Scientifically speaking

Mind Games

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The first obvious question to be asked is, what is mind? Mind can be loosely defined as a collection of thoughts accumulated in your brain. This is a definition I have come up with, although experts would be able define it with more precision.

I started thinking about this because of occurrences of very general nature, which I am sure, all of you have encountered time and again, but have not particularly paid attention. Think of a scenario when at the end of a very tiring day, you are about to hit the bed and just then, someone says something, or you receive a phone call from someone about something. This starts a train of thoughts in your mind and however much you try, your whirring mind does not allow you to sleep. The more you try to shut off the mind, the more active it becomes. Similar thing happens when some incidence during the day keeps you awake for a long time. People tell you to divert your thoughts to something else like counting something imaginary, but you know it doesn’t help.

There is a game which is very interesting. You are given a word, say elephant, and you are told not to think about elephant for the next five minutes. It is impossible. Try it yourself. It is not possible not to think of something in particular.

The only time you can slow down your mind is when you are doing a specific task with lot of concentration. At that moment, it is possible to (almost) shut off everything else from your mind, as you are trying to concentrate on a particular thing.

This brings us to the most difficult question. Is it ever possible, not to think of anything? Many gurus will tell you yes, it is possible. Do meditation. But no, you may be able to calm down your mind by meditation, but, you will not be able to shut it down.

The other interesting aspect of mind is how one thinks. You will realize that most of the time you are talking to yourself. Not only that, you think in a specific language. Most of the times it is your mother tongue, but that is not always the case. You also think in other languages.

This brings up another question. How animals think? They think for sure, since they make decisions. But, how? They don’t know language in our conventional sense. I at least don’t have an answer to this.

I can think of only one scenario when your mind will be completely blank. Death! Science says your brain stops, so it will be blank. But question is, can you imagine yourself dead with a blank mind?