quote:
Originally posted by babayada:
I'd have to talk really, really fast. We're talking faster than an oily used car salesman, here. Faster than an auctioneer. 
Having it more firmly in your memory via verbalizing makes a lot of sense. I did notice that I had more of a tendency to remember that which I verbalized.
I do not doubt the benefits of verbalizing what is going on. It just sucks because it is particularly hard for me. It just doesn't feel right. It feels like I'm gumming up the works, if that makes any sense.
I definitely get your "gumming up the works" comment. For a while, I felt like my descriptions were, in a sense, leading the images. That is, an image would appear, and I would attempt to "identify it". Something blue and shimmering would appear and I would say, "Water". Well, maybe water. Maybe just describe it as "blue and shimmering"; maybe it was turning into something else before I fixated on the (conscious) water idea.
For me, the point of speaking out loud during ISing is to help build or reinforce a bridge between the IS and your conscious mind. I think "bridge" is WW's term for it.
The bridge analogy is limited. Another part of the equation has to do with how much you can cart from the IS to your conscious mind. The bridge analogy doesn't really help here. "Pipe" might be better. I think part of the issue is "how big" is the pipe. ie, how much can you remember? Think of the last time you ISed. Surely, you could remember and reflect on the last two seconds of the IS without speaking anything out loud. What about the last 30 seconds? the last minute? and so on.
It's a matter of practice.
The advantage to not speaking (if you can stay awake) is that you can recall the actual images from the stream, which are likely much richer than the verbal summary.
Just my $.02.
--Brian
