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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Are we ever never thinking?I don't think so, Brandon. You know the expression, "train of thought"? If we say that these "trains" move on "tracks", then I think you can understand what I mean when I say that no one, as far as I know, has a "one-track mind". That is, we all think about more than one thing at a time, whether we're consciously aware of it or not. Helen, I can't meditate: I'm like that came-to-life robot, Johnny Five--I'm always wanting, "input, input". Even under heavy medication recovering from surgery, I was thinking things. So, even if we stop thinking of any one thing in particular, a "train" that's been running in the background comes to the forefront of our consciousness. Even in "the zone" of writing, for example, the mind is thinking things like, "I hope I'm spelling everything right", "boy, this chair's getting hard", "I'm thirsty", or "I wonder what that noise was?". On the other hand: I suppose we could have immeasurably small periods of non-thought: quarks of the mind. 
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I can't meditate...Even under heavy medication recovering from surgery, I was thinking things.
It ain' easy, Jackie. When I first tried it I would "think" I was there and something would scream its way out of the depths of my mind and start thinking itself. According to the folks I sat with you weren't even sposed to notice things going on around you. I never made it that far but I did get to the point where nothing was going on in my conscious mind for extended periods of time.
-- Meditation; it's not what you think.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
Jackie, i second Faldage-- the go, go, go, neediness is learned-- and exist like a habit.. it not a bad thing when "the train is on the right track" but-- for me-- its often been on the wrong track-- Long, long ago, i use to get suicidialy depressed.. the train was heading toward the washed out bridge at break neck speed--hey guys, don't worry-- this is something that is part of my deep dark past.. not something to worry about..
now, i make time to meditate.. it's hard.. I haven't gone parachuting, but i have gone down 100 foot dead drop water slides.. where you really are in a free fall.. it scary-- but free fall, is weighlessness.. and even a second or two of it-- is incredable... meditation is a kind of free fall for your mind.. its pretty scary -- the "letting go" of sensual input.. but the sort of mental free fall is .. beyond words.
if its too hard, start with relaxation exersizes.. one by one tighten muscles.. (toes, foot, leg, and then relax them until every muscle in your body has been tensed, and relaxed.. and then try to tighten every muscle, and relax them all... you'll find a few minute of this, "wakeful resting" is equal to about an hours nap. you'll feel (physically) great.. meditation is the same for your mind..
I also practice stillness.. not meditation, because i am very conscious of surrounding.. but i do not react to them.. in times of stillness-- i can "postpone pain" i might be aware of something painful, but the pain is "disassociated" -- stillness scares people-- (when done to excess, the person seems to be catatonic-- ) a mild form of it really bothered my kids-- but i could "turn off" being ticklish.. so when teasing and playing.. i didn't react to their tickling me.. at first they took it as a challenge.. after a while, they realize that they couldn't effect me..(unless i wanted to be effected)
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
" Even under heavy medication recovering from surgery, I was thinking things."
That is not unusual, but how about this news item, which I find rather improbable.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A British scientist studying heart attack patients says he is finding
evidence that suggests that consciousness may continue after the brain has stopped functioning and a
patient is clinically dead.
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 69
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 69 |
Most of the time, forcing myself to write or speak an idea aloud actually makes my mind work better. When I'm sitting someplace, quietly "thinking", odds are it is just daydreaming. :o
I don't know if anyone else has had this experience or not, but when I think deeply about words or phrases themselves, I get images of movements or actions in my head. They aren't always associated with the word. For example, when I have the word "time" really focused, I get the abstract image of a pendulum. But when I think of the phrase "completing the square" (an algebra technique) I picture a guy sitting on a farm tractor seat, bouncing in a semi-circular path.
How's that for weird? That doesn't happen every time I think of a word, only when I'm really lost in pondering the semantics and sound of it.
Cheers,
Bryan
Cheers,
Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
I too am pretty much thinking something all the time. When I go to sleep at night, I think and think and before long my thoughts sort of drift out my control and blossom into dreams.
Because I can't seem to stop the inner dialogue in my head most of the time, I treasure activities that overcome it, like playing music or solving mathematical problems. I once read an essay by Alice Walker about her mother's gardening. She wrote that her mother seemed to be in ecstasy when she had "become all eyes and hands."
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
consciousness may continue after the brain has stopped functioning and a patient is clinically dead.
Allo Bill,
That is an odd claim. How could this scientist possibly prove this. Since the person is dead he is only makins assumptions and can in no way confirm or deny his point.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891 |
Alex, why do you treasure activities that overcome your inner dialogue? I am not quite sure I understand. Do you get tired of thinking?
I don't think I would enjoy being any other way - mind you it is hard to know if you have been only one way all your life.
Generally, I can be thinking several things (have several tracks) at the same time, going at a leisurely pace. When I am excited then I seem to think faster and only one thing.
I think that when you are solving a problem it helps being able to think, I guess the best word is <wide>. A solution can come with just one point but more often comes with a combination of points from different thought sources. Geez, this is so hard to explain. Am I making sense?
One thing that struck me as odd was Temple Grandin's description of her method of processing thought (Sparteye’s original post), she says… If I allow my mind to keep associating, it will wander a million miles away from the word "under," to submarines under the Antarctic and the Beatles song "Yellow Submarine." If I let my mind pause on the picture of the yellow submarine, I then hear the song. As I start humming the song and get to the part about people coming on board, my association switches to the gangway of a ship I saw in Australia.
The road from <under> to the <gangway of a ship> would make perfect sense to me. I think like that all the time and I am not autistic. My brothers always called me a free-form database because of it. I can't imagine it is all that uncommon. Anybody else??
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
Hi belM!
In my family, we are known for our strange "subject hops" mid-conversation, which are associated with the same kind of associations that Temple Grandin describes. We are all used to it, and those who spend too much time with us can follow (or at least accept) them. My husband still gives me a look of confusion, occasionally, when I make a strange change in conversation topic - but it is always connected in some way in my mind. So I also wasn't terribly shocked at Temple Grandin's train of thought, because that is also how I think. I can't give any good examples right now, of course...The Yellow Submarine reference was good, because I used to say that for every sentence someone said, I could come up with a song that was related in some way!
And yes, I do get tired of thinking. That is where Taekwondo comes in handy. You are concentrating so hard on (a) not falling over, (b) not getting kicked, and (c) trying to get a kick in on your opponent before they move, that all the crazy, active thoughts and worries you were having that day vanish, and you become totally focussed on one thing. I guess it's not really stopping the train of thought, but only listening to one component of it, for a while. It helps to clear out the debris from all the othe trains of thought, all the little bits which were going nowhere but just adding to the feeling of anxiety about life, the universe, and everything. This also happens when I play a musical instrument.
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Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 444
addict
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addict
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 444 |
In my family, we are known for our strange "subject hops" mid-conversation, which are associated with the same kind of associations that Temple Grandin describes. We are all used to it, and those who spend too much time with us can follow (or at least accept) them.
To me too this seems absolutely normal! We used to call it 'grasshopper logic'.
And what after all is a non-sequitur but a train of thought that no-one else can follow?
I believe the different connotations and connections that different people have/make from the same starting place are fascinating.
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