Help Why I can only do deep thinking about my life and its problems during late-night? All of my creative introspections happen only during this time

[Ethereal Knight]

The whole day passes by without a single deep thought about anything. Then late-night comes, around 0:00 AM and 4:00 AM, and suddenly I'm bombarded by an avalanche of deep, creative and bold thoughts about my life, its problems and solutions.

Some of them are great, in fact some of best ideas I've had were born during this time.

On the other hand, keeping this schedule destroys my health and makes me basically waste the next day, as I have to wake up 7:00 AM anyway, no matter at what time I sleep, because of circunstances outside my control (noisy neighbor who is doing his job).

Is there a reason for this weird phenomenon?

What could I possibly do instead, to have this crazy creativity and instrospection during a normal schedule?

Thanks for the help!

 

[QuietEnd]

Is there a pattern to the environment e.g. quiet, dark etc.? You could replicate this e.g. noise cancelling ear buds, black out curtains

What's the pattern of your thoughts to get to the deep aspects? E.g. do you start reflecting on your day etc. You could start to deliberately think about this earlier in the day when it suits you

 

[obafgkm]

With electric lights inside and light pollution outside, it's difficult to say when is day and when is night. If one habitually stays awake 0000-0400, is that the person's day or night?

Probably when the surrounding is more quiet, 0000-0400, the brain doesn't have to deal with external noise. It's free to have deeper and more weird thoughts.

 

[whywere]

This is just my thoughts. I would have a pen and paper or electronic device handy and write down so of the ideas/thoughts and the next day see if any of it comes back and if so, or if not work on them some. I would over time during the day see if the cognitive aspects come into play, when one could be 100% devoted to it and work on tweaking oneself into thinking about these creative thoughts then. I would not push myself or be harsh, as over time it may at least only happen once in a while during the night and start the flow of ideas during the day.

Like if I had a good idea come to me during the night, I would write it down in 2 parts and the next day look at the 1st part and see if it jogs my memory.

Good luck to you my good friend and take care.

Walter

 

[Ethereal Knight]

thank you for the answers!

I'm gonna try some of these suggestions to do my instrospection during the day. I'm tired of sleep deprivation.

apparently I'm not alone in this, I just saw this tweet:

 

[JealousOfTheElderly]

I also do my deepest thinking in the middle of the night during bouts of insomnia

 

[Cosmic dust]

Do you give yourself time to think these things in the middle of the day?

 

[Ethereal Knight]

Do you give yourself time to think these things in the middle of the day?

I think I do. I'll pay more attention to that. maybe stay some time without doing any particular activity, so my mind can wonder.

the night feels different.

I start to get sleep deprivation symptoms naturally after about 8 PM, even if I slept well. it's normal. maybe these symptoms get me to a drunk-like state…

I think one possibility is that, given yhst my medication (amitriptyline) has so short half-life and I'm young and metabolize it fast, it's possible that in my last hours I experience some acute withdrawn syndrome and get euphoric, active and optimist (hypomania). I know this happens, I know my drug very well as I've been using it for more than half a decade, but I still don't know if that's the reason for my insights.

I'll keep on making experiments.

 

[Cosmic dust]

@Ethereal Knight I said that because the only times I had something like that, I had a full and stressful day, new unresolved problems, and almost no stop to think and process it all (when I finally had free time, I choose to ocupy myself with something like games or tv), that coupled with excessive consumption of caffeine, no physical activity and other bad habits.

Just my 2 cents about it, I don't normally have insomnia.

 

[Shadow Life]

I agree with what others of have said. Me too, almost all of my insights come in the evening or nighttime. For me, it's because there are no screen distractions, job stresses, or other responsibilities that need to be done. It's like my mind is (finally) free to wander and process the day's events. Kind of like a dream-state where our mind is calm enough to build a puzzle..fitting the pieces together, so to speak. How to do that in the daytime? whywere gave good advice about trying to create a similar environment of calm, low-lights, etc. Also, a pen and pad or a cell phone works great, too!! (I often use my phone's voicememos app to record my thoughts.)

 

[Ethereal Knight]

I agree with what others of have said. Me too, almost all of my insights come in the evening or nighttime. For me, it's because there are no screen distractions, job stresses, or other responsibilities that need to be done. It's like my mind is (finally) free to wander and process the day's events. Kind of like a dream-state where our mind is calm enough to build a puzzle..fitting the pieces together, so to speak. How to do that in the daytime? whywere gave good advice about trying to create a similar environment of calm, low-lights, etc. Also, a pen and pad or a cell phone works great, too!! (I often use my phone's voicememos app to record my thoughts.)

I agree! it makes a lot of sense.

we need silence, both external and internal. the world is too loud nowadays.

but back in the time when I created the thread, I was, most of the time at least, on low-dose amitriptyline for treating insomnia, which is a drug that has relatively short half-life, we can actually feel its effects weaning away at the end of the day if we took a low dose the day before (like 25mg), and they can get replaced by an elevated mood, euphoria-like state, basically a withdrawal-induced hypomania. then you take the drug again and the euphoria is replaced by sleepyness and sedation again.

it turns out that this was playing a big factor in my end of the day optimism, hope and creativity.

people who take higher doses of this drug don't feel that, but if the dose is low enough, you can start feeling this withdrawal 22-25h after the last dose.

and now I can understand why they say that people with bipolar can be very creative, they have hypomania and even mania. I don't have it, but this withdrawal-induced hypomania was very pleasant, although the drug itself, quite honestly, was very bad.