SUSPENDED DIALOG THEORY

When I’m in that mental state halfway between awake and asleep, my brain says some really weird stuff. It’s been said that this “state” is very creative but for me it’s even more chaotic than the rest of my life.

I’m writing this because this morning it said;

“It’s under the black mirror in the hall in the drawer. Just look in the crystal drawer and you’ll find an example. As it starts to unravel, you’ll be able to nail the fruit to the side of the toffee maker. Mrs Perkins will allow you full access if you take the rudimentary supplements. Try starting it with a pitchfork if the key won’t fit. One can usually assess the inclusion of such a purpose provided the elements exist in a smaller nuclear space.”

And as I lay going back to sleep with an awareness of this distraction of nonsense, I pondered over what it was and why it happens.

My inner dialogue is almost always in my own voice or voices .. yes voices .. my me does argue with another version of itself occasionally .. in a good devil / bad devil kind of way .. while I pretend to be neutral .. impartial .. there is no right or wrong

When it does sound like someone else it’s a choice .. I don’t have Hitler shouting at me in my head .. it’s a useful tool to add weight to what I think another person might think to imagine the words in the sound of their voice .. I can also direct tone to a much greater degree than I’m physically capable of .. I can layer sounds or voices in my head .. if I could get it out of my head and into my computer the musical compositions I imagine .. the pop songs .. the symphonies .. rock arias and choirs of angels .. they’d be chart topping blockbusters ..

Then I imagine a CNN News reader’s voice saying; “Mark Tinley’s overnight success is revelation .. a spokesperson for Sony told us when he walked into their offices with the demo it was as if fifty two years of chaos had converged .. Tinley (who changed his name to Ty-Wharton when he spotted the name in a pattern on a post it note on his kitchen wall in Harrow) puts it down to the clinical trials on a new ADHD drug 6-8 atomoxidexmethylphenhalidate .. it was if the molecules or music suddenly converged .. like a hundred thousand books coming together in alphabetical order .. the unlikely moment in a movie where the sultry prostitute puts her hair up .. wipes off the rouge .. puts on a pair of spectacles and a tweed suit .. then allocates classification numbers to form a corpus bibliotheca”

So the only time my inner dialog runs away with itself .. when I get to be the listener .. is when I’m falling asleep .. it gets weird .. it never has anything to do with my life .. and it talks about things I know nothing about .. 

I used to wonder if I was channeling .. had heard tell of people picking up radio stations with their teeth .. maybe I was overhearing something? yet how? because it’s always in my voice .. as clear as what I think of as thinking .. except as I drift into sleep my sense of “I” feels separated from it .. like I’m not doing it anymore and it’s just doing it ..

I started to ponder what could be causing it .. maybe it was clairaudient .. psychic .. or schizophrenic ?? I wondered if it was unique to me or if everyone experienced the same phenomena .. or maybe just people with ADHD .. or Autism .. perhaps it was unique to Autism .. I’m consciously aware of a lot of processes that are generally subconscious in the majority of people .. perhaps just that?

Then a strange thing happened.

It formulated a response to my question.

It, or I? posed a theory.

It’s simply suspended dialog. It’s all the unresolved bits of dialog we’ve heard resolving themselves and tidying up the chaos. Half a sentence from a conversation we’ve heard as we’re passing someone on the street. A snippet of news from a TV or radio as we walk in and out of a room. Fragments of conversation from an adjacent table in a restaurant. Pockets of paragraphs from books we’ve started and stopped. The illogic of advertising with the wash of lost performatives that leave us out to sea. The rivers of recitals retelling our neighbourhood recent dramas which we claim to have no interest in, yet our unconscious logs it all. 

It’s simply this.

Reasoning and resolving itself.

And as I write about it, I want it to be my discovery. I’m smiling at the prospect of the discovery of something new. I imagine myself as some kind of philosopher. Maybe I create a process that changes the course of psychiatry? Perhaps I should keep this discovery to myself? I imagine the CNN News reader’s voice again. “Mark Ty-Wharton’s introspective autistic mind was the breeding ground for fear and worry until the morning he discovered the Suspended Dialog re-integration process.” In years to come it’s heralded as the idea that unmasked the human condition. 

So I really shouldn’t be telling you about this.

Because one of you. I don’t know who yet? Will read this and say “my God he’s right” and because they haven’t formulated 6-8 atomoxidexmethylphenhalidate yet, I’m unlikely to get beyond the idea .. will never be able to explain it better than this .. 

So the ball is in your court, whoever you are. 

Or is it?

What if I were to take this scrambled version and ask ChatGPT to turn it into a hypothesis .. written in the style of a clinical paper. Then submit it to Universities for pier review?

What would my inner CNN News reader’s voice say about it then?

Time to take off my writer’s hat and put on my builders hat and sort out some walls.

Time to have a meeting with a man about a new community food project and to give him all the café stuff.

After all I am meant to be running a music shop. 

Maybe I should play a C minor in the chorus of the song I’m writing. If I could just get my voice to sound the way I hear it in my head.

Mark!!!

You’re getting distracted ..