Controlled Thought; or, the Elephant and the Exotic Dancer by J R Cook.

Controlled Thought; or,  the Elephant and the Exotic Dancer by J R Cook.

I decided to try not thinking of an elephant.  I thought the best approach was to concentrate on something else so completely the elephant would stay away.  I tried toad stools, conjuring up a patch and thinking of one particular big one.  Half way to my goal of 60 seconds it suddenly popped into my head that maybe toad stools was the wrong approach as elephants might eat them and sure enough an elephant came by snagging a whole bunch in its trunk.  It seemed that whatever I picked to think about there seemed to be an association somewhere with an elephant.

Well, an elephant is so large it can’t help but make an impression; I wondered if something smaller would work.  Why not concentrate on an elephant and not think of, say, a mouse.  Of course, you can see already what went wrong; as everybody knows elephants are afraid of mice and my specimen was frightened away by the appearance of the very critter I was to keep out of the picture.

I tried again with ants and found that ants will invade anywhere.  The ultimate challenge is always the elephant, so I decided to try it again.  This time, something foolproof would be a distraction.

Why not an alluring woman, perhaps an exotic dancer, the less clothing the better?  This seemed sure to succeed for a while.

Then she started to talk, saying she wanted to quit this and take up a more exciting career as a circus performer.  Needless to say I immediately conjured the image of her riding about on the back of an elephant with her long hair flowing in the breeze.

I have no doubt that I have gone considerable periods without thinking of an elephant but it is doing it on demand that is so difficult.

Just beneath the surface is the instruction not to think of the elephant, the dominant task you are performing, the least stray thought that enters will be associated with that task and connect itself with the elephant.

A blank mind doesn’t seem to work either; the knowledge of what you are doing is just beneath the surface.  The question simply pops into your awareness after a while, “What am I doing?  Oh, I am doing nothing at all, just not thinking of an elephant.”