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brain noise, hypnosis, sfw
Backstory: We used to have constant verbal chatter going on in our brain. It didn't stop even when we slept, it just became incoherent. Then, we started exploring hypnosis, and at some point it clicked, and we found a way to, with difficulty, not voice our thoughts. It was such a relief, and we practiced it until it became the default, and our mind became much quieter and calmer. We've wished since then to teach it, but we never understood well enough how it happened.
brain noise, hypnosis, sfw
So the process of quieting our brain was:
- Observe (through meditation, hypnosis, or whatever works) how you think.
- Try to identify the whole chain of events. For us, that was a nonverbal thought followed by internal speech. Which led to more thoughts, causing a feedback loop.
- Once you can see the chain of events, find a way to intentionally interrupt it. We did that by directing our attention to somewhere there weren't thoughts.
- Practice until it's easy.
brain noise, hypnosis, sfw
We had the important realization recently that there was a condition that needed to be met before we could learn that. In order to decide not to voice a thought, we had to be aware of thoughts before we heard them. But it wasn't enough to just observe them as many people do in meditation, once we could observe them we had to actively suppress our automatic response to them.