You would think the when people say your thoughts sometimes travel a mile a minute it is solely a metaphor, there's no way your thoughts could actually go so fast, otherwise you wouldn't be able to keep track of what you're thinking about! Well, I have news for you - my thoughts feel like they're literally traveling at light speed...
Throughout the school year, I was determined to never witness the time 3a.m.. I promised myself the sleep would be my priority and I would maintain a healthy sleep schedule since without sleep I become almost unbearably anxious. This whole pandemic situation has pretty much completely screwed that up for me.
Here I am, it’s 3 in the morning on a Sunday night (I guess it’s technically Monday morning) and I’m laying in my bed with my mind running a mile a minute.
It’s interesting how thinking about your thoughts can overwhelm you, and here’s what I mean by that:
Laying in the dark just now - before I opened my phone to type this in my notes - I was simultaneously thinking about the blueberries I finished painting the other day, the apple I want to paint next, a video of a stingray I saw in Facebook, how I should edit my essay due next week, and part of a fence I finished of the 1000 piece puzzle we’re currently working on, all while also singing along to Falling by Harry Styles in my head.
What overwhelmed me was acknowledging the fact that I was thinking about all of these things at the same time. I could then add to the list that I was thinking about how I could possibly be thinking about all of those things all together. Then I could add that I was then thinking about a good way to word all of it for a blog post. They’re all completely separate thoughts in my mind and I can visualize all of them on their own, but somehow all of those individual thoughts were grabbing for my attention at a time when I really just wanted to be asleep.
Part of me wonders how it would be possible to have so many separate thoughts in focus at one time. Surely you would think of one, then move onto the next, and so on, right? Apparently not. All of these thoughts, no matter how random or irrelevant they were, were vying for my attention all at the same time. I didn't have time to process what the apple looked like before the stingray swam into focus, and I didn't have time to wonder why on Earth I was thinking about a stingray before Harry Styles leapt into the spotlight to deliver a beautiful melody.
Part of me wonders if all of those thoughts were grabbing for my attention to distract me as I’m becoming more and more desperate to find something to think about that isn’t related to the coronavirus, as that situation is also steadily becoming more and more overwhelming for my mind. Another part of me wonders if it's just a sleep deprived mind deliriously swimming around in a pool of nonsense doing everything it can to keep me awake.
I don’t know if there is a scientific explanation for racing thoughts at 3 a.m., my psychology class never entered into the reasoning for neural pathway activity, just the structure of the pathways themselves...
What I do know is that thinking about your thoughts as thoughts often takes you in circles. Then you try to figure out how to navigate all of those circles and why they're all overlapping and the next thing you know the Olympic Rings take centre stage in my mind and I'm back to thinking about the COVID-19 pandemic and how it may seriously affect the 2020 Summer Olympics...
As much as I want a break from seeing, hearing, thinking and talking about the coronavirus, at this point I think it's more like I want a break from any and all thoughts. Some peace and quiet would be nice.
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