Free Association

A training technique of the mind. A recent challenge resulted in my scribbling out specifications for the answer as quickly as I could after reading the question. I wanted to truly meet the challenge and if I had taken time to work out a response that was a bit more comprehensive I would not have met that challenge and I would have missed this opportunity to challenge my mind.

It appears to me that we don't really promote training of the mind specifically to challenge our mind to retrieve information quickly which is what it has to do in a situation of stress or survival. It seems to me that when I am walking around my world scanning and remaining aware that on occasion I should challenge my mind to suddenly retrieve a list of things that would trigger my spidey sense just to freely associate those items to some specific say, "I would use imagery to see a person approaching and what list could I make to observe and analyze and choose appropriate response or responses.

This may seem obvious but I would do this from time to time as a refresher of those particulars. Once I got to where I would freely associate items with stimuli  of challenge then I would allow them to refresh those training particulars that I can let go so instincts and such can readily retrieve appropriate actions on the fly and with a modicum of freely associated morphing and melding of stuff for new and appropriate actions.