Replay Conversations?

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So I was just curious if anyone else replayed conversations they just finished having in their heads. For me it often leads to late comebacks and comments after the conversation was pretty much over. But after a few minutes I quit. That doesn't really bother me much as something else I do. I guess you could say it's talking to myself or severe day dreaming but I kind of maybe preview conversations I want to have or am about to have if I am already aware they are going to happen. It's only my side of the conversation. I go over it and over it and over it my head all the time. It's different everytime I think about it. The only way I can stop is to sing along with music or watch a movie (with the subtitles on) or talking to someone else. I hate this more than anything because I'll be somwhere and all the sudden I catch myself making hand motions and actually lipping the words instead of keeping it as just thoughts. It's all the time kind of thing and I wish I could find some way to stop.

I do this too, especially ones with friends that didn't go exactly as I had it planned. Not necessarily badly; just deviated from what I expected.

Sometimes they'll pop in tere even days after, though I don't do the gestures, luckily.

Got not advice on how to stop it but I can offer some commiserations. I don't seem to have as big a problem with it as you do, my main problem is running conversations through in my head that i want to have... and then for some reason it's almost as if I have already had it and I end up surprised that the person I had this imaginary conversation doesn't get all the stuff I have told them. It's only a problem for time appropriate conversations, i.e. once the boat has sailed to use an NT turn of phrase that'll confuse some of you literalists out there

In summary, I feel for ya buddy. Hopefully someone else has some constructive advice for ya.

I do the exact same thing! These constant mental rehearsals and replays are very annoying and exhausting, but they've actually helped me improve socially somewhat. I'd say the rehearsals actually don't help as much as the replaying. The rehearsals just tend to backfire on me and make me agitated when they don't go as planned (and they never do)! But the replays are useful because I can process and understand what might have gone wrong and why, so that I can hopefully avoid the same faux pas in the future.

Welcome to WP, AEN1408!

You're not alone, there are at least the two of us! I repeat conversations over and over ad nauseum in my head after having them, word for word, with instant replay when I get to the end. This used to actually keep me up nights, part of my racing thoughts, 'til I started taking trazodone to help me sleep, as well as other antidepressants.

I still do it during the day, though. And, this morning I found myself repeating something I'd posted in a forum over and over to myself as I was working.

I used to do this incessantly while I paced back and forth, sometimes while listening to music, and this would take hours out of my day!

I make hand motions and talk out loud, too, when I really get caught up in it. And I have fantasy conversations with people in my head that I go over and over and edit as I do, even knowing these conversations may probably never take place!

Something else of equal intensity/interest has to distract me to make it stop. I don't know if this is an AS thing, but it sure is disturbing sometimes. I really think the antidepressants have helped curb this somewhat.

Take care!

Me, too!! ! I don't do the hand motions or lipping the words, but everything else you said is what I do. If I am going over a conversation I am going to have, or desire to have, it can drive me crazy going over it ad nauseam. But it does help to get it straight in my mind if I am going to be seeing that person soon. Like at a dr's office. I hate it when I've already seen the person and I think of what I could have said, or should have said.... that can be a real mental beating. Sometimes someone will tell me to let it go... easier said than done.

All the time..

ha!ha! I do this too and loose track of what conversations were real and not real so either don't tell people something or tell them the same thing multiple times.

Real conversations never go as planned so I wish I could stop planning them.
I also beat myself up terribly over the said conversations that didn't go as planned.
I also have conversations in my head about the conversations in my head about the conversations in my head .... this is now becoming another conversation in my head .....

Does anyone have any help for this torment??????

Wow, yet another feature to add to my list (I'm newly self-diagnosed). I do this all the time and in both directions (planning ahead and replaying). Not sure if either of them improve my future conversations, but sometimes the planning makes me feel more at ease, so I dare to start a conversation. (Of course I usually get taken off track or unplanned participants join in, and chaos breaks out.) At least neither the replays nor plan talks go on for more than a few minutes usually, then I tend to get distracted by something else. I stopped counting the number of conversations where I could have the wittiest comment afterwards... if we were able to scroll back in time we'd all be perfect conversationists!

Alex, you sound JUST like me! Umm or I sound JUST like YOU! LOL

I think this has to do with social anxiety. I used to spend hours torturing myself with this every day, but I've been able to reduce it with therapy and medication.

I think there was another thread about this about a month ago. For me, it was kind of like that Aha! moment when I read it. I was floored that other people do this, too. It was after I had read that thread that I figured that I must have AS. I have even caught myself lipping, and doing gestures, without realizing it. Thankfully, not in public, though. Sometimes, I don't do it to rehearse, but to perseverate on my fav topics that I know no one else really wants to hear about, or to sort out new ideas, and info in my head.
I really don't want to stop doing it. I just want to make sure that no one ever sees me talking to myself. I find it very soothing. I remember when I was a kid after I had a long overstimulating day I used to pace, and stim in my room while talking to myself. Just going over previous conversations that I had with others during the day. I would think up different scenarios, and act them out, like what I might say to the guy I liked, ect...

Me too. 'What if' is a terrible game to play because there are always different versions of the conversation to imagine.

Ed Almos

Yes, I do this too. Actually the rehearsals are mostly in thought only, but when I talk to myself it's more often a fictitious question-answer dialogue about my special interest(s). Funnily enough I almost never do that when I'm alone (e. g. at home), but often on the street when walking. Of course at home there's internet and thus always people to talk to. Running an experiment now where I replace the talking on the street with chatting (on a cell phone). I don't know what looks stranger to NTs, but here people are kinda used to SMS (text message) addicts.

I do this ALSO!! !! Apparently, MANY here do! I wonder if any NTs do. I get enough odd comments and questions about it, so apparently many don't.

Last edited by 2ukenkerl on 31 Jul 2007, 7:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think they do rehearse, at least in films! Maybe not as much as us, though.

I usually play conversations in my head (quietly and without gesturing, mind you ). Mostly I do this to try and think of the best thing to say in certain situations, trying to compensate for social ineptness. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't.