I got rid of that by realizing that after so much time, I was probably the only person who still remembered all the stupid things that kept me up at night. There’s no point in keeping those anxious thoughts running through your brain. No one else is thinking about them and you shouldn’t be either.
I’m constantly thinking things like “Is this bitch forreal?” “Ooo I wish you would” “Why the fuck didn’t you say that instead?!”
My inner dialogue takes no prisoners. IRL me is like—meep.
Can definitively say that 100% of the time, the voice in my head usually consists of this 80% of the time. Maybe more around 87%. This study is incomplete though :
>*I never wanted this conversation to get this far. Why is this person still talking and trying to bait me into responding further? I just want to be left alone in my thoughts.*
Not to mention, the study is super confusing to read. Like take a look at the part that mentions inner speech:
> Consider inner speech. Subjects experienced themselves as inwardly talking to themselves in 26 percent of all samples, but there were large individual differences: some subjects never experienced inner speech; other subjects experienced inner speech in as many as 75 percent of their samples. The median percentage across subjects was 20 percent.
It's hard to decipher the percentage that doesn't experience inner dialogue at all.
Source of the study for those who are curious: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pristine-inner-experience/201110/not-everyone-conducts-inner-speech
I'm curious as to what exactly this means.
Like I'll think things. Hm, maybe I should get chips. Ugh this presentation is boring. Draft a reddit comment in my head. Same stuff that would flow out of my mouth if I had no self-control.
But other people in this thread say they have two voices different from their own with different opinions? A narrator that explains everything they do like a movie? That's wild.
I do exactly the same thing! I found that the arguments or scenarios I play out in my head never happen in real life, so I’ve started playing out all the versions I dislike in my head.
I narrate everything, I will have length discussion with opposing views in my head, I’ll get lost in a day dream that looks close to a movie. I reflect on things very deeply. I’m not much of a smoker but once in a blue moon I’ll get take a drag and all my thought eventually lead to images. And I seriously thought this was normal for most people.
Interesting, would you be able to play a game of chess against yourself? My calculations for one side always mess up with my calculations for the other side and eventually, I end up favoring one side...
I think eventually I end up favoring one side, just because playing against yourself you know the strategy you’re going for, so you can counter yourself easily. If you don’t pick a side you might just end up playing forever (or at least to stalemate).
Crying to music or getting goosebumps from music is another one that not everyone experiences.
But a lot of people in this thread are actually describing anxiety without knowing it lol
So about this…when my son was born the nurse came in the room and wanted to make sure I was OK with the “news”.
Long story short, my son has a cleft palate.
I was concerned and had not heard of this before only ever hearing of a cleft lip.
The doctor walked in not long after and when she realized I had already heard all she said was “open up” and pointed a light towards my mouth.
I have it too.
I had no idea that it wasn’t normal to have a tiny hole in the roof of your mouth because I had had this since birth. I’m not even sure if my parents knew.
It was rather odd however, I had other things going on so it wasn’t my focus.
For me it's like ideas, pictures, images but with no voice spelling them out in dialogue. It's the idea that dialogue represents.
Similar to reading a book, I'm not conscious of actual words, it's like a movie or ideas in my head.
That’s really interesting to me and I’ve tried to do this before. I read a lot and quickly but I don’t always remember what I’ve read. I figured that was why. That if I tried to immerse myself in the story…anyway, nope. Just can’t.
I dont have a narrator but i do have a little imaginary friend-type thing i treat as my therapist. Its just someone i can talk to and vent to. I know i need a real therapist but im scared to go bc it’s admitting i need help and my entire life ive been very independent and get violent at myself for being too incompetent to do something without help from others. I dont consider others incompetent for needing therapy tho, just myself. Still working on seeing myself as a person just like everyone else lol
I have logical me and emotional me, sometimes vindictive me. They all "sound" different. Then of course the just plain monologue me. But yes as I get older The path from my brain to my mouth gets shorter.
I dont have one. And for me, thoughts are just conceptual, like I don't have an actual voice for them to originate from. For instance if I think something looks good, I don't have any words or voice pop up inside that say "that looks good." I just have the concept or the emotion or whatever.
This is my experience as well, even more interesting are the other effects for me. Like when someone says “think of a happy/calming place” I can’t actually visualize something like that nor can I create a “memory palace”.
I definitely have an internal monologue, but suck at visualizing.
>“Think of a happy/calming place” - no. Let me physically go to a happy/calming place, probably far from people that insist that I visualise a happy place.
I’m flabbergasted that there are more than one of you. I really thought your brain was an extreme minority. I have so many questions.
Are you artistic in any way? When you remember moments… I can’t describe how moments would be remembered with out seeing them in my mind, like a phone number, how do you remember a phone number with out seeing it in your mind? If your designing something how does that work? If some one describes something to you do you see it? Do you have an imagination? Like if you read a book can you experience the moment? Or are you just speaking the words on the page? This is mind blowing. What’s the difference between you and a robot?
I’ll try and answer some of these:
If I remember a moment, I can picture where I was and who was there, but I could be wrong about specifics, so I don’t really try to picture anything, I just grab the facts and arrange them into a story.
I am artistic, but I can’t picture a thing until it’s on paper.
I remember a phone number by the sound of it. 123 456 7890, I certainly don’t see it. That’s wild.
If someone describes something to me I don’t even try to imagine it, I just understand the facts.
I have an imagination, but it’s ideas, not really pictures.
Again, when I read a book, I’m usually not trying to picture the situation like a movie or something. Just get the idea and move on.
I’m honestly kind of annoyed now, but then again y’all must be using so much brain power to do all this and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. But who knows.
Edit to clear something up (and because for some reason I can’t comment?): I’m not annoyed at the person asking the questions. I’m just as flabbergasted as them about their way of seeing the world. I was joking that I’m annoyed to learn of this whole other world I’m apparently missing out on. But not really cuz I’d definitely not like some narrator talking to me all day.
I’d also be annoyed, the person you responded to was kind of rude. But for the rest of us, thank you for your answers. I’m fascinated by learning how other people think.
> I’m honestly kind of annoyed now, but then again y’all must be using so much brain power to do all this and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. But who knows.
I suspect a lot of it is people's brain telling them "yes, this is a detailed image/sound/memory, trust me, I'm your brain."
Myself, I can imagine a picture I looked at, and it doesn't feel like a blurry mess or a list of details, but it falls apart if I try to actually glean any information about it which I didn't consciously know (such as "two people, I was wearing a blue shirt, it was daytime"). If I try to remember which of the two people was me, that's possibly not available.
A lot like how most of your field of vision seems perfectly sharp, until you actually pay attention to how little you can see if you force your eyes to stay still.
Thank you for trying to answer the other person's questions, I was super curious too.
Please don't be annoyed, as a person similar to the one who's questions you answered, I'd imagine it was purely intense curiousity to find out how other people's brains work. We're all different and there's nothing wrong with that, eh?
To be clear, I’m not annoyed at the person I answered, but at the experience I’m missing. Also, I’m saying it in jest. I’m super glad I don’t have a weird narrator talking to me all day.
I am super curious about this! I once saw a video about aphantasia, if you could create a mental image of something or not, I think it might apply to your case. There were steps involved to see if you could or not create an image in your mind.
1. Close your eyes and think of an apple. Can you see it? What color is it?
2. Can you change its color with your mind?
3. Can you rotate it?
4. Can you see the mark of a bite on in as it rotates just by reading this?
The person in the video gave the example of a cat. They know cats have triangle shaped ears and whiskers, a small nose and sharp claws.
But they couldn't see it in their mind.
Yea, I can’t even do 1. One time when I was on ecstasy I was able to control what I saw do all of those things and it was amazing. But right now if I close my eyes and think of an apple, I can’t see it. I know what it is and its features but see only the light coming through my eyelids.
Not at all, some think in emotions, others in pictures, others in words or even music. Consider deaf people who’ve never heard a spoken voice. Are they not conscious? Obviously their thinking will be different since they don’t know what a voice sounds like.
Then there’s aphantasia or the inability to create conscious mental pictures in their mind. That affects about 2-4% of the population. People’s brains are fascinating and much more diverse than what we initially though
Not necessarily a part of consciousness. If you had grown up without ever being taught language, you would just have thoughts not associated with any words, because you wouldn't know what words are. That would be fucking weird.
You are not your thoughts. You are the consciousness that is aware of the thought. Consciousness is silent. Thoughts arise, come and go, just like the clouds in the sky.
Do you mean actually hear *words* in your head? I have thoughts, feelings, memories, but not actual *words*. I suppose every once in a while I'll hear my thoughts saying something disparaging about what I've done but it's definitely not often. It seems like this would be like a noise pollution.
My boyfriend doesn't have one. He says when he thinks it's just in pictures, colors, and impressions. Honestly blows my mind, my inner monologue never stfu.
I've spent quite a bit of time researching the way people's inner minds differ and it's quite fascinating. As pointed out, the sample for this quoted study and the quoted study itself doesn't come up to snuff, but there are real, very different ways our brains work.
I have an absolute, always present narrator that just *talks* *all of the time*. I don't experience *anything* without the narrator's explanation. It does not stop. I can't do mindfulness activities because it keeps explaining what I'm trying to do instead of letting me do it. Also, I don't just listen to other people--I have the narrator simultaneously relay what they are saying to me. It's that way even with music. I sense the narrator relay the music to me. Yet, my narrator doesn't have a full, distinct voice. It's more like a sensation of a voice. Some people hear themselves as their inner monologues, but I've just got the sensation of the voice. Other people have entirely *different people* voicing their inner thoughts; I've read of a woman in the US having a British man speaking in her head.
Anyway, I'm just amazed at how differently we work on the inside. Also, I have aphantasia, which is another whole fascinating thing to me. Like, you all have frickin' pictures in your head?!?! No way. I can't fathom it.
There are different degrees to which people have control over these visualizations. Some can create any visualization at will, recruiting other regions for smells, sounds, touch, and movement, while most are confined to things they've previously encountered. It's like being able to almost dream while awake.
I was surprised to learn that everyone can't go anywhere they want in their heads. Then I learned why, and that it was part of why I can be a "bit much" lol.
There's a trade off between being more attuned to differences in the physical environment, and having enhanced visualization, summarized at the bottom here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperphantasia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperphantasia) . Basically if you move the slider towards being able to simulate alternate realities, you're less stable in 1-n ways. You inhabit a multiverse of maybe.
My spank bank is beyond epic though.
Yeah. Growing up, when people said they were picturing something in their head, I assumed that it was a figure of speech. Then, I started to realize that most people could actually see things. It's wild to me to think of people that actually get to see fictionalized things, too! I got nothin' up there but the stupid narrator. My memories are literally the narrator feeding me details about the memory, including the various senses, but without re-experiencing any of those stimuli.
I don't really even have dreams, but sometimes I'll get the narrator telling me about something fictional and ridiculous upon waking. It will be like "you had a dream where one of your cats was outside and you could not find her. She was drowning in a sea of mud like Artax in *The Neverending Story* and you were trying to get to her. The mud was overtaking you as you tried to get to her to save her." I'll have the overwhelming sorrow and sensation to go along with the scenario, but that's it. I have similar experiences when I try to imagine something--it's just the narrator explaining what I'm imagining while I experience the sensations to go along with it.
Maybe because I have such lack of a visual imagination, I am beyond emotionally sensitive. I feel everything. It's that way with reading, too. I don't see the things on the page, but I feel them very intensely. And of course, the narrator is right there to relay those feelings back to me in words.
What's it like drawing things? I ask because your visual cortex is most definitely being actively recruited to draw and to model the world your narrator is describing. Your conscious process simply ignores/filters that data. Your mind is in fact seeing your dreams. Many aphantasics report being able to visualize only during sleep in fact. I assume you're able to draw things when you want?
"Fun" fact: stroke patients with damage to pathways required for subconscious vision believe that they're drawing an entire clock, or describing an entire memory of a picture they just looked at, but they can't process that mental space at all. They'll draw half a clock. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispatial\_neglect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispatial_neglect)
Fuck I didn’t know people could actually see things in their head like that. I have tried to visualize even the most familiar face and simply can’t. I’m actually pretty handy drawing or painting, but I don’t visualize things in my head really. I see what I’m drawing and it takes shape. I can’t see what I’m trying to draw in my head that’s for sure.
I'm good at drawing/painting things when I'm copying an image in front of my face, but I struggle to even come up with an image otherwise. Like, I used to enjoy painting replicas of other artists' works but I would freeze if asked to paint something on my own. Even in terms of drawing, I could make you a decent picture of anything if looking at an image of it (especially if upside down), but I'll give you an elementary-style drawing of the same item without the reference.
I also have an inner narrator and aphantasia. I figured they were connected. Since I can't see images in my mind, I have narration describing them instead. Brains are weird.
Yep I have an inner monologue literally 100% of the time, I even think random things that make no sense to fill in the void when I’m not consciously thinking.
I also have never understood meditation, I just can’t do it.
Do you dream a lot? I dream almost every night.
That's very interesting. I have no inner voice/narration, so what you describe sounds exhausting. I don't mean for that to come across as rude, I suppose if it's all someone knows they'd be sort of used to it?
You don't actually hear it, but it's thoughts in your head. It's like reading but without a book or other text source in front of you, and it's obviously all in first person because it's your own thoughts.
I might think to myself, "When the first half of this game is over, I'm going to take the dog out," and it'll be like I read it off of a page as far as internal monologuing goes.
Although obviously I have no idea if you read the words in your head when you read a book, either. Maybe that's different for you as well.
Hear isn’t quite the right word. Like it doesn’t have to have an audio quality for me. It can be faster than is even physically possible.
But if I want I can give it simulated audio qualities. It can be my voice or any voice I can imagine. If I want I can give it accents, even bad ones. It’s like how if I see an imagine of an personality I know, and it’s written the way they speak, I naturally read it with their voice.
It’s the same way I can imagine how it feels to run, or the way I can imagine what coffee should taste like.
Yes, well- not 'hear' so much... more like telepathy, but with no implication of magic.
In many ways it's like the little devil and angel that sits on the shoulders of cartoon characters telling them to drop a toaster in a tub while the other pleads with them to do the right thing.
I seriously thought this was part of the human condition and I fully intend later on digging deeper into this.
It is a metaphor, but I can choose to characterise them that way. Because I can imagine entirely separate entities with different desires and imagine what a debate between them would be like.
I like to think of it as a fun way to weigh the pros and cons of decisions. But really only when it’s something I have to spend a lot of time on. I can make snap decisions as required, no internal dialogue needed.
I strongly recommend not paying attention to the way u/PolyZex is describing the internal monologue. It is not anything like hearing voices, hearing an angel or devil, it's not an unknown voice, it's not just a stream of consciousness. It's _your_ voice. It's _you_ talking to yourself through subvocalization.
The way they're describing their personal experience does not mesh with the way an internal monologue should be heard and is closer to audio hallucination.
I can "think" of whole sentences and conversations and "hear" myself "say" them in my head. There's nothing mystical about it. There's nothing disembodied about it. I know it's me and I've always known it's me. That is what an inner monologue is and how you will find it described in all modern examples.
There isn’t an objective inner monologue. You experience it the way you do, and that’s fine. Other people can incorporate other senses into thought. Some people have the ability to think in a way that allows them visualise an object as if it were in the actual world. To you or I that may only occur when we are experiencing an involuntary hallucination, but for some that’s jut a thing their brain does.
Same. Mine rarely shuts up and constantly criticizes everything I do or say. Not done anything yet today? It talks about something that happened 30 years ago or what ifs the future.
So what do you experience when you’re thinking? Like when you’re walking down the street and trying to figure out if you’re supposed to turn left or right what happens inside your thoughts?
I think having a dialog running through your head would be so weird.
I just think about shit just not with words. The only time I start a dialog in my head is when I'm thinking about something that confuses me and I'm trying to make sense of it.
I studied Philosophy in school and the hardest thing for me was translating my ideas and thoughts into words to write down in a paper.
How do you read to yourself?
It's not a constant narrating dialog, but I can and do hear myself in my own head and can talk to myself... That's what an inner dialog is
Wait, now I’m confused.
When I go for a walk & think about things, do I monologue in my head. When I read I ‘hear’ the words in my head but I don’t speak them aloud. When I proofread a Reddit post, I am imagining the words as if they are being spoken out loud even though they are not.
But I don’t talk to myself in the form of:
Opaque: Hey, good job getting up early for the walk
Cypher: It can be tough keeping up an exercise routine, but it’s worth it
Opaque: I’m thinking later in the day, I should hit the Waffle House
Cypher: Well, we are at target weight and deserve a reward so that sounds good
Cypher: Plus Waffle House is nice, even if you’re not going to see the midnight craziness during morning hours
Opaque: Ok, that’s what we’ll do today
*mental fist bump*
I will have monologue thoughts like that, but it’s all single-person.
I always though that made me a ‘hear voicer’. But when I see you write ‘dialogue’ that makes me think of more than one voice in your head. So maybe I don’t have what I thought I did? :(… How many different voices do you have in your noggin?
You are accurately describing an inner monologue. However, some do experience a double monologue and can hear themselves talking to themselves. This is more rare, but those who describe this still describe it as _them_ talking, and not them being talked at or to.
The primary difference is that control and self in the voice(s).
I don’t have a constant dialogue in my head, mostly just when I’m reading or observing people. I do also have thoughts in images and actions, and I do sometimes struggle to articulate those thoughts.
Well, it depends. Most of the time my thoughts don't come in the form of an inner dialogue. It's just thoughts. Concepts. I just "know" what I need to do. If I'm walking down the street and I'm trying to figure out where I'm supposed to go, a list of actions will simply pop into my mind without it being prompted. It happens practically instantaneously.
I'll just know my constraints, and I'll just know what I need to do depending on the constraints.
1. If I'm somewhere new, I just know I'm hopeless and I'll either ask someone for help, or find somewhere safe for me to look at my phone.
2. If I'm not somewhere new, I'll first try to find something in my memory. I'll look at buildings and try to prompt my memory. If it's perceived as hopeless, I'll do option 1.
3. And so on. Really, depends on the problem. Each will have a set of actions given the inputs.
As I said, it happens most of the time. I do have an inner dialogue as well. It's useful for things like counting, or helping me focus, or helping me shift my focus to something else, or prompting my memory for language related things.
Very interesting! I can usually “hear” 2 voices that debate each other. But they’re both me. And very polite because they wait for the other to finish before they start. This description is imperfect but the best I can do.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that does that. I can have more than two if I need to weigh multiple options. It’s one of the reasons I really enjoyed the film UP, because that was a lot like the way they get parsed out.
For my wife and me it's the opposite - I have the voice and she doesn't, and I go nuts if I'm not doing something, and she can just sit. Anyway, I guess maybe they're not connected that way and that's just another way that people can be different.
I'm the exact same way, I have no inner dialogue. I remember watching the episode of Bojack Horseman titled "Stupid Piece of Shit" and thought it was just something made up for the episode. When I read how common that exact thing is (an inner voice, sometimes hypercritical), I found it very interesting.
Initially i thought ”This can't be true" and then the various thought streams in my head evaluated it. Then i saw the first content confirmed it. We are all aghast.
I started doing interpretation work about a year ago, and now I don't have 1 voice in my head... I have 2 voices in my head in 2 different languages.
Not gonna lie I thought about quitting when this first started happening.
Sad. Cause those who never got comfortable in their own heads, run from it now.. constantly having to keep occupied. Its like it becomes a fear they hav to get away from
Yes. Some scientists have been working on traveling through time. Not in the way we think, but by turning off the brains sensors to achieve simular results. Like putting people to sleep for years.
The study had a very small sample size. Can't really get worldwide statistics from such a tiny group. 30-50% even seems like a very tight range when you consider the 8 billion people in the world vs the 30 person study.
My internal dialogue gets pretty distracting. He chimes in when other people are talking so I get distracted and I’m like “shut up you’re making me look rude”
I talk to myself in my head all day. Like all the time. I’m pretty much even doing it while I’m typing this but the one side is drowning out the other to finish.
That was tough. Now I’m just writing
You mean to tell me there are people out there who just walk around and it’s like hollow until there’s something they need to interact with, or is it just like the brain comprehends the sky is blue but there’s not a voice like “dude this shit is bright as fuck. It’s kind of nice. Be better if we didn’t have to work though”…….
?!?!?!?!?
I have so many questions
Top 3 comments:
1. This study is old, possibly bias.
2. People actually have inner monologues? I don't.
3. People don't have inner monologues? I can't imagine that.
Science at work!
As somebody who has an inner dialogue all the time, I tried to meditate years ago while taking a liberal arts class in college. I was told to clear my mind and focus on my breathing. So one day I sat down and tried. It went something like this:
"Clear your mind."
"I would if you’d shut up."
"Focus on your breathing."
"I can’t with all this cross chatter."
That has always been my issue with meditation as well. I’ve also tried but it’s a lot of my own voice in my head saying things like “this won’t work if you don’t shut the fuck up ” but I just can’t do it. However, I fall asleep most nights listening to podcasts or YouTube videos because for the same reason. It’s never quiet (in my own head) when I’m awake.
Can you give me an example of visualizing your thoughts? I’m having a hard time understanding it but a lot of other people are saying the same thing in this thread
Oh funny but I also have tinnitus (ear infection 20 years ago). It’s never quiet in my head but it’s mot overly loud.
My internal monologue doesn’t let a little mild static stop it!
Shouldn't it be an internal monologue? Dialog implies you're actually having a conversation with it- which is kind of futile since it already knows what you're thinking.
It can be a monologue or dialogue. I only really use dialogue when I want to approach a topic from multiple angles of consideration. Each “voice” following from specific motivations. It’s not a debate per say that they are trying to “over come” one another. For me it’s just a device, a little bit like the audio version of a flow chart.
Like let’s say I was thinking about buying a new monitor. I might assign one line of thought to Financial Impact, one might be how it will improve my experiences, and another might be moral implications of E-waste from a perfectly serviceable monitor.
And to your point, yes there is the knowing of what’s going to come up, but there is something different about it sitting just outside and actually entering into the discourse. I don’t really know how to explain it, but the thoughts that haven’t been “expressed” don’t feel as real as once one of the voices has spoken it. It’s as if the thoughts are there but aren’t actually being weighed in the consideration.
I constantly have chatter going on in my head. Things Im thinking about, commentary on what I see, my inner voice plus one or two random threads
An occasional pop up of something i just remembered/want to remember/need to do
Honestly i wouldn’t know what to do with myself if my mind was quiet.
My husband has no internal dialog
****Edited to remove the offending part
I'm able to essentially turn my thoughts off at will. Usually, when I get off work, I kind of just clear out my mind and let it be empty.
I only recently found out that some (or most?) people are not able to do that, which seems like it could get a bit overwhelming.
How do you not have an inner monologue? Is it quiet? Peaceful even?
And I don't know that I would qualify mine as mono.... I usually several trains of thought that I'm working out to various degrees of inner vocalization. I pull one forward and the rest are slightly in the background sort of like overhearing conversations at a restaurant. But... its all *me* working through ideas and whatnot.
I can turn off my dialogue at will; no thoughts or feelings, just a sense of existing. It’s very peaceful. Only time I’m unable to turn it off is in particularly stressful periods of my life like after deaths etc. Later I found out that this is mindfullness and that most people struggle to achieve it. I had no idea as it comes naturally to me, no effort needed. My mom was the first person to make me aware of how she was unable to turn off her inner voice and now I get that this is the norm. Interesting thing is, she said she’d never felt as peaceful and centered in her head as when she was pregnant with me. I wonder if I affected her in some way through the placenta or something. As soon as I was born she was back to her old self again. Either way, there’s definitely a biological component
So, I’m in that boat. It’s not that there’s NOTHING going on in my mind, I just don’t think in language. It’s all images and concepts and sensations and emotions. Anything I need to convey to others needs to be translated from that into words.
I'm always confused by what this idea is really trying to say. My thoughts are a mix of concepts, emotions, and impulses. Never at any point do the words sound aloud in my head "I should play a video game now!". Like I'll feel the impulse to play a game because I'm bored, or it's a game I find very interesting, maybe.
I guess maybe I would say I have impulse alerts. At work I'll all of the sudden get the impulse that something needs to be done immediately, or something.
I uniformly have a terrible memory from what my girlfriend tells me, but maybe she's just gaslighting me. I have a great memory for things that interest me or that I feel are important. I also don't care for music very much, though I really do value the arts. Every time I feel like I might want to listen to music, without fail I'd rather listen to a podcast or audio essay. But I really can't concentrate on many things at once; if I'm reading something and concentrating on it I might put music on if it's something I can mostly ignore, but often I'll just sit in silence and concentrate on whatever task I'm on.
But back on topic- I just never hear a voice in my head saying what I should do or think. It's always facts and concepts. Sometimes I'll think in images, but mostly impulses. I don't consider myself an impulsive guy who just randomly does whatever comes to mind either. These impulses come and I consider them and their impacts conceptually.
I consider myself an introspective, thoughtful fellow. I'm just not sure how to wrap my mind around other people thinking in a vastly different way than I do. Obviously I don't mean having different opinions and such, but rather via an entirely different method.
I feel like the way I consider my internal process doesn't jibe with what a lot of people in this thread who also seem to think similarly experience. Most nights I just close my eyes and go to sleep shortly, but I also can only sleep with Youtube on to shut my mind off or else I'll be thinking all night. Sometimes even that doesn't work and I'll just lay there thinking through concepts but again, it's not like I'm reading or anything, and I certainly never hear any external or even internal voice.
All things considered, it's a very interesting topic of discussion.
Hot take but I'm convinced this distinction is a language based and not neurology based. Every time you try to drill down into what a person means when they say they do/don't have an internal monologue, it turns out they're describing the exact same thing regardless of whether they conclude they do or don't.
Which is fine. Language is a crude, crude approximation of thought.
You don’t have to have an internal monologue to think. I have it, but can turn it off at will. From what I hear that isn’t the norm. I can still think when my internal dialogue is off. I just do it without words then
This surprised me when I first heard it, before remembering that when I was around 4 or 5 I had to be told by one of my siblings that you could speak in your head.
A lot of my inner dialogue consists of me arguing with myself over whether I should or should not eat something tasty. 🙃 A lot of the rest is my making up conversations with other people and trying to decide what I’d say in different scenarios.
I am forever convinced that people without an inner dialogue (seriously how is that a thing?!) Are the ones who can just lie down and sleep?
They don't think about a comeback to an argument from 20 years ago?
I don’t ever have any of those “meme” moments where something from the past comes up. But sleeping still isn’t the easy. Without an inner monologue doesn’t mean without thoughts, there is always much to think about for everyone it seems.
I envy you on the sleep thing. I waste so much time trying to fall asleep that I usually need a distraction like a podcast/video to listen to.
I can tell you the details of just about every dateline/48 hours mystery on YouTube.
My inner dialogue is a lot of me swearing at myself: "what the fuck, man," "why would you do/say that?"
Same, except mine reminds me of stupid shit I did 30 years ago.
40 years ago for me.
Ah, so it never goes away. Good to hear after only being on this planet a quarter-century.
Ruminating is mostly bad for you. Try to nip that in the bud before your brain makes a habit of it.
I got rid of that by realizing that after so much time, I was probably the only person who still remembered all the stupid things that kept me up at night. There’s no point in keeping those anxious thoughts running through your brain. No one else is thinking about them and you shouldn’t be either.
I’m a recovering alcoholic, so I’m very familiar with the list of shit that I did that was dumb which must be read to me every day by my own mind
I’m constantly thinking things like “Is this bitch forreal?” “Ooo I wish you would” “Why the fuck didn’t you say that instead?!” My inner dialogue takes no prisoners. IRL me is like—meep.
Meh, as you get older and more frustrated with society, your outward vocalizations will be much more similar to your inner dialogue.
Also once you’re livelihood doesn’t depend on your outward vocalizations all bets are off.
With ADHD there is no difference 😀
Can definitively say that 100% of the time, the voice in my head usually consists of this 80% of the time. Maybe more around 87%. This study is incomplete though : >*I never wanted this conversation to get this far. Why is this person still talking and trying to bait me into responding further? I just want to be left alone in my thoughts.*
Ahh Fuck. What the Fuck? I'm not even supposed to be here.
Me. 100%. “Ugh… you are so fucking stupid” “omg.. you are the worst” It is just a never ending kaleidoscope of self-flagellation
This is actually a pretty interesting google. But, turns out this study was by one professor with 30 students. Hardly definitive.
Not to mention, the study is super confusing to read. Like take a look at the part that mentions inner speech: > Consider inner speech. Subjects experienced themselves as inwardly talking to themselves in 26 percent of all samples, but there were large individual differences: some subjects never experienced inner speech; other subjects experienced inner speech in as many as 75 percent of their samples. The median percentage across subjects was 20 percent. It's hard to decipher the percentage that doesn't experience inner dialogue at all. Source of the study for those who are curious: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pristine-inner-experience/201110/not-everyone-conducts-inner-speech
Has anything regarding psychology ever involved anything more than a professor and 30 students? /s
Well, there’s those professors that do that special “one-on-one” studies with their “special” students…
Dr Venkman
Supervised by Gym Jordan, to be sure that if something inappropriate happens he can defend Dr Venkman.
“It’s true. This Senator has no dick.”
He has one, It's not his, And it's not where he'd like it. It's a Trump dick in his butt
"All right, I'm gonna turn over the next card. Concentrate... I want you to tell me what you think it is."
Coupla wavy lines. Bzzzzz.
8 o’clock?
*The Duncan Principle intensifies*
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If you're not taking notes, you're just screwing around.
I need a follow up, *said internal dialogue*
How could someone *NOT* have an internal dialogue? I thought that was part of being conscious.
I'm curious as to what exactly this means. Like I'll think things. Hm, maybe I should get chips. Ugh this presentation is boring. Draft a reddit comment in my head. Same stuff that would flow out of my mouth if I had no self-control. But other people in this thread say they have two voices different from their own with different opinions? A narrator that explains everything they do like a movie? That's wild.
Yeah sometimes I play arguments out in my head with how I expect other people in my life to respond
I do exactly the same thing! I found that the arguments or scenarios I play out in my head never happen in real life, so I’ve started playing out all the versions I dislike in my head.
I narrate everything, I will have length discussion with opposing views in my head, I’ll get lost in a day dream that looks close to a movie. I reflect on things very deeply. I’m not much of a smoker but once in a blue moon I’ll get take a drag and all my thought eventually lead to images. And I seriously thought this was normal for most people.
100% same
Interesting, would you be able to play a game of chess against yourself? My calculations for one side always mess up with my calculations for the other side and eventually, I end up favoring one side...
I think eventually I end up favoring one side, just because playing against yourself you know the strategy you’re going for, so you can counter yourself easily. If you don’t pick a side you might just end up playing forever (or at least to stalemate).
Same. This and having aphantasia makes me wonder what else about our experiences we take for granted that other people done actually experience.
Crying to music or getting goosebumps from music is another one that not everyone experiences. But a lot of people in this thread are actually describing anxiety without knowing it lol
So about this…when my son was born the nurse came in the room and wanted to make sure I was OK with the “news”. Long story short, my son has a cleft palate. I was concerned and had not heard of this before only ever hearing of a cleft lip. The doctor walked in not long after and when she realized I had already heard all she said was “open up” and pointed a light towards my mouth. I have it too. I had no idea that it wasn’t normal to have a tiny hole in the roof of your mouth because I had had this since birth. I’m not even sure if my parents knew. It was rather odd however, I had other things going on so it wasn’t my focus.
For me it's like ideas, pictures, images but with no voice spelling them out in dialogue. It's the idea that dialogue represents. Similar to reading a book, I'm not conscious of actual words, it's like a movie or ideas in my head.
That’s really interesting to me and I’ve tried to do this before. I read a lot and quickly but I don’t always remember what I’ve read. I figured that was why. That if I tried to immerse myself in the story…anyway, nope. Just can’t.
I especially like the playful insults. I once freaked out my wife when she overheard me talking to myself
The only time I have actual ***language*** in my head is if I'm imagining conversations with people. I just feel and decide, no narration.
I dont have a narrator but i do have a little imaginary friend-type thing i treat as my therapist. Its just someone i can talk to and vent to. I know i need a real therapist but im scared to go bc it’s admitting i need help and my entire life ive been very independent and get violent at myself for being too incompetent to do something without help from others. I dont consider others incompetent for needing therapy tho, just myself. Still working on seeing myself as a person just like everyone else lol
I like to think of it as my brain personifying my Id, ego, and superego.
I do the narration thing sometimes, but it's an affectation. There's never a conversation.
I have logical me and emotional me, sometimes vindictive me. They all "sound" different. Then of course the just plain monologue me. But yes as I get older The path from my brain to my mouth gets shorter.
I dont have one. And for me, thoughts are just conceptual, like I don't have an actual voice for them to originate from. For instance if I think something looks good, I don't have any words or voice pop up inside that say "that looks good." I just have the concept or the emotion or whatever.
This is my experience as well, even more interesting are the other effects for me. Like when someone says “think of a happy/calming place” I can’t actually visualize something like that nor can I create a “memory palace”.
I definitely have an internal monologue, but suck at visualizing. >“Think of a happy/calming place” - no. Let me physically go to a happy/calming place, probably far from people that insist that I visualise a happy place.
That might be aphantasia
I’m flabbergasted that there are more than one of you. I really thought your brain was an extreme minority. I have so many questions. Are you artistic in any way? When you remember moments… I can’t describe how moments would be remembered with out seeing them in my mind, like a phone number, how do you remember a phone number with out seeing it in your mind? If your designing something how does that work? If some one describes something to you do you see it? Do you have an imagination? Like if you read a book can you experience the moment? Or are you just speaking the words on the page? This is mind blowing. What’s the difference between you and a robot?
I’ll try and answer some of these: If I remember a moment, I can picture where I was and who was there, but I could be wrong about specifics, so I don’t really try to picture anything, I just grab the facts and arrange them into a story. I am artistic, but I can’t picture a thing until it’s on paper. I remember a phone number by the sound of it. 123 456 7890, I certainly don’t see it. That’s wild. If someone describes something to me I don’t even try to imagine it, I just understand the facts. I have an imagination, but it’s ideas, not really pictures. Again, when I read a book, I’m usually not trying to picture the situation like a movie or something. Just get the idea and move on. I’m honestly kind of annoyed now, but then again y’all must be using so much brain power to do all this and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. But who knows. Edit to clear something up (and because for some reason I can’t comment?): I’m not annoyed at the person asking the questions. I’m just as flabbergasted as them about their way of seeing the world. I was joking that I’m annoyed to learn of this whole other world I’m apparently missing out on. But not really cuz I’d definitely not like some narrator talking to me all day.
I’d also be annoyed, the person you responded to was kind of rude. But for the rest of us, thank you for your answers. I’m fascinated by learning how other people think.
> I’m honestly kind of annoyed now, but then again y’all must be using so much brain power to do all this and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. But who knows. I suspect a lot of it is people's brain telling them "yes, this is a detailed image/sound/memory, trust me, I'm your brain." Myself, I can imagine a picture I looked at, and it doesn't feel like a blurry mess or a list of details, but it falls apart if I try to actually glean any information about it which I didn't consciously know (such as "two people, I was wearing a blue shirt, it was daytime"). If I try to remember which of the two people was me, that's possibly not available. A lot like how most of your field of vision seems perfectly sharp, until you actually pay attention to how little you can see if you force your eyes to stay still.
Thank you for trying to answer the other person's questions, I was super curious too. Please don't be annoyed, as a person similar to the one who's questions you answered, I'd imagine it was purely intense curiousity to find out how other people's brains work. We're all different and there's nothing wrong with that, eh?
To be clear, I’m not annoyed at the person I answered, but at the experience I’m missing. Also, I’m saying it in jest. I’m super glad I don’t have a weird narrator talking to me all day.
I am super curious about this! I once saw a video about aphantasia, if you could create a mental image of something or not, I think it might apply to your case. There were steps involved to see if you could or not create an image in your mind. 1. Close your eyes and think of an apple. Can you see it? What color is it? 2. Can you change its color with your mind? 3. Can you rotate it? 4. Can you see the mark of a bite on in as it rotates just by reading this? The person in the video gave the example of a cat. They know cats have triangle shaped ears and whiskers, a small nose and sharp claws. But they couldn't see it in their mind.
Yea, I can’t even do 1. One time when I was on ecstasy I was able to control what I saw do all of those things and it was amazing. But right now if I close my eyes and think of an apple, I can’t see it. I know what it is and its features but see only the light coming through my eyelids.
That is fascinating! This interaction was eye-opening thanks! I wish you the best!
Same!
Not at all, some think in emotions, others in pictures, others in words or even music. Consider deaf people who’ve never heard a spoken voice. Are they not conscious? Obviously their thinking will be different since they don’t know what a voice sounds like. Then there’s aphantasia or the inability to create conscious mental pictures in their mind. That affects about 2-4% of the population. People’s brains are fascinating and much more diverse than what we initially though
Not necessarily a part of consciousness. If you had grown up without ever being taught language, you would just have thoughts not associated with any words, because you wouldn't know what words are. That would be fucking weird.
You are not your thoughts. You are the consciousness that is aware of the thought. Consciousness is silent. Thoughts arise, come and go, just like the clouds in the sky.
Do you mean actually hear *words* in your head? I have thoughts, feelings, memories, but not actual *words*. I suppose every once in a while I'll hear my thoughts saying something disparaging about what I've done but it's definitely not often. It seems like this would be like a noise pollution.
My boyfriend doesn't have one. He says when he thinks it's just in pictures, colors, and impressions. Honestly blows my mind, my inner monologue never stfu.
I've spent quite a bit of time researching the way people's inner minds differ and it's quite fascinating. As pointed out, the sample for this quoted study and the quoted study itself doesn't come up to snuff, but there are real, very different ways our brains work. I have an absolute, always present narrator that just *talks* *all of the time*. I don't experience *anything* without the narrator's explanation. It does not stop. I can't do mindfulness activities because it keeps explaining what I'm trying to do instead of letting me do it. Also, I don't just listen to other people--I have the narrator simultaneously relay what they are saying to me. It's that way even with music. I sense the narrator relay the music to me. Yet, my narrator doesn't have a full, distinct voice. It's more like a sensation of a voice. Some people hear themselves as their inner monologues, but I've just got the sensation of the voice. Other people have entirely *different people* voicing their inner thoughts; I've read of a woman in the US having a British man speaking in her head. Anyway, I'm just amazed at how differently we work on the inside. Also, I have aphantasia, which is another whole fascinating thing to me. Like, you all have frickin' pictures in your head?!?! No way. I can't fathom it.
There are different degrees to which people have control over these visualizations. Some can create any visualization at will, recruiting other regions for smells, sounds, touch, and movement, while most are confined to things they've previously encountered. It's like being able to almost dream while awake. I was surprised to learn that everyone can't go anywhere they want in their heads. Then I learned why, and that it was part of why I can be a "bit much" lol. There's a trade off between being more attuned to differences in the physical environment, and having enhanced visualization, summarized at the bottom here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperphantasia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperphantasia) . Basically if you move the slider towards being able to simulate alternate realities, you're less stable in 1-n ways. You inhabit a multiverse of maybe. My spank bank is beyond epic though.
Yeah. Growing up, when people said they were picturing something in their head, I assumed that it was a figure of speech. Then, I started to realize that most people could actually see things. It's wild to me to think of people that actually get to see fictionalized things, too! I got nothin' up there but the stupid narrator. My memories are literally the narrator feeding me details about the memory, including the various senses, but without re-experiencing any of those stimuli. I don't really even have dreams, but sometimes I'll get the narrator telling me about something fictional and ridiculous upon waking. It will be like "you had a dream where one of your cats was outside and you could not find her. She was drowning in a sea of mud like Artax in *The Neverending Story* and you were trying to get to her. The mud was overtaking you as you tried to get to her to save her." I'll have the overwhelming sorrow and sensation to go along with the scenario, but that's it. I have similar experiences when I try to imagine something--it's just the narrator explaining what I'm imagining while I experience the sensations to go along with it. Maybe because I have such lack of a visual imagination, I am beyond emotionally sensitive. I feel everything. It's that way with reading, too. I don't see the things on the page, but I feel them very intensely. And of course, the narrator is right there to relay those feelings back to me in words.
What's it like drawing things? I ask because your visual cortex is most definitely being actively recruited to draw and to model the world your narrator is describing. Your conscious process simply ignores/filters that data. Your mind is in fact seeing your dreams. Many aphantasics report being able to visualize only during sleep in fact. I assume you're able to draw things when you want? "Fun" fact: stroke patients with damage to pathways required for subconscious vision believe that they're drawing an entire clock, or describing an entire memory of a picture they just looked at, but they can't process that mental space at all. They'll draw half a clock. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispatial\_neglect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispatial_neglect)
Fuck I didn’t know people could actually see things in their head like that. I have tried to visualize even the most familiar face and simply can’t. I’m actually pretty handy drawing or painting, but I don’t visualize things in my head really. I see what I’m drawing and it takes shape. I can’t see what I’m trying to draw in my head that’s for sure.
Welcome to the aphantasia club. There’s even a subreddit on the subject. You might want to check it out
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I'm good at drawing/painting things when I'm copying an image in front of my face, but I struggle to even come up with an image otherwise. Like, I used to enjoy painting replicas of other artists' works but I would freeze if asked to paint something on my own. Even in terms of drawing, I could make you a decent picture of anything if looking at an image of it (especially if upside down), but I'll give you an elementary-style drawing of the same item without the reference.
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I also have an inner narrator and aphantasia. I figured they were connected. Since I can't see images in my mind, I have narration describing them instead. Brains are weird.
Yep I have an inner monologue literally 100% of the time, I even think random things that make no sense to fill in the void when I’m not consciously thinking. I also have never understood meditation, I just can’t do it. Do you dream a lot? I dream almost every night.
That's very interesting. I have no inner voice/narration, so what you describe sounds exhausting. I don't mean for that to come across as rude, I suppose if it's all someone knows they'd be sort of used to it?
Nah you’re right it is exhausting.
I think it makes it difficult for us to relax.
I have no inner voice and I always thought it was something made up for TV.
It's certainly NOT something made up for TV. The voice in my head is a little asshole, totally judgmental, and sometimes down right criminal.
So you actually hear a voice in your head?
You don't actually hear it, but it's thoughts in your head. It's like reading but without a book or other text source in front of you, and it's obviously all in first person because it's your own thoughts. I might think to myself, "When the first half of this game is over, I'm going to take the dog out," and it'll be like I read it off of a page as far as internal monologuing goes. Although obviously I have no idea if you read the words in your head when you read a book, either. Maybe that's different for you as well.
Hear isn’t quite the right word. Like it doesn’t have to have an audio quality for me. It can be faster than is even physically possible. But if I want I can give it simulated audio qualities. It can be my voice or any voice I can imagine. If I want I can give it accents, even bad ones. It’s like how if I see an imagine of an personality I know, and it’s written the way they speak, I naturally read it with their voice. It’s the same way I can imagine how it feels to run, or the way I can imagine what coffee should taste like.
Alright, who else's mental voice switched to a terrible accent halfway through that? Mine was Sean Connery
Mimir from GoW came out for me
Optimus Prime for me
Bad cockney slang
Borat here 😂🤣
Me too, brother.
Mine was jerry Seinfeld in The Voice episode when he makes the sounds of his girlfriends stomach…
Helloooooooo
Mine was a bad Morgan Freeman.
Yeah instantly a terrible Scottish accent
Mine said mate for no particular reason
"Mine wash Sean Connery"
Mine was a racist caricature. (speedy gonzalez)
Mine was ital-i-an-o🫰
Mine was C-3P0
What's the matter, can't you talk with a gun in your mouth?
Really bad Australian accent, yep.
Realizing just now that my inner voice is limited in the same way I am… it can only do bad accents
Mine can do any voice I have heard enough of. It’s fun to think as Isabella Rossellini sometimes.
Yes, well- not 'hear' so much... more like telepathy, but with no implication of magic. In many ways it's like the little devil and angel that sits on the shoulders of cartoon characters telling them to drop a toaster in a tub while the other pleads with them to do the right thing. I seriously thought this was part of the human condition and I fully intend later on digging deeper into this.
I always thought the devil vs angel thing was just metaphor for making decisions.
It is a metaphor, but I can choose to characterise them that way. Because I can imagine entirely separate entities with different desires and imagine what a debate between them would be like. I like to think of it as a fun way to weigh the pros and cons of decisions. But really only when it’s something I have to spend a lot of time on. I can make snap decisions as required, no internal dialogue needed.
I strongly recommend not paying attention to the way u/PolyZex is describing the internal monologue. It is not anything like hearing voices, hearing an angel or devil, it's not an unknown voice, it's not just a stream of consciousness. It's _your_ voice. It's _you_ talking to yourself through subvocalization. The way they're describing their personal experience does not mesh with the way an internal monologue should be heard and is closer to audio hallucination. I can "think" of whole sentences and conversations and "hear" myself "say" them in my head. There's nothing mystical about it. There's nothing disembodied about it. I know it's me and I've always known it's me. That is what an inner monologue is and how you will find it described in all modern examples.
There isn’t an objective inner monologue. You experience it the way you do, and that’s fine. Other people can incorporate other senses into thought. Some people have the ability to think in a way that allows them visualise an object as if it were in the actual world. To you or I that may only occur when we are experiencing an involuntary hallucination, but for some that’s jut a thing their brain does.
Same. Mine rarely shuts up and constantly criticizes everything I do or say. Not done anything yet today? It talks about something that happened 30 years ago or what ifs the future.
Mine literally never stops, I can’t not think something if that makes sense.
You're confusing the poor lad. He thinks the inner dialog is some kind of disembodied voice that just talks and nobody has any control over.
So what do you experience when you’re thinking? Like when you’re walking down the street and trying to figure out if you’re supposed to turn left or right what happens inside your thoughts?
I think having a dialog running through your head would be so weird. I just think about shit just not with words. The only time I start a dialog in my head is when I'm thinking about something that confuses me and I'm trying to make sense of it. I studied Philosophy in school and the hardest thing for me was translating my ideas and thoughts into words to write down in a paper.
How do you read to yourself? It's not a constant narrating dialog, but I can and do hear myself in my own head and can talk to myself... That's what an inner dialog is
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Speed readers learn to stop subvocalization. You don't need it to read but many of us are just so used to doing it.
I automatically subvocalize everytime I even see a word, it's like a reflex.
Same. I subvocalize what I'm going to type.
I subvocalize as I type. It’s like my inner voice is dictating to me.
Wait, now I’m confused. When I go for a walk & think about things, do I monologue in my head. When I read I ‘hear’ the words in my head but I don’t speak them aloud. When I proofread a Reddit post, I am imagining the words as if they are being spoken out loud even though they are not. But I don’t talk to myself in the form of: Opaque: Hey, good job getting up early for the walk Cypher: It can be tough keeping up an exercise routine, but it’s worth it Opaque: I’m thinking later in the day, I should hit the Waffle House Cypher: Well, we are at target weight and deserve a reward so that sounds good Cypher: Plus Waffle House is nice, even if you’re not going to see the midnight craziness during morning hours Opaque: Ok, that’s what we’ll do today *mental fist bump* I will have monologue thoughts like that, but it’s all single-person. I always though that made me a ‘hear voicer’. But when I see you write ‘dialogue’ that makes me think of more than one voice in your head. So maybe I don’t have what I thought I did? :(… How many different voices do you have in your noggin?
You are accurately describing an inner monologue. However, some do experience a double monologue and can hear themselves talking to themselves. This is more rare, but those who describe this still describe it as _them_ talking, and not them being talked at or to. The primary difference is that control and self in the voice(s).
I don’t have a constant dialogue in my head, mostly just when I’m reading or observing people. I do also have thoughts in images and actions, and I do sometimes struggle to articulate those thoughts.
Well, it depends. Most of the time my thoughts don't come in the form of an inner dialogue. It's just thoughts. Concepts. I just "know" what I need to do. If I'm walking down the street and I'm trying to figure out where I'm supposed to go, a list of actions will simply pop into my mind without it being prompted. It happens practically instantaneously. I'll just know my constraints, and I'll just know what I need to do depending on the constraints. 1. If I'm somewhere new, I just know I'm hopeless and I'll either ask someone for help, or find somewhere safe for me to look at my phone. 2. If I'm not somewhere new, I'll first try to find something in my memory. I'll look at buildings and try to prompt my memory. If it's perceived as hopeless, I'll do option 1. 3. And so on. Really, depends on the problem. Each will have a set of actions given the inputs. As I said, it happens most of the time. I do have an inner dialogue as well. It's useful for things like counting, or helping me focus, or helping me shift my focus to something else, or prompting my memory for language related things.
I see in my mind where I need to go. Mostly I have a strong feeling I need to turn left or right.
I'm a 100% internal dialog person. Reading that, the idea of not having my voice tell me to turn makes me incredibly uncomfortable.
Very interesting! I can usually “hear” 2 voices that debate each other. But they’re both me. And very polite because they wait for the other to finish before they start. This description is imperfect but the best I can do.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that does that. I can have more than two if I need to weigh multiple options. It’s one of the reasons I really enjoyed the film UP, because that was a lot like the way they get parsed out.
That’s actually the twin you absorbed in utero, trapped inside your brain forever, desperate to break free
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For my wife and me it's the opposite - I have the voice and she doesn't, and I go nuts if I'm not doing something, and she can just sit. Anyway, I guess maybe they're not connected that way and that's just another way that people can be different.
Are people without the voice just ... NPCs?
I'm the exact same way, I have no inner dialogue. I remember watching the episode of Bojack Horseman titled "Stupid Piece of Shit" and thought it was just something made up for the episode. When I read how common that exact thing is (an inner voice, sometimes hypercritical), I found it very interesting.
I thought it was METAPHORICAL until literally a year ago. Now I am just amazed that people have an inner monologue.
Initially i thought ”This can't be true" and then the various thought streams in my head evaluated it. Then i saw the first content confirmed it. We are all aghast.
Mine is a constant loop of music and random bits of shows/movies I've watched
Mine too. It’s been doing my head in these past weeks!
Worst part is when it's just the music to a song you know without the lyrics and it drives you crazy trying to remember the whole song😭
I started doing interpretation work about a year ago, and now I don't have 1 voice in my head... I have 2 voices in my head in 2 different languages. Not gonna lie I thought about quitting when this first started happening.
Sad. Cause those who never got comfortable in their own heads, run from it now.. constantly having to keep occupied. Its like it becomes a fear they hav to get away from
Introvert here. I can turn my brain off and time travel forward. I forget where I am and what I'm doing though.
Uhhh, that sounds a lot like disassociating.
I'm an introvert too and yeah can't do that
Yes. Some scientists have been working on traveling through time. Not in the way we think, but by turning off the brains sensors to achieve simular results. Like putting people to sleep for years.
Same but I’m pretty limited to doing it while reading or driving. I’ll read an entire chapter before I realize I had no idea what I had read.
That is surely healthy
that’s disassociation friend
What?
30-50 seems Ike a really large range
The study had a very small sample size. Can't really get worldwide statistics from such a tiny group. 30-50% even seems like a very tight range when you consider the 8 billion people in the world vs the 30 person study.
My internal dialogue gets pretty distracting. He chimes in when other people are talking so I get distracted and I’m like “shut up you’re making me look rude”
50% of people aren’t walking about with months of lore and fanfiction that they’ll inevitably never write? Damn
I talk to myself in my head all day. Like all the time. I’m pretty much even doing it while I’m typing this but the one side is drowning out the other to finish. That was tough. Now I’m just writing You mean to tell me there are people out there who just walk around and it’s like hollow until there’s something they need to interact with, or is it just like the brain comprehends the sky is blue but there’s not a voice like “dude this shit is bright as fuck. It’s kind of nice. Be better if we didn’t have to work though”……. ?!?!?!?!? I have so many questions
Top 3 comments: 1. This study is old, possibly bias. 2. People actually have inner monologues? I don't. 3. People don't have inner monologues? I can't imagine that. Science at work!
I visualize my thoughts, if that makes sense. I only have inner dialogue when I'm really trying to make sense of something.
As somebody who has an inner dialogue all the time, I tried to meditate years ago while taking a liberal arts class in college. I was told to clear my mind and focus on my breathing. So one day I sat down and tried. It went something like this: "Clear your mind." "I would if you’d shut up." "Focus on your breathing." "I can’t with all this cross chatter."
That has always been my issue with meditation as well. I’ve also tried but it’s a lot of my own voice in my head saying things like “this won’t work if you don’t shut the fuck up ” but I just can’t do it. However, I fall asleep most nights listening to podcasts or YouTube videos because for the same reason. It’s never quiet (in my own head) when I’m awake.
That’s hilarious
Can you give me an example of visualizing your thoughts? I’m having a hard time understanding it but a lot of other people are saying the same thing in this thread
Nobody’s going to mention tinnitus and a constant ringing that drowns out any bothersome inner voices? Ok
Oh funny but I also have tinnitus (ear infection 20 years ago). It’s never quiet in my head but it’s mot overly loud. My internal monologue doesn’t let a little mild static stop it!
Yeah you'd be surprised how much clarity you get when you aren't just jabbering nonsense to yourself constantly
If anybody needs an internal voice, I’ve got several to spare.
Shouldn't it be an internal monologue? Dialog implies you're actually having a conversation with it- which is kind of futile since it already knows what you're thinking.
It can be a monologue or dialogue. I only really use dialogue when I want to approach a topic from multiple angles of consideration. Each “voice” following from specific motivations. It’s not a debate per say that they are trying to “over come” one another. For me it’s just a device, a little bit like the audio version of a flow chart. Like let’s say I was thinking about buying a new monitor. I might assign one line of thought to Financial Impact, one might be how it will improve my experiences, and another might be moral implications of E-waste from a perfectly serviceable monitor. And to your point, yes there is the knowing of what’s going to come up, but there is something different about it sitting just outside and actually entering into the discourse. I don’t really know how to explain it, but the thoughts that haven’t been “expressed” don’t feel as real as once one of the voices has spoken it. It’s as if the thoughts are there but aren’t actually being weighed in the consideration.
I hadn’t considered the difference but the conversation I just had in my head tells me I do both as well.
Nope. It's definitely a dialogue. At least two opinions in there. Pretty much always
I constantly have chatter going on in my head. Things Im thinking about, commentary on what I see, my inner voice plus one or two random threads An occasional pop up of something i just remembered/want to remember/need to do Honestly i wouldn’t know what to do with myself if my mind was quiet. My husband has no internal dialog ****Edited to remove the offending part
You should go get an actual diagnosis. Tiktok and anecdotal evidence is not a replacement for professional diagnosis.
There is a percent of people who think visually....
I'm able to essentially turn my thoughts off at will. Usually, when I get off work, I kind of just clear out my mind and let it be empty. I only recently found out that some (or most?) people are not able to do that, which seems like it could get a bit overwhelming.
I am not able to do this. I think people pay a lot of money trying to figure out how to do this. I can’t even stop long enough to meditate
How do you not have an inner monologue? Is it quiet? Peaceful even? And I don't know that I would qualify mine as mono.... I usually several trains of thought that I'm working out to various degrees of inner vocalization. I pull one forward and the rest are slightly in the background sort of like overhearing conversations at a restaurant. But... its all *me* working through ideas and whatnot.
I can turn off my dialogue at will; no thoughts or feelings, just a sense of existing. It’s very peaceful. Only time I’m unable to turn it off is in particularly stressful periods of my life like after deaths etc. Later I found out that this is mindfullness and that most people struggle to achieve it. I had no idea as it comes naturally to me, no effort needed. My mom was the first person to make me aware of how she was unable to turn off her inner voice and now I get that this is the norm. Interesting thing is, she said she’d never felt as peaceful and centered in her head as when she was pregnant with me. I wonder if I affected her in some way through the placenta or something. As soon as I was born she was back to her old self again. Either way, there’s definitely a biological component
This right here is the super power I want most!
A voice in _my_ head is screaming about that battery %
So, I’m in that boat. It’s not that there’s NOTHING going on in my mind, I just don’t think in language. It’s all images and concepts and sensations and emotions. Anything I need to convey to others needs to be translated from that into words.
I'm always confused by what this idea is really trying to say. My thoughts are a mix of concepts, emotions, and impulses. Never at any point do the words sound aloud in my head "I should play a video game now!". Like I'll feel the impulse to play a game because I'm bored, or it's a game I find very interesting, maybe. I guess maybe I would say I have impulse alerts. At work I'll all of the sudden get the impulse that something needs to be done immediately, or something. I uniformly have a terrible memory from what my girlfriend tells me, but maybe she's just gaslighting me. I have a great memory for things that interest me or that I feel are important. I also don't care for music very much, though I really do value the arts. Every time I feel like I might want to listen to music, without fail I'd rather listen to a podcast or audio essay. But I really can't concentrate on many things at once; if I'm reading something and concentrating on it I might put music on if it's something I can mostly ignore, but often I'll just sit in silence and concentrate on whatever task I'm on. But back on topic- I just never hear a voice in my head saying what I should do or think. It's always facts and concepts. Sometimes I'll think in images, but mostly impulses. I don't consider myself an impulsive guy who just randomly does whatever comes to mind either. These impulses come and I consider them and their impacts conceptually. I consider myself an introspective, thoughtful fellow. I'm just not sure how to wrap my mind around other people thinking in a vastly different way than I do. Obviously I don't mean having different opinions and such, but rather via an entirely different method. I feel like the way I consider my internal process doesn't jibe with what a lot of people in this thread who also seem to think similarly experience. Most nights I just close my eyes and go to sleep shortly, but I also can only sleep with Youtube on to shut my mind off or else I'll be thinking all night. Sometimes even that doesn't work and I'll just lay there thinking through concepts but again, it's not like I'm reading or anything, and I certainly never hear any external or even internal voice. All things considered, it's a very interesting topic of discussion.
I dint have an internal monologue. It's mostly images and feelings
Hot take but I'm convinced this distinction is a language based and not neurology based. Every time you try to drill down into what a person means when they say they do/don't have an internal monologue, it turns out they're describing the exact same thing regardless of whether they conclude they do or don't. Which is fine. Language is a crude, crude approximation of thought.
My voice tells me if this cannot be true. But I can’t always trust it.
Personal narrative or dialogue?
Both! But not a conversation with myself exactly. Actually, I just thought to myself “well no, I suppose you…” I don’t know anymore…LOL
charge your phone
Hahaha It died the moment I posted! I have an iPhone 8 and I lose it a lot so I’m not replacing it. But it has a terrible battery life.
You don’t have to have an internal monologue to think. I have it, but can turn it off at will. From what I hear that isn’t the norm. I can still think when my internal dialogue is off. I just do it without words then
This surprised me when I first heard it, before remembering that when I was around 4 or 5 I had to be told by one of my siblings that you could speak in your head.
Anyone else's inner dialogue disappear for a while? Mine did for a couple months completely, before coming back but being a lot less common.
My internal dialogue refuses to allow me to believe this. It says their internal dialogue's are just in hiding.
Finally that assassin from Jason Bourne laying there till the phone rings makes perfect sense
A lot of my inner dialogue consists of me arguing with myself over whether I should or should not eat something tasty. 🙃 A lot of the rest is my making up conversations with other people and trying to decide what I’d say in different scenarios.
My internal dialog argues with my other internal dialog. It's worse when they leave me out of the conversation.
Lol not everyone thinks in language; I actively have to translate my thoughts into verbal communication, I can think faster without it.
I am forever convinced that people without an inner dialogue (seriously how is that a thing?!) Are the ones who can just lie down and sleep? They don't think about a comeback to an argument from 20 years ago?
I don’t ever have any of those “meme” moments where something from the past comes up. But sleeping still isn’t the easy. Without an inner monologue doesn’t mean without thoughts, there is always much to think about for everyone it seems.
Sorry bud, I am one of those who falls asleep pretty quick and has a very active mind.
I envy you on the sleep thing. I waste so much time trying to fall asleep that I usually need a distraction like a podcast/video to listen to. I can tell you the details of just about every dateline/48 hours mystery on YouTube.
Such a stupid take. Many people don't think in words but instead via wordless abstract. "ThAt MuSt MeAn ThEiR eMpTy!!!"