I sometimes "ask" my characters questions. I usually do this if I'm stuck and I need to kind of disengage a bit and pretend I'm talking to somebody else. It usually helps.

I get the "Character takes over" moments a lot and it usually means that I've tapped into the part of my brain that figured things out before the rest of it did. Usually my characters "win" because those moments are good scenes. But I always come back to them later and sometimes they do get the ax anyway.

And I have no problems torturing my characters. I enjoy it. :P