Thread: How to easily silence internal dialogue

Where did you get the idea that internal dialogue is somehow bad or to be overcome? Castaneda stuff?

I guess this is in order to fall asleep more quickly?
Sometimes when I have to go to bed early, I can't manage to stop these internal dialogues, and I feel like they're keeping me awake.
My brain seems to attempt to solve all the problems in my life, yet the only thing I want to do is sleep. :/

Originally Posted by Hyu

I guess this is in order to fall asleep more quickly?
Sometimes when I have to go to bed early, I can't manage to stop these internal dialogues, and I feel like they're keeping me awake.
My brain seems to attempt to solve all the problems in my life, yet the only thing I want to do is sleep. :/

This is me, except while trying to meditate with a song stuck in my head.

It doesn't leave @_@

Or to shut it off completely, hold your breath for 5 minutes. Or as close to that as you can get. When you start breathing normally again, your mind will be quite. Because it had to shut down all the chatter to conserve energy for survival.

Taking a few fast a deep breaths first helps.

Maybe just me, but I am pretty fond of my internal dialogue. Everyone of you that posts here would not be posting here without internal dialogue. Think about it.

Wait what?

I think the ideal is to watch yourself post instead of thinking about it.

Originally Posted by IAmCoder

Or as close to that as you can get.

30 seconds?

Originally Posted by Hyu

30 seconds?

Ouch. You have too much internal dialog burning up oxygen. But not too bad for a first run, I guess. I bet that if you tried again after a few fast deep breaths you could easily double that?

The best way to get rid of talking to yourself in your head is to use the void technique, which is clearing all thoughts and letting them bounce off of your head. This would work to an extent also though. Practice it while you aren't sleeping it just makes it that much better when you are trying to sleep.

Oh and btw in my experience having that song stuck in your head is no big deal I still fall asleep just as fast and just had a lucid couple nights ago with that song still stuck in my head after using the void and other meditation techniques

if we shut off the internal dialogue we can easily Wild.

so more experiences needed

I tried this last night and couldn't get it to work. But I had my mouth closed, breathing through my nose, and I have to kind of keep a little suction in my throat or something in order to keep my mouth closed, and because of that it keeps my tongue up against the roof of my mouth. If I relax my throat and jaw entirely my mouth just falls open, meaning Ill wake up either with drool all over my face or with my moth and tongue all dried out like old leather. Maybe I ought to go ahead and try it with my mouth open and see if it works better.

^ same situation with me. Keeping my tongue at the bottom of my mouth just isn't comfortable.

I tried holding my breath last night as well. Made it to about 30 seconds (5 minutes is ridiculous, I don't even...) and found it uncomfortable. Made deep breathing exercises so much more pleasant to follow that, but I don't know if it's worthwhile or healthy to be holding your breath like that. It didn't help slow down any of the thoughts whirring through my mind either.

I can't imagine why this works, perhaps your tongue has just become an object of concentration. Concentrating on anything will temporarily silence one's mind.

As for why you'd want to do this, as dreamvail mentioned, it makes it easier to wild or to fall asleep, and secondly I think less internal chatter is healthier than a constant stream. Think of the mind like a muscle. Nothing wrong with lifting weights and flexing, but if you do it all the time without rest it destroys the muscles. If thoughts continue unending without rest, they quickly become repetitive, banal and even destructive. Allowing long periods of inner silence will actually increase the quality and creativity of mental activity when it does arise.

Originally Posted by Tranquil Toad

I can't imagine why this works, perhaps your tongue has just become an object of concentration. Concentrating on anything will temporarily silence one's mind.

As for why you'd want to do this, as dreamvail mentioned, it makes it easier to wild or to fall asleep, and secondly I think less internal chatter is healthier than a constant stream. Think of the mind like a muscle. Nothing wrong with lifting weights and flexing, but if you do it all the time without rest it destroys the muscles. If thoughts continue unending without rest, they quickly become repetitive, banal and even destructive. Allowing long periods of inner silence will actually increase the quality and creativity of mental activity when it does arise.

Well said, but there's still more: If you can go into your dreams with a mind that is free of clutter, you stand a much better chance of not only successfully holding onto your intentions as you fall asleep, and then entering an LD easily. Also, the quality of your LD might be much greater if you carry an ability to clear your mind's clutter once in the dream. Much greater.

What I like to do to silence inner chatter is a little Chakra meditation. It gives my mind something to keep it occupied for a while and I'm busy visualizing rather than subvocalizing.

The past few days I've been focusing mostly on just becoming aware of my internal dialogue. There is a lot of it at times.