Mind Meld Mindset
The first time I played Mind Meld was in 2011 in Olympia, WA, with two performers I had never met before. By the time the game ended after what seemed like an eternity later (may have been twenty minutes, may have only been five, I can’t really be sure) finally, finally, hitting upon the same word together was a rush. We were a bit exhausted, a bit scattered, a bit hyped up… or at least I was. But I also felt strangely accomplished. I believe it is that feeling of accomplishment—that we’ve reached a “correct answer”—that propels the ubiquity of the exercise.
Mind Meld, for those who don’t know, is usually played this way (there are some slight variations): Two players each say two different words at each other at the same time. (You may count down from 3 or up to 3.) On the second round, the improvisers must now attempt to say the same word. (It may be the same players again, or it may pass around in a circle.) The improvisors find the same word by somehow being inspired by the previous two words together. (We are artists separated by a common language. I believe it is useful for improvisors to be aware of the variations and to outline exactly which version they are playing with that day — like with many exercises improvisors often make the mistake of entering into one without clarification, and end up playing two or three games at the same time.)
Let’s play a quick round of Mind Meld: if I said “dinosaur,” and you say “skyscraper,” we might then say “tall,” as tall can apply to both words. Were I to say “scales” that only applies to dinosaurs. Were you to say “elevators,” again, that would only apply to skyscrapers. We want a word that applies to both somehow— and there are many different words that can apply to dinos and skyscrapers (maybe “Godzilla”?), and therein lies the challenge. But, if we did say mismatching words, we now look for a word common to those two new words.
An additional challenge many players place upon themselves is to not recycle words. If I say “dinosaurs” once, that’s it, we can no longer say “dinosaurs,” even if somehow skyscrapers leads to buildings which leads to museums which leads to fossils… which could lead to dinosaurs again. (I personally prefer an informal rest rule — try to allow two or three words to pass before repeating anything — in order to avoid creating inescapable feedback loops, to make the circling-back more rewarding, and to maintain some sense of challenge in the exercise.) No matter what you do, though, the basic premise of the game remains the same: say the same word at the same time as someone else.
That first time I played Mind-Meld was a three-way game: we three each endeavored to simultaneously match our words. Yes, that’s three people attempting to find the one link between three words. We constantly hovered near an understanding, often finding ourselves in a two against one situation. That’s probably why it lasted twenty minutes (Again, I’m sorry, I didn’t keep track).
Is it a good exercise or a bad exercise? Oi, were it only so simple. It is my sincere belief that anything played with the wrong mindset is bad. If Mind Meld is played as a stressful contest (and I’ve said this before with Hot Spot) then we’re going to experience intense frustration. If every time we fail to say the same word, we say “sorry!” to our partner, we’re going to feel as though we’ve let someone down. I’ve seen — and been guilty of — that frustrated break and turn around when saying mismatching words. If we do that, we lose contact with our partner. All right, dude, what is the right mindset? Mind Meld is best played unapologetically and unwaveringly. We’re doing more than simply trying to rack our brains for obscure vocabulary terms. What we are doing is actively listening to our partner, hearing their information, and processing it. We are getting and staying connected to them. We are accepting their idea and building it together with our idea.
Also, and this is where we give ourselves the permission to succeed, it helps to look for better ways to create connections. I like to say “Look for the thing that’s between those two words.” Between is an important distinction. We’re not looking for a quality or feature both share. We’re not looking for the center of a Venn Diagram. We’re just looking for any concept that “lies between” both. Though that may be a quality or feature, it’s just a fuzzy enough descriptor as to open up possibilities. It is more than okay to be “stupid” in Mind Meld. If I say “Pasteurization” and you say “Ratification,” the stupid answer is that both are “processes.”
(Around here, I like to point out that there are some sticklers in Mind Meld that demand exact matches. If I say “processes,” and you say “processing,” some may say we have failed to create a match. I think we have. Our brains were close enough.)
Though it may feel as though there is a “correct” answer with any two terms, we must absolve ourselves of that notion. Saying the same word simply provides us with a natural end to a process which otherwise might have none. We are not stressed about winning; we are just as excited and intrigued by matching words as we are by mismatching words. After all, no idea comes from absolutely nowhere; it was inspired by something just said. I have seen people go “What?” in an exasperated tone when confronted with a word they didn’t expect and don’t immediately fathom the genesis of. This is detrimental. When greeted with an non-matching response, a challenge to each player is to look at what the other player said and think to themselves “Oh yeah, I see how you could have come up with that.” (You’ll notice I am simply say “non-matching,” and not “wrong.” We are not dealing with wrong answers, we are simply dealing with answers that aren’t the same.) Apply this thought to our scene-work. There is no single correct response to any initiation. It’s more fun — and much less of a fight — to treat any move our scene partner makes under the assumption that it is somehow related to what’s been said already.
I feel like all improv can be boiled down to the notes of Mind Meld: don’t apologize for what you’ve done, stay connected, celebrate your partner’s ideas. We cannot play improv stressed, trying to get things right or feeling there is only one correct response or reeling from unexpected reactions. I think more people need to start playing Mind Meld better, or else we are perpetuating an unhelpful process and, much like Hot Spot, it will soon become a reviled member of the warm-up stable.
And by the way, fair warning, when we play Mind Meld, my first word will probably be “dinosaurs.”
This topic was requested by /u/turkeybone on Reddit. I am open to suggestions for any and all discussion topics. Keep improvising!
