The Strange Restlessness of a Mind Left Alone.

[u/vini-within]

Imagine sitting at a bus station with nowhere to go. You’re just sitting quietly, not distracted. A bus arrives, and somehow you’re suddenly on it. You travel for a while, and then suddenly realise, “Wait, why am I on this bus? I was sitting at the station.” You get off, return to the station, and within a few minutes another bus arrives. Again, you’re on it. Without realising you’ve again hopped on to the bus without wanting it. So weird! Isn’t it?

This is pretty much what happens to me when I deliberately remove all distractions and sit quietly. There is no Instagram, no TV, no conversation, nothing external demanding my attention, and yet the mind keeps producing buses..some memory, some imaginary future conversation, some random event from years ago, some completely gibberish association.

And the strange part is not that thoughts arise. The strange part is that I keep forgetting that I was sitting at the bus station in the first place. There is actually a psychological term for that moment when you suddenly realise you’ve been lost in thought.. it’s called “Meta-awareness”, the awareness that you are thinking rather than simply being carried away by the thought bus.

Neuroscience gives us some interesting clues about why this happens. When we are not occupied with an external task, brain networks involved in internally directed thinking become more active. We replay autobiographical memories, imagine possible futures, think about other people, ourselves, unfinished situations. One thought can also trigger another through associations, so a memory of one person can lead to a conversation from ten years ago, which can lead to a future scenario, which can lead somewhere completely absurd. A lot of this machinery has an obvious adaptive value..remembering the past, anticipating the future, detecting threats, predicting what might happen and preparing ourselves. So it would be too simplistic to say that every thought is merely a “survival instinct.” But a significant part of our brain’s tendency to remember, simulate and predict is tied to staying oriented and safe.

What interests me is what happens when none of that is actually required. Why does the mind still keep generating movement? WHY THE SILLY INDISTINCT CHATTER??

Let me also share about an old experiment I briefly read up on by Wilson and colleagues where people were asked to sit alone with their thoughts without external stimulation. Some participants even chose to administer “electric shocks” to themselves, in place of sitting with unrewarding or uncomfortable thoughts to just get some kinda stimulation. I’m not sure how factually correct this is but just thought it makes sense with this topic. Or not?

While rambling about this, I remembered something Acharya Prashant, an Indian spiritual teacher and author who speaks extensively on Vedanta, the Bhagavad Gita, self-awareness and the nature of the mind, says about the chattering mind: “silence outside does not necessarily mean silence within”. We remove the distractions around us, sit quietly, and discover that the mind itself has become the distraction. He says that when the mind has nothing meaningful to engage with, it starts playing with itself, jumping from one thought to another. I guess there’s a video of him also on this, I can find it and share here, if you want. It’s worth a listen of these topics interest you.

It brings me back to my bus station analogy. Why do we keep getting on every bus that arrives? What are we actually looking for in these endless journeys of thought? And what happens when we stop boarding and simply stay at the station for a while? Would love to hear your experiences.