The tonal of a person is defined as everything that a person is, and every idea about the world that a person has. It is said that the Tonal creates the world, and this is true in the sense that a person sees the world through the Tonal. If we did not have the Tonal, the world would look very different.

Tonal is everything that is known. It does not include the unknown, or the Nagual. It does, however, include every single notion a person have of the unknown. As a rule, everything we can talk about is the Tonal. The nagual or the Abstract cannot be understood rationally.

It is said that the world is but a reflection of the self. This means that everything we look at, or handle, or think about has a 'position on the island of Tonal'. You see a 'table' or an 'old woman', you feel 'happy' or 'pain', you see 'oppression' or 'socialism' or 'beauty'. These are objects of Tonal. Every person has an inventory of thousands physical objects which is recognized immediately when seen. Recognition is an near instant process of matching perception against the inventory of objects on the Island of Tonal. This is how Tonal creates the world, and this is of course necessary for survival.

However, the tonal does not stop at this. The Tonal is also a very jealous thing, which will not let go of, or allow rearranging of the order of objects in the inventory easily. This keeps us locked up in a certain world view, and when pushed people may defend their view of the world with their lives. This also applies to social orders and to habits and to everything that is in the Tonal. The jealousy of Tonal makes us believe that the limited knowledge we have of  our world is the world...

The Nagual is everything that cannot be put on the Island of Tonal. Nagual threatens to destroy Tonal, and this is a very dangerous situation, deadly even. One must take this into account when dealing with the unknown, the Nagual puts alot of pressure on Tonal, and we have spent a whole life building shields against its onslaughts. According to Castaneda there will be a time when the practitioner looses these shields.

Threats to the Tonal will be handled as a typical crisis. People will go through the usual defense stages, the acceptance stages, crisis stages and finally the thing that was former a threat have been included into the person and in some way handled (directly or indirectly) by Tonal.

Depressions or temporary mental instability is not uncommon on the path. This is known from all mystic branches. Search the net for 'kundalini' to see examples.

A general advice (take it for what it is) goes like this:

Rearranging the Tonal

The mystic path unavoidably leads to a rearrangement of the Island of Tonal. The castanedian practitioner makes an inventory of the items on the Island, and then throws the list  away. According to Castaneda one should try to clean a portion of the Island and put the Items on the other part. This is called 'cleaning the island of Tonal'. This may seem a bit metaphorical, but it means in practice rearranging ones habits and ones social cueing and ones ties and the way one looks at things and the world.

It is also said that no item on the island can be thrown away, they can simply be put into another order. As an example it is said that a person can never throw away aggressiveness or self-indulgence, but they can be put in another place on the island to lessen their priority in the practitioners life.