Why Do I Replay Conversations at Night?

The meeting ended at four. Somebody said something slightly off, you said something slightly worse, and everyone moved on.

At midnight you're still in that room. You've replayed it eleven times. In four of the replays you said the perfect thing. In the other seven you said something even worse than you actually did, and then imagined their face.

None of this is happening. The meeting is over. The person has probably forgotten it. And still the mind runs the tape.

A thought can move in only five ways.

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras make a claim that sounds too neat to be true. Every movement of the mind, he says, falls into one of five kinds (1.5 to 1.6). Just five. Right knowledge, wrong knowledge, imagination, sleep and memory.

He gives each one a line. Right knowledge comes from what you see, what you work out, and what reliable people tell you (1.7). Wrong knowledge is a false idea that doesn't match the thing (1.8). Imagination is a thought built from words alone, with nothing real behind it (1.9). Sleep is the thought that rests on nothing (1.10). Memory is holding on to what you've experienced (1.11).

I was sceptical the first time I read it. Then I started sorting my midnight thoughts into the five, and it became uncomfortable how well they fit.

Two of the five keep you up.

Take the replay apart.

The first pass, the one where you remember what was actually said, is memory. Smriti. Swami Vishnudevananda, in his commentary in Meditation and Mantras, says memory is simply impressions that didn't slip away. Fine. That's the mind doing its job.

Everything after the first pass is something else. The version where you said the perfect thing never happened. The version where they're furious with you never happened. Patanjali's word for a thought with nothing real behind it is vikalpa, which gets translated as imagination, fancy, or verbal delusion. A story made of words.

So the replay is one memory followed by ten imaginings. The memory lasted a few seconds. The imaginings have taken an hour.

And Vishnudevananda adds a detail that explains why it feels so real. Memory, he says, can arise out of the other kinds of thought, including imagination. By the fourth replay you're remembering your own imagined versions as if they happened. The tape is now recording the tape.

Why does it feel like work?

Sivananda, in Mind: Its Mysteries and Control, describes a thought as a wave rising on the mind, the way a wave rises on the sea. He uses the word vritti (a wave or whirl of thought), from a root that means to turn.

He also says the mind takes the shape of whatever it dwells on. Think of a person long enough and the mind becomes that person's shape. This is why the replay feels like you're still in the room. For the mind, you are.

This matters at night because of something we looked at last week. Thinking spends energy. Sivananda is blunt about it: energy is wasted in useless thinking the way it's wasted in idle talk. An hour of imagined meetings costs about what an hour of real ones would. Only the real ones get something done.

Spot which kind it is.

Patanjali's five are a sorting tool. You don't have to stop the thoughts. You only have to name which of the five each one is, and the naming changes things.

Vishnudevananda gives the instruction plainly. Examine yourself the next time you're angry or miserable, he says. Reason it out, and note which kind of thought is running. Gaining freedom from verbal delusion, the made-up stories, is what strengthens the mind.

What I've found is that the imagined versions can't survive being named. The moment you say to yourself, that one didn't happen, that's vikalpa, the tape loses most of its grip. It can't argue back, because it was never real.

Here is what to do tonight.

When the replay starts, try this instead of fighting it.

1. Run the tape once, truthfully. Let memory do its job. What was actually said, as best you can recall it. One pass only.

2. Sort the rest. Every replay after that, ask: did this happen? If not, it's imagination. Say the word. It helps to say it slightly out loud.

3. Give it a real job. Patanjali lists right knowledge first for a reason. If something real needs doing, decide what it is. One sentence of apology, one clarifying message, or nothing. Write the decision down and the mind usually lets go, because it's been given a true thought to hold instead of a made-up one.

4. Swap the picture. Vishnudevananda says restraining a thought differs from suppressing it: you give it an outlet, or you put the opposite thought in its place. A few slow breaths with a long exhale, or a plain picture of the person as they most likely are right now: at home, asleep, not thinking about you at all.

Here is another way to see it.

The mind at midnight is a very good storyteller with nobody to tell stories to. Give it a true story, a short one, and it settles down. Leave it alone and it writes sequels.

Patanjali's whole programme starts from this. Yoga, he says, is settling the turnings of the mind (1.2). His answer is to learn the five turnings so well that you can see which one you're in. Memory is useful. Imagination is useful in the morning, with a pen in your hand. Neither of them belongs in your bed.

Tomorrow: why you keep making the same mistake, and the five knots Patanjali says are tied under every one of them.

Where to read more

The Sivananda-tradition books behind today's piece:

• Meditation and Mantras, Swami Vishnudevananda (commentary on Yoga Sutras 1.5 to 1.11)

• Mind: Its Mysteries and Control, Swami Sivananda (on vrittis and thought-energy)

• Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, 1.2 and 1.5 to 1.12

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