How to clarify thinking?

1. My thoughts are 90% or more non-verbal, they are 'daydream fragments' - thats how I think normally.
2. It is often times extremely difficult to see what thoughts are occuring in my mind at the current moment, they are often vague and clouded and I only realize there is 'thinking' occuring after I have been stuck in a dream for some time
3. I have almost *zero* ability to visualize a stable picture in my head for more than a second or two, not sure what the norm is on that one

What has been everyone's practice experience with clarifying thoughts? Any thoughts on this?

What do you hope to clarify, or stabilize? I don't know if we have any hope of affecting the way we think... we just develop the faculty of wisdom, that cuts away thought's ability to make us feel pain and stress, over and over in moments, until maybe someday it starts to get tired of bothering us

Thought is a sense-door- which means that the data that comes in through thought is just as un-controllable as the data that comes through your eyes and ears. Can you stabilize the sounds you're hearing right now?

If you're observing the fact that the thought is a thought, you're already doing the job. If you note that it's a visual thought, a memory, a planning thought, a daydream, you've completely got its number.

Hmm. I guess I remember times when thinking had some clarity to it and it was easy to notice and disembed from - and when its not that way I start wishing it were. Good ole pre-path mind I guess.

If you're in later pre-path stages, dark night, etc., you're wide-open and raw to all the senses- including thought. If you feel overwhelmed by the amount, intensity, confused-ness of thought... this may just be a sign of where you're at!

WSH3, there are different kinds of thoughts. What you are describing are what I would call the "random involuntary" kind. I don't see any value in trying to clarify those but maybe you can tell me what you mean by "clarify." You might investigate why you want to clarify them, and if you decide to watch them you might watch how often they tell some kind of story, or a part of a story, about something. You might also watch what the subject of that story is and how it is referenced. That could be interesting.

Beyond that what is your objective?

"1. My thoughts are 90% or more non-verbal, they are 'daydream fragments' - thats how I think normally.
2. It is often times extremely difficult to see what thoughts are occuring in my mind at the current moment, they are often vague and clouded and I only realize there is 'thinking' occuring after I have been stuck in a dream for some time


"

The Tibetan meditation tradition classifies "thoughts", for the purposes of shamatha training (not to be confused with jhanna training) depending on how the prapanca is functioning. Sometimes prapanca (proliferation of narratives) is very obvious and linear; what you are describing sounds like what's called "dispersal" in which there appear to be multiple relatively vague stratifications of different overlapping lines of prapanca which may seem to be almost in the "background", very hard to focus on.

So the idea is, this is actually the typical state of mind, and more "clear" lines of thoughts sort of emerge from this hazy, slippery background. So seeing this activity could indeed be a sign of opening up a previously overlooked layer of mind- i.e., progress

So if this is it, how to work with it? The approach I've found most useful is to 1) identify the "energy" or charge, the subtle tension, which is the "cramp" from which these vague stratified branching layers of dream-like prapanca are emerging from/expressing. Once that subtle tension is "owned" and accepted, it can be 2) relaxed from-the-inside-out. You have to "be" it to relax it. If you just "see" it and try to relax it from the outside, you will probably just enact another subtle tension from which to "view" the first one. The result is discovering a profound stillness and clarity which is wide open and completely simple.
(con't)

"
3. I have almost *zero* ability to visualize a stable picture in my head for more than a second or two, not sure what the norm is on that one

"

I'm not sure either, but I can share this. That background dream-like prapanca seems to take up the bandwidth and the medium that would be used for visualization. It's like having six TV stations on one screen sort of fading in and out of prominance, which weave together into a dream-like string of (relatively) surreal prapanca (day dreams).

When I train up the authentic stillness, it seems to be easier to project a stable, hologram-like visualization (although depending on one's nature, it may be more "felt" or more "seen"). Alternatively it becomes possible to allow a flow of "active imagination" or quasi-astral projection or what have you from this base. Alternatively one can simply think clear, distinct thoughts that have no "trail" and investigate the relationship between narratives, identity and open stillness.

From talking with other practitioners I conclude that there are *at least* two kinds of folks in this regard: some who can use visualization to tame and focus that flow of vague prapanca, eventually leading to the still openness when they dissolve the visualization; and some who can only stably visualize from that base of open stillness so need to train in shamatha (as I'm using the term) before being able to visualize very well. Hope that helps!
--Jake

thanks Jake, thats interesting.

Cmarti - the objective is to note/notice what is going on without being embedded in it - I will just keep practicing and see what happens.

"... the objective is to note/notice what is going on without being embedded in it..."

That's perfect! The content of the thoughts is totally immaterial to that practice.