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Overcoming Thought Addiction
Have you ever wished you could stop thinking - either temporarily or permanently? By that, I mean the relentless flow of words and images and memories and fears and worries. Just stopping them cold in their tracks. I know this will probably come off as an ironic or perhaps absurd thing to try and talk about. Is there even a way to do so?
I want ask all kinds of questions about this hypothetical situation which would only lead us deeper into the addiction: what would it look like? How would it feel? What are the detrimental effects of being addicted to thinking? How would escaping it impact our lives on a day to day level?
The answers to each of those questions leads us down the same types of roads which got us here. Understand that I’m not suggesting ignorance is bliss or anything like that. Although part of me wonders if it might be. I’m instead talking about putting a halt to the endless chatter, the endless going round and round in circles, tangling yourself in semantic, philosophical and esoteric webs.
I also feel compelled to ask the question: how do we get out of the maze? Even that though brings on another avalanche of questions, ideas, techniques, philosophies. (Here’s an interesting primer on the subject, by the way). So that too seems like the same old trap wearing a different nametag.
Years ago, I remember seeing some website that said, “You’ve reach the end of the internet. This is it. Please go outside and enjoy your life.” I wonder if we can’t find the same thing for our purposes: a thought which leads to no other thoughts, a way for us to shut the whole machine down and go play outside in the sunshine.
What’s the first step? Where do we begin? Have I only sunk deeper into the trap by even starting this conversation at all? What do you think and are you addicted to doing it? How do you stop it? Meditation? Masturbation? Do you even want to stop it? Are we all well and truly fucked, after all? See? See what I mean? This, this right here is the problem…
January 10th, 2006 at 12:22 am
I believe you rock. This post is a thought I go back to often enough, and even though I wouldn’t want to be what I call Beige People - I wish I could have like, 11 minutes where my mind isn’t circling itself like a wild animal in heat or famished.
January 10th, 2006 at 12:23 am
Have you read Human Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind yet?
January 10th, 2006 at 12:28 am
Yes, what about it?
Circling itself like a wild animal in heat - yeah, that pretty much describes it, doesn’t it?
It really is like an addiction - always looking for your next big score. Trying out progressively larger doses of more dangerous drugs. Always hoping that one more hit will be enough to satisfy….
Hi, my name is Tim and I have a problem.
January 10th, 2006 at 12:36 am
I was thinking about this earlier after reading an interview with William S. Burroughs. Perhaps it involves freeing yourself from words?
If you’re interested in reading the interview: http://www.deepleafproductions.com/wilsonlibrary/texts/wsb-inter.html.
January 10th, 2006 at 12:41 am
I achieved a thoughtless, introspective trance-like state recently by using some Nelumbo Nucifera stamens (3 grams’ worth) which I got through eBay.
Nelumbo Nucifera is the “Sacred Lotus,” and I’d read on the internet that it makes every cell in your body all, like, happy. And the stamen is supposed to be the most potent part, so I ordered some.
I smoked it initially out of a bong (I had to go out and buy one just for this) and I got a decent head-change, kinda introspective and happy. I listened to Jimi Hendrix for an hour or so and was super-groovin’ on the music.
Subsequent bong hits really didn’t bring me back up, so I decided to make a tea. I put the rest of it (probably 2 grams) in a teabag and steeped it for 20 minutes or so. It tastes pretty good, actually.
It basically affected me for the next two days. I wasn’t “happy,” but more like “perceptive.” Colors were more alive, and my internal dialogue was shut off. It was like I stripped away consensus reality and was looking at the world in a new way. Definitely very pleasant.
I used to stop my thoughts with alcohol. But that made me an alcoholic. I stopped that two years ago.
Another herb that I just tried, this morning actually, is Sweet Flag (Calamus root). I chewed on a handful for an hour or two this morning and it put me in a really nice place. It’s like it “centered” my energy, and made me very calm and purposeful.
It’s supposed to be psychedelic in large quantities, so I’m going to chew on that shit all day long tomorrow, because school doesn’t start until next Tuesday, so I’m trying all those herbs I ordered from eBay after Christmas
I was hoping to get the Kava today, it’d better get here by tomorrow.
(P.S. the “damiana” reports on erowid are all B.S.- it doesn’t do anything.)
January 10th, 2006 at 12:46 am
Which involves what, exactly? Any description of the technique will inevitably entrap us in words. I will check out the interview though, thanks.
I also have a feeling that many of the Scientology training routines are also geared to deal with this dilemma.
January 10th, 2006 at 1:33 am
The old chinese finger trap.
January 10th, 2006 at 3:09 am
“Which involves what, exactly?”
Well I was just thinking (hah) that completely stopping thoughts would be damn near impossible so perhaps a way of slowing down thoughts could be to not surround yourself with words which trigger thoughts. What I’m trying to say is probably explained a bit better in the interview.
January 10th, 2006 at 3:12 am
I’ve found meditation to be incredibly helpful for this kind of thing. Well, eventually. The big problem for me is that it took a good year or more of practice before I really got to a point where I noticed much of an effect. I’d say a good three years more on top of that before there wasn’t any question that my mind was working differently afterward. It’s an annoyingly large amount of work for an uncertain payoff.
January 10th, 2006 at 5:03 am
Indeed, the aim of most meditation is to empty yourself. When you free your mind, or train it to let go for a while, you gain all kinds of spontaneous insight. Of course, there are a million different types of meditation.
I’ve never followed any particular type, but I’ve practiced basic meditation in my room quite a few times and reached some very peaceful states bordering on near empty mind. Taoists say that when you empty your mind, it acts like a mirror and reflects Tao. I love that idea!
January 10th, 2006 at 10:00 am
I beat the Internet. The end guy was hard.
January 10th, 2006 at 10:29 am
Man, this is a seriously weird idea. I consider thinking the best entertainment I have. To me, it seems a little creepy that there are people who would like to turn that off. Now, focusing your thoughts on one thing, even going non-verbal, that’s a different thing. Try listening to instrumental music or choral music in some language you don’t understand.
January 10th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Well it is entertaining, I’ll admit that right away. But if we continue in our addiction metaphor, then that still makes sense. Getting another “fix” is usually going to feel good. That’s why you have an addiction in the first place.
I can’t decide if I’m too impatient for real serious meditation, which probably means that I am.
Agreed, I’m not even entirely sure what the payoff would be. Like, if I stopped being addicted to thinking, would I still be able to write, or would that just suck me back in again? How would I feel in the morning when I woke up? With the noise of my thoughts diminished, would I be able to better hear my intuition?
I’m curious what other techniques there are besides meditation which have the same ultimate effect or end goal? It seems like some of the Scientology training routines are geared towards something similar, such as Training Routine Zero:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/06/26/training-routine-zero/
January 10th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Thoughtlessness is said to be achived in a few various states. I remember reading a lot about thoughtlessness and how it tied in to reaching a state of gnosis- as well as how gnosis seems strikingly similer to the enlightenment one reaches by following some eastern traditions.
An intresting, and kind of wild, idea thats somewhat similer to this (perhaps a bit more extreme, too) is the Buddhist “Emptiness” meditation- or Sunyata. Basiclly, I think, its taking this train of questioning to the next level. “How do you stop feeling? How do you stop existing?”
Like I said, its some wild stuff.
January 10th, 2006 at 10:58 am
Hey,
It is funny but there are all sorts of interventions that one can go to to stop thinking or rewire the thinking process. Anything from meditation to seminars to prozac are available to us. I’ve personally tried a lot of them. None really work in the way you would think they should work.
The seminars only work as long as you have the time, the money and the willingness to let someone tell you how to think.
Meditative states can be sastained only for so long before one has to wake and endure the reality we all share.
And the drugs only last as long as you are willing to be desensitized (sp?) from the world and more importantly yourself.
In trying many different ways to stop my thought process, to become an “adjusted citizen”, the sucessfull money tycon, or what ever lables the social norm tries to strive for I’ve come to realize, for myself, that the real question is not how to stop the thought process but rather, “Why do you want to stop the thought process?”
Tim you wrote
For me at least the idea of thinking of my last orgasim, the funny movie I saw the other night, the cool conversation I had with my dog, ect. are welcomed thoughts and ones I would like to have all the time. The other ones… Fears, worries, we don’t like those, not so much.
So this question goes out for you Tim… “What worries and fears are in your closet that you are trying to stop thinking about?” You don’t have to answer me (obviously) but answer yourself. All the stuff that people do to stop thinking is merely a bandaid for the real issue. We want to hide and a way to hide is to stop the thought process.
In all honesty if you want to stop thinking get your hands on some prozac or zolaph (sp?) and numb yourself. It’s the easiest and the cheapest. Then you can become a drone in this world. The really cool work that you do on this site would suffer greatly because you really wouldn’t care to question anymore, but hey at least you can break the addiction of thinking and stop feeling… anything. Or you could write down, to us or to yourself what is really going on and then try to work yourself out of it. You hold the keys to your “salvation” not the hand no your body …. The question is are you going to unlock the door?
January 10th, 2006 at 11:08 am
AKG:
That’s a funny statement all by itself.
Dude:
A perfectly fair question. The answer is I’m not sure that I do. I’m obviously a person who generates a great deal of pleasure and even a modest income from sharing and developing my thoughts.
I think it’s unfair to say that I’m looking to become a “drone” although from what I said, I suppose I can see how it was interpreted that way. It’s not that I want to check out and turn off from the world. It’s entirely the opposite. I want to be fully present in the moment and not have my thoughts, fears, worries & imagination shielding me from actual experience.
January 10th, 2006 at 11:34 am
For me, art and woodworking are excellent ways to stop thinking, as usualy defined. Art switches me to a visual mode, where I think in shape and color and don’t have the bandwidth to support the inner dialog.
Woodworking, well, when your fingers are a couple of inches from spinning sharp steel, you focus. I do anyway - I can still count to 10 with my shoes on. And even with my pants on…
January 10th, 2006 at 11:41 am
That’s a great point about art and creative work, Error 404.
Also, “Dude” makes another really important point I think:
Most of the solutions people seem to be advocating are short term solutions, or in the case of drugs substituting in a new addiction in its place. I find this piece on Key23 (linked above) really compelling, because this author claims to have reached a permanent state:
http://www.key23.net/occulture/post/142
January 10th, 2006 at 11:42 am
This reminds me of a B.B.C documentary called arena i watched a couple of years ago. They studdied the brain chemistry from about 8 different religious groups whilst they where meditating, praying, chanting etc. It showed that the part of the brain that controls time and space shuts down in the precise same way irrespective of the different methods employed. They called this part of the brain the internal chronometer so whilst the underlying experience was the same the interpretation of that experience was based on cultural or religious belief.
January 10th, 2006 at 11:52 am
As for why to stop the thought process, I certainly don’t want to do it on a long-term basis. But I feel much better after a little internal quiet time.
And perception works better when it takes up the whole stream, so knowing how to turn the dialog off can be a handy skill at times.
January 10th, 2006 at 11:56 am
hO! yes i try giving you my vison as i can .
¤
ofcourse your destiny keep on reminding you
if you cant accept your destiny . you will get mad
and you start lieing . hiding . and the more it pushes back
many ways there are to change destiny
kaos and iching and sensing this pattern
the shamans way . our ur-explorers
and everybodys trying ofcourse
striving for peace and celebration
still . without aknowleding karma
the one golden rule in dao
one will get entagled in the web
of soical drama and guilt
but as one play out karma yoga
let it go . get over with the old
the organism shall stand tall
percieving everything still
not thinking at all
but understand divine will
always get on
through
you see know . dreaming is
modeling the future .
what they call imagination
is truly pure sensory input
long as you dont judge .
and so hold on to people
and events and objects
yes i guess
on the glory of holy godess
Eris ¤ bless
baba Norrland
gather them tribes
January 10th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
Reportedly, the Stone/Graal/Birth of Christ/King taking his seat upon the Throne/etc. is a permanent state.
Since said state is also described as “unconditioned”, we should be able to deduce that permanence is a necessary consequence; if the world is viewed through the eyes of Eternity, no temporal happenstance could possibly dislodge it.
Said state must therefore be an entirely new mode of being, it is described as a “death” and a “birth”.
Not being a Saint, I may be confusing the golden state with “unthinking” state, but as far as I can tell, they are very closely related.
January 10th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
if i really want to stop thinking, i’ll just pop in some mindless x-box game and blast away at some digital aliens.
y’know, i’ve had really excellent successes with meditation, and i can’t understand why people think it’s so hard. you’re just sitting, just stilling the mind (the “endlessly chattering monkey mind,”). as to whether the payoff is worthwhile, it certainly was for me. of course, what people don’t realize about the thoughtless state, the TRUE thoughtless state, is that you lose all sense of time when you stop thinking. it’s not like this amazing spirtual BLAMMO– it’s more like one second you’re thinking, and the next you’re not, and the next thing you know it’s 45 minutes later. as for people who don’t want to use meditation because they’re frightened of the time and effort, you’ll never know unless you give it a try. i was, too, at first, but with practice it really becomes effortless and enjoyable.
what happens *after* you’ve stopped thinking, now that’s where stuff gets fun. entire religious systems are centered on this idea (zen, for instance).
January 10th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
I would submit that ALL traditional religious systems are centered on what happens “after you stop thinking,” or were originally. This does not mean that they are all about “meditation”, but they are all “outside of time”.
January 10th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Oh yeah, I’ve had that happen to me tons of times.
January 10th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
All right well I’ve got many much thoughts running through my head and I want to respond to all the posts at once which the thought of it is making my head feel like it’s gonna explode…. So well right ummm yeah Tim you wrote
Would you mind helping me out by giving me an example?
Ummm I know there is something I want to say about meditation and the power of suggestion… ie mind control, self mind control, plecebo effects… all random thoughts connected to some sort of idea I just can’t quite articulate yet. All this thinking about thoughts and no thoughts is making it really hard to form a thought!
Oh and just for the fun of it Food for Thought … isn’t meditation the act of thinking about not thinking… or is it the act of thinking about not thinking about thinking (If my head is gonna hurt I want someone to join me on this wonderful ride o pain)
January 10th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Whoa.
Went I went through my “traumatic spiritual experience,” one of the things that motivated it was a desire to be outside of time. I took a spontaneous road trip to Duluth with my philosopher-boyfriend, who was very into Heidegger and Wittgenstein. (Sadly, not my boyfriend anymore). All kinds of weird and wonderful things happened on the trip, all because we made a deliberate decision to step sideways out of time.
Duluth is a magical city, a dot at one end of Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake, a vast stillness.
January 10th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
I think I get what you mean - not to not think at all, but to not have a conflicting internal dialog or the humming presence of ill defined fear interfering with your perfect enjoyment of just being or seeing with the moment of whatever your doing.
I think am example is that physical exhaustion seems to brings this state. Another example, I play in an original band, and when I am jamming with the brothers our minds are tuned only to playing our music, I don’t find myself worried about anything or concerned about anything except the flow of playing the music. I am not thinking inside me - ok, now play this note, now play that note, now stop, count to 2, etc, etc - it just flows naturally without intervention of “me”.
Capturing that state whenever you want it is a much more difficult proposition and I don’t know how to do that either.
January 10th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Another little bit to add on that, usually when I am playing music and I fuck up, it’s because I have gotten out of the “thoughtless” flow. I’ve splipped in a thought about how I am not sure what comes next and sure enough then I don’t know what comes next….like if you are playing drums u can hit that zen state and you are the one driving the beat - but if you think about it it totally breaks the flow and you are likely to hiccup and throw it off.
January 10th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Okay, I think I get it. You guys are not talking about not thinking; you’re just talking about a different kind of thinking. Being “oustside of time” - I go there all the time.
January 10th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
As I understand, though, meditation is also practice to change the mind and how it perceives during ‘normal’ moments. I don’t think…hmmm…that thinking is reallly the problem, it’s the incessant chatter and background noise that is the killer. If I could get rid of all the underground thinking, or at least tune it out, and just stick with my conscious analytical thoughs, I’d be happy.
I’d also like to mirror what other people said about music/art etc, in that to really do it and to do it well is a meditative process. Same goes with sports. I play hockey and when something actually works for me, it’s because i’m not thinking. If I think like ‘ok i’m gonna go left around this guy, cut back right and then…’ it never works out. But when I just react, my body takes over and my trainning kicks in, I don’t think, my mind isn’t blank but it’s more that I’m now an observer to what my body is doing rather than my mind being an actor. I call it Zen Hockey.
January 10th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Lynn:
It’s a weird area we’ve gotten into, that’s for sure. On the one hand, I feel like it’s almost worth calling it something apart from thinking altogether, because the word “thought” is so loaded and the fundamental nature of what I’m after/describing is really different. But on another level, sure, yeah, it’s definitely a different kind of thinking.
Colin:
That’s funny, for me a lot of the conscious analytical thoughts become annoying. Or rather, I think somehow they are fundamentally tied into the “background chatter”
January 10th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
There is also an electronic method: bop-it.
This is a game that talks and has three things you can do with it: pull a knob, twist the knob, or bop the button. It has a rythmic voice saying “bop it” “twist it” or “pull it” in random order, and speeds up with time. At full speed, it is too fast for thinking, and you just have to react. At that speed, if you DO think about it, you lose. And there is a real temptation to see a pattern and anticipate the next command, which two out of three times ends the game, because there isn’t realy a pattern.
January 10th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
How much “conscious thought” is actually automatic? How constrained are your future thoughts by the thoughts you hold now?
January 10th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
Error 404: that game sounds awesome.
Pruney: that’s a great question which I’ve sort of explored in another post, but I can’t remember where. How’s that for automatic?
January 11th, 2006 at 7:48 am
It’s a weird area we’ve gotten into, that’s for sure. On the one hand, I feel like it’s almost worth calling it something apart from thinking altogether, because the word “thought” is so loaded and the fundamental nature of what I’m after/describing is really different. But on another level, sure, yeah, it’s definitely a different kind of thinking.
This is so simple it’s ridiculous: what about being and doing?
January 11th, 2006 at 10:11 am
K - I don;t know that it’s “simple” but ya that’s kind of where I was going.
) whatever - gives u a temporary state like that. Acheiving that state WHILE you are doing something - playing music intensely, snowboarding, etc. can let u have that kind of feeling where your mind is clear of everything except the task at hand (like bop-it, which my daughter has and I have played - yes it is about immediate reaction without thinking). Carrying that state of mind over to daily life is not so easy as far as my own experience (although I do think having had those states of mind does help to clear you out for the future day to day better than if you never have those states of mind)
Physical exhaustion from DOING SOMETHING - jogging, biking, sex (maybe a whole different category but definitely beneficial in getting to a no thinking state
January 11th, 2006 at 10:19 am
What I’m trying to say is that thinking, for me, gets in the way of being and doing. I have an addiction to words; reading, writing, talking. My life would be much happier if I would spend less time in the word-maze and more time doing and being.
I literally need to get out more.
January 11th, 2006 at 10:25 am
[…] clearly label it: “this is a trap because it adds words to your world.” Tim wonders whether it’s worthwhile to overcome thought addiction. […]
January 11th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Well that’s pretty much the perfect summation of what I was trying to say, and also why I will be out fooling around in Seattle in just over a week.
January 11th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
Usually it means it’s time to do something “mindless” and “repedative” Usually obsessively so. Like pulling every single weed from between every single crack between every single stone leading up to my house
Or go jogging. Usually the repedativeness restores a little order to the mind and gets me back in the eb and flow of life, instead of giving myself anxiety attacks with deep thoughts 
It also means it’s time for my ADD medication. That’s one of the problems with ADD and ADHD… my thoughts go EVERYWHERE sometimes. They might even be “deep” thoughts, but the little wheel just keeps turning. Naps help too.
January 12th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Thoughts will not stop- the thought mind/Language is an instrument to get things done on this earth.
For example I am using these words to convince you to do something- be present in your body-postures, movements, gestures, tone of voice, facial expressions- just there and not in thought or emotion. Control the flow of your attention- bring yourself back to these manifestations of your body whenever you realise that you are lost in thought.
Seems simple but is VERY DIFFICULT TO ACTUALLY DO and not be trapped in a reverie that you are doing it!
July 17th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
[…] I also just got an email from the owner of the Pathway to Happiness website, who read my piece on thought addiction. He claims that he can teach me to voluntarily stop thinking via a simple 5 to 20 minute phone call and has offered to teach me this technique for free. Should be pretty interesting. Let’s just hope that he’s not actually a CIA operative who is about to give me my hypnotic trigger and send me over the edge! […]
July 23rd, 2006 at 2:08 pm
[…] I happened upon a website called Pop Occulture. It is a blog by Tim Boucher. I liked the article he wrote on overcoming thought addiction. That’s when your mind won’t stop making commentary. And when your mind becomes aware of what it is doing it makes comments about all the comments it makes. […]