Becky
Children and consciousness
by Becky - December 10, 2007 - 10:28 AM

kThere’s something intrinsically trippy about being a child; before graduating into the venal world and its cabinet of chemically-induced everythings, kids have to scrape by on their imaginations. And it’s funny to think back on all the consciousness-altering games/activities I supported and engaged in as a kid, and how many of them featured consciousness-altering elements. These games all revolved around a breathtakingly simple and honest premise: “What if?” or also “Something looks like something else?!” Some such games:

  • “Walking on the Ceiling”; played while walking and staring into a hand-held mirror aimed at the ceiling
  • “The Chin Game”; there are probably a million names for it; basically, you locate a comfortable staircase, lie supine down them, instruct someone to paint a pair of eyes and a nose on your chin, and then you begin to talk as everyone struggles against incontinence
  • “Arms & Legs”; again: surely there are so many names for this one; the effect of the Twister shenanigans in the “set-up” promise to combine the torso of one person with the (usually flailing) legs of another. A towel or blanket draped across the tell-tale  incongruity. Again: diapers advised.

And that was twenty years ago; surely there are other consciousness-bending games out there currently that improve upon and flat-out surpass the ones I know. Anyone know of any others?

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Comments (32)

  1. Does spinning in circles count as consciousness-bending? My sibs and I woudl spin as fast as we could until we fell down – them we’d watch the world spin around us and laugh at each other as we’d try to stand up and walk. I loved that crazy topsy-turvy feeling!

    posted by Keeker on 12-10-2007 at 10:36 am

  2. I have a 4 week old son, and he truly thinks it is the bees knees when I tolk through a cardboard tube either on the right or left side of his face.

    It is supposed to be stimulating so they can learn they can hear independantly out of each ear. I like it cause his face gets all weird. :-)

    posted by Witty Nickname on 12-10-2007 at 10:52 am

  3. airplane: my dad would grab an arm and a leg (or two arms or two legs) and “fly” us in circles. LOVED it!

    rock-a-bye: dad would cradle us in his arms and sing, ‘rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top. don’t fall out, it’s a hell of a drop!’ (if grandma was around, it was ‘heck of a drop.) and at the word drop, he’d drop us, but then catch us before we hit the ground.

    tickle monster: dad, again . . . he was almost evil at this game. he wouldn’t quit tickling until we were crying and begging him to stop.

    posted by shelly on 12-10-2007 at 10:54 am

  4. We used to make our arms into wings. We’d stand in a doorway, and press our hands and arms into both sides of the door jamb for about a minute. When we stepped away from the doorway, our arms would rise up on their own like a pair of wings. Feels strange and cool.

    posted by jenny on 12-10-2007 at 11:17 am

  5. As kids, as early as kindergarten or so, my sister and I would concoct a list of true or fiction persons and imagine their reactions to any number of situations and to one another.

    Actually, this is still a fun idea. But when you’re both in your twenties with full-time jobs, it’s hard to find time to laze around for three or four hours at a time talking about what if Aunt Linda and Michael Jackson and Bilbo Baggins got stuck in a theme park together?

    posted by Sarah on 12-10-2007 at 11:29 am

  6. #4 – I learned this physical phenomenon only recently (a couple years back) but still show it to children all the time to make sure they don’t miss out.

    posted by Sarah on 12-10-2007 at 11:31 am

  7. The Racecar. As a child I would sit in my older cousin’s laps as they pretended to be a racecar, swerving around corners, hitting bumps, etc. The game would only end once I peed in my pants from laughing. Now that I have a son, my cousins are waiting for the next family reunion to continue the torture/game. It was great fun, really!

    There’s also nothing like the human wheel… one person lies on the ground with their feet up, the other person stands over them and grabs their ankles, while the person on the ground grabs THEIR ankles – then the wheel motion is made by alternately placing the partners feet on the ground and bending/leaping over one another. Especially fun downhill. Not especially fun in the path of oncoming traffic.

    posted by Jill on 12-10-2007 at 11:40 am

  8. The best is rolling down hills in tires…make sure to bring the bandais if you’re anywhere near brush though.

    posted by chica on 12-10-2007 at 11:58 am

  9. How about the old “don’t step in the lava/bottomless pit” game? Sometimes played outdoors, where the railroad tie or fallen log or scattered stones are the only safe place to step because everything else is a bottomless pit. Sometimes played indoors, usually on a tile floor with different color tiles. “Black tiles are safe; the rest are all lava!”

    posted by Craig on 12-10-2007 at 12:05 pm

  10. Mine is not so much of a game as it is a form of horrifying child abuse……

    My mom used to play motorboat, motorboat with us in the swimming pool. {The adult grasps your hands and gently swishes you back and forth slowly saying motorboat motorboat go so slow, then starts frantically tugging you and says motorboat motorboat go so fast} That seems fairly innocuous – until you realize that during the fast bits, your head involuntarily goes under water at an alarming (to a small kid) speed- therby making it akin to using a chlorinated neti pot at high speed…….

    And this game always devolved into a rousing dunk-fest until we were screaming and horrified.

    Ahhh, good times.

    posted by QT314159265 on 12-10-2007 at 12:06 pm

  11. #9 – I totally remember that game… only in our version, we would put the couch cushions all over the living room floor and could only step on them… otherwise, crocodiles and/or alligators would eat us!

    Also- who else totally re-hid the Easter eggs for days and days?

    posted by Sarah on 12-10-2007 at 12:32 pm

  12. Being a kid was so awesome. Thanks for stirring up old memories guys!

    posted by Kevo on 12-10-2007 at 12:33 pm

  13. flashlight hide-n-seek: round up the neighborhood kids and have a good old fashioned, scare the pee out of ourselves game of hid-n-seek in the dark. can’t let kids play that these days, sadly.

    posted by shelly on 12-10-2007 at 12:41 pm

  14. remember building forts? We used to build forts in our living room, line the bottom with couch cushions, hang blankets over chairs and on bookcases, and stay up all night waiting for the jungle creatures to come and get us. Hours of endless entertainment.

    posted by jenny on 12-10-2007 at 1:45 pm

  15. I’m not sure if this counts, but I had a game called “Bucking Bronco” where the I sit on my dad’s knee and he bounces and rocks it while I try to stay one. I think it really helped iwth my balance (though not enough to keep me from tripping over my own feet sometimes lol)

    posted by heather on 12-10-2007 at 1:57 pm

  16. Ah the fun of childhood.
    Snow angels

    My personal favorite: Shimmying up the laundry chute (feet against on wall, back against the other) to about halfway. When Mom opened the chute to throw stuff down make a very LOUD SCARY sound and laugh like a maniac when we scared the holycrap outta her!

    Cheap entertainment (we were such brats)

    posted by JaneM on 12-10-2007 at 2:06 pm

  17. Indian Leg wrestling!! 2 people lay down on the floor head to feet so their hips are at the same level. you start by rasing the inside leg then out side then inside while saying 1,2,3 then the two innner legs intertwine and you try to spin the other person around. I loved that game! still do!!

    posted by AmandaK on 12-10-2007 at 2:22 pm

  18. My sister and I used to also do the “spin around until you fall down” thing. The other fun conciousness-bending fun was to do somersaults continuously around the yard until we couldn’t stand up. Right now, I can’t see how that was fun, but it sure was then!

    posted by Annette on 12-10-2007 at 2:43 pm

  19. Hall Monster was one of our favorite as a kid. Dad was the monster–pretend he was asleep on the floor in the hallway. Goal was to get from the bathroom after brushing our teeth to our bedrooms. If caught you would be tickled until you nearly wet your pants. My little sister was often the sacraficial lamb shoved out first, so that I could make a clean get away. Nothing like winding up a couple of kids up before bedtime–Mom was thrilled. Ahhh, good times!

    posted by Cphall32 on 12-10-2007 at 2:54 pm

  20. Don’t forget the Jump the Logs game where one or 2 kids lay down on the floor and another kid jumps off a chair over the kids laying down.
    Once completed, the kids laying down scooch over to add a few inches to the jump, and it is re-jumped until the game ends in an un-makable jump and someone gets hurt!

    posted by Karen on 12-10-2007 at 3:11 pm

  21. #9 – Yes! I loved that game. We called it Hot Lava.

    Another good example would be spinning on the playground merry-go-round at full tilt and trying to make your way to the center.

    posted by Tara on 12-10-2007 at 3:26 pm

  22. Indian Leg wrestling!! 2 people lay down on the floor head to feet so their hips are at the same level. you start by rasing the inside leg then out side then inside while saying 1,2,3 then the two innner legs intertwine and you try to spin the other person around. I loved that game! still do!!

    posted by RoseK. on 12-10-2007 at 3:32 pm

  23. Fun with mirrored walls! My grandparents lived in a condo built in the 70s. There was a mirrored wall, with a handy place to grab on one side. My sister and I entertained ourselves and all our relatives with feats of symmetry and levitation.

    posted by Leisa on 12-10-2007 at 4:00 pm

  24. I would turn my pant pockets inside out and then hold on as if I was a motor cycle. Used to do it all the time when shopping with my mom…I would run around all the clothing racks humming motor sounds and twisting my right pocket for more speed.

    posted by Westbanger on 12-10-2007 at 4:06 pm

  25. #21 – Yes! Oh god, that game (and its cousin – get the merry-go-round goin’ round as fast as you can and then jump, grabbing the rails, so that you’re flying around in a wonderful, passerby-killing, no-feet circle!) took up much of my life.
    Dizziness was my joy.
    Still is, actually, I just have much less frequent access to merry-go-rounds and tire swings.

    posted by Aemi on 12-10-2007 at 4:50 pm

  26. As a kid, I would lie on my back with my feet up in the air. One of my siblings would sit on my feet, as if on a chair. Then, I would use my legs to launch them as far up and forward as possible, usually while they’re jumping to add as much momentum as possible. Then it would be my turn. It was always a little freaky to be jumping higher than you could on your own. Landing was problematic.

    One that my children love is “Taco.” They get out of the bath with a towel wrapped around them. I grab the open ends of the towel (like folding a taco), and the child hangs inside. Then I swing twist and spin them all around. I wonder why they’re incapable of sitting still?

    posted by Telemath on 12-10-2007 at 7:23 pm

  27. Oh my goodness, I’ve played so many of these! What good memories.

    My mom’s family had a cabin in the mountains that we would usually go up to once or twice a year. And in the cabin was a really steep flight of stairs. We would grab our slippery sleeping bags and go sliding down those stairs. Oh it was the best!

    I loved, and still love, swinging too. We would play with our neighbors and if you were next to a member of the opposite sex and you both went up and down at the same time, you were married. So then you usually had to get out of sync again so you could be divorced because who wants to be married at five?

    posted by Janel on 12-11-2007 at 12:59 am

  28. Blind Man’s Bluff….
    We’d blind fold someone, spin them around and then hide in a room from them. Of course we had to play in a room with a door that could be closed; too many close calls with the stairs. I don’t know which was more fun; being blind folded or trying not laugh when the “foldee” was directly in front of you.

    posted by Kristi on 12-11-2007 at 9:36 am

  29. #10, you have me cracking up! That is hilarious.
    #21, yes the merry go round thing was fun, especially if you got it spinning fast enough where you were hanging on by your hands like superman off of the end of it.

    I played the “lava” one, and the arms-against-the-doorframe one… we also played games such as “Get from Point A to Point B without touching the ground” which basically consisted of climbing over all sorts of items and/or stepping on things to get to the desired location. Especially fun on a playground or similar area.

    I also played ‘slide down the steps on your belly’ which involved sliding down the steps on your belly with your head facing up towards the top. You slithered down like a snake. Which was fun until you got rug burn.

    Good times! Lets all get together for a game of “lava” or merry go round! Being 60 lbs heavier might make for an interesting experience.

    posted by Kelly on 12-11-2007 at 9:47 am

  30. We kids liked the ‘tank’ game: Cut the ends out of a large cardboard box, lay it on its side and crawl in. Crawling forward makes the box move over obstacles like a tank tread – lots of fun in the weedy fields behind our house.

    posted by Michelle on 12-11-2007 at 5:02 pm

  31. I remember my dad “breaking an egg on my head” by gently rapping his knuckles on my head then slowly running his fingers into my hair. Always succeeded in making me shriek.

    posted by Stephanie on 12-12-2007 at 8:37 am

  32. what about sock wrestling? Where each player has on one sock, and the goal is to NOT get your sock pulled off. The winner is the one who can put on both socks.

    Also growing up, we had 4 cushioned lawn chairs, and my sister and I would take two each and put them back to back and sit on them like horses. We would play Indians, or Cowgirls/Pioneers. I was obsessed with Laura Ingalls, so this game was endless.

    posted by Amy on 12-13-2007 at 12:12 am

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