Internal Dialogue

This is an effort to recapitulate another very different aspect of knowledge that will serve for future accounts of how dreams work. 

Internal dialogue is the continuous "telling ourselves" through reason. By this I am referring to everything that our mind dictates to us, everything it tells us, everything it makes us think all of the time. Deliberately thinking about materials, persons, events, past or future situations in a forceful torrent of thoughts. It affects reality in order to adjust our way of thinking, and it places us in a constant state of struggle, boredom, unsatisfaction or confusion with "the world", as the world becomes nothing more than a pile of predesigned ideas. 

It is said that sorcerers of ancient times lived in a constant state of inner silence. This they achieved through practice, and they practiced from the moment they were little children. In reality, they did not need even oral dialogue, which is why they were able to experience other realities and other worlds. Their senses and all of their perceptual sensations were awake. Stopping internal dialogue is primordial to sorcery. 

So how do we stop inner dialogue?

A newborn baby lacks inner dialogue and thus possesses more energy, a higher capacity for consciousness, perception and intuition. In this manner children can see other worlds and realities. We, as adults and with great amounts of internal dialogue, say to children that these worlds are apparently merely a part of their "imagination", but these worlds are as real as an apple when you're eating it. 

Inner dialogue is deeply embedded in western customs. They teach us to create day after day an internal stream of thought that contains ideas that are not our own. Don't do this. Get away from that. Do this. That doesn't exist. What did you do? Who were you talking to? Etc. All of these things are part of the saturation in our minds. Ever since we were little we are made to be dependent upon these ideas, thoughts and memories, to the point of it becoming a subconscious repetitive mechanism. 

We spend our lives talking to ourselves about how something is the way it is because we've been taught to do so, ever trying to return to some place that will not return, and trying to live things that we are not yet living. For example: the memory of an ex-girlfriend, a family member that has been dead for years, what you'll be wearing for a party tomorrow, what you'll be eating today, what you're going to buy at the supermarket later, how to earn somebody's trust, how to buy a house or a car, who may or may not be thinking about you, why isn't she talking to you, etc. It is a system that has been passed down generation after generation ever since the conquest and becomes ever more degenerative. All of this tension makes us spend far too much energy, which makes us see the world of "concepts" and "objects" as limited and squared within our senses and our perception, thus atrophying our reason for being, our consciousness of being, stopping the infinite variety of choices and replacing them with the same old choices over and over again until at the end we achieve nothing or, when we believe we have achieved something, we are unsatisfied with everything. 

When we finally manage to stop inner dialogue, then we see the world differently. The veil we had over our eyes regarded as divine decree suddenly vanishes, and new and truly extraordinary facets of ourselves come to light. 

So how do we stop inner dialogue?

It is said that the way of vanquishing our inner dialogue is by using the same method by which we were taught to talk to ourselves. We were taught in a compulsive and sustained manner, and that is how we must stop it: in a compulsive and sustained manner. 

There may be other ways, such as placing our attention unto an object without blinking until our mind turns blank. Our eyes might hurt a bit at the beginning while we educate our vision in order to "see" rather than just to look. But a large amount of practice and initiative is required to do this. Other methods are to listen to the sounds of the world, paying attention only to every perceptible sound around you. Another is to look at all the objects within your field of vision, walking around without fixing your sight in one place or the other, thus being able to consciously contemplate 180 degrees of vision. 

What's important is that we do this even if it is just for ten seconds. In this way we start "accruing", accumulating or "saving" these moments of silence. 

Through internal dialogue we achieve "equilibrium", which is to say, we get stuck in this reality. We fix our point of perception into a single spot, and this allows us to perceive only what our ego considers "reasonable and logical", only what's "verifiable". Moving this point of perception is one of the greatest achievements a warrior can make. The techniques, the theory, the method; these are all within reach of everybody, but achievements will only arrive for those who put them in practice. 

Stop your internal dialogue and truly listen to yourself.