Just wondering about this.
I have a friend who sometimes just specifically craves a certain dish from a certain food chain. (Like wicked wings from KFC or something)
Or they suddenly feel like watching a specific show (Like Boston Legal)
How does that work?
I never seem to experience something similar to that.
Is it common to feel like that?
Not saying this is OP specifically or anything, but I have long suspected that some fellow humans just aren’t as…conscious/sapient as the rest of us. Like literal NPCs. It would explain a lot. No I’m not talking about anything race or eugenics related, not going there at ALL. Just sometimes I’ve met people and wondered “…did we grow up on the same planet?”
I’ve noticed there seems to be a divide between deep thinking and wide thinking.
Deep thinking tends to be directed and has a tight focus. It covers a lot of intellectual thinking.
Wide thinking is a lot more integrated, it’s how we instinctively know how a particular action will affect others, both directly and indirectly. It integrates a lot of topics, but at a far shallower level.
As an aspie, I’m good at deep thinking. I struggle with wide thinking. I suspect I am fairly blind to a lot of wide thinking effects. Whether their more intuitive thinking is better or worse than my logical deep thinking is a different matter.
It’s strange. I’ve been in a state of shutdown and disconnect for most of my life. Only recently with lot’s of meditation, I’ve reached a point where I (sometimes) am aware of my own needs and emotions.
When I look at other people I’m amazed by the capacities they have.
I suppose this is normal for most people? But for me it has been only a very recent experience, and most of the time I still can’t
An example of this is meditation. When I sit down to meditate and focus on my breathing, and do this for 1-2 hours, I don’t experience any thoughts about future plans or things that happened before.
However, with consistency, this seems to be happening occasionally for me now from time to time.
A few years ago just talking was already pretty hard for me. Nowadays I manage, but it’s mostly talking in a way that I’ve learned from patterns in how other people talk, and i’m not necessarily able to communicate my own state of mind to other people that easily.
Sounds like disassociation, perhaps even “anhedonia” (stupid naming, essentially your brain is suppressing emotion). Did you experience any trauma while young? Especially something that lasted a while?
It does feel like that sometimes. I notice that when there is a moment where it would make sense to be angry, I instead just feel headache or stomachache, but don’t really feel any emotion.
I don’t know whether I experienced any trauma. I just don’t remember much. Especially emotional things I don’t remember.
In fact, I had a conversation with my father recently. And I remember we got emotional about something. But right after the conversation, I can’t remember anymore what we talked about.
That does sound strongly like some kind of emotional suppression. Some people have problems forming memories when they experience intense anger or sadness.
Have you ever tried taking notes / writing a diary?
Yes! Maybe a bit too much even. I make a lot of notes to remember what I’m supposed to be doing, or for habits like brushing my teeth. and I even wrote a journal for a long time almost everyday.
But I write mostly about the things that happened during that day, not so much about emotions. Maybe because I just don’t really know what to write.
When I look back on these entries, it always feels to me like they were written by somebody else.
But somehow it’s helping I suppose, since journaling has been the starting point for me discovering all this stuff. I started almost 10 years ago though, and still find it difficult to feel my own feelings and emotions. But being able to write this and share it with others would have been impossible for me only a year ago. I wouldn’t have the idea, or would forget about it, or would feel to uncomfortable to share.
I also forget that I wrote about certain things and sometimes find separate notes where I write about the same stuff again and again.
Yes, all those things are normal. I imagine you have went through some very difficult things to exist as you have been for so long. It’s very interesting that you find meditation is helping you. Thanks for sharing. I send you love and wish you success on your journey and happiness in your life!
Thank you.
I’m looking into what might have happened to me. But I don’t really remember much from before I was like 15 years old. I even have difficulties remembering things from the day before. Probably related.
Meditation seems to be somewhat different for me than others. I don’t really think of anything, just feel physical sensations, mostly discomfort.
Over time, if I practice very consistently, some thoughts start popping up in my head.
I’ve heard from others that usually their head is full of thoughts and meditation actually helps them to calm it down.
Maybe another type of meditation rather than breathing meditation would be more helpful for me, but I’m not sure.
Have you had an MRI of your brain done?
Yeah, had one last year, nothing special to see on it. I did have a traffic accident a long time ago. Got hit by a car while biking. They never did an MRI at that time though.
There are absolutely degrees of consciousness.