Organizational Patterns of Thought Used?

[PepperBlossoms]

What patterns and organizational structures do you use to think?

Do you think in words, images, feelings, a combination, a lack of?

Have you found some frameworks that work well for you and allow for more than others?

Example - Language really helps a bunch by giving quick access to distinctions, meanings, identifications, and relationships.

[OctagonOctopus]

I think that I had a thought about thinking, but you know that is just a thought. 

Depends on the context, some ways of seeing are better for different thing. I don't really use language much when I am trying to draw a picture, but of course there are usually associated words, images, & feelings all going on at the same time. I think that is why I enjoy some abstract art, it is funny watching the mind try to associate things to it.

[Hulia]

I live with my thoughts in parallel worlds. I let them do their silent job. When they are finished I ask them. They answer in words. 

[PepperBlossoms]

2 hours ago, Hulia said:

I live with my thoughts in parallel worlds. I let them do their silent job. When they are finished I ask them. They answer in words. 

Fascinating.  How does that work exactly?  What do you mean by parallel words and how are they doing a job separate from you?

[Hulia]

@PepperBlossoms My thoughts have made themselves independent. I don´t know, where they float and what they sponge. They surprise me!

[PepperBlossoms]

Hmm.  That is pretty interesting!

My thoughts seem to be one after another.  I can switch from thinking in words to using images or using feeling but my predominant way of thinking is with words - (maybe because I used to pray growing up back when I used to be religious and that was with words, but maybe not).

I find that the words give me clear bullets of things whereas the images for me tend to be 2d shapes and I kinda have to "word" or "talk" my way through the image to get it to come up and get drawn in my mind and then I will talk some more with words to get the images to move around.  If I am able to shut out the words and just have images/feelings - it will go much, much faster and and may let me see more of a meta perspective on how I really "feel" that things are going and can visually see the emotion behind the various situation I am dealing with from like a 3rd person perspective but also 1st-ish.

I've been able to put words/concepts into boxes and then move the boxes out of the way visually so that I can focus on the concept at hand - or trying other abstract ways with words and images to get some desired effect  - or try to go through a scenario..

I hadn't a clue that half of people tend to predominantly think in images and not words and found that super interesting.

I had started to wonder how the others think, like how ANYONE THINKS aside from the methods I use, and if there was a specific thought organization method that people use that is super helpful for getting specific results.

@Hulia When you say independent, do you mean that they just come and then go?

It would be cool to get a recording or transcript or video of people's thoughts to get better ways for ourselves and see our deceptions and if others are understanding us or not but we are not 100% there yet technologically, which would also be terrifying at the same time.

@OctagonOctopus agree that different methods will probably work better for different results.  your bringing up abstract art sparks the question - what makes abstract art abstract?

Edited January 6, 2021 by PepperBlossoms

[Peter-Andre]

@PepperBlossoms This is such an interesting topic, and one that I've been thinking about from a very early age. I've always thought mainly through language, but unlike many others, I've never really had an internal voice that I can hear. I just think the words, not the way they sound.

I also assumed that this was the way everyone else thought until I spoke with my mother about this. I asked her if she also thought by thinking words, but she said no and didn't even realize that was possible. I even tried to explain to her how I did it, but she wasn't able to do it, although she didn't really seem to make much of an effort to do it either. Could also just be that I explained it poorly, not sure

One of my younger sisters, on the other hand, seems to think the same way I do, so I think it varies a bit from person to person. I remember just intuitively learning to think this way. I don't even remember exactly when I started doing this. I must have been a toddler back then.

An interesting little side note is that when I was younger I used to think in Norwegian (my native language), but I later transitioned over to English, for various reasons. I've also gotten into a habit of talking to myself out loud whenever I'm alone, and that is how I do a lot of my thinking and contemplation.

[PepperBlossoms]

@Peter-Andre Yeah it is an interesting topic!  Ooh norway!  That is awesome!!  I find myself talking to myself out loud not when I am alone, but when I am working and am around others.  I do find though that if I have a bunch of questions written down - it was faster sometimes to just talk it out loud and get to the answer than it was to internally speak it in my mind.

Note - I read online that about approx 50% of people think in images and 50% in words - not sure why.

When you say you think the words but not the way they sound..do you mean that it is like thinking but not having a care for the noise - but it is still the voice in your head speaking but you are just paying attention to the word part even though it still technically "sounds" like the voice in your head?  Or are you paying attention to the letters so more the visual or imagery of the word?

For me, the thinking in words is in "sound" form and I can start using accents for the voice in my head or go fast or slow and so it is kinda just like talking but not outloud but rather in my head.. or that is how it is for me.. (and no it is usually not accents ha but if I wanted it to be I could).

Imagine - if we did not have language - so no words, we would not be able to think in words - I'd presume we'd think more in feelings and images (or it could still be thinking in sounds since words are still sounds but it would be more animalistic sounds)... maybe words are too formal and serious and if we used more simpler words, we'd tend to think more simpler (which we are kinda moving towards as seen in going from the flowy shakespearean English to simple English).

[OctagonOctopus]

@PepperBlossoms

A good question, I feel abstract art is usually vauge in its meaning & often created in an unconventional way. Something that it is easy to project different perspectives onto, like Rorschach images. Music is an interesting example, especially pieces with a more ambient less lyrical style. It really is a broad lable to put on things. 

[Peter-Andre]

10 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

I find myself talking to myself out loud not when I am alone, but when I am working and am around others.

@PepperBlossoms Really? Doesn't that get awkward around others? I sometimes start talking out loud to myself when I'm walking outside and sometimes I just notice someone is around me and I immediately shut up and feel embarrassed. I would be happy to talk out loud all the time because that the most natural way for me to think about stuff, but I feel like I would just look like a fool if I did it around others. We live in a society and all that.

10 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

Note - I read online that about approx 50% of people think in images and 50% in words - not sure why.

That's interesting. I wonder if that correlates in any way to people's behavior and interests. How does a person's preferred thinking method affect them? I'm also wondering if this has changed over the past couple of centuries with most people now being educated and literate. Maybe that's had an impact.

I should also mention that it's not really either/or for me. I use a little bit of both methods, often at the same time in tandem, but I would say that thinking with words is my predominant thinking method.

10 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

When you say you think the words but not the way they sound..do you mean that it is like thinking but not having a care for the noise - but it is still the voice in your head speaking but you are just paying attention to the word part even though it still technically "sounds" like the voice in your head?  Or are you paying attention to the letters so more the visual or imagery of the word?

It varies a bit, usually there is no voice at all, just abstract words and their meanings. The sound of a word is not an essential part of the word so I don't have to bring the sound into mind to think a word. I also don't see words written visually in my mind as I'm thinking them, it's more abstract than that. They usually have no sound or visual appearance. This also applies when I'm reading, particularly when I get into a flow state and immerse myself in the text. But if I start listening for my inner voice, my mind starts giving each word a sound. I'm more likely to hear, or even just feel the sounds of words if I start paying more attention to the individual words, but if I'm more focused on the general message or idea, and focus less on the actual words, there stops being an inner voice. If I want to the words to have sounds, it helps to slow down the rate at which new words appear. So the inner voice is there if I want it to be, but usually it's all silent. And even when it's there, it's often pretty muffled and vague.

It's really hard to explain this stuff, so sorry if this is confusing or doesn't make sense to you.

11 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

Imagine - if we did not have language - so no words, we would not be able to think in words - I'd presume we'd think more in feelings and images (or it could still be thinking in sounds since words are still sounds but it would be more animalistic sounds)... maybe words are too formal and serious and if we used more simpler words, we'd tend to think more simpler (which we are kinda moving towards as seen in going from the flowy shakespearean English to simple English).

I believe this is a pretty hotly debated topic among linguists. I'm not sure if there is a mainstream consensus on it at the moment. I'm pretty sure Noam Chomsky has written extensively on the topic, so you might want to check out some of his works.

I doubt we'd be thinking with animalistic sounds if those sounds didn't have specific meanings encoded within them. I think people probably started thinking through language as soon as we developed the capability of using more sophisticated language.

Personally, I tend to use a hybrid of many different thinking strategies together for different purposes, but I use language so much of the time that it's difficult to imagine what it would be like if I couldn't think through language at all and had to rely solely on other thinking methods.

Keep in mind that not everyone spoke like Shakespeare back in the day, if that were the case, his writings would be completely ordinary and anyone could do what he did. I don't really think language has gotten much simpler since then, in fact, I would argue it's been getting more complex in recent times in the sense that aspects of formal literary language have increasingly made their way into spoken languages. From my own personal experience, it seems that younger people generally use much more abstract concepts in their speech compared to older people, who seem to talk less about abstract philosophical concepts and more about simple everyday things. I think this might be related to the Flynn effect, which has shown that people have generally been scoring higher and higher on IQ tests over time. However, it's not necessarily the case that people are just more intelligent today, but perhaps just more used to thinking in more abstract ways. Here is a quote from an interesting article I just found on the subject:

Quote

A more general factor is that society as a whole functions at a higher intellectual level, proposing to the curious child more information, more intellectual challenges, more complex problems, more examples to be followed, and more reasoning methods to be applied. Just using everyday appliances, such as VCRs, microwave ovens, and thermostats, demands a more abstract type of reasoning, of which the older generation is often incapable. The increased complexity of life is likely to stimulate an increased complexity of mind. The growing use of computers for education or games at an early age is likely to further boost general knowledge, abstract reasoning and intellectual agility.

Here is a link to the full article: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/FLYNNEFF.html

[Peter-Andre]

@PepperBlossoms By the way, here is a clip of Noam Chomsky that you might be interested in. He talks about how language primarily seems to have evolved for creating and interpreting thought as opposed to being efficient for communication.

 

[Jay Ray]

@PepperBlossoms I think in a few different ways.

level One the lowest level of though, I have obvious childlike declarations like "oh that is a tree, look there is a bird. look there is a blue car". this level of thought is a simplistic "this is, that is he does they do" kind of thinking which goes unnoticed most of the time because it is less helpful but from this state comes more complex though patterns and ideas.

 level two is like comparing and contrasting these observation with cultural and moral judgements without deep realization on the flimsy nature of them . "Hey that is a tree and that is mundane and boring. Man I want to get a sportscar right now because with that I could be somebody and people would like me". this is kind of like the egoic though patterns that pops in my mind sometimes.

level three is  a deeper awareness of these thoughts "Hey I just had a moral judgment that said I need a sports car in order to be whole which doesn't make logic sense if extrapolated to the past when people didn't have sports cars and they were probably fine and dandy without them." "oh look there is a very vague picture in my minds eye of a character who looks like me but has some differences in a sports car with a big smile and then another thought of that same man without one and looking really sad. This mental character is not me and if I really wanted to I could changed this picture and add elements to it like a video game and change my emotional state because of it. I now see this mental image of a man happy and poor without a nice car or looking happy. I can control my ideas of  "  

 

I have found that going back to level one is a great meditative place and level three is also great. level 2 causes all kinds of trouble. 

[tsuki]

@PepperBlossoms  Amazing thread!

The dominant way in which I think is through inner voice. I used to be wholly identified with that voice, but now there is a big distance between me and it. I tend to identify as the silence in which this voice occurs and allow the voice to speak unhindered. I also watch the feelings that arise in response to the thoughts and use the feelings to guide the voice to be more aligned with the heart. I am very aware of the way in which language is used and spend a considerable amount of time to identify, name and analyze myself, how I feel and how it relates to the events that I'm experiencing. When I'm correcting the voice, I think deliberately, as if I was speaking with my mouth, but without movement, "trying the words on" as if it were clothes and feeling them. The more I learn about myself, the more I know that feelings are more primary than thoughts and focus on expressing them, even if I don't understand them at the moment. When I look back at the situation in which I expressed my feelings, oftentimes I find that they were exactly appropriate and it is only apparent to the voice because of the events that unfolded afterwards that I did not know at the moment.

I experience feelings as "attractors of attention" that shift the focus away, or towards something. If I were to make a movie analogy, they are analogous to the editing process. They can be external, as a filter upon the "objective" events of the world, or internal, as sensations within my body-space. When it comes to internal feelings, they are made of distinctly flavored kinds of energy that accumulates in certain areas, mostly around my stomach and solar plexus. The external feelings are usually attractors of sight, sound, or smell, like a beautiful woman for example. There are also other kinds of feelings that are difficult to categorize this way and they occur when I correct the language, or try to express myself accurately. It just feels right to say something a certain, particular, way and when I do this, it usually turns out that I'm right. I am feeling this right now, as I'm writing this post. This probably has something to do with self-reflection, honesty, authenticity and inner truth. When I contextualize these feelings within the given situation and a few-day window, they give me a coherent identity, a person, that lives "under the hood" that I'm working to get in touch with. A lot of repressed stuff lives there and I find that enduring the discomfort of having/being a double person is extremely worthwhile. It is probably the single most important thing that I do with my life.

When it comes to the voice, it usually talks as somebody to someone and identifying these people is very important, especially when the voice is very harsh or critical. This gives me the space to look upon my relationships and how they influence me, because the voice is conditioned by interactions. My mother used to be very critical of me and re-conditioning her voice into a supportive woman through psychotherapy has drastically improved the quality of my life. There used to be "friendships" that were actually rivalries that conditioned the voice to pretend manliness. When I'm thinking about stuff, the voice usually goes full lecture-mode, addressing the anonymous audience (probably conditioned by school). The recipient of the talk is also important because I'm bilingual (English and Polish) and I think in different language when I think to different people. When I'm thinking about metaphysical stuff I usually think in English, as if I were writing a post on the forum. This leads to interesting problems when I try to talk in Polish about things that I thought through in English. I work on being able to seamlessly read things in English and translate them into Polish. The voice is not human, strictly speaking, because it is also conditioned by music. If I don't vary the music enough, even very complex songs can get stuck on repeat for weeks. Remembering a different song deliberately helps with it, but not always. I'm still learning to manage the music.

There is also a distinct mode of being that I go into when I try to uncover something that I know that I don't know. I call it contemplation. It is really strange, I don't think that there are appropriate ways to express it, but I will try. It consists of noticing the "gaps", or "nothings" that occur when I encounter the unknown. It feels as breaking of cohesion in my reasoning, not being able to follow, as if a moving car teleported few meters forward when I watch it pass by. There is really not much to do when I notice the "nothings" other than sit in their presence and observe them with focus, as if awareness itself had the capacity to uncover truth. At some point, they become intelligible in an orgasmic mind-flash and I can talk about them in new ways. Depending on the thing that I contemplate, this may go very deep and emotions tend to get in the way of doing it. If the mind-flash is deep enough, like really fucking deep, like mind-shattering, going crazy, no-human-can-ever-understand-it-and-yet-I-do-understand-it deep, I can go into a full-blown existential crisis that can last for weeks. As I contemplate more, emotions became more and more on board with this contemplation thing and crumbling of my identity is perceived as something positive and looked forward to. This somehow relates to these distinct neither-internal-nor-external feelings that I get when I write posts like this one.

Contemplation and "nothings" also relate to creativity in unexpected ways. When I'm tasked with creating something, the process in which it is born is very reminiscent of sitting in the presence of nothing. Depending on how big the task is, it can be very daunting, but "looking" at the openness that is "there" and waiting patiently gives rise to solutions. At first, they are rudimentary, but making some parts ambiguous, some more constrained, re-arranging relationships between things usually allows me to deepen and deepen the solutions until they become workable. This is also experienced as an orgasmic mind-flash, but is very tiring because my mind tends to build momentum around a certain task and it becomes difficult to stop it at night. It tends to disrupt my sleep pattern and is not really sustainable at the moment. It somehow also relates to fantasy and dream-states as I tend to become enamored with my ideas and fall into attachment. When that happens, I sometimes go bipolar: one day being "high" on ideas, and "low" the other day, criticizing them and seeing the week points. If I can, I try to regulate this and be more grounded, but it is still an area that I'm developing in.

Edited January 7, 2021 by tsuki

[LastThursday]

It makes me wonder what is a thought in the first place.

I mean are emotions and thoughts separate or not? Also if you speak out loud, instead of talking to yourself, is that a thought? If you take notes, are the notes thoughts in physical form?

Anyway. It depends on the type of activity.

If I'm thinking about design for a project or trying to solve a maths or computer problem, I'd say that's nearly entirely visual with no internal chat. From that I get a sense (not really a feeling) of how things fit together and work.

For playing and reading music, my fingers do the thinking. It's more like my fingers "think" and then I get the auditory and tactile feedback of the instrument to tell me how play next. I read music badly, but again there's no internal chit chat, just looking and playing.

However, if I'm rehearsing for an upcoming situation (because I need to get my facts straight) or presentation, there'll be a lot of internal chat as I go through imaginary dialogue over and over again.

If I'm writing, I put the words down and then read them to myself to make sure it sounds good and it flows well. So, a bit like an auditory sound check. But there's a kind of visual thinking which goes on as well, with punctuation and word length and word choice.

For an activity like computer programming, thoughts are wordless (you can't speak code!). They kind of just arise and I just type then test. It's a bit like speaking, but without words.

For other situations where I don't have enough information or when in social situations it's mostly just thinking by feeling my way in the moment - like an intuition. But I couldn't really describe it in any way.

Edited January 7, 2021 by LastThursday

[PepperBlossoms]

@Peter-Andre Thanks for sharing the Flynn effect article!  Very interesting!  That's an interesting point that abstract thinking skills has gotten better and better - I can see that having access to more information with the internet and widespread use of the internet has allowed for more information to see repetition and patterns with.  Would be interesting to look deeper into what all the abstract reasoning consists of.  Regarding the talking out loud around others - I don't do it that much but just sometimes "unconsciously" find myself narrating a task of some sort for a few seconds.  That's interesting how you can have a word with no voice - I find that all of the words are from the spoken voice in my head (unless I am not paying attention enough and am doing that??)- otherwise there are no words but the images which I see.  Thanks for sharing the Noam Chomsky video.  Interesting that language has been made more for thinking than communicating.

@Jay Ray Nice notice!  The more we notice, the more things we can put together - and basically the level 2 thought are some putting the pieces together but it is still missing a bunch of things.  That is interesting that you noted that Level 2 is egoic.  I can see that we can have a selfish or angry reaction to something at first and have to keep on digging more and more to find the harmony, and beauty in it - level 3.

[PepperBlossoms]

On 1/7/2021 at 11:54 AM, LastThursday said:

It makes me wonder what is a thought in the first place.

I mean are emotions and thoughts separate or not? Also if you speak out loud, instead of talking to yourself, is that a thought? If you take notes, are the notes thoughts in physical form?

@LastThursday Interesting point - I guess it would be where we "decide" to draw the line.  I think I am angry.  I feel angry.  They are similar - they both seem to be a physical thing going on in the body - it is crazy how emotions or words in the head or images in the head even exist in the first place.  But then calls the question, it is crazy that sounds images smells tastes touches even exist either.. weird stuff.  Yeah I can see that - the different "thinking" modes for different activities.  Calls into question how or why the heck all the thinking is going on in the first place or if that is basically the same thing as repulsion and attraction like a magnet.

[PepperBlossoms]

On 1/7/2021 at 2:35 AM, tsuki said:

@PepperBlossoms  Amazing thread!

Thank you.

On 1/7/2021 at 2:35 AM, tsuki said:

I used to be wholly identified with that voice, but now there is a big distance between me and it. I tend to identify as the silence in which this voice occurs and allow the voice to speak unhindered

Wow.  How does identifying as the silence work?  Is the voice still you or what is the voice?  Do you want to keep the distance or make it larger or closer or merge with it?

On 1/7/2021 at 2:35 AM, tsuki said:

There are also other kinds of feelings that are difficult to categorize this way and they occur when I correct the language, or try to express myself accurately. It just feels right to say something a certain, particular, way and when I do this, it usually turns out that I'm right. I am feeling this right now, as I'm writing this post. This probably has something to do with self-reflection, honesty, authenticity and inner truth.

It may have felt like a path towards increased beauty and appreciation. (I don't know if we can ever know our truth or what is fully right or know anything fully).

On 1/7/2021 at 2:35 AM, tsuki said:

When I contextualize these feelings within the given situation and a few-day window, they give me a coherent identity, a person, that lives "under the hood" that I'm working to get in touch with. A lot of repressed stuff lives there and I find that enduring the discomfort of having/being a double person is extremely worthwhile.

Have you considered doing things so that you don't have to repress or be a double person anymore?  Is that really hard?

On 1/7/2021 at 2:35 AM, tsuki said:

When it comes to the voice, it usually talks as somebody to someone and identifying these people is very important, especially when the voice is very harsh or critical. This gives me the space to look upon my relationships and how they influence me, because the voice is conditioned by interactions. 

Is the voice in your head perceived as a stranger talking to another stranger?  Have you ever had it where you identified it as you talking to yourself? 

As we learn more and more, we may tend to be able to see more of the situation with how the various parts work together and may be able to think about it differently and the influence may be greatly different and of a different perspective and impact.

On 1/7/2021 at 2:35 AM, tsuki said:

 My mother used to be very critical of me and re-conditioning her voice into a supportive woman through psychotherapy has drastically improved the quality of my life. There used to be "friendships" that were actually rivalries that conditioned the voice to pretend manliness. When I'm thinking about stuff, the voice usually goes full lecture-mode, addressing the anonymous audience (probably conditioned by school). 

With the re-conditioning of voices, do you have to lie to yourself about the other person and trick yourself or is it actually an honest thing?  Just curious.   Is there a way to get to the root of the issue or is that too hard?  I can see that going around the root can be helpful for coping but is there a goal to eventually get to the root even if baby steps?  (I can see that I tried to get to the root of the issue/relationship with my parent and it did not work well and kinda just gave up at this point for the time being.)

On 1/7/2021 at 2:35 AM, tsuki said:

The recipient of the talk is also important because I'm bilingual (English and Polish) and I think in different language when I think to different people.

Good job on thinking in two languages.  Wow

On 1/7/2021 at 2:35 AM, tsuki said:

The voice is not human, strictly speaking, because it is also conditioned by music. If I don't vary the music enough, even very complex songs can get stuck on repeat for weeks. Remembering a different song deliberately helps with it, but not always. I'm still learning to manage the music.

With the music being stuck on repeat - is it because there are just not enough things going on to keep you busy and shifting focus?  Man that must be tough with the same song.  Could you try increasing the amount of inputs or decreasing the amount of inputs?  (If you wanted to get rid of the music.. if not, nevermind.)

On 1/7/2021 at 2:35 AM, tsuki said:

There is also a distinct mode of being that I go into when I try to uncover something that I know that I don't know. I call it contemplation. It is really strange, I don't think that there are appropriate ways to express it, but I will try. It consists of noticing the "gaps", or "nothings" that occur when I encounter the unknown. It feels as breaking of cohesion in my reasoning, not being able to follow, as if a moving car teleported few meters forward when I watch it pass by. There is really not much to do when I notice the "nothings" other than sit in their presence and observe them with focus, as if awareness itself had the capacity to uncover truth. 

I had a realization that nothing can be fully known or unknown.  But yet we still sometimes say that we forgot or that something is known or unknown anyway.  It would be interesting to look into why we decide that one part of life is unknown - or that we have not experienced knowing or experiencing it - but even the experience or having experienced something cannot be certain either.

On 1/7/2021 at 2:35 AM, tsuki said:

If the mind-flash is deep enough, like really fucking deep, like mind-shattering, going crazy, no-human-can-ever-understand-it-and-yet-I-do-understand-it deep, I can go into a full-blown existential crisis that can last for weeks. As I contemplate more, emotions became more and more on board with this contemplation thing and crumbling of my identity is perceived as something positive and looked forward to. 

Wow existential crisis's that last for weeks that are super deep.  I can't tell if that is horrifying or amazing - maybe some of both?  You are very strong.

Do you find that when your identity has crumbled so much that there is no more identity left to crumble or does it not ever go that far and there is always some identity left afterwards?  Or a new identity that replaced the old one so there is always a new one to crumble?

On 1/7/2021 at 2:35 AM, tsuki said:

Contemplation and "nothings" also relate to creativity in unexpected ways. When I'm tasked with creating something, the process in which it is born is very reminiscent of sitting in the presence of nothing. Depending on how big the task is, it can be very daunting, but "looking" at the openness that is "there" and waiting patiently gives rise to solutions. At first, they are rudimentary, but making some parts ambiguous, some more constrained, re-arranging relationships between things usually allows me to deepen and deepen the solutions until they become workable. This is also experienced as an orgasmic mind-flash, but is very tiring because my mind tends to build momentum around a certain task and it becomes difficult to stop it at night. It tends to disrupt my sleep pattern and is not really sustainable at the moment. It somehow also relates to fantasy and dream-states as I tend to become enamored with my ideas and fall into attachment. When that happens, I sometimes go bipolar: one day being "high" on ideas, and "low" the other day, criticizing them and seeing the week points. If I can, I try to regulate this and be more grounded, but it is still an area that I'm developing in.

Beautifully said.  Thanks for the response.

[tsuki]

6 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

Wow.  How does identifying as the silence work?  Is the voice still you or what is the voice?

The voice is just the voice . I mean, it's not like the silence, or emptiness identifies with itself. I've had experiences when the mind was gone and the only thing that remains is that emptiness/silence. When experienced, it is bliss, pure love and everything I could ever dream of. At the same time, it is what remains when the mind is gone, so death is the best thing that will ever happen to me. Not that I seek death, on the contrary, I enjoy life and are enamored with it, I just know that when I'm gone, then I'm really not gone . Sorry if it makes no sense to you.

6 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

Do you want to keep the distance or make it larger or closer or merge with it?

I used to seek to create more space, but I no longer do. The space is only needed to observe the mind carefully, but not with the intent of fixing it, but rather to trust it. It is absolutely genius and wonderful. The second best thing after emptiness. Ever since I understood what love is, I want to simultaneously be both something and nothing. I know that it sounds stupid, but these are not mutually exclusive.

6 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

Is the voice in your head perceived as a stranger talking to another stranger?  Have you ever had it where you identified it as you talking to yourself? 

The first step was just the unreflected voice talking as me, as in, there was no voice observed, not even thoughts being recognized, just me. When I woke up to the existence of the voice, I gradually became more interested in understanding what language is, etc, and started observing the voice as something that happens, as if it was something external (even though it exists in the private space). I began to learn to distinguish the moments when I'm thinking consciously/deliberately and when the voice talks by itself. At some point, after observation of the voice, I became interested more in it and asked myself, who talks as this voice? This is where I started to recognize that it's conditioned by interactions, something akin to a more sophisticated voice recorder that can model personalities. As I became more in touch with how my psyche works, it became apparent that there are more and less privileged voices that influence other voices. Not by talking to each other, but rather, some personalities that have been modeled by the voice, use voices of other people, "parrot" these people, to gain control over the will. The most dominant voice in there was my critical mother. "She" would use other people's voices to criticize "me" from within me. This had the effect of not actually living my life and having no actual center of my own, no heart, so to speak, recycling same stuff over and over again. Finding the real me within me, or rather, dropping falsehood, is the most significant accomplishment of my life.

6 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

With the re-conditioning of voices, do you have to lie to yourself about the other person and trick yourself or is it actually an honest thing?  Just curious.

No, on the contrary! It is the voice that lies, always. Lying is not the correct word, really, at its core it's completely innocent. The voice is literally an infant. After language was learned, it never matured, it was just picking up on things and repeated them without knowing what it talks about. Some genuine insights were had, but they turned to knowledge through representation and lost its "spark". So the snowball of misunderstandings started to weave until it was too great to stop. Really, when it comes to "the other person", then it has to be said explicitly that the voice is the main culprit of all misunderstandings and not being able to see the other in a deep, meaningful, way. 

Most insights that were had during re-conditioning were actually gained by seeing the falsehoods that kept perpetuating the chatter. They were false/incomplete models that the voice recorder made, so to speak. Some of the insights were also about feeling myself more and prioritizing that over thoughts. This had the effect of deep compassion towards everyone because this condition is not really exclusive to me. My mother, for example, never went through the process I did, so she simply perpetuated the hurts that her parents inflicted. Even though it's the most personal thing, it's also completely impersonal at the same time. Only after seeing through the voice, I am able to experience others truly. There are very few people like that.

When it comes to "re-conditioning" the voice, the only thing that was added was my therapists' presence that I modeled automatically. She is a wonderful, supportive, woman that is the mother that I always needed. Having a supportive presence that stops the inner turmoil is very, very helpful and I am very grateful to her.

6 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

With the music being stuck on repeat - is it because there are just not enough things going on to keep you busy and shifting focus?  Man that must be tough with the same song.  Could you try increasing the amount of inputs or decreasing the amount of inputs?  (If you wanted to get rid of the music.. if not, nevermind.)

In part, thanks to this very conversation, I began to be more interested in interacting consciously with music and I noticed that there is a distinct kind of pain that I sometimes experience when I'm listening to it. I grasped that it is a warning and I recently stopped the music after feeling it. So far, no repeats .

6 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

I had a realization that nothing can be fully known or unknown.  But yet we still sometimes say that we forgot or that something is known or unknown anyway.  It would be interesting to look into why we decide that one part of life is unknown - or that we have not experienced knowing or experiencing it - but even the experience or having experienced something cannot be certain either.

Consciousness and unconsciousness, as I call it, are not distinct entities, so to speak. They only seem that way because our conscious processes are based upon distinctions. The deeper I go into myself, the more in touch I am with the Unconscious, and I am very much convinced that it plays a significant, active, role in how we develop and grow. We seek experiences that mature us and this is what the Unconscious orchestrates. This is what I meant by the "double person" when I talked about observing and interpreting myself. It is not something that I can stop doing, this is how maturation progresses.

6 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

Do you find that when your identity has crumbled so much that there is no more identity left to crumble or does it not ever go that far and there is always some identity left afterwards?  Or a new identity that replaced the old one so there is always a new one to crumble?

This is how something and nothing are the same. When there's nothing left to crumble, I mean, literally nothing, the mind is completely gone, and you are love, then you can't help but to give birth to yourself . This is love - it is how reality is "made".

6 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

Wow existential crisis's that last for weeks that are super deep.  I can't tell if that is horrifying or amazing - maybe some of both?  You are very strong.

Thank you!  When I pondered my first awakening after coming down off it, I remember saying to someone that it felt as if reality was raping itself and it felt good. You are very inquisitive and open, I really enjoy reading your questions. Keep doing that and I'm sure that you will get your answers, eventually.

Edited January 9, 2021 by tsuki

[hyruga]

https://www.dazeddigital.com/science-tech/article/44494/1/living-without-inner-speech-voice-inside-head-psychology-science

Check out the link on how people who think in imagery may be more prone to autism.

Good thread.

Personally, I think in words mainly and sometimes in imagery or 'videos'. 

I used to speak quite slowly and I also 'blanked out easily' when someone speaks too fast or speaks for too long. I begin to converse better after I read more books.

Edited January 10, 2021 by hyruga