be highly appreciated! Thank you! 🌙