It is no coincidence that I have not updated these notes in more than two weeks. My inner dialogue has considerably slowed down. Along with the slowdown, I am much more comfortable letting things go. In this case, I have let the notes go.
What I notice is a peacefulness in all my muscles, as though I had just taken two Ibuprofen and had a glass of wine. I am able to just sit and look at people, at situations, at the world, in real time, without continually thinking about everything, and talking it over in my head. I can’t ever recall such an extended period of internal quiet like this in my life.
After several weeks I began to experience a Zen-like calming of the inner dialogue I had been listening to in my head since my earliest memories of childhood.
(...)
I continue to have a Zen-like absence of inner dialogue. I am very alert. When I need to start my mind for something, I do. I estimate that my ongoing inner dialogue is 1/5th of what it has been my whole life. There is much less use of my mind’s eye for visualizing, ruminating, worrying, judging, seeing future outcomes, etc., all the time.
(...)
My reading has changed. I usually do not read particularly fast (~350 words a minute), and tend to hear the words in my head—though my reading pace is two or three times that of my speech. In the past, to speed-read—which I’ve several times studied recreationally—I have to work at “getting over the hump,” where I just put the words in front of my eyes and see the images they generate. It always takes days of work, and I never have gotten to where it becomes automatic; I have always had to keep pushing myself.
Now I notice myself almost naturally speeding through passages without the aural accompaniment of the words, as though I am simply gracefully floating into speed-reading. Intuitively, this is connected with a lessening of the constant dialogue—chatter—in my head that has previously always attended my normal activities during the day.
(...)
I continue to feel the loss of my “magic glasses.”
My reading has changed back. I am hearing the words in my head as I read and this slows me down and reduces comprehension. It is less fun to read, more work.
