The Shuffling Mind

The mind that will not sleep is usually a mind that is telling stories. Not lies, exactly. Just the particular kind of narrative the brain runs when it has nothing else to do and no instruction to stop. The thing you said three years ago. The conversation you need to have tomorrow. The item on the list that cannot be actioned until morning but which your mind is rehearsing anyway, just in case. There is a technique for interrupting this. It is called cognitive shuffling, and it was developed by a cognitive scientist called Luc Beaudoin. It sounds strange. It works. The principle is simple. The storytelling brain is a sequential brain. It connects one thought to the next, builds chains, follows threads. What puts us to sleep, research suggests, is something closer to the random imagery that precedes dreaming: disconnected, associative, not going anywhere in particular. Cognitive shuffling mimics that state deliberately. Here is how to do it: - Choose a word at random. Something neutral: apple, window, river, candle. - Take the first letter and think of an image that starts with it. Not a concept. An actual image. A red apple sitting on a wooden table. Make it specific. Hold it for a moment. - Move to the next letter. Find a completely unrelated image. A white window with rain on it. - Continue through each letter of the word, one image at a time, each one its own small world, none connected to the last. The images should be vivid but unconnected. That is the point. The brain cannot build a narrative out of unconnected images. It cannot worry or rehearse or plan. It simply holds each image, briefly, then moves to the next. Most people do not get through more than one or two words. Try it tonight. Choose your word before you need it. Let the images come slowly, one at a time.