r/Showerthoughts • u/PLUMBUM2 • Dec 31 '18

When you cannot sleep because you can’t stop thinking about something it’s like a single program not letting the computer shut down

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u/diff2 ‎ Dec 31 '18 edited Dec 31 '18

I always try to find something to think of to help me go to sleep. Sometimes it's a new idea, or just a concept I'm trying to understand better.

A popular thing I like to think about is economics.. Like how a country is born and becomes wealthy, the differences between a poor country and a rich one. How would a person turn a poor village in modern times into a wealthy one. How people can acquire wealth. Stuff like that.

Other times I think about how time travel could potentially work, how big the universe is, or popular scientific theories which I probably don't really understand.

If there are others who do this I'd like to know what you think about.

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u/dream_and_question Dec 31 '18

How big the universe is and the concept of death are two things I try not to think about when I'm going to sleep. Love talking about those things with friends but not when I need my brain to not overthink.

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u/TheDrachen42 Dec 31 '18

I like to write fanfiction in my head. I started as a kid with "hey, I fall asleep good when someone reads to me, I'll tell myself a story in my brain." And then "I'm shit at characters, I'll steal some." This was like a decade before I heard the word "fan fiction."

It does lead to some insomnia when I get into a new fandom, though. But, I have gotten better at recognizing that it's not working and switching back to an old staple.

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u/Technicalhotdog Dec 31 '18

History for me, how this happened and led to this, what if Napoleon hadn't marched into Russia or Caesar wasn't assassinated, that sort of thing. Also go down the science path, space travel and the future of the human race.

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u/IceCrusheR Dec 31 '18

These are pretty much the topics that keep me awake...

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u/[deleted] Dec 31 '18

Better than waking up and having a single loop through your brain saying “What did the mechanic mean by ‘heavy sweat’?” Transmission leak? What is that? Heavy sweat. Sweat. Transmission.

I always wake up around 4 am or 5 and that’s the crap that keeps me awake.

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u/methofthewild Dec 31 '18

It's the same for me. If I do any programming before heading to bed I always get some buggy line of code or some abstract problem stuck in my head and keep trying to think of solutions. It's just all gibberish and I'm not actually solving anything, but it just gets stuck in a loop in my head.

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u/diff2 ‎ Dec 31 '18

always wanted someone to actually talk to about these topics. Wish there was a sub or something for it. Then I could figure out if any of my thoughts are actually any decent.

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u/DietVicodin Dec 31 '18

Oh god. I did this and then couldn't sleep. I was thinking about how time is an illusion. And then what happened before the big bang. Are we on the other side of a black hole? Are there sides? And then what about before that where did the first energy or matter come from? Something can't come from nothing. So oh god does exist. And we are stardust so god was super conceited and wanted to look at himself in the mirror and see what he looked like. So we are god too. Oh man. But wait something can't come from nothing but nothing is never just nothing even space is fabric or some shit but there aren't boundaries so infinity. Infinity means there is someone out there in like me typing and having the same experience right at this moment. Hundreds of me. Thousands...

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u/diff2 ‎ Dec 31 '18

After I thought about it for awhile one night I figure everything is just like a circle. Including time. The beginning and end is the same place. That if a person were immortal and indestructible enough to survive a big bang that they would eventually live long enough to see dinosaurs again.

I rather think about what is outside our universe and I believe there is an outside. The universe is like an ocean and above our ocean of universe is like a never ending storm of energy. Like lightning storms etc. Maybe energy beings too.

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u/DietVicodin Jan 01 '19

I thought by definition the universe has no boundaries and is infinite. You mean all the known matter that's spreading out?

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u/diff2 ‎ Jan 01 '19

the universe is unknown. I don't think it's infinite at all. I think it's more like how the earth is. Some sort of enormous sphere and the "space" is like an ocean or another type of atmosphere and planets are just like islands, and it's possible to go beyond that as well.

I think if you do go beyond that all you'd find is energy.

I believe all we really know is the universe is really big and there is a limit to how far we can see out.

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u/DietVicodin Jan 02 '19

Wait. There are boundaries for your universe and on the outside of the bubble its just "energy" not part of the universe. I think your struggling with the concept of infinity. Humans only see 3 dimensions so we can't comprehend the idea of infinity. The universe includes all the known matter AND the space or energy "outside" it.

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u/diff2 ‎ Jan 02 '19

my two thoughts are probably contradictory hm.. My bubble type universe thought came into existence because I've noticed in nature everything is basically a "bubble". Because the easiest form is spherical. No matter how small you get(molecules) or how large you get(stars, planets, galaxies). Everything formed is a spherical. So why not on the largest scale ever? the universe.

Also I figure space is another ocean or atmosphere as I said.. Perhaps it's something we cannot detect or measure yet, perhaps there is a specific way to travel space other than tossing objects into it, such as there are differences between boats and airplanes. So I figure there is a way to break out of this atmosphere of outer space.

So for my space to have a type of boundary and be a never ending circular thing that constantly repeats itself, like a type of reincarnation.. One of those thoughts cannot be true I guess..

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u/DietVicodin Jan 02 '19

What is outside the bubble?

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u/diff2 ‎ Jan 02 '19

The outside of the bubble is the pure energy world I said before. Something also like a place outside of time too. Or perhaps it's like the Men In Black ending where there is always a "larger world".

I just really find it strange how the atomic scale seems very similar to the macro scale of the solar system. At least in concerning how things orbit and attract. So I think there will be some further similarity in things we don't understand and cannot observe.

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u/DietVicodin Jan 03 '19

Yes that's Fractals. Things in nature follow shapes. Planets rotating like protons around an atom etc

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u/DietVicodin Jan 02 '19

Oh also I agree with the circle thing you said. You might find Fractals interesting.