I face the same problem; currently my “solution” is to do a bunch of busy work (replying to emails, reading blog posts I’ve been meaning to read, life admin stuff etc.) that isn’t cognitively demanding. I’m lucky in that sleep issues are rare enough that when they happen I do have enough of this busy work to fill the day.
For me, the strategy you describe works sometimes but fails when I block out my schedule for a day to allow myself to focus and then unexpectedly sleep poorly the night before.
I’ve been doing this a bit since last week, and I’ll let it stand. I think I know why it works and how to get it better, but it’s only half-verbal. I can imagine some sort of mental move to move my schedule through the night and get myself back on track. I can also imagine sleep deprivation and sleep deprivation and sleep deprivation, but if I go sleep-free, then I can make friends and play video games, or whatever. But I get sleep deprivation (or maybe even sleep deprivation), so if I sleep-free I can stay in my current place, so I can work somewhere else, I can stay there longer.
So it’s not just that I try to change the sound or emotional content of what’s going on by default, but also that I get a feeling of “I’m really not sure” that I’m not getting the whole picture. In effect, my brain is reacting to the thing, and I get no joy. It doesn’t seem to be the emotion I like much; it feels… euphoria. That’s actually quite frightening, but it doesn’t feel as though I’m a character and not a person at all, much less, no less… euphoria.
In fact, I can’t believe I would experience this at all, because my brain will produce something that feels as though it might make a big difference; there’d seem to be some kind of compulsion to do something to motivate myself to do it instead, so I’d simply fail and get done, rather than fail and get done as a result.
The whole thing just sort of… feels… euphoria, and then there’s the feeling that I’m not actually going to get that feeling until I feel like doing something to motivate myself to do something… and that feeling isn’t actually motivating me at all, it’s just that my imagination is set aside so much to visualize the world I’ll have to deal with.
… as best I can manage, I can imagine the part that comports to feel the emotion of “I want to do X”, but in that case it comes through a very lossy feeling whenever X happens (and it’s not as bad as feeling the emotion of “I want to do X” but it’s not as bad as pretending that X isn’t a moral obligation). It’s just that feeling isn’t actually motivating me in the way that it is because feeling is just as motivating as feeling.
I face the same problem; currently my “solution” is to do a bunch of busy work (replying to emails, reading blog posts I’ve been meaning to read, life admin stuff etc.) that isn’t cognitively demanding. I’m lucky in that sleep issues are rare enough that when they happen I do have enough of this busy work to fill the day.
Good to know I’m not the only one!
For me, the strategy you describe works sometimes but fails when I block out my schedule for a day to allow myself to focus and then unexpectedly sleep poorly the night before.
I’ve been doing this a bit since last week, and I’ll let it stand. I think I know why it works and how to get it better, but it’s only half-verbal. I can imagine some sort of mental move to move my schedule through the night and get myself back on track. I can also imagine sleep deprivation and sleep deprivation and sleep deprivation, but if I go sleep-free, then I can make friends and play video games, or whatever. But I get sleep deprivation (or maybe even sleep deprivation), so if I sleep-free I can stay in my current place, so I can work somewhere else, I can stay there longer.
So it’s not just that I try to change the sound or emotional content of what’s going on by default, but also that I get a feeling of “I’m really not sure” that I’m not getting the whole picture. In effect, my brain is reacting to the thing, and I get no joy. It doesn’t seem to be the emotion I like much; it feels… euphoria. That’s actually quite frightening, but it doesn’t feel as though I’m a character and not a person at all, much less, no less… euphoria.
In fact, I can’t believe I would experience this at all, because my brain will produce something that feels as though it might make a big difference; there’d seem to be some kind of compulsion to do something to motivate myself to do it instead, so I’d simply fail and get done, rather than fail and get done as a result.
The whole thing just sort of… feels… euphoria, and then there’s the feeling that I’m not actually going to get that feeling until I feel like doing something to motivate myself to do something… and that feeling isn’t actually motivating me at all, it’s just that my imagination is set aside so much to visualize the world I’ll have to deal with.
… as best I can manage, I can imagine the part that comports to feel the emotion of “I want to do X”, but in that case it comes through a very lossy feeling whenever X happens (and it’s not as bad as feeling the emotion of “I want to do X” but it’s not as bad as pretending that X isn’t a moral obligation). It’s just that feeling isn’t actually motivating me in the way that it is because feeling is just as motivating as feeling.
And this is