[Pepsione1]

This has been bothering me for quite a while now. I find myself unable to concentrate all the times. Especially when it comes to putting thoughts together to come to a conclusion. I always get drifted away pretty easily. ie. If I was thinking about getting up to get an apple to eat, I would then think apple is healthy for you, then I would think I should get my yearly teeth checkup, next comes my wisdom teeth and getting it pulled but I couldn't bare the pain and maybe I should get it done next summer.
You know what I mean. By the end of all my thoughts I will completely forget about getting up to get my apple from the fridge. This bothers the hell out of me because I can't concentrate on one thought. One thought always leads to another and eventually I will be so off topic that I'll forget what I was thinking about before. This gets worse when I am driving. I loving driving because I find it relaxing because I can do a lot of thinking but I never pay attention to where I should go. I mean I perfectly concious about what I am doing and I am very very aware of the road condition. But I always ended up driving too far or miss a turn.
I find that the only thing that calms me down is when I play stratagy games or simulation games where I would completely concentrate on what I am doing. This is affecting my everyday life including when I was in school and at work.

Anyone share the same experience???

Please share

 

[Rizumu]

Are you getting enough sleep? My thoughts tend to drift like this and I have trouble concentrating when I'm sleep-deprived.

 

[usc goose]

how long can i concentrate? if i'm in the right zone maybe 4-5 hours tops.

i know the jumpy thought pattern well though. in high school i'd say something weird that made perfect sense to me while my friends would almost compete to try and figure out where my thoughts were going. there's a few people that can come with me on my streams of conciousness though. it gets scary.

i understand the driving thing too. when i was still living at usc, whenever i left the apartment and wasn't really thinking about where i was going i'd head towards the boathouse. just because it's what i did every morning for so long. it's kind of cool, the autopilot thing.

 

[Pepsione1]

Quote:

Originally posted by usc goose i understand the driving thing too. when i was still living at usc, whenever i left the apartment and wasn't really thinking about where i was going i'd head towards the boathouse. just because it's what i did every morning for so long. it's kind of cool, the autopilot thing.

I seriously love driving by myself because I can do so much thinking because parts of my brain is occupied. I kind of helps me to concentrate so much better. But when i am high, that's a different story.

I don't usually sleep well and I think I dream walk sometimes. One time I woke with my tax files in my hands. I was waiting for about a grand of tax refund. Buy my tax files were put away on a shelf in a hard to get spot. Scared the **** out of me.

 

[AIM9x]

i'm sorry, what was the question again?

 

[wallijonn]

3 weeks.

Quote:

One thought always leads to another

Such is the nature of associative thought.

Wanna go mad?

Just look at your thoughts before you go to sleep. Try to not get involved in them. After awhile you'll be able to see them as spheres of light floating in space with their own gravitational pull, like little planets pulling you into a picture. Just look at the tips and tops of your eyes as you go to sleep. Since dreams are only pictures, you'll soon be able to pick your dreams. The fun comes in during nightmares. See if you can be aware while you're nightmaring. Being aware while you're dreaming is a little easier. But when you're having a nightmare, and you can tell yourself while dreaming "you're having a nightmare, turn your body slowly so that the nightmare goes away..." you'll be there.

Sit in front of a water fall. See one drop at the top of the waterfall and follow it down all all the way down. When it gets to the bottom, go back up to the top. Pick another drop and follow it down. Do this for about 30 minutes. There will come a point where the water fall will stop flowing. Then you will probably become aware that you are not breathing. And your mind will start to freak out! You'll find that there are no thoughts in your mind. Then what are you going to do?

 

[Ctn]

Quote:

Originally posted by wallijonn 3 weeks.

Only ?

 

[wallijonn]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ctn Only ?

There is Yoga (will) and tantra (openness).

Yoga would have you concentrating on one thought. Tantra would have you witness to all thoughts.

I think only seeing one thought in your mind for three weeks is enough.

What about you?

Tantra is closer to the thoughts you have while being in love. You can only think about that one person.

Looking at your thoughts - do you find yourself having reactions? I will be looking at a TV show and I will see a thought which evokes a reaction. If I do not like the reaction I change the channel. What about you? We listen to music, and are not always aware of the emotions being elicted. If you are aware of the emotions, can you change your "train" of thought? A thrain has a thought that follow another, and another, and another... Can you be aware of what the conslusion will be? If so, why don't you change it? Must one be a slave to their thoughts?

here's an exercise:

you have a thought.

why?

look back and see what thought you had before it.

and the one before that.

and the one before that.

and the one before that.

you'll eventually get to something that happened in your life which had an impression on you. that impression impressed an association which is open ended. you are now open to associations at the open ended end. and it will remain so until another event in your life makes a deep enough impression which either obliverates that impression or makes an association. most impressions are either made through pleasure or pain.

if you know that a certain train of thought will lead to pain - why do you allow it to continue to completion?

 

[Snufkin]

ADD stands for Attention Deficit.... LETS GO RIDE BIKES!!




Quote:

Just look at your thoughts before you go to sleep. Try to not get involved in them. After awhile you'll be able to see them as spheres of light floating in space with their own gravitational pull, like little planets pulling you into a picture. Just look at the tips and tops of your eyes as you go to sleep. Since dreams are only pictures, you'll soon be able to pick your dreams. The fun comes in during nightmares. See if you can be aware while you're nightmaring. Being aware while you're dreaming is a little easier. But when you're having a nightmare, and you can tell yourself while dreaming "you're having a nightmare, turn your body slowly so that the nightmare goes away..." you'll be there.

I've been able to control my dreams since I was about 10 - I used to get some pretty serious nightmares until I realised I could just wake up or "switch off" from the dream.
Very useful.

 

[wallijonn]

Pep,

there is a book called "Zen Driving".

while you are driving, learn not to listen to the music playing.

But then you will also need to ignore the smells you are smelling, and the road that you are feeling.

I also "zone out" while driving. I'll go one way and find myself 50 miles out of my way. Except I tend to appreciate it.

http://www.indielabel.co.uk/Home/pages/zen_driving.htm

actually, I "mediatated" on "See the lillies of the field.." for 30 days straight, to the exclusion of all other thoughts. I could not speak to people for 6 months. In 6 months time I never uttered 1 word from my mouth. It's a little hard to contemplate a snow flake at Pike's Peak, Colorado, while meditating for over an hour (more likely 7 hours), seeing that your life is less than that snow flake coming down across the mountain (which have been there for millions of years), and then listening to trivial problems like divorce, love, children problems, school and work.

It was very hard to go back into the world afterwards.

http://www.dailyzen.com/ :
"Who will prefer the jingle of jade pendants
If they once have heard the stone
Growing in a cliff?"

http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/faq.html

 

[chadbang]

Quote:

actually, I "meditated" on "See the lillies of the field.." for 30 days straight, to the exclusion of all other thoughts. I could not speak to people for 6 months.

In some ways I admire that and in some ways it scares me.

Honestly, when I think I'm on the border of going a little nutty, it's because I'm obsessing about something - one thought, one idea running through my brain too much. I sort of think madness is obsessive, repetitive thought. While "see the lillies of the field" is a pleasant enough image, I don't see how becoming obssessed with any single thought is that much different or healthier than, say, the thought "the aliens are coming" that might play over and over again in the mind of a psychotic.

I remember a great short story I read as a kid (can't remember the title or author) about someone who writes the perfect melody. The problem is, like a jingle you can't get out of your head, the melody is so perfect it becomes your single thought and you become a bit of a zombie/psycotic once you hear it.

The end of the story is the composer sitting staring into space with a smile on his face and the narrator wondering whether to feel sorry for the songwriter or to envy him. He's a veggie, but blissed-out veggie.

I guess my point is: Is being a blissed-out veggie really a good thing?

Well, I guess if you're single...

 

[fractus2]

Quote:

Originally posted by Pepsione1 This has been bothering me for quite a while now. I find myself unable to concentrate all the times. Especially when it comes to putting thoughts together to come to a conclusion. I always get drifted away pretty easily. ie. If I was thinking about getting up to get an apple to eat, I would then think apple is healthy for you, then I would think I should get my yearly teeth checkup, next comes my wisdom teeth and getting it pulled but I couldn't bare the pain and maybe I should get it done next summer.

Sounds like you'd be very good at chess.

 

[Ctn]

Quote:

Originally posted by wallijonn What about you?

You wouldn't believe me if I told you

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by wallijonn if you know that a certain train of thought will lead to pain - why do you allow it to continue to completion?

Because thoughts just arise, there's no question of allowing or denying thoughts. The thinker is itself a thought, or pattern of thoughts -- the sense of "being myself"... another idea or thought, and not in control of anything.

 

[MD1032]

Sometimes I drift in school, but when taking a test I'm usually pretty focused. The only time I am completely focused is when I'm playing video games such as Descent

then nothing can take me away from it. Also, whenever I'm in deep concentration and someone disturbs me, I become very angry for some reason.