So this is going to be quite poorly composed due to the fact that I literally just woke up, but oh well. I had an amazing epiphany while I was laying there in the nebulous stage between sleeping and cracking my eyes to meet the harsh world once again, and I was thinking. I don't even remember what I was thinking about now, and this happened maybe ten minutes ago. Probably AP Tests or the school musical (Man of la Mancha!!!) or The Great Gatsby or something, since that's honestly all that occupies my mind these days.
But anyway, I was laying there thinking about various events and occurrences, becoming slowly more aware of the warm, sunlit room around me and the fact that I'd fallen asleep with my phone in my hand once again, thus forgetting to plug it in to charge and ending up with an awkward, floppy, sleepy hand again. I was deciding what I wanted to spend my day doing, how much I needed to accomplish, and how to go about avoiding getting sidetracked (by blogging, for instance....oops). I realized I'd overslept my chance to tell someone special goodbye before they began a 14 hour shift at work, and I was briefly mad at myself.
And I was doing all of this completely silently, without moving, without disturbing anyone, completely inside of my mind.
No duh, you must be saying to yourself, you were thinking. Of course you were silent. If everyone thought out loud all of the time, everyone would be super irritated, there would be no secrets, no privacy, and no silence. Taking tests would be horrible.
Indeed, I reply. But have you ever thought about how incredible it is? We are able to have an entirely private, silent, in depth conversation with ourselves, any time of the day, in any place, on any subject. We do it without even trying. We don't even realize we are debating or reasoning or making decisions half the time. We slip in and out of daydreams without even noticing; have our favorite (or least favorite, if you are unfortunate) songs play in our heads until we block them out with other music or intense concentration; and picture circumstances that happened recently, long ago, or maybe haven't even happened yet, and contemplate different outcomes if something is done differently. We base decisions on our experiences from the past and goals for the future, both consciously and unconsciously; build stories and evaluations of ourselves and the world; memorize formulas for the next physics test; recall information we learned long ago to solve problems; and creatively improve a process or experience. And we do all of this, without even meaning to, while our brain tells the rest of our body to function, tells us that our eyes itch from horrible spring allergies and allows our hands to move to scratch them, or that we need more rest or food or water and alerts us to those needs. Our brain tells us what we need, and then we think about what we want. It amazes me.
If you think about it, we started thinking before we could speak. Babies cry because they can feel that they are hungry, or because they realize that their parents have left them alone and they want to have them back. They learn what home looks, feels, and smells like, differentiate between people, learn how to play with toys and grow more and more independent, all long before they can walk and talk. They must be thinking somehow, or else they wouldn't show any emotion.
But wait, babies can't talk. And they can't understand much of what we say to them either, because they haven't learned yet. So how are they thinking? Do they not think in English? Or Spanish? French? German? Mandarin? Arabic?
How do we think? Do we ponder in our own spoken language? Sometimes, I suppose. When we are writing or reading (which also amazes me) or deciding what to say. But then if we learn a foreign language (or 2 or 3 or 4...) do we begin to think in those languages as well? Even when we aren't speaking or writing in those languages? What about when we are solving a math problem? Do our thoughts form in numbers and formulas? Do we think in visual images? Sometimes, of course. Daydreams are visual, so realistic in fact that they sometimes block out the world we should be observing instead.
What is that little voice inside your head? What does it sound like? Does it sound like anything at all, or is it just a stream of information? Can you really hear it at all? It's obviously not an actual sound wave making your eardrums rattle, so then, what is it?
Do our thoughts follow logical sequences and sentences, or do we think in jumbled fragments and bits?
Do animals think? When you stare into your fish tank, are your fish thinking about who you are or longing for food or perhaps even being frightened? What about bugs? Birds? Leopards and cheetahs and tigers and housecats? Dogs and wolves? Bears? Dolphins and whales and narwhals? Do they think, have memories, and show emotion? Because they certainly can't speak to us and express those thoughts except through their actions. And we all know that we can think about something without acting on it.
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UPDATE 11:22 pm:
So being the nerdy night owl that I am, I just discovered this oddly coincidental Ted Talk about the brain by Jill Bolte Taylor...
Enjoy :)
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