A friend of mine sleeps sporadically through the night... amounting to less than 3 hours on average. Think I don't get enough sleep Rhizo?

I get enough sleep to function at near-optimal performance... and all for 3 more hours in my life every day. I gain an extra day of consciousness every 8 days So while you get eight 'days worth' of experience... i get 9. It adds up rather rapidly

In some side news... I have a pizza to get out of the oven

(September 14, 2009 at 6:19 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote:

(September 14, 2009 at 6:09 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: The only problem I have is if I think about something exclusively for too long/ until I'm too tired I get stuck in a monotonous repetitive loop which is hard to break out of.

Unless I'm engaging in conversation - I have this affliction 100% of the time now. And have done for a year or two now, and it's gotten progressively more obsessive. Now it seems to have reached an obsessive plateau.

As the the point on overanalysis. I think there is no such thing because you can't stop thinking. It's impossible, without dying. I think you can't analyse too much - only badly. So long as your analysis is constructive and productive, so long as it does more good than bad - then it's worth it. I say ideally the trick is getting it as close to perfect as possible. And whether you wish to engage in that quest.

EvF

I think you have overanalyzed this one.

Rhizo

But the question is...did I do it right?

Or was my analysis incorrect?

EvF

(September 14, 2009 at 8:09 pm)Rhizomorph13 Wrote: In Oregon, small towns are known for the meth problems. I grew up in a small town of 12,000 and we used to leave our back door unlocked as well as the church I went to. The church was burgaled and several computers were, um, "liberated." Henceforth, our family locked everything. After all, if God can't stop burglars from getting into his house, what chance do we have?

We have drugs and alcohol problems but nothing compared to big cities. Crime is very low. In the city I've been burgled a few times. I suppose it's being aware of your risks. There's a balance to be struck with maintaining your own personal freedom. People seem very hung up from what they see on the news. I don't usually follow the news, I have plenty going on in my own life thanks.

@Evie: To clarify: It's when I try to sleep that I find I've overdone itand then the thought loops kick in. I've always loved thinking about stuff. I don't get your 'switch' ...how you weren't like this and now you are?? I'm definitely an obsessive. I don't mind abandoning things. I don't mind losing focus on what's important sometimes too... the downsides.

@ Saerules: Well it doesn't matter the amount of sleep you get as long as you get enough, enough to be healthy for you.

@ fr0d0

My switch is due to the fact I basically never used to think about thinking at all. After not being self-aware enough and after just spending 5 years addicted to net gaming, one thing that helped me get better is being aware of my thoughts more. And I so haven't wanted to be so unaware of myself again that it's now become an obsession and a compulsion....

I used to be extremely externalized. It was all extrospection. Now it's mostly obsessive introspection, as I said. Thought loops, that are like 1-3 words long that last for anywhere from a few hours to several days (and possibly more).

It's a complete flip due to nervousness about being so externalized again. But on the whole I enjoy it, and sometimes even love it. Just like you fr0d0, I've always loved thinking about stuff. Ever since I noticed how much depth I can get into! Ever since I went without a computer to distract me! I've been on comps since I was 6, I went out with them for 2 years and then completely flipped round in mindset (In the sense I just described).

EvF

I could joke about the impossibility of 'flipping' here.. But I'm serious..

Sounds like a mantra.. so you repeat short phrases like "mind not mind" for hours or days? And this helps you concentrate on them?

And you mean this helped you get better at games?? Blimey you're really WIRED!!!

And while we're on the subject of "you" ..something else I'm interested in.. you've said a few times that you never lose your cool online. You pointedly always qualify 'online'. Does this mean you aren't Mr Uber Cool offline/ in real life??

EvF,

You can stop thinking without expiring from the experience. I have never held myself in that state for more than a few minutes without the assistance of weed or large amounts of alchohol and I should point out there is a difference between being too blissed out to think and being consciously aware of not thinking. Ok, I know, that's nice but practically the mind always spins so what of overanalysis...

The trick is to move to another subject once you come to conclusions about what you were thinking about. It is better to be able to take small amounts of data and arrive at conclusions; this will make you a productive member of this society. In almost every job I have worked it is much better to arrive quickly at a solution that is not the best than to meditate for long periods of time on the perfect solution and get passed up by others who arrive quickly. Strike a balance between deep thought and quick action and you will be golden!

I used to do the same thing as you and get fixated on words such that they lost their meaning in my head. It was frustrating to me but was probably a good exercise to show the true meaningless nature of the sounds we make that relate to objects in our heads. I am to the point now that, if I pay attention, I can "see" the thoughts form a few nanoseconds before I form words. One thing I did to speed up my thoughts was to confound my speech centers through programed nonsense thought, purposely spoken gibberish. The side effect was a growth of a nonsense generation area of my brain that STILL acts up every once in a while and I utter nonsense to people instead of words. The idea is to avoid verbalization and think about things pre-verbally. I think this is why pentacostals feel a surge of "god" when they speak in "tongues", they are simply moving their thought process back a step and thinking pure thoughts without verbalizing.

Yes this is all raw assertion but backed up by ideas in memory science relating to how our brains DO NOT remember well without attaching the memory to an object.

Rhizo

(September 15, 2009 at 4:04 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Sounds like a mantra.. so you repeat short phrases like "mind not mind" for hours or days? And this helps you concentrate on them?

It becomes a habit which means I am more internalized because I'm habitually thinking about thoughts, looping them - and less externalized.

Quote:And you mean this helped you get better at games?? Blimey you're really WIRED!!!

No, I've started doing it since then.

Quote:And while we're on the subject of "you" ..something else I'm interested in.. you've said a few times that you never lose your cool online. You pointedly always qualify 'online'. Does this mean you aren't Mr Uber Cool offline/ in real life??

I am but not to the same extent. Offline I sometimes get annoyed but I never take things personally, I just get frustrated form time to time. But generally I'm a pretty mellow guy.

Online I never get in the slightest bit vexed I have a ball.

I'm getting better at offline all the time though. I aim to be as mellow - 100% mellow - as I am online

One of the problems is that offline has the physical aspect of personal space. So I just have to be more Buddhist about it

@ Rhizo

Interesting post basically.

I still say though,l on the matter of 'over analysis' that you can't do it too much, only badly. If you're doing it right then there's no problem. If it pisses you off then you're either not doing it right or it may be annoying in the present, but in future it may be worth it.

EvF

EvF,

So if you were analyzing how to install a computer game how much time would that take?

If you have an answer, at all, then any time OVER that answer would be overanalysis. For me that question requires very little analysis. Insert disk then press the "install" button. I COULD spend all day thinking about what happens and why and how I could change it but THAT would be over analysis. Over analysis relates to the practicality of the analysis; for almost everything there is a point that is too much. Oh, and I'm totally fine with agreeing to dissagree on this point, it really is of little import, I would hope that you give it a think (Sounds like you are very much like me so you will have little choice in the matter).

Not everything is a koan! <--this is a koan

Rhizo

The extra analysis may be impractical. But it could still be good analysis if it aids in your thinking and you go on to think about other things which turns out to be useful. The exercise of thinking. I think this analysis is either bad or good.

If you define over analysis like that, fine. But due to the example I gave above, it's not always necessarily bad. It's how you do it. I disagree with the term because of their so often negative connotations, I don't think it's always bad. It's not all black or white, as I think you imply with 'koan'??? Whatever you mean by that lol.

So it's a semantic thing but I disagree with the term because I think it tends to imply something negative that isn't always the case.

EvF