Tonal state of awareness (Amerindian)

A term used by C. Castaneda to describe that mode of awareness which is rational and appears in terms of an ordered and describable universe. It is said to complement nagual, the two modes being necessary for completeness; but tonal, which starts to develop soon after birth, tends to swamp the nagual which has been there from the beginning. Order in perception is the exclusive realm of the Tonal. In tonal, actions have a sequence – like stairways where one counts the steps. The tonal state of everyday awareness is one aspect of reality, the nagual another. Tonal corresponds to the verbal description of the world, everything that meets the eye, it ends at death.