It could be that a horse is just a horse, and you are forgetting where you put things because you are distracted, overworked, frustrated with your job, or because you have a physical imbalance caused by diet or some other environmental factor. An interesting thing to consider is that you are noticing a pattern. A term I came across recently is
parapraxis or
Freudian slip. This is my current understanding of the term and the way I'm applying it to my thinking and experience.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/parapraxis said:
A minor error, such as a slip of the tongue, thought to reveal a repressed motive.
I ran across this term in
The Secret World of Drawings, by Gregg M. Furth on page 16:
Information from the unconscious may present itself in our daily lives as an accident, or as Freud termed it, a parapraxis.
Paraphrasing from the book, parapraxis could present in any of the following ways:
- Forgetting words or names that are familiar - like when a person's name is "on the tip of your tongue", but you "can't remember it"
- Forgetting what you are doing or intended to do
- Making slips of the tongue or misspelling words
- Misreading things
- Misplacing or mislaying things and being unable to find them
- Losing things
- Making mistakes against one's better judgement
- Some habitual gestures and movements
Parapraxis could also be defined as
A psychical conflict which prevents the underlying intention from finding direct expression and diverts it along indirect paths.
Furth suggests that
If a person is drawn to the blunder (as you are drawn to noticing that you are losing things), often the next thought that occurs to him provides an explanation.
My current understanding is that when I notice things like this I am noticing patterns of behavior or conflict between different parts of my psyche, conflicts between different little i's. My sense is that black and white, polarized thinking can trigger parapraxis because the self may be identifying with a little i, or an alliance of parts in opposition to other parts or the "subconscious" or "unconscious" mind. Sometimes some of our parts, or our predator, or whatever you want to call it, resort to underhanded or sneaky ways to get what they want. Or a part of me might just be "playing games". In any case, this kind of thing can act as an
alarm clock if you approach it in the right way, OSIT. It might wake you up to an emotional imbalance, or it might point to a physical imbalance (like diet), or something else that is beyond my current level of understanding.
An example from my experience. "I" have lost two mp3 players that I use to practice EE in the past couple of months. The first one i lost just as I was really getting on a roll with EE and it disrupted my practice for a week or two. At first i looked everywhere for it, then i beat myself up about it a bit, then I decided to just order another one because I thought that maybe some part of me was trying to sabotage the progress I was making. The second one i just lost last week on the way back from the meditation retreat I attended. I haven't been practicing EE much since christmas time, except for PotS, so this time it might be a reminder to start practicing again. Its the "same" item, but the motivation for "losing" it could be different.
FWIW, I would practice EE, or meditate to relax myself, and then ask myself (or consider) questions like these:
Why did you lose or misplace these items, and not some other items?
Why did you notice these particular items?
What is your relationship(s) to these items?
How do you feel about losing these items?
How would you feel if you found these items?
The "answers" to these questions may come in the form of thought patterns, bodily sensations and changes in breathing, dreams, immediately remembering where I put the stuff I'm looking for, or in some other way that I haven't encountered yet. Even frustration, or nervousness, or anxiety (or any other emotion) that arises because "I" am unable/unwilling to remember could be answer.
Hope it helps.
