By: Camden Baucke MS LLP
Mind reading isn’t just science fiction; it’s often a part of everyday life.
Using our observations and imagination, we try to ascertain the unobtainable content of someone’s psyche.
I say unobtainable content because it’s always an educated guess – we can’t firmly know someone’s thoughts until they’re shared.
However, feelings like anxiety aren’t conducive to waiting – so they try to jump the gun.
Relying on this form of magical thinking mostly leads to inaccuracy and problematic behaviors in response to misperceptions.
To prevent mind reading, you need a comprehensive understanding of it.
In this article, I will describe what mind reading is, why we do it, and how to take back control over your attention.
What is Mind Reading?
Ironically, mind reading happens purely within your head.
It’s a cognitive action where we attempt to determine the contents of someone else’s mind.
However, it isn’t accessible information so you need to guess.
To guess what someone’s thinking, you become a detective.
You start to look for clues in someone’s context, story, disposition, perspective, facial expressions, physical presentation, vocal tone, and more.
These clues demand your attention, causing you to scan someone from head to toe to determine what’s on their mind.
You create an internal narrative from all the clues you scan for – an explanation of what’s in someone’s head and why.
Of course, this is an entirely magical process – you can gather as much information as you can, but never forms more than just a expectation.
Mind Reading isn’t Inherently Unhealthy
The utility of mind reading depends on what we’re using it for.
If you’re playing a sport, you can try to read the mind of your opponent to gain an advantage.
If you’re buying someone a birthday gift, you can try to read their mind to determine what they would like.
In these arenas, trying to read the mind of others actually isn’t horrible.
Your educated guesses might help you win or give a thoughtful gift.
However, not all mind reading is as benevolent as gifts and sports.
Why Do We Try to Read Minds?
Think of it like a military gathering intelligence on a target.
They gather the maximum amount of information so they can strike with precision to achieve their aims.
Mind reading is for action – Knowing what you need to react to.
It’s the brain’s way of detecting danger so you can protect yourself from it.
Mind reading is a common symptom of social anxiety and sometimes resembles hypervigilance from traumatic responses.
People with social anxiety will constantly scan in social environments – monitoring for any possible judgment.
A glint of negative evaluation could evoke a response to appease, apologize, or avoid with urgency.
Trauma survivors, especially from abusive and neglectful childhood homes, will mind read in a similar way called hypervigilance – constant anticipation of any minor indicator of a risk to your safety.
In both situations, attention to other people’s thoughts is the brain’s preventative measure to anticipate danger in the minds of others before it has time to manifest as behaviors.
Essentially, mind reading is to evaluate threatening thoughts in others minds so you can protect yourself from whatever it could lead to.
Unfortunately, trying to mind read out of anxiety or trauma usually ends up hurting yourself instead.
When Mind Reading Goes Wrong
Mind reading is an educated guess at most, and magical when accepted as truth.
Our guesses about someone else’s thoughts always go through our biased lens.
You will never see someone’s thoughts without a bias of your own – inherently warping your results.
For individuals enduring social anxiety, traumatic stress, or low self-esteem, your mind reading can magically match your fears.
Insecurities often fester at the intersection of inaccurate mind reading and deeply-held fears.
What’s even worse is when you then act on what you misperceive as truth.
Acting on your assumptions of other’s thoughts can manifest your own bias instead of anyone else’s.
If you act on what you mind read, then you’re in for a world of trouble.
You might avoid people before they have a chance to earn your trust.
You might attack someone in response to what you believe they’re thinking.
Both actions just drive you towards isolation.
A fear of abandonment could lead you to look for any signs of it in someone’s mind – you can react to the slightest clue, and avoid someone before they can leave you.
Mind reading is often a destructive mental behavior that leads you to what you fear happening in the first place.
How to Stay inside Your Own Head
Mind reading is a mental behavior – you can take control and attempt to stop yourself.
It isn’t easy; It takes plenty of repetitions – gently guiding your attention away from all the clues of someone else’s thoughts.
By giving up mind reading, you’d be sacrificing a protective mechanism that possibly kept you safe at one time or another.
If you notice yourself mind-reading, don’t beat yourself up.
Instead, ask yourself:
- What thoughts am I worried they are thinking?
- What would happen if they thought that?
- What would you do if you knew they were thinking that?
Once you have the answers, it’s time to ask yourself the next set of questions:
- What in my life has made me fear those specific thoughts?
- Has this specific person given me reason to distrust them?
- How can I react to what I know rather than what I’m guessing?
These thoughts, specifically regarding traumatic stress and social anxiety, will need a couple more questions:
- Will I be safe if those thoughts are true?
- What would those thoughts seemingly prove true about me?
- How can I act as if I was certain that I’d be safe, regardless if someone thinks those thoughts?
If you feel constantly unsafe, then that’s not a cause to mind read; that’s a cause to seek therapy.
Deep beliefs can be the foundation of traumatic stress and social anxiety – something often only uncovered in therapeutic settings.
Final Thoughts
Mind reading isn’t always negative, but when it is, it can dismantle your life.
Maybe you’re finally in a situation where the danger has passed but you still mind read.
You might also be around individuals who give you cause to mind read due to their threatening behaviors.
If you’re threatened enough to cause mind reading, then that’s a large red flag signaling a dangerous relationship.
If you are in safe relationships, it’s time to trust them by resisting the urge to mind read.
Give others a chance to share what they think because they are the source of their own thoughts.
Trust that your worst thoughts of yourself aren’t on everyone else’s minds.
Reflections 
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