Do people exist who CAN stop thinking?

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A while back I read through the "Do you ever feel like you can't stop thinking?" thread and now I can't stop thinking about it. I guess I just always assumed that a constant stream of thought was part of the human condition. But as long as the thread got, nobody mentioned that possibility.

I am not 100% sure that I am NT, but I think I am and I can not stop thinking, either. It takes me a long time to fall asleep because of it and if I wake up at night it is very difficult to fall back asleep due to the stream of thoughts.

As an example, this morning I had a 30 minute solitary conversation in my mind about whether or not it really helps keep garbage out of landfills if I buy string cheese that isn't individually packaged. I mean, the ones that are individually packages already exist...it's not as if my personal effort to not buy them is going to keep them out of a landfill. They won't evaporate because I didn't choose them. And it would take an army of people deciding not to choose them to actually affect the company in a way that they quit producing them...And that is only an example of some of the time-wasting thoughts that trample their way endlessly through my mind.

So while AS may cause those thoughts to be more focused on one subject...I think you are rather safe feeling a little more connected with all of the human race if you can't turn your thoughts off. Or I am closer to the AS side of things than I thought.

I think this "can't stop thinking" stuff is truly Asperger's. I've watched my husband and both sons do this. I only do it when I'm under stress, but they often do it about all sorts of things. The sons have trouble falling asleep -- the husband has trouble getting back to sleep if he wakes up -- because he'll just wake up and start thinking about things.

I know several people who were able to stop thinking. Unfortunately they are all dead.

ruveyn

"Can't stop thinking" is a continuum.

On that continuum is the experience of racing thoughts people get when they can't sleep or have bipolar disorder, the experience of perseveration or obsessional thinking that aspies and OCD people have, and the ordinary stream of consciousness and monkey-mind that every meditator knows. Now, although I paired these items, don't think that I put each pair at one point. Each type of experience occurs at different intensities.

We will have to leave it to the brain researchers one day to say which are the "same" kind of thinking in the same parts of the brain. For me it's enough to say it's a continuum and we can develop some control.

In a figurative sense, any person who blindly follows rote dogma - whether political, religious, or cultural - is guilty of thoughtlessness.

For when everybody thinks the same, only one person is thinking.

There are meditation techniques that are specifically intended to quiet the chattering of the mind, by observing thoughts arise without engaging them or identifying with them, until the mind becomes quiet and still and formless consciousness is experienced. So yeah, there are people who can stop thinking, but they are yogis or Zen masters who have put a lot of effort into doing so.

Actually no! Most humans do not habitually engage in what you call thinking! At least half of the populace follow their emotional whims, as animals do, equating their emotions as "instincts" and so justifying their self indulgent lack of discipline.

It should be obvious, but "thinking" is what makes homo sapiens!

I often find that my thought processes become very rambling and over-excited if I have been drinking a fairly large amount of caffeine throughout the day (say, more than three or more cups of tea) which can be pretty annoying if its late and I can't get to sleep, simply because my mind won't shut up....arrrgh, I need to cut down on my tea drinking.

So...most humans aren't homo sapiens?

Homo sapiens sapiens, actually.

the problem is not that you can't stop thinking. I can't stop thinking since I was a child, I sleep 3 hours a day and I have realized that's always going to be with me. I try to add new things to my routine in order to stop thinking and insinting on sameness. I will try to watch cartoons or tv series in order to stop thinking, but it's really hard to find something that can replace the things I focus on

Ruveyn--lol! That is what I was thinking.