Abstract thought

Well yeah! I think she's abnormal if she really believes she's incapable of seeing shapes in clouds. Sounds almost devoid of imagination! At least with cloud imagination.

Gee, I haven't seen northern lights in months! How far north are ya?

Edmonton

She's very logical, by the book.

Moi aussi! I didn't know there were northern lights out tonight! Hmmm....gonna have to look tomorrow night.

Logical without imagination. I knew someone who was so rigid and by the book that I swear she woulda snapped in half if you asked her to go against the rules! Oddly she had almost no common sense.

I feel sorry for your friend. She sounds as if she's lost her "inner child".

Logical....always makes me think of Spock on Star Trek. *L*

I'm not so sure it's about imagination - it could be more to do with different kinds of brain.

Some people have difficulty recognising (or finding meaning for) what they see. Ceili, your friend may have a mild form of this - the ability to recognise the concrete but not impose an image on the cloud.

Our brains are acually very complicated in these regards - we recognise faces best - and if you turn a face upside-down, it's much more difficult to recognise, as the patterns are not the ones we expect. This also explains why we tend to find it easier to differentiate the faces of racial groups with which we are familiar - we just get used to making sense of the differences more easily.

As for watching stars/Northern lights - I'm jealous, because in London the light (and to some extent air) pollution makes most stars very hard to see. They can be so magical.

KP

I still say it's imagination.

Get out to the country sometime! Or visit the Big Island of Hawai`i. Because of the observatories on top of Mauna Kea, they have very little in the way of lights after dark on the island. I saw more stars in the sky than I'd ever seen before in my life!

Your friend would flunk an ink blot test.

CEILTI posts: "Can you see the abstract?"

I am working on seeing reality!

How does one distinguish between the abstract and what is real?

Truly, this is a sincere question.

Ceilti further writes, " I have a friend who complained that she can never see anything in a cloud. I was surprised because I thought everybody could at least see something."

Isn't one of the essential purposes of clouds is to have images within them for us to view?

Regards,
fatima10

I look at clouds from both sides now...

I once painted a tuscan sky with dark grey clouds hoving over deepening evening colored land, and the cloud image looked, in part, something like a horse head. I liked it, and didn't want to change it, but also wanted to see it without, so I painted the painting a second time, without the distinguishing 'horse'. Both paintings sold at some point; I named the one, "Night Comes a Sky Horse", a name I loved more than the painting itself.

I'd say that was an abstract thought, reality would dictate otherwise. Clouds play a part in regulating temperature, rain, storms and so on....

I maybe wrong but I think an abstract thought is one that fills in the lines, listening to a song and groovin' to harmony not being performed or seeing something other that what is directly in front of your face. One person looks at a cloud and sees a cumulus formation another sees a horse racing over the horizon. I wonder if the person who bought the painting saw what you did, Osso.

Once, when I was a lad, I spent several hours lying on my back in tall grass. I was completely hidden from view in my little grass cave. I stared up at the sky which was filled with hundreds of enormous white billowy clouds. I was fascinated as I watched the slow-moving procession lazily work their way along the sky. I started looking for shapes. I remember seeing a duck. And a pig.
And the eastern coastline of Africa before Madagascar broke off and floated away. And I remember seeing a face, a perfect profile of Alfred Dreyfus, the famous French army officer.

It was a very pleasant day and I thank Ceili for allowing me to journey back there one more time.

I loved doing that as a child. I too can remember warm, grass cocoons, listening to the crickets and watching soft white puffs sail over the huge prairie sky. Staring up at the sky either at night or during the day and turning constellations or aurora's glow into characters.

I remember watching a tv movie a few years ago on Picasso, I think. Several times in the movie the camera was distorted and the surrounding buildings melted into a painters vision.

truth
Osso, that's a breath taking title, "Night Comes a Sky Horse." Wonderful poetry (verbal music). I wish you would write a poem about doing that painting.

truth
Ceili, has your friend ever boasted that s/he can't be hypnotized?

Nope, but I never have. Don't know if I could be or not, I have a helluva time meditating. My mind doesn't stop.

truth
Watch your mind moving--like a windy day.

I can relate.

Yes, Ceili, the buyer saw the 'horse', liked the level of abstraction in the piece while still conveying land and sky.

I'll think on that, JL, perhaps with a glass of red wine..

truth
Osso, I can relate.

relaxed
Does your friend interact with the cloud(s) as simply beautiful, astonishing, amazing, companionable, intresting or the like?

What I am trying to get at is there a relaxed interaction without somekind of a specific comparison of likeness in form as a necessity?