Strange thinking

[Sarahjane12]

Does anyone get this - when high anxiety state (maybe DR/DP) - for instance if someone is speaking and says something about gravy, my mind thinks back to the Film Chicken Run (UK) where they have a quote about gravy.
It happens wth anything. I'll see, smell or hear something and my mind finds a connection with it from a film or a memory (not deja vu) or something. Does this sound odd? S x

[MyNameIsTerry]

It's actually a fairly new area of research. They are termed Mind Pops and happen to everyone.

[Sarahjane12]

Thanks terry - is it normal to have them all day when very anxious? I also have fleeting thoughts or memories or dreams also. Would this be consider normal? Haha. Not sure what's normal or isn't anymore..

[MyNameIsTerry]

It's normal to have them anytime anyday, Sarahjane. They are part of how normal brain functioning occurs: This article explains a fair bit about them:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mind-pops/

The subconscious stores "data" in memory that includes all sorts of things, even data/time, not just feelings, emotions, thoughts, etc. We also have to remember that our unconscious mind records the entire image whereas we may consciously focus on something in the foreground. This gives your subconscious the ability to make associations to anything in that image and sometimes we don't realise it e.g. we can't put our finger on how we feel we know someone, but perhaps we have actually seen them before.

Stuff like this pops up on the OCD board, with several current members who have struggled with it, and as ever with anxiety we are reading too much into things or focussing incorrectly on the subject.

Basically with Mind Pops, they are finding that the mind is constantly thinking and busier than we realised. What we need to be careful with is how we interpret all this because just like how every human being has intrusive thoughts all throughout their lives, they also do this too. The difference is we are attaching fear to it or analysing a normal bodily function and making incorrect judgements about what it is or means.

Dreams are very normal, we all have those. Fleeting thoughts too, as said already the mind is busier than we realised and Mind Pops could be in those too (or even account for yours as I'm unclear what you mean) which the article may help with as the author gives their examples. Mind Pops certainly explain memories that have been unconsciously triggered as opposed to those we tried to access by instructing our mind to think about them consciously.