Yesterday's Dinosaur Comics discusses extreme brain-dumping, and today's news posts links to an article about Lion Kimbro, someone who tried it (and wrote an online book, How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought you Think).

Last year [2003] he spent three solid months writing down everything that came into his head. He got so immersed in making notes that the rest of his life was put on hold while he sorted them and understood them.

(...) "It may feel that for the first time in your life, you really have a clear idea of what kinds of thoughts are going through your head."

(...) Lion emerged from his experiment a changed man. As a result of spending months thinking and writing down his thoughts with a pen, his brain had started to work in new ways.

It sounds similar to what one might do to stage a crisis of faith, without necessarily knowing at the start what beliefs they'll question.

The article was partly condensed from this interview (note same author, Giles Turnbull).

"What I *didn't* antipicate was the freezing effect. That's where your mind re-hashes old things and sort of unconsciously avoids new things. (It's real, I've come to understand why it happens much better, through work in wiki, where it can happen as well.)