AIBU to think you cannot think of literally nothing?

[Frequency]

As in you do not see the word nothing in your mind, or there is not a blank sheet of nothing in your head, but someone has unplugged something important and you can still send a power signal to basic life functions, but your RAM is corrupt and you no longer compute.

IDK how else to explain it but my mind is blown that some people can have nothing, literally nothing, in their mind but not be brain dead.

Its difficult to understand what you mean. I don't know anyone who has 'nothing' in their mind. People who are on heavy medication like hypnotics and anti-psychotics might have nothing but this more an absence.

How do you define 'nothing'?

I think that’s what meditation is for, isn’t it? Emptying your mind so there’s nothing? Impossible, for me. I can’t last more than 2 seconds. They say you should focus on your breathing, how your body feels blah blah - but that’s not nothing is it? Literally a list of things to think about. Apparently being able to think of nothing is nirvana 🤯

I can’t see images in my head but sadly I do have a constant monologue ongoing. I know people who don’t have either and I can’t imagine how that would feel! Very very quiet I guess.

My husband genuinely says he can! I feel like I constantly have about 25 “tabs” open in my brain and it just clicks between them.

That is just to get you to the point of a still, empty mind.
I am shite at meditating and can't so it. I can do mindfulness where you focus on one thing. Like your footsteps. Or a candle.
Lots of my friends do it (especially popular with the old e heads!) And get great benefits.

This condition blows my (picture laden) mind! I can’t understand how, if someone says “pink elephant” to you, you don’t immediately picture a pink elephant. Crazy!

No. DH can do this, totally clear his mind and have nothing in there. I don’t get it at all because he must be thinking of SOMEthing. He’s really good at monotasking too. I am always thinking of a couple of things at once at least.

Yes it is possible to empty your mind, but it probably takes practice for most people. Meditation can be like this, though some people meditate by focusing on a particular thing or mantra or the breath. I can empty my mind, but not for very long!

The only times there's been absolutely nothing in my brain, I've been under general anaesthetic.

The rest of the time the inside of my head is a very noisy place.

I don't really understand why you would think it would make you braindead. Your brain is constantly doing gazillions of things which are not conscious thought.

I don't think you'd really be thinking of nothing. More you'd be picturing a blank screen. So technically that's still something

My sister says she has no ideas. She just doesn’t.

If I ever come up with something she says ‘someone rich probably came up with that already’ and changes the subject.
She told me that she just doesn’t think of anything. She also can’t imagine how things will look when they are finished.

When she is reading her mind is blank and she likes it that way.

Meditation can give you that very quiet feeling. It’s incredible, I remember the first time I tried Headspace like 9 years ago, it feels so good. Everything starts up again pretty fast thereafter though…!

I think it is a misapprehension to focus on a blank mind -the state of no mind is more like a byproduct of understanding how the function of mind (the thinking process) sits within consciousness, and allowing a shift of awareness to the direct experience of being consciousness itself. Non-dualist teachers of advaita and zen practices can point to this; it's quite a radical change of lens and not everyone's cup of tea.

It is absolutely possible to, with patience, practice, curiosity and unflinching honesty about your own experience as you pick your way through the process of dismantling the idea of mind, thinking and awareness, to find oneself in a much 'quieter' place, and even perceive that there is 'nothing' in one's mind. Vipassana is a nice place to start and quite available. Mind often kicks off and rebels to start with, which is generally considered part of the process, but with openness, noticing and welcoming each insight, distraction, objection, protest that mind presents in order to 'stay on the front-page', and allowing them to pass through your awareness, like a cameo actor on your big screen, the 'chatter' of the mind does fade out.

that blows my mind but I had psychosis from stress and constant over thinking

Well I know I can't. Because if I actively try I'm thinking "ooh, am I thinking of nothing yet...?" Which is of course thinking of something. Our brains are wired to absorb stimuli constantly and this turns into 'thought' whether we use our internal voice to name that thought. So I'm gazing out of the window and couldn't tell you 'what I'm thinking about' but I'm thinking nonetheless, even if it's as basic as a subconscious cataloguing of sky, tree, neighbour mowing lawn etc.

I can't actively try to have nothing in my head, but if I'm just lounging on the sofa, I'm pretty sure that I'm not always actively thinking.

When absolutely exhausted - after a bad year perhaps - I am capable of lying on a sun lounger in the summer shade in the garden and putting my brain in neutral. A sort of pleasant floating sensation where the most I am aware of is hazy nearby noises - birdsong etc.

I can have long periods of my mind being blank and at rest. I have no inner monologue, aphantasia and always thought the Homer zoned out state was normal. I would be very surprised if this wasn't a common state.

I dont tihnk my mind is right at all becasue it never ever ever stopped. I was highly creative and innovative and came up with some ground breaking ideas as an academic until I went into psychosis and now my mind is just hell all the time and ive not been able to have any peace in my mind for nine years. its a living hell

me too and then I had psychosis

im blown away by this too. the nosies in my head is so so bad. and I eventually ended up in psychosis. before that I was alwasy having ideas all the time and made some ground breaking insights in my academic field.

You can't think about nothing, because even if nothing is all you are thinking about, you are still thinking about nothing, which is still thinking about something (nothing).

Meditation is about not engaging with the thoughts, not thinking about thinking but simply letting thoughts come and go.

I know lots of people who don’t have much more than a blank sheet of paper going through their heads on any given day