Does it ever feel like you can't stop thinking?

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So True!!

Yes, totally. I never stop thinking. It drives me mad but I can't switch off.

Yeah, I can't ever stop thinking. I'm almost always deep in thought even when trying to sleep. That usually isn't so bad, because there are certain things I think about that help me go to sleep (making up stories and imagining them like a movie in my mind), but there are times when the thoughts are really distracting and I can't sleep or focus on stories. Luckily I can listen to music which gets me in the mood to think of stories before I try to fall asleep (as long as it's after midnight, otherwise I have too much energy to sleep).

I used to be like that, but it was OCD, not AS. But it's much better now that I started taking Anafranil, which has decreased my obsessions/intrusive thoughts a lot.
-OddDuckNash99-

Let's see... insomnia has been in effect for a week now - I would say that I answer affirmative on that one. My brain just won't disengage at all, keeping me wide awake.


M.

thinking to me is as easy as breathing. i do not have to think about it.

i can not imagine being awake without being in a state of thought.
even when i am kind of blank in the early mornings when i rest my elbows on my podium and look out at my sunlit yard in a reverie, i still am thinking. i note the butterflies that are fluttering there and i keep track of them all and i think about the lives of butterflies.

i am usually alone, and when i am not engaged in thinking for my work, i think in a semi narrative way about everything i see and every notion that occurs to me.
in my head, it is like i am doing an interview with a reporter who asks few questions, and just lets me state my ideas in a free form way. i internally verbalize what i am thinking usually (except for certain mathematical ideas which are non verbal).

there is no effort required in thinking for me. but there is no amount of effort i can exert on my mind to "hush" it of all thoughts.

once i met a buddhist monk at a tavern where i was eating, and he took an interest in me.
as he was talking to me, he said my mind was all revved up with irrelevant thoughts.
i disagreed and i said my thoughts were appropriate to what was in my attention.
he decided to give me a task to do. he asked me to think about nothing when i got home. think about nothing for 1 hour. he wanted to see me the next day to see what i learned from the experience.

when i got home, i thought about nothing, and i realized that "nothing" does not exist.
so how can i think about "nothing" when "nothing" is not real.
only "things" exist, and "no thing" is the absence of all things.
so because there are only "things" in the universe, then the concept of "nothing" is a fallacy.

i thought i had learned an important lesson, and i was eager to report it to the monk the next day.

but he was disappointed, because he said he wanted me to not think about "anything".

well i did not think about "anything", i thought very hard about "nothing", which is what he told me to think about.

afterward, the confusion was cleared when someone else said that he meant i should just "not think" for 1 hour.

that is impossible.
i could do it in n.e.m sleep, but i would forget it entirely, and it would not do me any good if i could not remember the experience of not thinking. no memories are retained from a state of "non-thought".

I know this feeling very well. My mind can't stop thinking either. But I never knew this has something to do with my Asperger's. I thought that NT's have the same feeling or that their brain is also working all the time (ok, it is working all the time, but I assumed they have continuous thoughts also).

The only moments when I can keep my thoughts down are when I am so into reading a book or watching a movie or televsion show, but it will only last for a couple of minutes. Then is my brain again spilling out ideas and thoughts. The nights were also a problem, especially the sunday nights (like someone else wrote here), but since I take Risperdal, it's going much easier.

Yep, I always think, I sometimes have to stop myself and listen to the teacher. That is how I judge a good teacher from a bad teacher, a good one makes me thinks about what he has just said.

I was in hospital about 2 years ago. Long story they had to put a trachea, pipe in the neck, in me, so effectively I could not move, and I could not really watch tv, etc. Two bad things happened, one I was pumped full of drugs, so when I woke up after an 18 day coma my mind was gone, but at the same time my mind was working, thinking all the time and it made no sense. Second was when the drugs were clear and I had nothing to do my mind went off. It got pretty depressing and worst I could not find something to entertain myself

I have a tendency to fall asleep to the TV. That was I'm focusing on something but not so excessively. I get to sleep in about 30 minutes to the TV(with my eyes closed and in bed, and pretty tired) and in like... 4 hours with nothing. I always listen to music though, if I can't listen to the TV.
EMZ=]

The question as worded in the subject heading... I don't ever feel like I can't stop thinking, because for that I would have to want to stop thinking, or think I should stop thinking. But I'm pretty much always thinking. I don't generally have problems going to sleep more.

I recall reading that in autism, more of the mind is accessible to consciousness. I wonder if this relates. Like, maybe other people have just as much going on in their minds all the time, but less of it is conscious.

I love thinking all the time. It makes me come up with awesome ideas.

Edit: It can be problematic at times when trying to sleep, though. I just found out from my parents recently that I've always had problems going to sleep (ever since I was an infant), though, so I don't think I can relate constant thinking to my falling-asleep troubles.

Edit: Oh, and in class... My constant thinking at school used to mean trouble, but now taking notes of stuff the teacher says or writes on the board helps me a lot. Also, plenty of handouts and after-class 5-minute recaps with just me and the teacher!

Sounds all too much like me... of course it ends up depriving me of sleep and other things at times.

Yes it can get really annoying but it's fine as long as I remember to control the direction of the thoughts as they tend to go bad places if left to their own devices. The best thing about them is I can't remember the last time I was bored and time flies very quickly.

L-theanine capsules really help to slow them down enough to sleep.

Include me in this club. I have such a hard time getting to sleep because of it. It's also hard having conversations because the thoughts are distracting, even when I don't know what it is I'm thinking. It's like my neurons are just firing off with no coherent thoughts involved.

I'm also one of those people who has trouble falling asleep because of a babbling mind. I have had a strange neurological experience a handful of times in my life and I'm wondering if anybody else has had similar. Maybe once every 5 years or so, I've been trying to fall asleep and my mind has been yammering on nonstop. Then suddenly I see a blue flash in my mind and hear a "zzzztttt" sound and then I feel calm and fall asleep shortly after. Anyone else?

Yup. I think it's why I've always been prone to insomnia; I think intensely and become a little hyperactive.

It would be cool to lose the ability to think sometimes.