I can speak a bit to that. I have ADHD and my inner dialogue seems much more quiet than that of neurotypical people. There’s research showing that the “volume” of inner dialogue for people with ADHD is on a spectrum — from no dialogue to an overwhelming amount of it.
On the basis of practitioners expressing difficulty with quieting their inner dialogue, it seems like it’s easier for me. I have some volume of ID, but it seems like I need to work less than others at getting it to be totally silent.
It’s not really possible to compare my subjective experience when I’m doing Tensegrity or gazing or whatever, but I do get the feeling that it’s easier for me.
I’ve wondered what it means for the foreign installation if it can’t get as strong of a hold on some people.
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u/deleteeeedd23
11 points2026-03-23 03:16
could it be that some people are so far detached from their inner world and focused on others things in life (elements of the first attention) that they simply are not aware of the thoughts that constantly have?
I wonder what it would be like for these people who claim to have no ID to be put into a quiet room and told to observe their mindspace
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u/Turbulent-Beauty
0 points2026-03-23 04:22
There was a period of time when I had little internal dialogue. This was a long time ago when I was young. I believe it followed a period where I had a lot of negative internal dialogue. I wanted to silence that, and I more or less did by silencing everything as best as I could. I spent more time thinking visually. Day dreaming when I wasn’t observing. When I conversed with people, I would often surprise myself because I didn’t know what I was going to say until I said it.
By the way, I know little about Castaneda. The Reddit algo thought I might be interested. And I am. Asking a basic question first: how many of you sorcerers believe in good and evil?
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u/Lucious-Varelie
1 points2026-03-23 04:24
I’ve thought about this as well
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u/ODx2
6 points2026-03-23 05:17
ibhave noticed that some autistic kids that i have as students avoid eye contact because they immediately perceive what others feeling -thinking . not all.but some and for sure is a diferent asemblance point position .
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u/danl999
17 points2026-03-23 12:01
Mankind had no internal dialogue 50,000+ years ago, which is the point in time when anthropologists currently believe that language was invented.
And perhaps it was only since 10,000 years ago that it got so oppressive. That was a theory don Juan had.
Also babies have no internal dialogue.
So it's not really an unusual situation. What's unusual, is the current state of mankind.
Trapped in a hellish, endless dialogue that strips everyone's world of any actual magic beyond simple meditative effects.
Which is universal. Every place in the world, the people have an internal dialogue.
Even on a remote island, the people who've lived there many thousands of years and had little outside contact, still have an internal dialogue.
Why isn't there even one place that the people don't?
It's so strange that Carlos was saying it must be that the internal dialogue has been "imposed" on us, to keep us from being able to avoid being food for some specialized form of inorganic being.
They lick our outer shiny coating. Like licking sugar off a sugar donut.
You get to see that shiny outer coating, watch it rise as your silence deepens, and eventually manipulate it for spectacular real, visible magic.
As for people who claim to have no internal dialogue, we can't find an honest one who wants to talk, so that we can get to the bottom of this.
This is likely the 4th post on this topic, and at least one of those fell apart as we discussed it. With one guy as I recall, pretending he was the one who had no internal dialogue.
Until he finally fessed up that he wasn't trying to claim that.
He was just trying to come up with an excuse to justify being too lazy to learn sorcery.
The internal dialogue is the only thing that holds reality in place so rigidly!
So that if they didn't actually have one, they'd be doing even more super cool magic than you see in this subreddit.
But they can't. Because if they could they'd be giving interviews on their amazing magical skills, instead of on how they have no internal dialogue.
So it's either attention seeking, or something else going on and they aren't clear headed enough to identify it.
Or a combination of the two.
Learn to stop yours and see what happens, and eventually you'll figure out why it happens, and you'll have the same idea about this as I do.
It's not what they're claiming is my best guess.
We get new people who claim to have stopped their internal dialogue fairly often in here, but it turns out they were classifying their internal dialogue as "good" and "bad", and they believed they had gotten rid of the bad parts of it, not realizing you have to stop all of it.
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u/mphailey
1 points2026-03-23 13:50
Is there any way you could not indent every sentence? Not everything you write needs to be on a stone tablet.
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u/danl999
15 points2026-03-23 14:06
Are paragraph breaks out of style due to cell phones?
An indent is like this (reddit removed it, so I had to use underlines).
______We get new people who claim to have stopped their internal dialogue fairly often in here, but it turns out they
I did notice facebook removing paragraph breaks. But most word processors still add them automatically.
In the past, missing paragraph breaks would have cost you on stuff you submitted to a teacher for grading.
But as timely as your comment was (I was considering it myself just an hour ago), I have to wonder if you go visit people in their home and criticize the free cookies?
Or you're just grumpy?
Grumpy witches are welcome in here. I live with one.
Or did until she ran away to Mexico.
Grumpy men are not.
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u/TechnoMagical_Intent
10 points2026-03-23 13:30
Here’s a very good
interview with Dr. Russel Hurlburt
who has decades of experience researching people’s inner experience, and has identified different classifications of “inner speaking.”
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u/iwonderbrat
7 points2026-03-23 21:02
Having thoughts means having an internal dialog. People who claim they don't have it simply lack self-awareness, in my opinion. They do not know how to pay attention and make sense of what is happening in their mind. The "silence" they claim to experience is not really silence.
It's like how some people believe their emotions just come out of nowhere, because they do not understand how their minds work and are unable to connect their emotions to their thoughts.
10 Comments
I can speak a bit to that. I have ADHD and my inner dialogue seems much more quiet than that of neurotypical people. There’s research showing that the “volume” of inner dialogue for people with ADHD is on a spectrum — from no dialogue to an overwhelming amount of it.
On the basis of practitioners expressing difficulty with quieting their inner dialogue, it seems like it’s easier for me. I have some volume of ID, but it seems like I need to work less than others at getting it to be totally silent.
It’s not really possible to compare my subjective experience when I’m doing Tensegrity or gazing or whatever, but I do get the feeling that it’s easier for me.
I’ve wondered what it means for the foreign installation if it can’t get as strong of a hold on some people.
could it be that some people are so far detached from their inner world and focused on others things in life (elements of the first attention) that they simply are not aware of the thoughts that constantly have?
I wonder what it would be like for these people who claim to have no ID to be put into a quiet room and told to observe their mindspace
There was a period of time when I had little internal dialogue. This was a long time ago when I was young. I believe it followed a period where I had a lot of negative internal dialogue. I wanted to silence that, and I more or less did by silencing everything as best as I could. I spent more time thinking visually. Day dreaming when I wasn’t observing. When I conversed with people, I would often surprise myself because I didn’t know what I was going to say until I said it.
By the way, I know little about Castaneda. The Reddit algo thought I might be interested. And I am. Asking a basic question first: how many of you sorcerers believe in good and evil?
I’ve thought about this as well
ibhave noticed that some autistic kids that i have as students avoid eye contact because they immediately perceive what others feeling -thinking . not all.but some and for sure is a diferent asemblance point position .
Mankind had no internal dialogue 50,000+ years ago, which is the point in time when anthropologists currently believe that language was invented.
And perhaps it was only since 10,000 years ago that it got so oppressive. That was a theory don Juan had.
Also babies have no internal dialogue.
So it's not really an unusual situation. What's unusual, is the current state of mankind.
Trapped in a hellish, endless dialogue that strips everyone's world of any actual magic beyond simple meditative effects.
Which is universal. Every place in the world, the people have an internal dialogue.
Even on a remote island, the people who've lived there many thousands of years and had little outside contact, still have an internal dialogue.
Why isn't there even one place that the people don't?
It's so strange that Carlos was saying it must be that the internal dialogue has been "imposed" on us, to keep us from being able to avoid being food for some specialized form of inorganic being.
They lick our outer shiny coating. Like licking sugar off a sugar donut.
You get to see that shiny outer coating, watch it rise as your silence deepens, and eventually manipulate it for spectacular real, visible magic.
As for people who claim to have no internal dialogue, we can't find an honest one who wants to talk, so that we can get to the bottom of this.
This is likely the 4th post on this topic, and at least one of those fell apart as we discussed it. With one guy as I recall, pretending he was the one who had no internal dialogue.
Until he finally fessed up that he wasn't trying to claim that.
He was just trying to come up with an excuse to justify being too lazy to learn sorcery.
The internal dialogue is the only thing that holds reality in place so rigidly!
So that if they didn't actually have one, they'd be doing even more super cool magic than you see in this subreddit.
But they can't. Because if they could they'd be giving interviews on their amazing magical skills, instead of on how they have no internal dialogue.
So it's either attention seeking, or something else going on and they aren't clear headed enough to identify it.
Or a combination of the two.
Learn to stop yours and see what happens, and eventually you'll figure out why it happens, and you'll have the same idea about this as I do.
It's not what they're claiming is my best guess.
We get new people who claim to have stopped their internal dialogue fairly often in here, but it turns out they were classifying their internal dialogue as "good" and "bad", and they believed they had gotten rid of the bad parts of it, not realizing you have to stop all of it.
Is there any way you could not indent every sentence? Not everything you write needs to be on a stone tablet.
Are paragraph breaks out of style due to cell phones?
An indent is like this (reddit removed it, so I had to use underlines).
______We get new people who claim to have stopped their internal dialogue fairly often in here, but it turns out they
I did notice facebook removing paragraph breaks. But most word processors still add them automatically.
In the past, missing paragraph breaks would have cost you on stuff you submitted to a teacher for grading.
But as timely as your comment was (I was considering it myself just an hour ago), I have to wonder if you go visit people in their home and criticize the free cookies?
Or you're just grumpy?
Grumpy witches are welcome in here. I live with one.
Or did until she ran away to Mexico.
Grumpy men are not.
Here’s a very good
interview with Dr. Russel Hurlburt
Having thoughts means having an internal dialog. People who claim they don't have it simply lack self-awareness, in my opinion. They do not know how to pay attention and make sense of what is happening in their mind. The "silence" they claim to experience is not really silence.
It's like how some people believe their emotions just come out of nowhere, because they do not understand how their minds work and are unable to connect their emotions to their thoughts.