Unexplainable Boredom

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Does anyone else ever experience time of unbelievable boredom, where nothing will satisfy?
I've been in this situation many times where I'm feeling very bored so I pick up a book to read, then put it down after only reading a few lines, pick up a console, turn it on, then turn it back off again almost straight away, and not even a film will satisfy.
This drives me absolutely crazy, and I can't find any method to stop it.

If anyone else experiences this can they let me know and tell me what coping methods you've discovered that work, because I'm at my wits end

Oh yeah. It happens to me when I am in deep worry or grief about someone in the family. The only solution I know is the passage of time and being gentle on myself.

I can relate. I hate that. I do that a few times a year and it drives me (and consequently everyone in my house) nuts. I usually just have to let it run its course because if I try to do things to get myself out of my 'funk' and they do not work, I just get more frustrated and angry. The only thing that has ever worked for me is counterproductive to my ocd management. I do some things on automatic (like clean my house) and it eats time better than anything else so it seems to me that I get the funk out of my system faster. I also try to sleep a lot when I get like this. I have insomnia, so I usually have to eat some kind of sleep aid to help... but I have to go to bed early when I am like that or I stay up all night making myself insane and that makes it all a million times worse. I wish I had better advice for you. I hope someone else has some great solution, because I would love to hear it myself. I hope this passes for you soon.

Yeah, sounds very familiar.

How long does that boredom last for you? I've had it last for several days in the past but that might be because I'm home a lot.
No idea really about a solution. What I usually do is turn on the PC and surf around a bit in the hope something interesting catches my attention.

Yeah, kind of having that right now.
And for last several days.
How much of it would be health related from body causes other than mind causes?
There's plenty of projects and straightening up left over from rearranging one room.
But nothing is motivation.
I am bored and un-motivated.

Oh! UPS just delivered a kite ordered the other day. Yeah

Well, right there is something, I tend to go shopping when bored: either online or in store.
Can get expensive when it gets overdone.

For now there's an "I got new stuff" high.
Now, how long will it last?
Here's the Quantum Prism stunt kite and a kite bag which just came.
Gee, do ya wonder if that kite is big enough?

I get this way all the time. In fact I probably feel the way you describe for 80-90% of the time. I get into an empty mood and it's crippling. I don't want to do ANYTHING but surf the web and even that doesn't really satisfy my craving for stimulation. It's torture. One of the reasons I don't think I can survive on my own. I've written it down as a nasty symptom of depression but I think it's something more than that. Not all depressed people seem to have this insatiable boredom and emptiness as their worst symptom.

That's pretty much how I experience depression. I lose interest in everything. I lose the ability to feel much of anything...I feel empty and numb. I can't get excited about anything.

Normally I like cooking, working out, reading, playing my bass. I get no enjoyment from doing any of those things. I don't even like eating since even my favorite foods don't taste good anymore. There is nothing I want to do....well except sleep...and lucky for me I can....excessively. During the work week I can sleep 12-14 hours a night, and then on weekends I can sleep 16-20 hours a day....note...this is not normal or healthy, but sleep is the only thing that alleviates the boredom.

I probably spend about a third of my existence in this mode. Onset is usually sudden and inexplicable, not triggered by a clearly identifiable event. The "down" cycle lasts from a few days to a few weeks. Over the years there has been an overall tendency for more frequent, more severe and longer-lasting "down" periods. Accompanied by a desire for even more solitude than usual, these cycles are increasingly difficult to break. Usually only going away somewhere will help, but I can't be bothered to do that until at least some degree of spontaneous recovery from the depth of the cycle has occurred.

I also find being able to organise thoughts or concentrate on much of anything exceptionally difficult during these periods, and I am downgraded to "hopeless" when it comes to remembering important things I need to do. Some days even coherent speech is a challenge, so I tend not to talk much, other than to myself. Emotions are completely flat, other than the undertone of anxiety that is a permanent backdrop to my existence.

I am like this a good chunk of the time. I always try to have some sort of project going, but lately, I have been running low on ideas. I have considered taking up gardening, but I would need my own house, a place that I own, before it can be possible.

Yep. I feel the exact same way, and in my case I've figured it out. I need much more musical instruments and other assets in order to fully use my creativite skills. I could make music on the computer, but I don't like digital music. To be honest, I think it's like cheating when you're programming music. Too much control. I feel stuck in the ground. And I honestly don't have the economy to maintain all of my stuff right now, so saving is not really an option. That's also one of the reasons why I think I'm going to study music in a couple of years (just an estimation).

"Creativite skills" = Creative skills.

This sounds a lot like me, that doesn't usually happen. Although it never quite works for me, getting new instruments, it helps, so recently I put together a monome. Still, I keep thinking, I need something else.

Hehe, cool stuff. How's it working out for you?

Concerning the constant need for something else, I feel that too. And whenever I record something I'm filled with literally tens of ideas. Unless the song is very deep in sound, then it's only annoying with too many details.

It's coming along pretty well, but I've only been at it a month. It forces me to really think differently, as I can almost play multiple instruments at once and modify on the go. It's also changed how I see using the computer as another tool. I saw this on the monome board, have you seen this? http://www.subcycle.org/ I don't know how it works, or what I'd do if a had one, but I've been imagining the possibilities.

*Sorry if I really derailed the thread here..*

I get like this sometimes when I'm bordering on depression. I remember one time when I was like that for months and nothing could hold my attention for any period of time. One day, for some reason, I decided to listen to some music and was shocked when my mood was instantly lifted. I felt like I was discovering music for the first time. I hadn't listened to any in months because music has always been an active activity for me - meaning that I don't have it on in the background while doing something else, it's my main focus and I'm usually singing/bouncing along. Being in a depressed state, the last thing I had the energy for was singing or bouncing, so it never even occurred to me to put any music on.

Once I rediscovered the magical effect music had on me, whenever I started feeling like nothing was good in the world I would put my music on shuffle and just listen. I quickly realised that shuffle didn't work because I have quite a few downbeat songs in my collection that strongly affect me in a negative way when I'm in that mental state. So I started making a music playlist called "Happy" and I added all my favourite upbeat songs and especially the ones I really like singing. Now I listen to it whenever I start to feel like this and it works really well. I still can't believe I ever went so long without music in my life. It's always been important to me and yet I abandoned it when I apparently needed it the most.

Anyway, that's my story to go along with my suggestion: Happy music. Maybe it'll help, maybe not, but I hope you do find the thing that works for you when you're feeling that incessant boredom.

Supreme irony: I just got insatiably bored while reading about other people's insatiable boredom while searching for a way to cure my insatiable boredom.