When your brain gets stuck

[onlything]

Sometimes, my brain gets stuck on something. It can do it due to different things: a memory, a specific thought, an overhelming emotion, a faulty idea, a song, an image. At times, it can even be just a word where I will keep repeating it aloud or in my thoughts for hours at a time. For example, a shape for a design I like but a shape that is simply not working well and that needs to be changed but to which my thoughts gravitate towards. Or for example a sentence that my brain suddenly liked yesterday and that keeps running in circles around my head since then.

It can be good at times, but mostly it's like a software error. Does it happen to you? How do you deal with it?

 

[LucyPurrs]

Yes occasionally when trying to sleep. I just let it run it's course.

 

[clg114]

I have always had a need to find concepts that are new to me and study them until I understand them. A few years ago I found something that I got stuck on. I still research it once in a while, but I am still not seeing it. Just as you can not teach a dog to add or subtract, because it is beyond what his brain can understand. I think I have found the limit of what I can understand. I am stuck. However, I can add and subtract.

 

[Autistamatic]

Many's the time I've experienced this and been kept awake at night. If I can't resolve it I try to put it out of my conscious mind. Inevitably some days, weeks or months later I'll suddenly remember and know the answer. It feels like there is a deeply unconscious level of my mind that keeps working on the problem in the background.

 

[Tony Ramirez]

Though it was me. A song video clip or saying gets into my head and I can't get it out.

Example I have been watching this clip all week.
Warning it can be addictive to Aspies.

And I don't even like Adult Swim anymore.

 

[Fino]

Sometimes telling someone about it helps.

 

[Ken S.]

I have been problem solving, re-engineering most of my life. Most times when I got stuck I would leave it and start another project. Many times the answer would come to me in my sleep & I would get up and write it down as not to forget it.

 

[Progster]

Yes, it happens. I'm sure it happens for a reason, perhaps I because I need to process something. A stim for the brain, perhaps. It doesn't bother me, unless I'm trying to get to sleep

 

[Major Tom]

I have the same problem with songs and sometimes movie quotes.

 

[Gracey]

‘A stim for the brain’ brilliant

I was about to describe it not as a software error but a vinyl record with a small scratch.

Perhaps seen it on films, movies ?
The needle is on the vinyl, the turntable rotates it slowly and the tune plays,
Then jumps backwards slightly and replays the same small section over and over and over ...
Until someone does something about it.

 

[Monachopia]

Yes, this happens. Not too regularly, thankfully, but sometimes I get stuck in a memory and reality feels like a dream. Sometimes for days at a time. Songs get stuck and go on a repeat loop, even in my sleep. I wake up with them playing in my head. When a series or a book or a movie really resonate, then it's playing out somehow in my reality - like I'm part of what I just watched or read. In the end, I guess I'm just processing the narrative until there's a resolution.

 

[Ken S.]

Forgot to mention in earlier post, I too have songs that play in my head and I hear them note for note like listening to the radio but different songs play like a playlist. It was very beneficial when I could work and personally I enjoy this gift.

 

[tlc]

When my brain gets stuck on a problem, only way to really make it go away is to work at it and find a solution. Then I want to get up in the middle of the night and try said solution but know I have to work in the morning so I just save it for later.

It can be bad at work and I probably appear zoned out because my screen doesn't show any activity for considerable blocks of time. I also have to double or triple check my work later on because during that time I am extremely prone to mistakes.

It gets stuck on music and things too. It's good when it gets stuck on music.