Me and my teacher were having a debate. I dont know how we got to it but i Said "You cant controll your thoughts" and he said thats the mentaility Child molesteros and pedafiles have. Then i said if i told you to not think about girls the whole day could you ?
but what do you think can you controll your thoughts
2007-12-20 08:23:42 · 4 answers · asked by 5445 1 in Social Science ➔ Psychology
You can indeed control your thoughts to a certain degree. It's called concentrating. You can't not think about a certain thing because to understand that thing which you're not suppose to think about you are in fact thinking about it. Your mind isn't just a random machine throwing thoughts around for you to experience. You are in control of your mind and your thoughts, that's how it is for me I guess. Maybe it depends on the level of consciousness you posses I don't know. But my opinion is that thoughts can be controlled.. I do it all the time as I think all great people do..
2007-12-20 08:34:01 · answer #1 · answered by A Curious boy 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That's a fun topic to discuss. I wish I had your teacher.
Well, this is what I think (and I'm no genus, so take what you want)...There are both unconscious and conscious thoughts. Perhaps thinking about girls is an unconscious response to human sexual instincts. If you satisfy your need, then that thought may go away for some time (unless you are developing or something). So in that way, you can control your unconscious thoughts. You can satisfy it or tune it down. However, unconscious needs are usually combined with physiological responses, like a growling belly with continuous thoughts of Big Macs. So that may be a reason why those thoughts tend to stick around, because your body doesn't let you forget the irritation.
As far as pedophiles goes, they become obsessed with children. Things like that usually happen because of psychological trauma somewhere in their life. Those are special cases, should not be compared to the general population, and they need to seek therapy before they commit a crime.
Conscious thoughts go with your flow of desires or needs and you can replace a thought with another one if you want, unless it's an unfulfilled need deep from the unconscious. Those, I suspect, are stronger and reappear when you least expect it, like thinking about girls during an exam (That would suck!).
Other repeating thoughts, like that one annoying song, are more likely the result of you having nothing better to replace it with or the fact that you hate it so much that you keep thinking why did it become popular at all.
2007-12-20 08:56:21 · answer #2 · answered by flirtingoof 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think we are a great deal in control of our thoughts. For the ones we don't seem in control of, we still have the control over the actions we take or not from them.
2007-12-20 08:41:18 · answer #3 · answered by savahna5 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
To an extent, yes... otherwise how would you ever be able to recall something on purpose? or focus in on one thing?
2007-12-20 08:29:53 · answer #4 · answered by pip 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋