How do you experience your thoughts?

[ThymeToLeave]

This is a weird and hard to explain question, so please bear with me.

When I think of "me", I think of a spot in the center of my head. But I also have thoughts that come from "outside of me", meaning that they come from the "northeast" side of my head. If you imagine thoughts as a 2D graph, "me" is in the center, and those other thoughts are coming from a positive direction on both the X and Y axis. Most of my thoughts come from this "outside of me" place.

Other times, those "outside of me" thoughts come in the form of imagination. In my mind's eye I will see someone I've known saying something as if I'm remembering them talking to me. Sometimes it will literally just be a memory, but other times it will be this person I've known saying something they've never said -- in other words, my thoughts are being spoken by a representation of someone I used to know. This happens more often when I'm feeling lonely.

Does this make any sense to you? How do your thoughts manifest?

 

[R_N]

Like weather or seasons changing. Thoughts come and go and sometimes I entertain them and get emotionally invested. I can't really visualise their inception.

Lately I try to observe myself more but I am not making my job easy by indulging my cravings so often.

I really wish I could push myself to meditate a lot but im procrastinating big time.

 

[Tokugawa_Yoshinobu]

As background noise and as internal recluse.

 

[Dliena]

It's just a rollercoaster of insanity and I'm getting sick of it tbh.

 

[dragonofenvy]

Most of the time it's like I'm discussing things with another me, with me controlling both sides, kind of like playing chess but you're the only player. I'm sure everyone's had imaginary arguments and can relate, but that's generally how I experience all of my thoughts that aren't images, memories, sensations, etc. Sometimes I also experience them like I'm a narrator and my physical person is a character. For everything that's memories, images, etc. generally, it's never from a first-person perspective, but as though it's a movie, with different camera angles and everything even though it is a real experience and not a movie.

 

[sserafim]

I don't really know

 

[-Link-]

Like a constant commentary with very little quiet time.

Almost as if it was a third party. Except it's not.

As background noise

This is what I would like to do, relegate my thoughts to just being background noise. It's very difficult though.

 

[druggedonsurvival]

It's like there are two entities, sometimes they criticize each other and one wins out, other times they are in agreement. Sometimes it's like there's only one voice but either way it's often disjointed and going at such a rapid pace it's hard to keep up.

 

[DarkRange55]

I think it's fascinating the people with no inner monologue

People With No Internal Monologue Explain What It's Like In Their Head

People With No Internal Monologue Explain What It's Like In Their Head

www.iflscience.com

The last great mystery of the mind: meet the people who have unusual – or non-existent – inner voices | Neuroscience | The Guardian

Does your internal monologue play out on a television, in an attic, as a bickering Italian couple – or is it entirely, blissfully silent?

amp.theguardian.com

 

[ThymeToLeave]

I don't really know

You could try meditating. Being able to notice and understand your own thoughts is a very powerful tool in your arsenal against depression and external manipulation.

 

[Argo]

I experience them as objects in consciousness. When I'm not paying attention, it feels like they're appearing "in my head". But if I'm paying very careful attention, this "up/down" "inside/outside" and all the concepts I take for granted of body, mind, locations of these things, goes away.

Like right now in my peripheral vision, I can see hands typing on a keyboard, and it feels like I'm a body with a mind behind eyes, thinking, hearing, seeing. But if I pay very careful attention, I can see (while typing), that the whole visual field, the screen, the peripheral view of the hands I'm not looking at, traces of my face, is itself a giant undefined mass in consciousness. Thoughts show up in the same place. Physical sensation shows up in the same place the view of my hands appear: consciousness/awareness.

That's when the boundary between thoughts and external world goes away, and that's when thoughts often go away too, because if you really look at a thought carefully it usually vanishes. We usually think because we're too distracted from the facts above, we're constructing/fabricating illusions like external reality, a "Me" vs. it, a "Location" of this me(behind face, which is separate from "world"). All of this fabrication breaks down under careful scrutiny.

 

[Forever Sleep]

All different ways I suppose. Sometimes I'm focusing on getting something specific done and I'm wrangling my brain to try and concentrate on a problem. I love 'flow state'- usually when I'm doing something with muscle memory I suppose. I'm not having to think about what I'm doing. Time disappears, even I disappear for a bit. I used to go on long walks and listen to music to get in that state too. That's a lovely state.

Then, there are those weird moments where a specific memory just pops in for no particular reason. You can just suddenly find yourself almost in another location at another time in your head. Sometimes I wonder if it's that that makes me experience deja vu. That feeling that you have felt that precise way in the past.

The weirdest one is intuition. Where you get that strong sense to do or, not do something. It hasn't happened to me often but, when I've ignored it- horrible things have happened, so I really trust my intuition now!

Of course, a lot of time is spent being aware of how unhappy or fed up I am with having to live and, all that that entails. That makes it a struggle to do things. That, unfortunately is coming from within, so I don't experience either unhappiness or ideation intrusively. They both feel like my normal and rational way of thinking.

 

[sserafim]

You could try meditating. Being able to notice and understand your own thoughts is a very powerful tool in your arsenal against depression and external manipulation.

Oh okay, thanks for the suggestion. Actually I've done some thinking about it and I think I experience my thoughts in a constant chatter/drone of noise as well as sudden bursts and flashes of inspiration. Usually I'll have like "aha" moments where an idea comes to mind.

 

[Meteora]

Obsessive to the point where a have daily headaches. From morning to evening, even in my sleep I don't relax. Although I take meds.
My mind is simply unbearable