Coining the word 'Mindscape!'

Posted: 06-Jul-2020   Reposted: 29-May-2022

There's no such word as "Mindscape" in English! Please bear with me - I took the liberty of coining it because I badly needed a word to express "landscapes that the mind journeys through" succinctly.

Now, let me explain mindscapes by means of an example. Let's say you read a particular science-fiction novel. The author hijacks your mind and carries it off into some futuristic world created by science. In it, your mind wanders about, as though on a conducted tour by the author, encountering strange characters, machines and objects. You are a bit spooked by what you see... 

Suddenly you are standing face to face with...

Captain Space Wired. He's wearing a brilliant-white space-suit. He's bright and cheerful as the sunlight. "See this," he says, showing you a glassy, film-like object that he's wearing on the palm of his right hand, like a sheath. He raises his hand to the sunlight and slowly closes his fist, as though wanting to bend the sunlight that's passing through. The light bender in his palm turns red hot and suddenly you find you're floating in the air. You are seeing an image before you, at the end of a dark tunnel. Yes, it's the Sun that's appearing, but you realize it isn't blazing into your eyes. It's dimmed and reduced enough in size for you to view comfortably. You hear the Captain's voice in your ears saying, "According to Shelden Baum's Quantum Theory III of the universe, your future is hidden in the Sun, in its β-P201 rays. To know what you'll be like 20 years on, command the Sun '+20 Find Me. Now=2020.'" 

You do the Captain's bidding and lo and behold, you hear a periodic, low beep and three red, flashing vertical bars appear in your view. The captain mutters something under his breath and then says, "Sorry son, this means you won't be alive 20 years from now! Try 10 years instead ..." A chill shiver runs up your spine ... You've been introduced to a great new future that science is likely to create, and you come back pondering on it... and also, well entertained! 
The mindscape created in your mind contains the environment, and the entities you encountered during your journey through. It's retained in the science-fiction category of mindscapes in the brain.

Note that in the creation of the latest mindscape, parts of previously stored mindscapes are referenced and at the end of the novel, your consolidated science-fiction mindscape is enlarged and links are updated automatically. e.g., you knew Quantum Theory but not later developments, so Quantum Theory III, Shelden Baum and the sun's β-P201 rays are added up.

Read, instead a book on mountain climbing and you enter another mindscape, and so on.