Inner Monologue and the Mind's Eye

[Mark]

So, these videos have been trending and have gone viral on Youtube lately as people have discovered that humans are pretty different in some fundamental ways.

The first video discusses the "inner monologue/dialogue", what some have called the "monkey mind" or the waterfall of words, ideas, the ceaseless chatter that exists within. In it, some folks are discovering that there are people in the world who do not have this inner dialogue at all.

The second video includes the "mind's eye" and the ability to see in one's mind. Some people do not have that capacity.

I'm curious about PA's thoughts on this and personal experience. I have both, in excess, I think. A constant chatter only held at bay by meditation practice, sitting and walking and by stints of surcease from it at random times during the day or when engaged in concentrative tasks.

My mind's eye is very active, I was an overindulgent daydreamer back in my Primary and Secondary days and can still get lost in thought and the stories that appear in my mind and take me away.

I love how these videos reveal the differences between how people think and how it is ok that the differences exist!

I have been showing my 9th grade reading comprehension classes these videos all day and talking about them with the kids so that they become aware of how fundamentally different people can be. It has been fun watching them discuss it amongst themselves and find out how they are different from some of their close friends. I think it is a good thing to learn about this so early in life.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u69YSh-cFXY


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJLxexapps0

[Craig]

In my youth I was very over active with thoughts, it felt like that i could have a number of random different thoughts at once and could keep track of them all, like true multiprocessing, and my imagination - it was great, mostly to escape my current world at the time.

Now as I age and become more and more disillusioned with life, my thoughts slow and become incoherent, I forget the simplest things just mentioned moments ago to me, my imagination is more focused on why things are what they and not what they could be, but i still find it hard how no one can have an inner dialogue?

So I guess I am still amazed by the foibles of life.

{quick edit} - for those without inner dialogue, when a favourite song comes on the radio can you sing along in your mind without singing out aloud? I normally do cause my singing voice can curdle milk in the next house..

[Sarah Rainsong]

That is very interesting! I'm definitely like the dudes in these videos, but it makes me wonder which one my dh is like. I'm going to have to show him these...cause after watching this, I'm beginning to wonder.

When I meditate, I have to work to not 'talk'. Not hard work, more like exercising a muscle. The more often I do it, the easier it gets. It's often easier to let go of words and visualize stuff...but the girl in the last vid doesn't visualize either!

What do people who don't visualize or have a "mind's eye" or "inner dialogue" do when they meditate? Is it easier for them? Harder?

[Mark]

Now as I age and become more and more disillusioned with life, my thoughts slow and become incoherent, I forget the simplest things just mentioned moments ago to me, my imagination is more focused on why things are what they and not what they could be, but i still find it hard how no one can have an inner dialogue?

I resonate with your words, Craig. I was and still am, at 52, pretty "over active with thoughts". When I first saw this trailer of the comedian, Dave Chapelle, I thought to myself, OMG THAT IS ME and my wife almost simultaneously said, "That is what you look like, sometimes":


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TRqE7rmi3g

The images, inner dialogue and mental movies take me away. Your description of how your imagination's focus has shifted during the process of disillusionment with the world as is brings the question to my mind, do you have a meditation practice? Having one can reduce stress (https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/meditation/in-depth/meditation/art-20045858), help to strengthen the synaptic connections (https://mindfulentrepreneurship.com/neuroscience-of-mindfulness-what-exactly-happens-to-your-brain-when-you-meditate-7d1ca47d9fca) and increase memory effects (https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/02/09/7-ways-meditation-can-actually-change-the-brain/#19bc87ab1465).

It is very difficult to conceptualize the other's way of thinking, Craig, according to the folks who are in these videos. From the way the folks who do not have the inner dialogue speak about it, they think more in abstract concepts and feelings, rather than an actual dialogue and words that they can hear and perhaps see in their mind's eye.

[enfoldedblue]

I first became aware of this when a friend posted an am blog article about it. She was blown away because she had no 'internal monologue' and always assumed the term was just a figure of speech.
In the article one woman said that she had always wished when she heard internal monologues in movies that it could be like that in real life. So interesting!
I feel i am kind of between the 2 ways. I have an intetnal monologue, but it is not always words. For example I just heard the bus pick my son up as I was writing this. My internal voice was thinking about what I wanted to say, but I wad also aware of the bus picking him up. The bus part would be more abatract..i.e. my inner voice wasn't saying 'there is the bus....
The Visualization part is interesting too. I do Quantum healing hypnosis sessions. In these sessions the client is brought into a deep expanded state where they experience a journey that unfolds in their mind's eye. During the preparation stage I ask them to close their eyes and imagine something simple like a red flower. Most people do it easily. So far i have only had 1 client who completely couldn't. We are taught to ask these people to focus on impressions rather than images.

Though interestingly with that client, once the experience really started to flow she began to be able to see very clearly. This was new and exciting to her. She was in a past life walking up to her brothers cabin on a snowy hill. She exlaimed...'I can see it, I can actually see it!'
We had just cleared some very old blocks and I'm not sure if that's why she began to be able to visualise, or if it was just due to her expanded state.

Thanks for shating Mark

[Mark]

That is very interesting! I'm definitely like the dudes in these videos, but it makes me wonder which one my dh is like. I'm going to have to show him these...cause after watching this, I'm beginning to wonder.

Right?! I've been going back in memory and thinking about people who have told me they prefer non-fiction to fiction, that they like movies more than they like books, all of these asides and comments that indicate that they potentially do not have an inner dialogue or have aphantasia and kind of tripping on the fact that it seems to be very common in all actuality, as there are many people I've run across in life that seem to be more firmly grounded and sensible in the truest sense of that word.


When I meditate, I have to work to not 'talk'. Not hard work, more like exercising a muscle. The more often I do it, the easier it gets. It's often easier to let go of words and visualize stuff...but the girl in the last vid doesn't visualize either! What do people who don't visualize or have a "mind's eye" or "inner dialogue" do when they meditate? Is it easier for them? Harder?

I have a similar experience in mediation. It has shifted over time and I've had some amazing breakthroughs during that process. In the second video, the young lady talks about how it is hard for her to meditate, but she explains that she has a hard time because other thoughts come into her mind, so it isn't really clear if her difficulty is qualitatively different from that of folks who do have an inner monologue and who can visualize mentally.

[Sadieblue]

I consider myself to have both of these, and I thought that was
normal for everyone, my teachers at school use to even call me down
for going off in my mind somewhere, they called it "day dreaming."
I can have a complete conversation with myself in my mind, and even answer
myself.

[wondering]

Rahkyt, I have often thought how little we can know about how the person next to us experiences life. Even though we may be very close, we have no idea of what the present moment looks or feels like to them, though I think we make assumptions that others are like us and our perceptions and experiences. Your idea seems like such a good way to begin to understand that it isn't the same for us all. What might that open up for us? I wish I had been given an opportunity for such an awareness early in life. Great idea, IMO. Diane

[shaberon]

When I meditate, I have to work to not 'talk'. Not hard work, more like exercising a muscle. The more often I do it, the easier it gets. It's often easier to let go of words and visualize stuff...but the girl in the last vid doesn't visualize either!

What do people who don't visualize or have a "mind's eye" or "inner dialogue" do when they meditate? Is it easier for them? Harder?

Dialogue and sound does not bother me, much, but I have almost no visualization capacity.

It is so bad that on occasion when I manage to tap into the visual sphere, all I get is a volcanic eruption of colors and shapes.

But with sound am very precise, musical, can learn and control anything about it. Musical creation can also "erupt" like light, and, so, I suppose it is a degree of skill that lets you change either one from raw, subconscious energy, to something purposeful. The opposite of musical creation is probably demonic voices: basically the same thing, without the skill.

This is something like the "flaw" I had in meditation when younger, and am trying to "fix" now. Being able to easily reach Quiescence, but without reasons, purposes, or meanings, that would go with something successfully visualized.

But for the most part, meditation stems from Nada or Primordial Sound...and so there really is a non-inner monologue natural sound, or sounds, which is generally the path prior to the dawning of natural or Clear Light. I would assert this is an underlying, physiological fact, which is expressed differently in different methods of training, so what is meant by "meditate" is not the same.

In our school, it is ok if the visualization is not that great, mine are just fuzzy balls of light. Sound is more of a great threshhold or barrier; this, and the way quiescence emerges through thought as speech. An artistic person might be able to visualize a whole scene plainly, but, that does not really mean they have any ability at this type of meditation. When you begin to Dwell in the Sound, you do.

From there, I am not sure if anything is exactly "easy", since what we do is not exactly to "improve" Shaberon or Rainsong, but to erase them. Removing the current occupant or ego and replacing it with something not of this world.

[TomKat]

So, these videos have been trending and have gone viral on Youtube lately as people have discovered that humans are pretty different in some fundamental ways.

The first video discusses the "inner monologue/dialogue", what some have called the "monkey mind" or the waterfall of words, ideas, the ceaseless chatter that exists within. In it, some folks are discovering that there are people in the world who do not have this inner dialogue at all.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJLxexapps0

His girlfriend is the sane one. I was like that until about age 7, then I noticed I was thinking in words. I knew it was not a good thing, but I couldn't stop it. My theory is that as children, as we get overwhelmed by the outer world, our inner world shrinks along with sense of self, and cannot keep out the outer world. Cognitive dissonance, mental noise, mind chatter, etc., is the result.

[Tam]

I only discovered last year that the whole "internal monologue" thing wasn't a figure of speech. It happened when someone asked me if I think in French, or in English. I told them "Neither", because, well, I don't think in words, at all. For words to enter my mind, I have to be actively, consciously doing so (let's say I'm making a to-do list in my head). I never have a narrator, voicing my thoughts, like you see in movies. I always thought that was just a motif used in media to adequately convey thoughts. It never occurred to me to take it literally.

When the person heard my answer, it blew their mind. When I realized most people, do, indeed, think in words, it blew mine. I asked about 30 people after that, if they thought in words, and every last one of them said they do, and gave me a puzzled look for even asking.

Bizarre.

Oddly enough, my father doesn't have an internal monologue either, which lends me to believe it may be genetic.

Now, I find myself wondering what the hell other people have been doing different their whole lives, without others realizing it.

I also recently discovered I have ADD. I wouldn't be surprised if the two are linked. Hell, maybe the ADD is the lack of internal dialogue itself. Like a different programming language of the brain.

[Sunny-side-up]

WOW, great PO Rahkyt.

Now at 60, I'm more a thinker in words as my minds first language.
But I can easily hold and construct images, complex visuals while in actual conversation with some one.
Who out of the two can invent better and bring new information into the world ;)
This is one aspect of being (in the past) a pot smoker, such a great tool/key to open both sides up.
As for meditation I can almost instantly shut/stop, puss aside the talking mind :)

I like to explore using both.
With visualisation could you be a energy healer? Visualising combined with energy direction.

great post thanks.

BTW I spell one hundred percent perfect in my mind, real life I'm bad man, the word 'puss' above being a good example.

[TomKat]

I only discovered last year that the whole "internal monologue" thing wasn't a figure of speech. It happened when someone asked me if I think in French, or in English. I told them "Neither", because, well, I don't think in words, at all. For words to enter my mind, I have to be actively, consciously doing so (let's say I'm making a to-do list in my head). I never have a narrator, voicing my thoughts, like you see in movies. I always thought that was just a motif used in media to adequately convey thoughts. It never occurred to me to take it literally.

When the person heard my answer, it blew their mind. When I realized most people, do, indeed, think in words, it blew mine. I asked about 30 people after that, if they thought in words, and every last one of them said they do, and gave me a puzzled look for even asking.

Bizarre.

Oddly enough, my father doesn't have an internal monologue either, which lends me to believe it may be genetic.

Now, I find myself wondering what the hell other people have been doing different their whole lives, without others realizing it.

I also recently discovered I have ADD. I wouldn't be surprised if the two are linked. Hell, maybe the ADD is the lack of internal dialogue itself. Like a different programming language of the brain.

I no longer think in words, but the ADD thing makes sense. When I used to think in words, I think it was a compulsion to nail down and ground my thoughts. For people who think in words, they should observe themselves. They might find they are thinking WAY faster without words BEFORE they translate thought into words.

[Pam]

Really interesting thread. I have absolutely no ability to visualize at all. I never really thought about it until I read an article talking about people that can't visualize.

If I really want to concentrate on an object such as an apple, I focus on sense properties of that item at an intellectual level but never see a dang thing in my mind's eye. I find it interesting that I do have really vivid dreams that can be very colorful so the capacity seems to be there. I believe this lack of ability has probably limited me in more ways than I realize.

As far as inner dialogue goes, I used to be tortured by the incessant and uncontrolled nature of it, even as a teenager. After coming to understand what most of it was it has dropped significantly. I can go for periods of time with little or no inner dialogue as long as I stay in the present moment, although it is not under my control at all times.

[Mark]

I have an intetnal monologue, but it is not always words. For example I just heard the bus pick my son up as I was writing this. My internal voice was thinking about what I wanted to say, but I wad also aware of the bus picking him up. The bus part would be more abatract..i.e. my inner voice wasn't saying 'there is the bus....

Hey Enfolded One, I am familiar with that leveling effect as well, and am not sure exactly how to characterize it. Being engaged in a conversation, for instance, and being aware of a number of different things going on around you consciously, like other people nearby, the sound of conversation and maybe cars in the background, the heat on one's skin if outside, the cool of air conditioning. At some points I've found it possible to be holistically engaged in my environment in that way and it has been a marked experience of being totally present and here in the Now moment. They have been memorable as such. The mind doesn't have to consciously "say" in this inner monologue fashion, that we are aware of these other things, but there is this tacit awareness and acknowledgement of their presence.


I do Quantum healing hypnosis sessions. In these sessions the client is brought into a deep expanded state where they experience a journey that unfolds in their mind's eye. During the preparation stage I ask them to close their eyes and imagine something simple like a red flower. Most people do it easily. So far i have only had 1 client who completely couldn't. We are taught to ask these people to focus on impressions rather than images.

I used to work with clients doing similar work with the mother of my youngest son, Sirayah Mai, who still does that work (https://www.createdbyindigo.com/). Our dual work was from the energies of the Divine Feminine, which she of course represented and I, the Divine Masculine and we sought the restoration of balance within our client's spiritual and psychic fields, as a key goal. Once, we had a client who also could not do the visualization and as this was the first time either of us had ever come across this it was difficult for us to work with her. It sounds like your process includes other practitioners and a formal response which is what we actually did, as well, getting her to concentrate on her idea of the image, however that appeared to her. It was an effective way of ushering her through the energies, we found.


I consider myself to have both of these, and I thought that was
normal for everyone, my teachers at school use to even call me down
for going off in my mind somewhere, they called it "day dreaming."

I totally relate to that, teachers used to write that on my progress reports!


Rahkyt, I have often thought how little we can know about how the person next to us experiences life. Even though we may be very close, we have no idea of what the present moment looks or feels like to them, though I think we make assumptions that others are like us and our perceptions and experiences. Your idea seems like such a good way to begin to understand that it isn't the same for us all. What might that open up for us? I wish I had been given an opportunity for such an awareness early in life. Great idea, IMO. Diane

Hey wondering, it was a very interesting discussion, but they are 14 and 15 year olds, and therefore are also very reactive, with their still forming frontal lobes and lack of impulse control. It was necessary for me to guide the conversation carefully as I became more experienced with the range of responses as the day progressed, so that, by the last classroom, I began the session with a warning to be mindful of their language, that people are the same within even as we all have different capacities. To the extent that they could grasp it, I also gave a short talk about Gardner's 8 Intelligences theory, just to give them a bit of context for the difference between people and how we all learn and they got it, considering they are all in my reading comprehension classes for a reason. It was, overall, a great discussion and I think I was able to expanding their understanding of the sheer mystery of life and the diversity of the human family by engaging in it.

[Mark]

His girlfriend is the sane one. I was like that until about age 7, then I noticed I was thinking in words. I knew it was not a good thing, but I couldn't stop it. My theory is that as children, as we get overwhelmed by the outer world, our inner world shrinks along with sense of self, and cannot keep out the outer world. Cognitive dissonance, mental noise, mind chatter, etc., is the result.

Interesting theory. You stated that the "inner world shrinks along with sense of self". Does self, in this conception, equate to ego? Are you stating that the ego/self shrinks as we age and the external environmental influence becomes predominant in some people and not in others?


When the person heard my answer, it blew their mind. When I realized most people, do, indeed, think in words, it blew mine. I asked about 30 people after that, if they thought in words, and every last one of them said they do, and gave me a puzzled look for even asking.

There is really no scientific work that I have found that has been done on this topic. But then, I haven't explored it too deeply yet. It seems important enough that, at some point, someone might have done some experimentation to discover the parameters of these processes in the human family. In looking just now, I've found this (https://www.dazeddigital.com/science-tech/article/44494/1/living-without-inner-speech-voice-inside-head-psychology-science) and this (https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/figuring-out-how-and-why-we-talk-to-ourselves/508487/).


With visualisation could you be a energy healer? Visualising combined with energy direction.

In my life experience, yes, you can. Although, it wouldn't be absolutely necessary as it is possible to work conceptually with energy as well.


When the person heard my answer, it blew their mind. When I realized most people, do, indeed, think in words, it blew mine. I asked about 30 people after that, if they thought in words, and every last one of them said they do, and gave me a puzzled look for even asking.

I found an article that talks about it (https://10daily.com.au/shows/theproject/a200207arswz/we-need-to-talk-about-the-voice-in-your-head-or-lack-of-20200207) finally. This viral conversation has opened it up, which is really interesting as I believe that this is an ancient difference in the human family, one that is not new.


Oddly enough, my father doesn't have an internal monologue either, which lends me to believe it may be genetic.

Now, I find myself wondering what the hell other people have been doing different their whole lives, without others realizing it.

It could very well be, but also, it may not be for an entire family. I believe my sister does not hear an inner monologue either, while I most certainly do. There are certain personality differences that seem to indicate that one is inclined more in one direction than another, although it also seems to be a gradient in some ways. It is certainly an interesting area of study and one that could shed light on many areas that have been resistant to understanding for a long time!



I no longer think in words, but the ADD thing makes sense. When I used to think in words, I think it was a compulsion to nail down and ground my thoughts. For people who think in words, they should observe themselves. They might find they are thinking WAY faster without words BEFORE they translate thought into words.

Interesting. May I ask, how did you stop yourself from thinking in words?


If I really want to concentrate on an object such as and apple, I focus on sense properties of that item at an intellectual level but never see a dang thing in my mind's eye. I find it interesting that I do have really vivid dreams that can be very colorful so the capacity seems to be there. I believe this lack of ability has probably limited me in more ways than I realize.

As I believe that this phenomenon is natural, I am not certain if "limitation" is applicable, here. It just seems to be a different method of cognition, utilized by some humans naturally, which means there are strengths associated with it as well. Strengths that those who visualize to the extreme, like me, do not have.

[Sunny-side-up]

Just adding:
Colours, images, sound, music even words can be translated and give you emotions.
Emotions can be translated into: colours, images, sound, music even words.
All are part of our interface with this realm, some probably from other non material realms.

Music has a real power to bypass self will of mind, to control ones thoughts, ever had that one tune, singing you can't get out of your mind Grr

[Wind]

Absolutely fascinating, it's hard to believe that something like this is possible. Except for enlightened beings, that is.

Besides having conversations with myself in my head, I visualize a lot. I also see numbers in colors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia). I thought that everyone does it too!

[Mike]

I once started a thread titled 'very few people can actually think'. And it was based on something a famous clinical psychologist had said.

I didn't completely understand what he meant until I attempted to think about it. And as i tried to think about it, my mind wandered in half a dozen different directions. Eventually I'd find my way back to the original thought, and then my mind would wander again. And then I realized exactly what he meant.

And the gist of it was this: unless you're speaking to someone or writing your thoughts out, it's very very difficult to maintain a consistent thread in your mind, whether you think in words or pictures.

There's an ex con youtuber named Wes Watson, and he often talks about having a strong "witness", which is the name he gives to that part of our mind that is aware of all the chatter and just sort of watches it come and go as it stands outside of it. It's a very useful tool.

I think mostly in words. But then again, i might have an impulse to do something, like pay a bill, and it doesn't require any inner dialogue at all. Nor do I envision paying it in my mind. There is neither words nor pictures. I'm simply given a nudge by my subconscious perhaps, and then I act on it.

I think practical matters are better thought out in words. These are things that, it would seem to me anyway, simply have to be thought out this way. Creative processess are likely better implemented thru mental pictures and so forth. Abstractions should be left to the subconscious maybe. You'll often hear brilliant artists and creative people lament not being able to navigate the world. And I think it's because their thought process isn't suited to it. On the flip side, words thinkers aren't terribly creative, in general. Unless they're writers maybe.

But you can train yourself to do both. That's likely a whole other thread tho.

[TomKat]

Interesting theory. You stated that the "inner world shrinks along with sense of self". Does self, in this conception, equate to ego? Are you stating that the ego/self shrinks as we age and the external environmental influence becomes predominant in some people and not in others?


I'll stay away from the definition of ego. But babies tend to have very large energy/personality fields that encompass their whole bodies. As that personality field withdraws from life's insults and shrinks inward, and partially solidifies, it attracts parasites which claim their own space in the body, have competing or even antagonistic thoughts. One might find himself trying to nail down which thoughts are his own by thinking more concretely, in words.


May I ask, how did you stop yourself from thinking in words?


I didn't really stop. But years of expelling entities and dissolving the solidity that entities attach to caused it to gradually fade away. I still think in words if I'm thinking of what I'm going to say. But thinking in general is overrated and compulsive thinking is, in my case, a way to keep from feeling (part of that shrinking).

[earthdreamer]

So my internal dialogue responds to this thread and drags me out of bed, after scrolling my phone under the covers while my spouse is snoring. "To post or not to post", so I am typing, my internal dialogue does not command me, my thoughts edit the stream of consciousness, Kerouac a tangent thought reference, probably occurred to you too when you saw the phrase "stream of consciousness".
My first thought was the advice or teaching that Don Juan gave to Carlos Castenada: stop the internal dialogue to stop the world in effect. So those eastern derived meditations also point the way to glimpse the axis, wheel, from the empty vessel, plain awareness, simple witness. So my thought is that the unceasing thoughts are a buffer, another zone of energy sizzling around the body, tentacles mingling psychically, synchronistically, perhaps sometimes dreadfully, unhelpfully or full of destiny, microbially or epically . Waves upon the sands, time .... "waits for no one", clichés, touches, brains being receptacles in the energy fields, thinking, breathing, blood beating, streams unceasing. The internal goes external through the mouth, through these typing fingers, we make clear the unsung clouded by perspective, perception.

So the waxing to almost full moon has me up to contribute to this thread of internal monologue-ing, dialoging and how some are divergent of this type thinking. Maybe hard to believe as some of us are so addicted to words, maybe since we learned to read, or felt separated and independent. Auto-pilot living or great studious concentration can seem to hold the chatter at bay, and time passes.

I will have to check out the vids later......meanwhile I wish you all well with your own internal symbol interpreting of consciousness. Maybe I can shut down this internal buzzing and sleep.....you know when you're about to drift off, how thought seems to cease, or is it losing consciousness, deep diving....like how modern science still doesn't even understand how anesthesia really works on the consciousness, and do you ever feel like there is a magnetic tape continuously running with the streams of thought and sometimes you can hear it as it split second stops, microsecond pause to restart and keep flowing, like life and death....singing pitches of electricity, brain cells.........

posting.....

[earthdreamer]

Well I can’t give up the ghost quite yet though I’m back in bed with my phone to add a forgotten element to my riff. I just want to add how music is also a most compelling pleasure of our senses that can quiet or alter the current of thought patterns playing in the mind. Musicians and athletes get in “the zone “. Collectively we can abandon our individual heads temporarily through music loud enough to rock our worlds. So I also remembered that Don Juan’s message to Castenada about turning off the internal dialogue is not to stop the world, but to get off. Leaving behind our string of words, escaping the “buffer” to open a new state of consciousness. As the unknown can hold our greatest fears, this leap, perhaps this great divide is only a nanosecond, the potential.........possibilities...... imagination or an unfathomable reality? where language does not exist....

[TomKat]

Gary Douglas of Access Consciousness has a technique for stopping the internal dialogue. It takes 3 days. Pay attention to your thoughts and for every thought, ask, "who does this belong to?" Nothing more. But for 3 days in a row. I suspect it would work better if you were alone or mostly alone.

[earthdreamer]

There is much advice floating about on how to examine, stem, transcend the inner thinking aloud. All worthy pursuits surely. Awareness awareness awareness

I just felt compelled to clarify, expand on my previous post, as I keep reflecting on the thread of my thoughts carried over from my sleepless night. Not that anyone is asking but it nags me ('s why I don't like to post a lot, too much nagging riding my consciousness). As to the ideas of MUSIC overcoming the inner voice: that it is not just "loud" music but music or experience that enraptures, engages one's attention to the exclusion of one's intellectual thoughts, where a concert or dance or chant vibes with one's spirit so that it is possible to tune out oneself and join a group consciousness. Where there IS freedom of thought, one is not simply drowning, one isn't being tortured by loudness, but one is willingly drawn, attracted, to mutually encompassing experience. The appeal of being an audience member can reside in the desire to "forget oneself". Yet rather than just escapism, our individual self is enhanced from the temporary immersion.

The infinity Mobius loop feels an apt metaphor for thoughts about thinking thoughts.

[Meryl]

Dear Rahkyt: re Inner Monologue and the Mind's Eye
This is an utter revelation to me. Already I have had to phone up members of my family and ask them do they, or do they not have an internal monologue. That there are people who don't is incomprehensible to me. Also that some people do not have mind pictures and cannot visualize is astounding. These two videos are so instructive in how these people function in the world. I can think back on some of my dealings with friends, or colleagues, and if I apply that scenario, the whole way certain situations played out makes much more sense.
Truly Joe South....."Walk a Mile in My Shoes."........"before you abuse, criticize and accuse, walk a mile in my shoes."

[Meryl]

TomKat:.............that is a brilliant tool in Access. They say "thinking is stinking." The tool "Who does this belong to?" can create so much space in one's mind. It can eliminate all sorts of aches and pains as well. I do not any more assume that what I have got going on, mental or physical, belongs to me. We are all just radio receivers. The more sensitive we are, the more we can turn into different frequencies, picking up all sort of pains and pathways of other people. And then there is what is stored in the DNA. The first time I did a hands on body class in Access, I was confronted by waves of grief and images from the First World War. I quickly realised these were my Grandfather's memories (!!) He had been dead for thirty years or more, but I had memory after traumatic memory show like a slide show in my brain. Clearly they did not belong to me, but were encoded either in my DNA or my energetic field because I was the kid who was close to him emotionally. He never said ONE WORD about the war, mind you.

[shaberon]

Musicians and athletes get in “the zone “.


This is what I have found, or, it is what I put most of my energy into when I was younger.

Much like the folks who didn't know about whether others did or did not have an inner monologue or visualization ability, I just don't really know or understand why anyone would do anything else other than what you just said. In my experience, neither is visual, but both can replace inner monologue very easily. By "athletic" I might just mean "highly physical", or geometric, for instance on a driving route, I can learn how it looks much quicker than remember the names of the streets. Then I am going to say sex is the same. At that point I have enumerated almost everything I have ever done, approximately three things. I don't understand why someone wouldn't. I can understand that someone might not carry a monologue, or could visualize much better than me, but would be unable to fathom why they might not care for those three things. I for one feel a rhythm, a pulse, and it just seems to me that many non-musical humans are a "dead zone" and harmful to inspiration.

Sometimes I have wondered how much of it has to do with "screaming kids". When I first started pre-school, it seemed like there were a handful of us that were sort of quiet, and most of the kids would shriek if a butterfly was near their elbow, or the door opened, or anything, all the time. So I quickly gravitated towards those who did not make a bunch of noise about nothing. Appears to be a strong personality difference that took place immediately and has never changed.

[Ti]

I only discovered last year that the whole "internal monologue" thing wasn't a figure of speech. It happened when someone asked me if I think in French, or in English. I told them "Neither", because, well, I don't think in words, at all. For words to enter my mind, I have to be actively, consciously doing so (let's say I'm making a to-do list in my head). I never have a narrator, voicing my thoughts, like you see in movies. I always thought that was just a motif used in media to adequately convey thoughts. It never occurred to me to take it literally.

When the person heard my answer, it blew their mind. When I realized most people, do, indeed, think in words, it blew mine. I asked about 30 people after that, if they thought in words, and every last one of them said they do, and gave me a puzzled look for even asking.

Bizarre.

Oddly enough, my father doesn't have an internal monologue either, which lends me to believe it may be genetic.

Now, I find myself wondering what the hell other people have been doing different their whole lives, without others realizing it.

I also recently discovered I have ADD. I wouldn't be surprised if the two are linked. Hell, maybe the ADD is the lack of internal dialogue itself. Like a different programming language of the brain.

I no longer think in words, but the ADD thing makes sense. When I used to think in words, I think it was a compulsion to nail down and ground my thoughts. For people who think in words, they should observe themselves. They might find they are thinking WAY faster without words BEFORE they translate thought into words.

I've done some speed-writing challenges, like... absurd writing stunts, I wrote 8000 words of fiction in an hour once. Now obviously I had to gear up for that insanity, and one of the things that I had to learn to do was to not think in words when I was outputting fiction, but to switch my routine to go straight from my head into my fingers. Otherwise I would have been thinking too slow to keep up with that pace.

By default I have an inner narrative but I can exploit non-narrative thoughts for forcing myself to get things done. When you're always chatting with yourself in your head, it's easy to overthink everything. I exchange far more words silently in my mind than I do outside, and what I'd do without that inner world is a mystery to me!

Anyway, yes, I hold there is a translation process of thought into word, and if you can silence that, you can get more done, because the word-thinking isn't getting in the way. With how it slows our reflexes, I feel in some small way words are a virus, language being that which separates us from animals and prevents us from achieving the strengths of animals. Our memory processing time is reduced, for example. Our speed. Our reaction time. Thought may let us enter complicated realms in a simulation but it can also keep me from getting anything done... I overthink on a regular basis.

However, entering the 'zone', the 'flow', it's a powerful thing. I've had past success with 'who does this belong to' for clearing my mind but nothing works better than music to jolt me into the correct writing headspace!

[Mark]

May I ask, how did you stop yourself from thinking in words?


I didn't really stop. But years of expelling entities and dissolving the solidity that entities attach to caused it to gradually fade away. I still think in words if I'm thinking of what I'm going to say. But thinking in general is overrated and compulsive thinking is, in my case, a way to keep from feeling (part of that shrinking).

So it is your understanding that the ceaseless inner monologue is potentially caused by invading entities (http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/predators.html)?

[Mark]

My first thought was the advice or teaching that Don Juan gave to Carlos Castenada: stop the internal dialogue to stop the world in effect.

For those unfamiliar with the advice that Don Juan gave Casteneda (http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/predators.html):


"Long ago, the native sorcerer/shamans of Mexico discovered that we have a companion for life," he said, as clearly as he could.
"We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos, and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The predator is our lord and master. It has rendered us docile; helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we don't do so."


"I want to appeal to your analytical mind. Think for a moment, and tell me how you would explain the contradiction between the intelligence of man the engineer, and the stupidity of his systems of beliefs; or the stupidity of his contradictory behavior.
Sorcerers believe that the predators have given us our systems of beliefs; our ideas of good and evil; our social mores. The predators are the ones who set up our hopes and expectations, and dreams of success or failure. They have given us covetousness, greed, and cowardice. It is the predators who make us complacent, routinary, and egomaniacal."
"But how can they do this, don Juan?" I asked, somehow angered further by what he was saying. "Do they whisper all that in our ears while we are asleep?"
"No, they don't do it that way. That's idiotic!" don Juan said, smiling. "They are infinitely more efficient and organized than that. In order to keep us obedient, meek and weak, the predators engaged themselves in a stupendous maneuver - stupendous, of course, from the point of view of a fighting strategist; a horrendous maneuver from the point of view of those who suffer it. They gave us their mind! Do you hear me? The predators give us their mind which becomes our mind. The predators' mind is baroque, contradictory, morose, and filled with the fear of being discovered any minute now.
"I know that even though you have never suffered hunger," he went on, "you have food anxiety which is none other than the anxiety of the predator who fears that any moment now its maneuver is going to be uncovered, and its food is going to be denied. Through the mind, which after all is their mind, the predators inject into the lives of human beings whatever is convenient for them. The predators ensure in this manner a degree of security to act as a buffer against their fear."
"It's not that I can't accept all this at face value, don Juan," I said. "I could, but there's something so odious about it that it actually repels me. It forces me to take a contradictory stand. "If it's true that they eat us, how do they do it?"


"Sorcerers say that discipline makes the glowing coat of awareness unpalatable to the flyer.
The result is that the predators become bewildered. An inedible glowing coat of awareness is not part of their cognition, I suppose. After being bewildered, they don't have any recourse other than refraining from continuing their nefarious task. If the predators don't eat our glowing coat of awareness for a while, it will keep on growing.
"Simplifying this matter to the extreme, I can say that sorcerers, by means of their discipline, push the predators away long enough to allow their glowing coat of awareness to grow beyond the level of the toes. Once it goes beyond the level of the toes, it grows back to its natural size.
The sorcerers of ancient Mexico used to say that the glowing coat of awareness is like a tree. If it is not pruned, it grows to its natural size and volume. As awareness reaches levels higher than the toes, tremendous maneuvers of perception become a matter of course.
"The grand trick of those sorcerers of ancient times was to burden the flyers' mind with discipline. Sorcerers found out that if they taxed the flyers' mind with inner silence, the foreign installation would flee, and give any one of the practitioners involved in this maneuver the total certainty of the mind's foreign origin.
The [alien mind control of these creatures] comes back, I assure you, but not as strong; and a process begins in which the fleeing of the flyers' mind becomes routine until one day it flees permanently.
"That's the day when you have to rely on your own devices which are nearly zero. A sad day indeed! There's no one to tell you what to do. There's no mind of foreign origin to dictate the imbecilities you're accustomed to. My teacher, the nagual Julian, used to warn all his disciples that this was the toughest day in a sorcerer's life for the real mind that belongs to us. The sum total of our experience after a lifetime of domination has been rendered shy, insecure, and shifty.
Personally, I would say that the real battle of sorcerers begins at that moment. The rest is merely preparation."

[Marta]

I would not talk about “the monkey mind”, cause it seems that you have a low mind and a high mind, which in my opinion is not accurate. I would take about one whole mind, and this mind has thoughts. The most important thing is if these thoughts are leading you to where you want to go, or not. Human brain is divided in two hemispheres: the right one thinks in images, pictures and abstract concepts. The left one thinks in words, concrete and logical things. If you think more about images, you’re a right-minded person, and if you think more in words, you’re a left-minded person. But I don’t think this is the most important thing to worry about. Our thoughts are creating our reality so I would care about if they are driving you to a good place or not. Observing your thoughts without judging them as “low or high” or “right or wrong” or “good or bad”... Observing our thoughts without judging them is using the Mind’s Eye, which is your Soul, your consciousness.

[Mark]

I would not talk about “the monkey mind”, cause it seems that you have a low mind and a high mind, which in my opinion is not accurate.

Welcome to Avalon Marta and thank you for your input. It is an accepted phrase in the tradition of mindfulness. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about it and for the discourse on the functions of the mind. Blessings!

[shaberon]

Rather than Monkey Mind, many of our newer translations are using Discursive Thought.

I did not know what it means!

discursive. wandering from one topic to another; skimming over many apparently unconnected subjects; rambling; desultory; digressive. based on the conscious use of reasoning rather than on intuition.

Discursive Thought and Harmful Emotions cause Vrittis, which, I do not think there is any translation for. Meaning "whirlpools", but, in the sense of nerve impulses being agitated from calm abiding to something that can be physically perceived as disorder and discomfort. Like if you get so mad you start shaking, those are extreme vrittis; but if you are just sitting there and feel a bit twitchy, or called and distracted by things, those are fairly normal vrittis. But we do not really want any.

The action of these cause Water Poison, which is a glue, or solidity, adhering to external objects.

When attention and energy is fixed on the outer, then, all that can result is a tumult of those symptoms.

So for instance, if attention is placed on television, this is the main reason our visualization ability has been killed. In the old days of story telling, if someone said "horses in a pasture", everyone could see it mentally. I can probably do it in a few years if I put some effort into it.

Utter elimination of vrittis is the goal of any Yoga school. And when this happens, one definitely can enter a state where sound and light as we know them melt, or peel, and it is not really the astral plane, which is more like a blueprint of the physical. From that point, the schools are very different, and so in Buddhist Yoga one is not really seeking Liberation, but more of an exemption to the vrittis process so that one returns to the ordinary world with a clean view of the speech making process and everything one says becomes a form of Purified Speech, like it is all a kind of beneficial spell casting.

It applies to all of the senses, and so for example the Taste of craving a beer every few minutes, makes all kinds of vrittis and water poison that doesn't happen if you just moderately eat and drink what you need without craving or attachment.

With the engineered addictive foodstuffs served around here, it is not too hard to see that Taste for fast food item x will unleash hordes of nervous impulses that start making their own words in your mind continuum. In that sense, you start becoming glued to whatever someone else decided to put there.

[Mark]

Dear Rahkyt: re Inner Monologue and the Mind's Eye
This is an utter revelation to me. Already I have had to phone up members of my family and ask them do they, or do they not have an internal monologue. That there are people who don't is incomprehensible to me.

Hi Meryl, thanks for responding. What have you found, with your family? I have been finding in my experience that it varies, one of my sisters does not have an inner voice, while the other one does. Some of my friends whom, after learning about this, I thought might not, actually do not, and others do. It is difficult to understand sometimes, when people are describing how they think, whether they do or not because everyone seems to have the capability to "create" the inner voice at will, we all tell ourselves to think something and we can do it. But the constant chatter that speaks to us in our own voice, or sometimes others for some folks, is sometimes a bit harder to clarify because you never really know if another person's descriptions match your understanding of the words they are saying. Does that make sense? As an illustration, I've had a couple of people say to me they have the inner voice, but their difficulty in describing it makes me think they don't and it is as if they think it is a detriment "not" to have it when it is not, just a different method of cognition more emotive and sensory in nature with its own benefits and advantages.


Also that some people do not have mind pictures and cannot visualize is astounding. These two videos are so instructive in how these people function in the world. I can think back on some of my dealings with friends, or colleagues, and if I apply that scenario, the whole way certain situations played out makes much more sense.
Truly Joe South....."Walk a Mile in My Shoes."........"before you abuse, criticize and accuse, walk a mile in my shoes."

I do not know if they go together and are related, or not. But if we, as humans, exist on a gradient, then I think perhaps there are variations of capacity across the spectrum of ability within our vast human family. For me, one who exists within a febrile field of imagery and imaginative expansiveness, it is also difficult to conceive of the mental life of folks who conceptualize differently. But that it occurs is a beautiful testament to potentiality and makes me wonder what else is going on out there and in there, outside of me and my way of being in the world.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

This is such a weird concept. To me, the very idea of having no internal monologue is a form of inner death. Until finding this thread, and viewing additional articles/videos on the phenomenon, I did not know it existed.

My internal monologue is an entire other universe. It's the ability to soliloquise and narrate my existence, and my day-to-day interactions with the world. And it's not just words -- but images, feelings and concepts too. I thought everybody had that. It's running all the time, amped up to 11, and sometimes it doesn't let me sleep. That this isn't the default condition for every human is just wild. I had thought that's what set us aside from the apes.

According to this article (https://www.bustle.com/wellness/does-everyone-have-an-internal-monologue), [a staggering] 70% of people may have no inner monologue at all, meaning it's the exception rather than the norm.

From personal observation (and inner musings) phone addiction might be a signifier of this. We see so many walking around these days staring into their phones, or otherwise hooked up to it with a 'thing' in their ear. What drives them to be connected to these devices 24/7? Is the answer, they must fill the void in their brains because there's nothing else in there? I don't know. All I do know is, I don't walk around with my phone in my hand, and don't and never have worn earphones/earbuds in public. Ever. My inner monologue is an attention whore. Constant noise would drown it out, and it simply would not allow it.

I really am beginning to believe that this widespread inability to THINK is the reason we live in clown-world. Are those who have no inner life what NPC's are, or as Dolores Cannon called them, 'Backdrop people'? Though I find these labels dehumanising it may have more truth than we imagine.

If nothing else, the concept is food for thought (if you have the ability to do that!)

The video below, by Tim Pool, discusses and explores this fascinating and strange phenomena.

Science PROVES NPCs ARE REAL, Some People DONT THINK AT ALL
Timcast (https://www.youtube.com/@TimcastNews)
15 March 2024
29mins
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