#mindwandering

“Indeed, rumination is the hallmark not only of clinical depression but also of other psychiatric disorders that involve mood, such as anxiety, addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, and more. (…)

One standard questionnaire is called the Ruminative Responses Scale, developed by the late pioneer Susan Nolen-Hoeksema and her colleagues.

Here it is in full:

Please read each of the items below and indicate whether you almost never, sometimes, often, or almost always think or do each one when you feel down, sad, or depressed.

Please indicate what you generally do, not what you think you should do.

1 almost never 2 sometimes 3 often 4 almost always

think about how alone you feel

think “I won’t be able to do my job if I don’t snap out of this”

think about your feelings of fatigue and achiness

think about how hard it is to concentrate

think “What am I doing to deserve this?”

think about how passive and unmotivated you feel 

analyze recent events to try to understand why you are depressed 

think about how you don’t seem to feel anything anymore 

think “Why can’t I get going?” 

think “Why do I always react this way?” 

go away by yourself and think about why you feel this way 

write down what you are thinking about and analyze it 

think about a recent situation, wishing it had gone better 

think “I won’t be able to concentrate if I keep feeling this way” 

think “Why do I have problems other people don’t have?” 

think “Why can’t I handle things better?” 

think about how sad you feel 

think about all your shortcomings, failings, faults, mistakes 

think about how you don’t feel up to doing anything 

analyze your personality to try to understand why you are depressed 

go someplace alone to think about your feelings 

think about how angry you are with yourself

(…)In normal levels of inhibition, our mind is still given the mental space to be sufficiently associative. 

In negative mood and in depression, however, there is excessive inhibition, and as a result the extent of associative activation is severely constrained.

In other words, overinhibition diminishes our ability to disengage from cyclical thinking and debilitating rumination.

Underinhibition, on the other hand, can cause hallucinations in its extreme because of activation of superfluous associations, as in schizophrenia.

“Top-down processing means reliance on past experience, memory, context, goals, and predictions, which precede and shape perception by streaming down from high cortical levels that store all this accumulated knowledge. 

Bottom-up processing, on the other hand, conveys the direct input from our senses, without facilitation (and possible distortion) from higher areas in the cortical hierarchy, simply the cortical responses to the physical stimulation perceived from the environment. 

In most perceptions, cognitions, emotions, and actions, our brains operate by combining both top-down and bottom-up influences to different degrees, with different relative emphases assigned to the downstream and upstream effects depending on a host of factors. (…)

Theoretically, in “successful” meditation, with enough practice, and the desired highest standard of full mindfulness, top-down processes are turned off. 

This is indeed how I see meditation works, helping us appreciate the very present by diminishing the involvement of top-down processes that take us elsewhere in time and space, being able to enjoy looking at that bird on a tree in front of us, uninterrupted and unbothered by concerns, goals, judgments, and expectations. 

How much top-down information is taken into account and how much bottom-up determines your state of mind at that moment. (…)

Most of it is automatic and outside the realm of consciousness or voluntary control, triggered by external cues from our environment and by internal signals and thoughts.

“Subjectively, it seems that our thoughts come and go, sometimes they stay a little longer, but basically it is the same train of thought with only the topics changing.

But thoughts can be surrounding the same topic for a long time or jump associatively from one thought to another;

they can be narrow or broad in the scope of the semantic ground that they cover; they can go fast or slow;

they can be intended thoughts or intrusive thoughts; they can be generated from within or triggered by a stimulus in our environment; and they can be words, images, or sounds.

There are different thought patterns and many more than one type of thinking. 

By type, or pattern, of thinking, it is meant here the process of thinking proper, not the content of thought. It is how the car drives, not who is inside that car. (…)

Associative thinking can be fast or slow, even if in both cases the concepts expand by association.

When it is fast, it is akin to manic thinking and can be exhilarating.

Associative thinking is linked with different states and personality traits, predispositions, talents, and disorders.

Highly associative thinking is tied with creativity, as manifested by extraordinary insights and original problem solving, for example. 

Individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are highly associative and tend to be more creative (but less so when medicated). 

When people are overly associative, seeing links when they are considered just loose associations for the rest of us, or where there are none, they may be diagnosed with delusions and psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. 

Let your thoughts run wild, unfiltered, untamed. The best ideas bloom when your mind is free to drift beyond the ordinary—no limits, no expectations, just pure possibility. 🌙✨

For example: I think back to the time I got really angry at my mom for giving our cat away without telling me. In the moment, I was so upset with her, but when I think about it now I don’t feel that anger anymore. However, when I think back to the time I visited my old cat after my mom gave him away, I still cry when I remember him seeing me, hissing, and swatting at me.