What do you think? How many thoughts can we consciously think at a time?

Answer 1

i can do a few at a time for example i am thinking about typing this and listening to cd music and getting the tea ready

what i find really hard is trying to think of nothing

when i do that i usallt think about thinking about nothing i think it is impossible to close my head of thoughts

it might be due to depression, or medication though but i am sure i probably can think of about 5 or 6 different things at a time

Answer 2

hey skycat!
I don't think that it is fair to speak for anyone else except for the individual that is responding to the question.

If you can multi task, carry on a conversation, read, etc. then you have the capacity to think of many things and sort out things into categories as you go.

At a time? Per second, per topic, per task?

Usually you begin with a single thought, it becomes an idea or a dream, the idea and or dream becomes a reality. Processing! How fast?? Any professionals out there who can study this??
Our brain is a miracle, just like the heart and every other part of us. It is a stimuli, processor, storage compartment, and everything else one can think of at a time.

People who speak fast (like auctioneers), read fast, move fast, how in the heck can they respond so fast?? Everybody is different and each is very unique! So what may come easy for some may be impossible for others to deliver the same conclusions.

Great question to stimulate the brain for more thoughts. We need more intelligent questions to stimulate the hardest working muscle we have. Good job!

Answer 3

It depends on what you mean by thoughts and what you mean by conscious. For example, say you look down a street and you could have the thought "I'm looking down a street". Depending on what you count as a thought, you could also register "I see a red car" "There's a woman walking a dog" "I really need to pee right now" and "It's cooling down from what it was like earlier today". In that situation, that's many more 'thoughts'.

'Consciously' also is a fuzzy term, because you may perceive or notice things without having any explicit statement 'in your mind' at the time (like the red car and woman walking the dog), and at any given time, you have some level of awareness of many of your bodily and mental states (i need to pee, i'm really calm right now, etc). you might be asking how many facts one can recall, or how many complex tasks can be accomplished in parallel, or something else entirely.

I'll try to give a mini answer for both of those possibilities:

One way you could ask this question is how many things can one remember at a time - and in classic Psychology, there is a known limited capacity of short term memory for chunks of information that is approximately 7 +/- 2 chunks. That means you could, in your working memory, think about and recall about 7 chunks of information. This of course, gets thrown out the window if you look at how people think in the real world. Also, if you know the thing you are trying to recall things that you know pretty well or have heuristics for remembering, then you can recall much more information.

If you're asking this in terms of multitasking, then you could ask this in terms of how many tasks you can do in parallel. Studies in organizational psychology have demonstrated that people perform optimally when they are focusing on one and only one task at a time rather than trying to manage two things simultaneously. This is also in line with ideas that have been prominent in eastern religions (zen buddhism for example) and meditative practices.

Answer 4

I'm laughing at the "it depends on what you mean by ..." answers.
Recent medical articles that I have read say that you cannot consciously/literally do 2 things at once. This would mean that there is no such thing as multitasking.
Since thoughts often spur action, one would assume that you can only think of one thing at a time. (Assuming the action is conscious, and not reflexive, automatic, like breathing or twitching.)
For me, this brings up the simple example of patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time, and why we have different parts of the same brain that control certain functions. Why would we, with brains so complex, only be able to think of one thing at a time? Why, then, would we have Freudian slips?

Answer 5

It depends, a normal person can usually process between 4-6 thoughts at once. Any more than that, we begin to experience information overload.

Answer 6

Wait you are in queue
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LOL
I don't know, I think atleast some 5-8 at a time

Answer 7

2 or maybe even 3 but i think your concentration never really varies with the number as in if your thinking about one thing it's 100% concentration but if your thinking about 2 other things aswel it's only got one third of your concentration, if your lucky

Answer 8

I personally think we could think numerous of thoughts at one time and when we do that cause us to become confused or very forget full.simple

Answer 9

i have one thought all the time and it is killing me
i think hat no more then one cause when it looks like two or more you are drifting and think things one after the other
but thats what i think i no nothing on how de brain works

Answer 10

not only does that depend on a persons mental condition ;education; age etc... it depends on whatever the task it is ur doing at a certain time