Silence

[resonant]

I had a strange experience yesterday, though I despair of being able to convey it in words.

I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I have a very chattery brain. If you come upon me unexpectedly, you'll usually catch me talking to myself; this is the only way I can hear my thoughts over my, well, other thoughts. If I wake up in the middle of the night, there'll already be a song in my head. It's very noisy in here.

Well, yesterday I walked to my coffee shop, had a mocha, and worked for a couple of hours. I completed a goal. Feeling very pleased with myself, I packed up my backpack and got ready to walk home --

And discovered that my brain had fallen silent.

There were no chains of thoughts, no ongoing arguments, no pileup of associations. Not even music. Thoughts floated into my head and floated out again.

It lasted twenty minutes, nearly all the way home.

I told the spouse about it and he said, "You're achieving enlightenment."

Comments

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Very strange, yes. I find I can tap back into it, but only for a second or two.

[twistedchick]

It may come and go more often, since you've had a prolonged period (20 minutes is fairly prolonged for a first time.)

I don't know your age, but I've also heard from at least one source that the ability to reach it has to do with age and (to some degree) with various kinds of brain development or ability to think -- which I kinda do and kinda don't buy into for various reasons. I don't think it has to do with intelligence per se, as in Stanford-Binet measureable.

I had brief periods of it (much shorter than yours) for a while, then last year was faced with a situation that showed me a truth I had not expected -- and it happened then and continued for several days. As you said, very restful. Since then, it has come and go, not necessarily when expected.
There have been other side effects, beneficial though not necessarily explanable. If you want to talk about it more, I can be reached in email.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Hm. I'm 44. I feel increasingly scatter-brained and distractible as I get older, so it's nice to think that there's a bonus to the aging brain.

(this reminds me of a study I once read about -- women always say that they feel stupider once they have a baby, and apparently scientists tested the intelligence of mice after giving birth. They discovered that the mice were more intelligent after giving birth -- but theorized that if giving birth gave you, say, a 2% IQ boost, having a small baby required about 4% more intelligence, making you feel stupider overall!)