Forcing yourself not to think...

[Tunesimah]

This is really hard to do. See how long you can go without having a thought enter your brain. Think absolute nothing... a complete void.

The longest I can go is like 5 seconds...

 

[Ashenstar]

This is really hard to do. See how long you can go without having a thought enter your brain. Think absolute nothing... a complete void.

The longest I can go is like 5 seconds...

This sounds a lot like the meditation I do.
I actually need to force myself to be as blank as possible sometimes because I honestly exhaust myself thinking as I'm sure many of us do. ( that actually sounds really lame. "I'm just SO tired from thinking so much. God it's so hard to be me!" lol)

Yes, I try and meditate daily. There are times when I just.. can't NOT think.. so then I try and distance myself from my thoughts and "view" them as though they are someone else thoughts.

Then other days I try and empty my mind. There is this ... counting exercise my acupuncturist used to have me do where I would try to count my breaths in groups of I don't remember .. and every time I would get interrupted mentally I would start over. There was no end... there was no good or bad. There just was. Wait.. what am I saying? There was no specific end to .. the point was to just do the counting for as long as I needed to.

I think it's actually very healthy for the brain.

 

[Adymus]

Does repeating a song stuck in your head count?

Ashenstar, Meditation is something I have been trying to get more into. However as for clearing my mind, what I have tried doing is not so much making my mind a complete blank, but focusing on the parts of my mind that were separate from my body and ego. Do you have a similar technique? Is that what the counting breaths thing was meant to accomplish?

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

There are times I don't think (It's called sleep! ) and there are other times I don't think (like some of my posts! )

Seriously though, I don't meditate formally but there are times when I try to empty my thoughts. I'll try to just focus my eyes on a point in air and let go of every thought. It sometimes works.

 

[Yellow]

I try to do the no thinking thing when I am warming up and practicing tai-chi (otherwise, what's the point?). But I am terrible at it. I cannot concentrate on not thinking long enough to stop myself from thinking (if that makes any sense). It isn't from a lack of trying, I mean I've been doing this for almost 10 years. However, I doubt I have ever gone beyond Tunisemah's 5 seconds. Instead, I try to limit myself to simple, non-stressful thoughts.

 

[slant]

This sometimes happens to me when I am being driven around in the car. I don't think about anything- I just look.

 

[Agent Intellect]

I used to stop thinking by getting shit-faced drunk. Now days, when I want to not think, I watch television - it really does rot the mind.

 

[Fukyo]

In theory, a prolonged,repetitive action that requires a lot of concentration and little actual thinking should be able to accomplish the numbing down by shifting your focus.

But, I have not yet managed to be successful at this in practice.

Thoughts will always find their way back in and sift the focus to them.

 

[Ashenstar]

In theory, a prolonged,repetitive action that requires a lot of concentration and little actual thinking should be able to accomplish the numbing down by shifting your focus.

But, I have not yet managed to be successful at this in practice.

Thoughts will always find their way back in and sift the focus to them.

do you also mean tedious repetition?For example, when I was younger I wished to be an archeologist so that I could sit all day with a scraper tool and brush and very very gradually uncover something. The appeal that this activity still hold for me is that it would require concentration as to not damage what I was digging up.. but it's very repetitive. Scrape scrape brush brush.

Hmm... interesting. Perhaps I have a desire for this sort of activity to attempt to quiet my mind.

 

[beastie]

I dont even stop thinking when I sleep - it sucks! My brain goes into automatic mode and churns over problems. I can wake up more exhausted than when I went to bed. Ive tried to quiet my mind when awake and the closest I get is when I have a song churning in my head over and over and over...
Alcohol makes it worse - my brain finds even more to think about and I love problem solving (even prefer it) when drinking.

 

[RobertJ]

I think we have to find out what constitutes thinking before we can claim to be at any point devoid of it.

 

[Tunesimah]

Alcohol makes it worse - my brain finds even more to think about and I love problem solving (even prefer it) when drinking.

Wow, I do the exact some thing when I'm drinking. I become extremely forward thinking and productive when I start to drink.

If it didn't make me stupid, I would prefer to be like that all the time.

I think we have to find out what constitutes thinking before we can claim to be at any point devoid of it.

What I'm talking about is no thoughts, no images, no sudden wonder, no insights. Have nothing in your brain, and just exist...

 

[nemo]

What I'm talking about is no thoughts, no images, no sudden wonder, no insights. Have nothing in your brain, and just exist...

I've entered that state a couple of times when I'm in between consciousness and sleep. I'll be dozing off and suddenly, I'm just there. I can still hear and feel everything around me but I'm not analysing it or thinking, I'm just existing. Usually there'll be a trigger that brings me back to life though. Like a loud noise or something.

Normally, I can't get to sleep because I'm thinking too much. My counsellor suggested just lying there and letting every thought that enters my mind just pass by. Not grabbing onto it, just letting it go. I tried it a few times but it doesn't really work for me.

 

[Yellow]

Normally, I can't get to sleep because I'm thinking too much. My counsellor suggested just lying there and letting every thought that enters my mind just pass by. Not grabbing onto it, just letting it go. I tried it a few times but it doesn't really work for me.

I have always struggled to get to sleep because my thoughts are racing. I have developed a pretty good strategy now, and that is to occupy my mind with something boring. I try to make a mental list of every country in alphabetical order, starting with a random letter. Or, I will pick a continent and try to name every indiginous animal. If I catch my thoughts drifting, I push them back on track, and I am usually asleep in 20 minutes. Another strategy is to read something enterianing but mindless. I have all of the "Get Fuzzy" and "Calvin and Hobbes" comic books and I read them at night until I fall asleep. It works because I have read them over and over again. A new book doesn't help.

 

[AmitaF]

Normally, I can't get to sleep because I'm thinking too much. My counsellor suggested just lying there and letting every thought that enters my mind just pass by. Not grabbing onto it, just letting it go. I tried it a few times but it doesn't really work for me.

for that I either count backwards from 1000, try to break some big number in my head, or just simply drive myself nuts till my brain gets tired and shuts down, I do it by starting 20+ threads of thoughts and starting interwining them..it used to work, but now my mind became immune so it just makes me more awake XD

and no, I cannot stop thinking..even when I'm asleep and I'm dreaming, I am aware that it's a dream and I can do whatever I want, there are times when I wake up because my dream thoughts gets too complicated and need more wakefullness...that suck...heavy sleeping works though, my mind drifts away, and next thing it's morning and I'm late

 

[Aiss]

I can't stop thinking as well. I never tried meditation, although I'm trying to "clear" my mind of all thoughts with no particular technique. Never works completely. Especially when falling asleep I'm thinking way too much - it's like Ne finally shuts up because of lack of external input, and Si jumps in to go over all the things in my mind, categorizing them and having Ti examine them from its point of view. I fall asleep I'm too tired to stay awake.

Sometimes I feel I'm thinking less than usual when busy with conversation, but I fight this, despising not being in control of what I actually say and do. I mean it's not really like I'm saying things without thinking, but it's somehow diminished.