All right, so...I want to talk a little about the internal monologue, as it relates to scrying. The internal monologue is the voice of your conscious mind as it describes its environment, makes judgements, has insights and ideas, gives you a play-by-play of your physical and emotional condition. Everybody has one of these mental commentary tracks. A sample: "It sure feels good to be sitting in this nice comfortable chair. It's kind of hot upstairs, though. Maybe I should get up and go downstairs. Nah. I hope we don't have another warm winter. I really don't want to go to work tomorrow. My boss is such a stupid bitch. No, that's not a right thing to say--I don't even know her that well. She should be nicer, though. I wonder what's in the fridge."When you begin meditation practice, one of the first things you learn is how to silence this internal voice, or at least diminish its impact on your concentration. As I beginner, I tried to squash it by yelling, "SSShhhhsshhh! Quiet, you!" at my mind every time I had a stray thought. (Hint: That doesn't work.) Some more effective methods include repeating a mantra, focusing on your breath, hearing your thoughts fading into silence or visualizing them blowing away. Eventually, with a little practice, you can experience a rare moment of stillness--a quiet interval where your brain's not talking to you and your body's not asking for anything. Then your internal monologue starts in with the "Wow! I did it! This is so new and exciting!" thoughts, and you're back to square one.
But scrying is not meditation--not exactly. Scrying sessions often begin and end with short periods of meditation, but the middle interval is a separate state of consciousness. I'd say it's like goats and cows: They have more similarities than difference, but they are different animals. In meditation, one of the goals is to achieve freedom from stimuli, mental or otherwise. Total stillness and blankness. (Zen student: "Master, in meditation today I had a vision of the Heavenly Buddha seated on a golden lotus." Zen master: "Just focus on your breathing and it will go away.") When you scry, however, you actually want those stray bits and pieces to intrude upon your consciousness--that's sort of the whole point. They are the packets that contain psychic information, wisdom from the higher realms, gems from the unconscious, pretty pictures, or whatever it is your after. I don't know if this is an East vs. West thing. I also don't think the two modes are incompatible or truly divergent. Clearly, some of skills and techniques you learn from a practice of meditation are very useful for getting yourself into the mental state necessary for scrying. And the reverse is probably true as well.
So, normally when you scry, the internal monologue is still active. It's pretty much always active, unless you use one of the techniques for turning it off. Your conscious mind may be feeding you random thoughts to distract you, telling you encouraging or discouraging things about your practice, or describing or commenting on the things you see. This last function is the most useful. (Although you have to be careful about over-analyzing your visions--as some remote-viewing experiments have shown, often the vision is correct, but the interpretation is wrong.) Some sources I've read even recommend using narrative voice to go along with the images in the speculum. Using this method, you actually talk yourself through the session out loud. "I see dark clouds. They're lit from behind. Sunlight? Now they're moving, forming a funnel shape...oh, it's a tree. There's someone sitting under the tree..." and so on. This technique works similar to a mantra. Describing the pictures in words keeps your verbal center busy, blocking out extraneous thoughts. It's also a good way for a beginner to see what it feels like to have a continuous stream of visions, and to acknowledge that they really are seeing something--even if it's just various colors and shapes. Some scryers also report that hearing their own voice has a self-hypnotic effect. You start out just describing what you see, and as you proceed, the voice will sound stranger and farther away, and before you know it you're in a nice little dissociative state.
There are other good reasons not to banish your internal monologue while scrying. Dictating your impressions out loud has one obvious benefit: You can record them for later. We've already covered how important note-taking is, and recording your sessions is a way to get detailed notes without the break in concentration of reaching for a pen and paper. And of course, if you're scrying for someone else, or in a group session, you have to be able to be able to talk and see at the same time. You have to use words to share, because they aren't seeing what you're seeing (probably). Finally, there's the issue that scrying isn't just a visual phenomena--it can also trigger clairaudience in certain people. Psychic impressions of words, phrases, even whole conversations can enter the mind spontaneously--and these don't sound all that different from ordinary verbal thoughts. Of course you have to learn to tell them apart, but if you reflexively shush every word that pops into your head, you might miss out on some useful information.
Speaking from experience, I will say that the internal monologue does act as a tether to the conscious mind, keeping you from reaching down into the deepest trance states. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The deepest trance states don't always yield the most content. (Just like how the deepest sleep is often dreamless.) Those deep, deep states are enjoyable, and can be profound in their own way. But it's harder to bring nuggets back from them. Keeping one part of your mind tied to the realm of words helps with retention--as you mentally verbalize your visions, you're actually storing them for later. Think "canoe" to yourself, and you're more likely to remember that you scried a canoe. Again, it's similar to dream retention. What practice do they always advise to help remember your dreams? Keeping a dream journal, naturally! Dreams evaporate quickly upon waking, but if you can scribble down just a few key words, you'll be able to recall the dream vividly for days afterward. Same deal with scrying.
In conclusion, while the internal monologue is usually cast as the baddie in meditative and/or spiritual practice, it does have some useful functions for scrying. The key is to be able to minimize irrelevant chatter, while staying open to clairaudient impressions and using your verbal faculties to retain and communicate what you see. (Not easy, admittedly. But nobody said it would be.) Also, while scrying is not the same critter as meditation, doing a traditional meditation practice won't hurt, and will certainly help keep the unwanted noise to a minimum.
Good luck!
-M
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