Not able to shut off your brain

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Is anyone actually able to shut off their brain?!

A tip for those trying to go off to sleep. Interior Decorating: Imagine you are standing inside a house. Now try and select colours for the walls and try and imagine what furniture and carpet, ornaments etc. I find it helpful. Also works with garden design or landscaping.

I know what you mean, I do it 24/7

I write snatches of poetry in my head - I'm told that when I do put my fingers to the keyboard, the result is better than anything a lot of people I know could ever write.

No, I don't write poetry in longhand. It just takes too long for all the ideas I have bouncing around.

That is why I have to take sleeping pills. I wish I didn't have to but that is the only way I will become calm enough to sleep.

I listen to NPR going to sleep, actually - having someone else's thoughts going into my ears, much slower than my own, slows my own thoughts down to a calm point.

I've also tried meditation, which failed pretty terribly.

My brain is like a computer, with to many thoughts often goes into auto pilot - sometimes I wish I could pull the plug, still prefer not to override as often most creative when on full power...

I also cannot meditate. I have tried but.. didn't work out!

Thanks for the tip! I'll be sure to try it tonight.

I do that all the time. When it gets really bad I have to play some stupid game like Zuma or Bejeweled or get drunk or both for hours. Sometimes I wish there was someone I could talk to instead but I don’t know anyone who would be willing to get that intellectual at that late an hour.

Ditto on both counts.

I don't think in words either, but I still have the problem of my thoughts racing all the time. Or at least, I used to. I'm pretty drugged up these days, so I'm out to it by 10pm every night. To be honest, I prefer the racing, even if I never got any sleep.

Incidentally, many linguists (and probably psychologists too) don't believe anyone thinks entirely in words, but rather in a sort of "mentalese". Steven Pinker is a good example of one who holds this view, if you're interested. The arguments for this view are too complicated to put in a post, but I'm sure you could find them somewhere on the internet.

I'm sure I don't primarily think in words. I can "hear" the mentalese going on in my head, it gets translated into words as a second step, if it gets translated at all. When I'm busy doing something intellectually demanding, I'm making decisions using mentalese. If I had to put all my thoughts into words at such times, I'd take maybe 5 times as long to do it.

That happens if I get overstimulated in certain ways, or too much momentum going. Normally I have some trouble starting it in those areas. But when I'm overstimulated that way, the only thing I can do, is lie down in a dark room and try hard to not think until it passes, and then it stops hurting my mind (not real pain but some sort of cognitive pain). For awhile it continues. Then usually quite suddenly everything's dark and quiet in my head. Then usually I sleep because I'm so exhausted.

Totally agree. While I was taking prozac I felt calmer and cared less about silly little stuff, and my mind was clear and I found I could concentrate on things, my memory improved tremendously, I found interest in things I did, and I didn't have that dull feeling in my head the whole time. Now I've been off it for 2 years and it's back to normal: can't conentrate on amything for longer than about 10 minutes, lack of interest, my memory is really poor and I just have this mental background noise going on all the time. It's sad to think that it's medication that did me so much good. I'd like to go to the doctor and ask for some more, but I know what the answer wil be, useless CBT by an overworked psych with about 300 other mild depressives on his books.

Hope it goes well!