Can you NOT think of a polar bear?

Have you ever tried not to think of something, but in the very future moment the thought you have supressed can’t get out of you mind?

"Don't think of a white bear" is a famous psychological experiment in which subjects are asked to NOT think of a white bear for the next five minutes, and ring a bell each time they do. The effect of this attempted thought suppression is that people think of polar bears.

But why a polar bear? The bear was chosen because one of the researchers on this phenomenon remembered reading that when Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky challenged his brother not to think of a white bear, the brother remained perplexed for quite a while.

This phenomenon is more than a parlor trick or a quirky psychological experiment. Lack of control over our thoughts is serious business. Studies show that most people have at least one unwanted thought that haunts them. For example: a visit to the dentist, the death of a friend, running out of money before the end of the month and so on. Mental control is one key to mental peace, and we need to understand it better if we hope to use it effectively.

Why suppression doesn't work? Suppression may seem effective at first. But by suppressing a thought, we never get used to it. Instead, we make ourselves more sensitive to its next occurrence. The thought we most want to avoid soon becomes our greatest fear.

As philosopher John Dewey observed, "The hard drinker who keeps thinking of not drinking is doing what he can to initiate the acts which lead to drinking. He is starting with the stimulus to his habit." The suppression, not the thought, is the real problem.

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