I've got a very associative mind, also. Sometimes to remember something I want to remember, I have to go through a lot of steps of focusing on one thing then focus on the associations the original focus brings up in my mind, pick one of the associations, focus on that, pick another one, focus on that, pick another association, etc. etc.
I actually kinda adapted that technique from a yoga teacher. She said something in a class that helped me to get in better touch with my thoughts and not let them bother me so much. Essentially, she said acknowledge the thought then let it go. Somehow simply acknowledging that thought really does allow me to let go. Before, I would just get frustrated that my mind kept on coming up with these thoughts, which lead to insomnia, stress, problems remembering things, etc. etc.
So, in my opinion, the ability to clear my mind actually has some relation with building ideas through inductive thought and following a path to remember things. I think it has something to do with the intention behind the following these associations. . .do I want to remember something, do I want to create more ideas, do I simply just want to let go of them for now to clear my head, etc. etc.
On a note of association for this topic, does this concept have anything at all to do with the Information Technology concept of ontology?
Interesting, "acknowledging the thought" is a form of metathinking, an abiity to do that is part of a definition of consiousness. (One of the revelations I got leading up to my mortality guide is that while I can think about thinking, and think about thinking about thinking, and so on on up, I'm generally at a much lower level of just letting my automatic systems do their stuff.)
I'm almost ashamed at how little I know about ontology. From what little I googled up, it's roughly what a (often AI) system knows about the world, and how it sees the relationships between the world's objects. I guess tangential thinkers tend to have a much richer ontology...
My mind works in a similar manner, and while its useful during the day, I often wish I could turn the damn thing off so I could get to sleep in a reasonable amount of time...
Heh, I generally don't have that problem...only when I'm get anxious or neurotic about something.