How may I translate the German notion „in sich gehen“? To get into one`s own self?

Leo.org offers “to engage in serious soul-searching” in English for “in sich gehen”;

or “intégrer qc. in” as a French translation.

Is there no proper term to express this approach of the self to itself?

A German edition of a yahoo service manages to use the expression in an English text. It reads: “Sometimes I go into myself, my own world if you like. Is this normal or am I starting to go mental? My girlfriend suggests that I might be a bit mental. I don’t think I am, I just go into myself from time to time. It mainly happens when I’m trying to figure something out, it’s like a really intense consentration where all I can see is the thing I’m thinking about. Maybe I’m just training to be a genius?!”

The notion “in sich gehen” is essential for understanding “subversion”. It seemsthat “in sich gehen” is a key to discuss a subversion for which mathematics and instruments are necessary, the compass for example or the Turing Machine:

“In sich zu gehen heist, sich der Subversion bewusst zu werden”.*

This is a sentence of French philosopher and poet Edmond Jabès, which has been translated into German. I wonder how the French original or the English translations reads.

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Das Leben zählt auf. Der Tod zählt ab. *

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Mar Samuel, the great Hebrew polymath of Nehardea in Babylonia (165-257) reckoned 56. 848 atoms to the hour, the hour, one atom (rega’) being equivalent to two twinklings of an eye (heref ‘ayyin).*

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Was stelle ich mit dir an?
Was stelle ich mit mir an?

Wenn ich einen Buchstaben neben einen anderen setze?
d zu i, m zu i?
Was ändert sich zwischen dir und mir?

Und wenn ich mir der Ungeheuerlichkeit bewusst wäre,
könnte ich dann noch schreiben?
Könnte ich dann noch eine Verbindung zu dir suchen?

Der Raum zwischen zwei Zeichen, dort zu lesen, sich dort einen Aufenthaltsort suchen, heisst das mit der Zeit zu hadern? Wo aber bleibt dann die Welt, die Aufgaben, die auf uns warten?

Die Zeugin TFI – 303 im Den Haag-Prozess gegen Charles Tayslor ist eine etwa “20-jährige Frau, die vor zehn Jahren von Rebellen entführt wurde … [sie[ … kennt weder ihr Alter, noch kann sie schreiben oder lesen. Sie ordnet die Zeiträume nach den Jahreszeiten und Entfernungen nach der Dauer eines Fussmarsches.“ *

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How do you say it in mathematics?

How do you say ‘I miss you’?

How do you say what you cannot, dare not?
Is smuggling numbers into a poem a solution?
Do you hope the numbers will speak clearly of what is still hidden from you?

And so the last part of my seven-part poem reads:

“The azaan woke me at 6:00.
The thunder at 4:00.
The nightmare at 2:48.
From 2:48 to 5:21
I sat and read a Hundred Scottish Love Poems.
You are forty-two
and have three children
from two different women.
My favourite song is on Track 9.
I play it again and again,
keeping demons and darkness at bay.”

How do you say what came before?

Link

Arianna Borrelli: Apples

“As has already been suggested , the fundamental idea of atoms could be expected to arise in all civilisations indepently, since everywhere men were engaged in cutting up lengths of wood, and the question would inevitably arise as to what would happen if successive cuttings were to go on until the uncuttable was reached” (Joseph Needham)*

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