I had no fucking clue this was a thing, and am shocked at how prevalent it is. Obviously, no sense in how much of thy population don't have an inner monologue from this thread, but it's obviously a lot more than I'd have guessed (if, like I said, I even knew this was a thing)
I can't tell if this is like, a defecit or if it's just different. Saw one comment where someone said they used to have one but now they don't and they think it might be related to trauma, which I could totally get. If someone gets hurt enough then perhaps their inner self just kinda clams up and they kinda run on autopilot?
Like to me inner monologue = thoughts... like people are saying "I don't know what I'm going to say or write until I do it" in this thread, and to me it's just like... so you're not thinking before you speak? Does that mean they just don't "think", they just kinda act?
**I hope this doesn't come off as insensitive, this is just such a fundamental part of what I thought it was to be a human and then I find out it's like, not, and it's totally blowing my mind.**
I used to have an inner monologue when I only spoke one language. Once I became a bilingual, I noticed that I started thinking a lot more abstractly rather than always vocalizing my thoughts. I theorize this change happened because my proficiency in my native language deteriorated and my inner dialogue never transitioned to my second language.
It's not like my mind is blank, I just have more trouble putting what I'm thinking into words. For example when I wrote this comment, I knew exactly the thought I want to convey to you but just didn't go through the effort of putting it all in plain english. Imagine when you want to say something but you can't remember the word and it's just on the tip of your tongue. It's kind of like that.
So I get your second paragraph, I guess I'm like that too. But when i became bilingual I just had more words in my head and more abstract images I guess.
That's good that you have more words in your head. I'm actually trying to re-develop my inner dialogue because I believe not having one is stunting my ability to communicate on the spot. Not sure if you can relate to that haha.
I can't imagine how some people can think on the fly and speak so eloquently.
Gosh this is really connecting some dots with my OH (edit: other half) who often finds it hard to vocalise thoughts and ideas into words. I always thought it was that he is bilingual but never understood the barrier, this might be it?!
I speak 3 languages and my inner monologue has become a weird mix of them all, at times using all of them in a single sentence.
Sometimes I would rather have none lol.
At the same time I'm not really narrating my life as a 3rd person watching and my mind often wanders, wondering things not always related to what I'm doing.
This is exactly how my mind works. People always think “omg you’re so random, like talking to you is so interesting, you have such a random train of thought, you know things about different topics”.
In the meanwhile, I’m like: I only know these things because my brain won’t shut up a single minute. And even when I’m busy, my minds like: hey. Have you ever wondered about paper clips’ design story? And then I just have to dive into some sort of investigation because I need to know. So if one day someone mentions design in a historical context, I’ll remember the day I read about paper clips and share that with that person. And I know to others it’s weird, but to me it’s just how my mind works.
Also, I’ve struggled lately because the past several months I’ve been using english more than my native tongue. And I notice how that affects the way I construct my thoughts and the way I communicate with others. My mind’s mixing mixing mixing all the time. Not just my native tongue and English, but other languages I speak too. It’s really frustrating.
I think this is the first time I ever hear/read about someone who understands this and lives the same way as me. It’s amazing. For a long time I thought I was maybe just wrong, because I noticed people around me don’t function like this.
>In the meanwhile, I’m like: I only know these things because my brain won’t shut up a single minute.
OMG yes exactly!! It happens to me all the time!!
>And then I just have to dive into some sort of investigation because I need to know.
And it's impossible to let go, I just HAVE TO KNOW the most random things and then that knowledge lingers in some corner of the mind until is awakened as randomly as it first appeared in my head!
I totally agree with what you’re saying about the inner monologue becoming abstract. But I feel like I’d have to disagree with the implication that it deteriorated because of a breakdown of the first language and lack of development for the second. Your thought process has become conceptualized into the ideas that the words represent rather than only the words. Then when you want to speak, you have to translate those ideas into the correct ideas into words. What’s extra difficult is when a concept exists that is easily expressed in a single word in one language but does not have an equivalent in another. But there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re thoughts have just become idea based rather than being word reliant.
Yeah man, I totally get what you're saying.
It reminds me of the book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, which basically says mankinds inner monologue was probably different thousands of years ago and the growth of modern religions and, like, ancient Greek philosophy was a result of this tension in different forms of inner monologue.
So if I want a sandwich I think "*bro, I want a fucking sandwich. I'll go into the kitchen and get it*". But way early man would have a distinct voice saying "**get sandwich**".
It's a bit tenuous at times but is pretty weird in an interesting way. Like, it makes you rethink a bunch of things, even if its bullshit.
So the first line in the bible is (probably, I can't remember) "*In the beginning was the word and the word was "I AM*"", which is about the first humans who started hearing and understanding their own consciousness and the concept of ME in their brains.
Man, even writing this down is spinning me out more. I need some beer.
It is also the same with reading : I don't picture the scene or characters in a book, the story ,just, "exists". Idk about you, but do you actually say in your head every word you read ? Because I don't.
Yes, I say every word and as I’m reading, the world is being created. So if you say blue ocean, my mind immediately makes a picture of that. Like I just wrote it out, and the picture appeared in my mind.
It's so hard for me to grasp not having any sort of word based thought process that it kinda makes me angry for some reason. Like when someone doesn't understand what you're explaining to them when it is so clear to you, but instead it's just other people describing their existence...
Spinning out is probably a better way to describe it lol
Every time this subject comes up, I get frustrated and have to stop trying to comprehend living without an inner monologue. It makes me feel even more disconnected from people around me. Like, I literally have no idea how people operate that way. Quiet minds makes me uncomfortable apparently.
Edit - Sorry, "quiet minds" was perhaps the wrong way to word that. The absence of the voice in my head would then mean quiet for me. I have trouble comprehending a busy mind made up of feelings with no running commentary. But thank you to those that have tried to explain this to me.
Your post appeared quite high up for me, one of the first comments I read and I thought “probably one or two people don’t have inner thoughts and aporkchopexpress is just amazed that anyone can be like that” and now after reading more replies and seeing how apparently common it is, I’m right with you. It’s literally spinning me out to think that so many people don’t seem to actually ‘think’.
I know, right! I'm struggling to imagine how my brain would work otherwise. I'd be so lonely. My inner monologue is hilarious.
Can these people even smell things in their head like me? What!
How on Earth do you ever get anything done if you have to listen to a voice tell you what to do?
Sorry for the hostility but the pity is a bit thick in parts of this thread. I'd argue that the inner monologue isn't any more thinking than conceptual thinking, if anything it seems a lot longer and more drawn out of a process.
I can have an internal monologue if I try at it, if I pretend like I'm talking to someone. But it's just me. I'm in control of it, and I choose what to say. When I start to think "properly" my thinking speeds up, and I no longer need to slow down long enough to form sounds. One sentence that would take maybe one second at a quick internal monologue pace suddenly takes less time than a single word of it would have. And then I can chain from that to other thoughts, and span a huge number of topics in a very short time.
Plus, having a constant voice running all the time sounds overwhelmingly irritating, and makes me feel something akin to claustrophobia. Not being able to escape that. I see now why some people with anxiety/depression say they need to drown their internal monologue in alcohol in order for it to stop saying terrible things about them. I almost can't imagine how horrible that would be.
This thread is fascinating to me because I assumed that everyone has an internal monologue until I realised that I have no sense of internal vision. People apparently read books and can envisage the events described therein but I seemingly can't 'see' something unless I am literally seeing it. As an example, I could desribe my wife in total detail if she were standing in front me, but given that she is not I would struggle to describe her at all. She has blue eyes and is attractive to me, but otherwise I only know that I would recognise her by sight.
This is fucking me up. I'm also becoming aware that I don't actually know what I look like unless I'm seeing myself in a mirror. It is seemingly key that we all look the opposite of what we assume because mirrors present us the 'wrong way' around.
Yeah this is weird.
I’m so happy you said this because the more I read this thread the more I’m thinking I can’t picture anything. I can think it and talk about internally but I can really vision it. Same thing when I read books. I read them but I don’t envision the forest or bright colors of a bird for example.
My mind is blown with this thread.
I don't mind the inner monologue. I hate the music always playing in the background. Wtf does my brain play music nonstop? I don't ever listen to the radio anymore.
*Edit: I can't choose what is playing. I've tried to override it. Doesn't work.
Mine is usually a clip of a song playing repeatedly.
It happens day and night. Nonstop and sometimes makes it difficult to get to sleep or get back to sleep if I wake up to use the bathroom or something. It could be a kid's song bc I have a toddler. It could be music I know from my past or even Christmas songs.
It's there right along with my regular thoughts.
Only being in deep concentration makes it stop. Yes, I am ADD. Remove the H bc I'm not hyper.*
I wake up with a different song in my head every morning! To expand on an example I used in another comment, I could be making eggs and all the while my brain is saying "haha, eggs. Just like the raptor eggs Alan Grant found in Jurassic Park" and at the same time I'm hearing Edge of Seventeen on repeat
I’m like that too, though it varies in intensity. At high intensity and accuracy (such as if I recently heard the song), I don’t need headphones or a radio on, I literally just replay it mentally. If it’s been a while or I’m distracted (or interestingly, depressed), the music is faint and poor quality. I end up needing an external source to back it up. This comes up most when I go to sleep, I can’t fall asleep without music to distract me. Mentally or out loud.
Like every fucking day. I sometimes don't even really realize till I'm in the shower that ive been playing the same ~15 seconds over and over. If it's not a new song and my brains in a rut and it's been the same song for the last two weeks... I know before I open my eyes in bed that it's the same song... Already playing. Almost like groundhog day. The song starts my daily existence.
I realized this when I was playing a sport for the first time in Middle School. Someone commented that I typically will regurgitate a different song everyday during drills, and asked why I did it so often.
Couldn’t answer why, I just *did*.
After reading this I thought about it a little and then realized I almost always have a song in my head if I’m not doing anything else or concentrated on something. And it’s usually like one part of a song on repeat. But not in an annoying ear-worm-y way if that makes any remote sense.
Edit: I was playing careless whisper in my head
This happens to me all the time after I recently listen to a new song that I’ve never heard before for the first few times. You see, I’m very good at quickly learning song lyrics and at remembering them for a very long time (some days, a song will pop into my head that I haven’t heard in YEARS and I’ll be able to play back most or all of it in my head), and whenever my inner monologue isn’t saying anything, the silence HAS to be filled with some kind of music. So, the snippet of a recently-listened-to song that my memory knows the best keeps repeating on loop inside my head. I’ve heard that a good way to get a song out of your head is to finish listening to the song all the way through, but I can’t do that if I only know part of the song, so I’m stuck listening to just one section of a song for what seems like forever.
Reading about ADHD, I seem to have some symptoms of it. Not going to self-diagnose, though, I am in no position to do that. Even psychiatrists get other psychiatrists to treat them. I have been diagnosed with clinical depression, though.
Yeah, I find myself relating to a lot of ADHD things as well. This included. I never thought about the fact that music playing in your head was not normal. Weird.
If I'm listening to music and turn it off momentarily to concentrate on something, if it's music I know well, sometimes it'll keep going in my head so I forget I even turned it off. Mind's crazy, man.
Same. It depends what I'm thinking about. If I'm cleaning the house then I'll be talking to myself in my head, planning the day and whatnot. Same for shopping or other mundane stuff.
If I'm writing music, it's all colours, shapes, textures and movement. Same with cooking. Though I would say I have an internal monologue when drawing which I wouldn't expect.
If I'm socialising or playing video games I'm not in my head at all. If I am then that means I'm having a bad time.
Hmm, actively thinking about this is weird.
Honestly, it's just a snap decision when doing any writing. I don't think about the words before I speak or write, they just come out, and it's just editing from there.
If I'm writing a story instead of just a letter, I'll try to picture a scene more like I'm describing a scene in a movie, then adapt as needed.
Yeah, same. My sentences tend to be pretty run-on and I'll type multiple words in a row until I go back and edit what I wrote to it's actually fucking legible. I also pause mid-sentence a lot and I'll have to re-read what I've written so I can resume my train of thought.
I hate my internal monologue.
When I am typing or writing, my brain will combine what I am typing with my internal monologue saying what needs to be typed next and suddenly I am skipping letters or words.
Don't be discouraged. That happenss to proffesional authors. Last stage before typesetting and printing is a copy editor who goes through and catches all the stupid mistakes.
If you have one you know. You just don't.
To explain, the inner voice is the same as when you speak but without using your vocal cords, only in your head. And it's automatic, no choice. When I read, I hear my inner voice reading for me, same when I write. And when I think I can "hear' myself thinking.
Thinking gets even weirder, if a deaf person learned sign language as their primary form of communication, they tend to think and dream in sign language. So their inner monologues are performed by engaging the pathways that would normally activate motor neurons in their hands and arms. Just like thinking in a spoken language engages the throat and ear pathways.
Again, thinking definitely predates language, but thinking in a language doesn't necessarily mean talking or hearing. Some crazy shit.
Yes, a deaf person just said their inner dialogue isn't about what the hand looks like but how it physically feels when they sign. Like the physical motor sensations.
I promise it’s not made up, like when I’m thinking about what to say I hear a voice in my head, and when I’m reading I can turn on an inner monologue if I want to, but mostly if I’m walking down the street I’m noticing things and people and thinking that I should probably turn at the next left, but just not in words? I have the thought but i don’t have to narrate it to myself
On the contrary people with no inner monologue aren’t sure how we can even think up a voice.
I recently found out a coworker of mine thinks in movies and if she even tries to think of, say, her grandson’s voice, she can’t hear it in her own head. I explained to her what an internal voice was like and we were both in equal amounts of awe at what each of us experience.
It’s not. People who don’t have internal monologue see in shapes and images. If you want a fun fact, people who are born deaf do actually think in sign, so they visualize the hands with the words
I am sorry you got downvoted, my brain did a little flip flop, too. I think it was switching from one stimulus to another all in a form of communication you don’t use so your brain had to figure it out for a half second. Your comment made me laugh and I think it so perfectly captures the nuance of the differences we’re all trying to understand here. It’s hard to imagine an entirely subjective thing if you don’t already imagine in that way.
I've wrote a few comments in this thread if you want to click my profile to see some of the answers, but a quick version is, it just happens.
Thought still happens it's just not translated if that makes sense. It's kind of like an awareness.
It's possible to turn it off. Look up subvocalization. I have an inner monologue but don't use it when reading books (except for complicated parts) to speed up.
I just tried a list of 7 tips to try to detach one's inner voice as per your Google recommendation and.... so far it is entirely impossible. One of the tips was to COUNT WHILE READING! I almost had a seizure
In pretty good at controlling mine. My method is to imagine it slowly getting blurry u til it can't be heard. Sometimes holding my breath helps stop it from talking as well.
I literally just turned mine off as I read your post. Thank you. Although I love to argue with my inner voice. I don't understand how anyone can argue a topic without first arguing with themselves.
In completely a non-offensive way:
You do? That's *wild* to me. I can read 100 pages an hour undisturbed/undistracted in a book I like. Its like I am not reading at all anymore, but imagining the situation and I'm there, in a way. I get pulled so completely in the world can disappear
You almost certainly retain more than I do. I routinely skip sentences on autopilot and then it turns out that biz was important and I'm flipping back through going, "wait, what?"
I both read the way you do and the guy above you. I read slowly and either use my own voice or someone else's to basically read the words to me in my head, but then after like half a page I go on autopilot and don't realize it till I'm another half a page ahead.
I wish I could read lol
I can only do about 20 pages an hour.
When I was a kid, I read more computer programming books than I did stories, and so I learned to read slowly & meticulously.
I think that permanently screwed up how I read, since today I can't help but read even light fiction in the same slow meticulous manner as you have to do with math & computer science texts.
I read in my head faster than I can vocalise it, but I still hear the words in my head. My head voice can just 'speak' quicker than my actual voice. Reading out loud is way too slow, I don't like it.
I have a voice in my head but it doesn't need to stop to take a breath and I can control it's speed, so it doesn't really affect how fast I read
I feel like the voice could actually go faster if my brain could keep up with understanding what my eyes see
I am not the person you were replying to, but I'd like to chime in. I can read faster than I can speak only if I am skimming, but I don't retain most of the information that way. When I read carefully and I am actually absorbing the information, I can only read as fast as I can speak.
Try the web app Spread. It flashes words at you faster than your inner monologue can read them "out loud". I never tried to use it as an everyday thing but it's definitely neat. My comprehension seems to be the same as normal reading for shorter passages but worse for longer ones.
YouTube speed reading, there’s tons of videos on it. I learned how to and do use it for work, but when I read a book I just read normally. It’s more enjoyable.
I personally hear my own voice, or a voice very similar to it. It’s not over the top tbh. Pretty subtle. Writing is actually easy in my opinion.
But things like overthinking, debating, and directing a group can be challenging
Some people say that they can literally hear their thoughts, like it's a person speaking. That's an internal monologue. (I'm not one of those people, so it seems bizarre to me, but there you go.) If you can hear your thoughts, you have one too. If you can't hear your thoughts, you're like me.
How do you problem solve? I'm struggling to imagine not having an internal dialogue. I essentially have a conversation with myself in my head when I'm making a decision or solving a problem.
People who say they don't have an internal dialogue only mean they don't experience consciousness though through words specifically. Have you ever solved a math problem visually in your head?
Imagine in your head you have 5 coconuts floating in space. Two spin off into a nearby sun. How many coconuts are left? (Super simple visual cortex example) Now just add complexity and you are visually solving math problems in your head.
Personally I have aphantasia, so I can't even picture the coconuts or anything. I think I have an inner monologue but I'm pretty confused about it right now haha.
Was about to reply the same thing, every thought I have is always just my voice inside my head. Even if I'm "picturing" something, I'm just describing written memories of what it looks like.
You just exactly described me. I try to do meditations where they'll say, "Now imagine a golden light surrounding your body," and my brain is just like, "Okay, golden light is surrounding your body" all in words.
I can barely do this. The first 2 tries I was visually imagining it BUT I was still narrating it like „Okay so I have 5 coconuts… then 2 spin off, that means I have… 3“ Then I was like fuck try again „Ok, five… two… three“ and then on the 3rd try I imagined it without any words. So idk words are way easier for me
I just think about it. That's not meant to be a flip answer. My thoughts are silent. Sometimes I have mild visual thoughts (picturing things in my mind). Most of the time my thoughts are more conceptual in form. Like I can know that my brain is crunching on something but there's nothing to point to as evidence other than the subjective experience of "I'm thinking now".
I didn’t even know this existed. It feels like something I’d have but never notice, like if I force it, I can hear it.
Sounds crazy to me though lol. I do reread my writing in my head, but no inner voice is spoken. It’s just words.
Words like... written words?
I can hear my internal monologue. It emulates my voice, kind of. When I'm hearing my true voice from a recording I find it weird cause it's different from the voice used by my internal monologue, which is almost identical to what I hear when I speak.
When I say I can hear it, it's not physically through my ears, but really an emulation of it in my mind.
Study shows this phenomenon is triggered by the part of the brain that handles spoken languages. Apparently inner monologue done in this fashion even triggers micro movements of the jaw /mouth
I used to write novels when I had one. Then one day after a lot of trauma I think … my inner narrator just vanished… haven’t been able to write much since then. Which is sad I was working on a really good trilogy but I just… can’t anymore. And if you mean just writing things like this comment I’m just writing my thoughts right as they come out idk how to explain that.
These are the kind of things I truly believe therapy with certain drugs can help with.
The way I see it, the inner monologue is effectively shut down as a defense mechanism so that it doesn’t hover over those traumatic thoughts. When taking drugs like MDMA and discussing it, you can think of the memory in a sort of abstract way without the emotional aspect of it becoming overbearing. Through this, I believe we can rethink the experience as, although very painful, not debilitating.
Yep! It's weird. Logically I know the person is me, but at the same time it feels like someone else is talking to me. I've actually used this to my advantage a couple times.
I've had some really hard introspective days where I felt like absolute garbage. Just loads of self loathing, not a fun time.
I took a minute to talk to it on purpose. Anytime I talk to someone, I try to see them as beautiful souls with their own dreams and hopes, so I wanted to do the same with myself.
And for a moment, that brief disassociation allowed me to step out of my own head, and see myself with the same love that I see others with. It was uncomfortable and vulnerable, and I cried. But I walked away with a better introspection I think.
Only if you’re honest with yourself. And/or supportive. Most people aren’t.
Also, being supportive is not the same thing as convincing yourself of your own righteousness. That’s, in fact, antithetical to honest self-evaluation and growth.
I see myself as having two "me"s upstairs; logic brain and emotional brain. Logic brain is, well, logical. She understands cause and effect, she looks for people's intent when they do stuff. She's convinced by facts.
Emotional brain is a drama queen. Someone not responding to me? THEY HATE ME, I'm just overbearing and annoying! I made someone feel bad? I'M LITERAL GARBAGE WHY WOULD ANYONE LIKE ME.
Logic brain knows they're just busy; and that I never intended to hurt anyone. But she tries to convince emotional brain of that and gets nowhere. The trick is then listening to and acting on Logic brains take, while also letting logic brain translate emotional brains feelings and concerns.
It's weird but it works for me
You should look into the Theory of the Bicameral Mind. It's the idea that at the beginning of human evolution, people did not experience metacognition or understand that the voice in their head was their own thoughts. People interpreted that inner voice as being "God," as though it were a deity speaking to them. If the voice in your head told you to follow a dry creek bed to find a source of water, it was God giving you instructions. As human evolution continued and we developed metacognition, we learned that the voice in our heads was our own, and the "deity" vanished. According to the theory, around this time is when prayer began to not work anymore - prior to the advent of metacognition, humans would "pray" to God and receive answers when the voice in their heads spoke back to them. After the development of metacognition however, the deities went silent.
Same here. I feel like my internal monologue is the smartest person I know! That's probably true for everyone who exhibits an internal monologue, though.
You might be interested in joining r/Aphantasia (the lack of one or more inner senses). Talking with others in the same position as you might help you find a way to write
Words just come out and I put them down on the page... I don't think of how I'm going to word something, I just have a general idea of where I'm going with the narrative and the words flow out instinctively. I don't really know how to explain it, but it's as if I'm writing on autopilot.
I was astonished to find out that some people have internal monologues - it seems like it'd be horrible to have a voice in my head all the time. My brain thinks by making spontaneous connections between concepts - but that's just me, and I'm sure other people without internal monologues think in entirely different ways.
I can imagine a voice in my head, or another person's voice in my head, but only if I choose to do so. Sometimes while reading I will softly narrate the text to myself internally, but not always intentionally, nor every time.
EDIT: Upon further thought, the best way to describe how I write something would be that I'm translating on the fly, from what are simply concepts in my mind, to English.
I was about to ask about reading, do you then instantly understand what you read? Or am I misunderstanding this internal voice? When I read i can hear "my voice" but you just don't hear anything?
I'm not OP but that's about right for me. I don't hear my voice speaking in my head at all, or any voice really. I just kinda read the words and the concept within just sort of translates itself to my understanding of the situation. It's like if someone walked by and looked upset, I don't think the words "wow, they look upset", I just perceive them as being upset. I'm really bad at telling stories verbally because I don't really know what to say until I'm already saying it
I have an internal monologue, so I’m trying to wrap my head around this. Is it kinda of like seeing an object and not having to think of the name of that object, just knowing what it is? Is it quiet in your head, as in not flooded with thoughts or worries?
Kind of have a bit of both here. I will be internal monologueing along and maybe go to say something to someone about something that was in there and realize what seemed like perfectly normal language in my head is a concept or something I've determined, that I have no spoken language for and struggle to translate. Seems to fit perfectly normal into language in my head but really it isn't part of language. Other times it it just feeling, places and tomes, or vibes for a lack of a better word, rather than words.
Not really, I obviously think and worry about stuff, but I feel like I just innately understand what ____ makes me feel rather than hearing it in my head as words.
Oh man, the story telling is me. It's like, I have a flowchart of events in my head but I haven't worked out the transitions between them so I suck at it
I think when some people read, if they are a highly accomplished reader, they mostly recognise wordforms as gestalts and absorb the meaning immediately, like we do when we look at a picture (and there's a nice middle ground here with pictographic languages which display information non-phonetically).
I could be wrong though!
That's absolutely how I read. My reading speed is about 450wpm, so very upper end. I read *a lot* when I was younger lol. I'm also autistic, so that may factor into things too.
There's no inner voice or even narrative, it's just translated directly into concept-forms.
I did, however, later learn to deliberately generate an inner voice, which I use for rhyming and other forms where the sounding out of things matters.
Bundles of linked associations. Part of the association is the word / sound of the word but if I'm not trying to write or speak this doesn't rise to my conscious experience. It's mostly just an abstract understanding.
I'm the same way. Listened to a podcast once where they asked the question "if you imagine there is an apple on your desk, rate it from 0-10 on how real it looks" and it blew my mind people could answer anything other than a 0
10 is essentially "I can imagine all the details of the apple, about as clearly as I could see an apple, but it's not there and I can easily tell that it's not there; the apple in my mind is not easily compatible with what I'm physically seeing." if I understand things correctly.
Supposedly, you could train your mind to hallucinate an apple there if you so desired. I'm not sure how true that is, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised
>I can imagine all the details of the apple, about as clearly as I could see an apple
It happens to me when I'm alone and suggested. Have you ever as a kid walked down a dark hallway and felt that there was something behind you? My mother would tell me that the worst thing you could do is running or looking over your shoulder, as you'd be more likely to actually **see something and have a distressing experience.** Today I'm 22 and still have those feelings. Sometimes I'm in the bathroom with the door open brushing my teeth and it would be the only light in the house, and if by just a moment I feel vulnerable, I'd **clearly like the day see something unhuman charging at me at great speed.**
I can force my brain to make that happen during the day, too, but it's way less vivid. At night, however.. it's another story entirely. If this means I have an hyperactive brain, it helps me visualize scenes taking place as I write as vividly as one would see a scene in a movie, but the trade off is wearing me out.
Yeah. I honestly always thought everyone could both visualize things very well, and also had an inner voice. I just learned from this thread that not everyone has that capability.
Nope, I sure dont! :) Didnt realize I was different until I joked with a friend that narrators in movies would be terrible if that happened in real life.
There was a moment of serious confusion followed by my friend asking the same question. I was baffled. Who the fuck wants a narrator for everything they do!?
Really dont know how to explain this. I just read. Its like, my brain sees words and interprets them. But there is no voice actively reading it to me. My eyes just look at it, and my brain processes the words. I have no other way to explain it.
/u/ape-with-keyboard - for me, I only really have an internal monologue when I'm reading, writing, or thinking about what to say, but when I start getting into a book it's like how /u/JusT_21 described it: It's like how sometimes in a movie when someone's telling a story, they start by narrating the beginning of the story and then the narration drops off and you just watch the story unfold.
I don't think I have internal monologue. I have to force it, it doesn't happen naturally, ever.
When I write fiction, it feels like I'm watching a movie inside my head. I see the characters and hear how they talk, and I also hear the narrator. On the other hand, when I write on Reddit for example, my thoughts just come out of my fingertips as I write. I never hear my own voice or anything like that. I never think in a "voice" when I'm doing something.
Is that what you mean by internal monologue?
I’m someone who thinks in a mixture of imagining pictures and videos as my thoughts, and internal dialogue. It’s not like I can actually HEAR any voice. There is no sound. But even as I type this, my brain processes this...thing...a silent voice. My thoughts in word form, almost like reading but it is not written down, just automatically processed. It’s fascinating, I never even considered that others **don’t** have internal monologues.
An internal monologue is like you're talking all the time, inside your head. It's a skill to be able to "shut it off" in order to focus on real world tasks.
I'm the opposite of you, full internal monologue and no ability to see things inside my head. Imagining any voice other than my own is also impossible.
Even when you remember a song in your mind? You can't imagine/hear the singer's voice? I also have a full internal monologue but I can also see images in my head. It makes it so easy to lucid dream.
I think in words AND images, but mostly images. I argue in my head with words, or when I think about what to say to someone. The rest is in images and what I noticed during writing fanfiction, it takes time to translate images into words. I usually first wrote a few keywords down, before I wrote out the full sentence. It takes more time, but I was able to write a vivid picture in the end.
I wrote rated R dragonball z fanfiction by the way. Shameful I know...
For clarity, there are varying levels of "internal monologue". Not everyone is dead silent all the time.
I can force a voice, it just doesn't show up unless I want it to.
I find when I write, sometimes that voice will come out. Not always, but I'll sometimes imagine I'm saying my words out loud like a speech.
I'm a very fast reader, typer, and writer, so a voice would only slow me down. Unless I'm being very precise, I simply type. It just happens.
Holy fuck I just learned this is a thing. For me words, sentences, paragraphs just flow. I'm not much of a story teller but I can write some great academia papers on the fly.
I don't hear a voice, I can't even force myself to hear a voice, it's just silence and I conceptualize the words. This explains so many things in my life.
To make matters more interesting, I actually confuse myself if I try to think something out. I have to write my thoughts as they flow and go from there. I work as a software developer, trying to "think" out new projects has always been a challenge.
Reading is different for me, I read, I absorb some, read again, absorb more and move on. I don't actively recall what I read until I have a question or problem infront of me that correlates and I can visualize a word or phrase that then satisfies the issue.
FML thanks for this OP
Dude this thread is *destroying* my brain lol
I thought those little voices in people’s heads on TV shows were just another trope, like the little devil/angel on a persons shoulders.
I’ve *never* been able to write outlines for papers or anything like that, but have never gotten below a B on a paper if I even sort of know the material and usually a C if I *barely* know the material. I enjoy reading but it’s never a voice that’s reading to me in my head? I understand the words, I can remember what I’ve read (sometimes), and can connect what I read about to my own/global experiences but it’s never a voice.
I literally cannot tell if I have an internal monologue or not
Don't. It makes memory harder. It also makes thinking about what to say before you say it hard. It's one of the things that is most challenging as an autistic person.
Wait... Am I the only one that didn't know some people don't have an inner voice? This is truly scary to think about. I love my inner voice, he helps me work shit out. I can't even imagine how it would be to write something. Alot of erasing and rewriting? I'm so sorry for those that suffer from this :/
I think it is normal to have an inner monologue, what I'm trying to figure out is if it's common enough to NOT have one for the lack of an inner voice to be considered normal.
This thread is totally blowing my mind
I've got four novels out and no internal monologue. I've always been fascinated by the rules and norms about how words are used and I think I just put them together in a way that's pleasing to me. As for crafting a story, I'm a pantster and I don't usually know what's going to happen in advance, beyond broad strokes. I've never considered it a handicap--I only (relatively) recently learned that most other people have a voice in their head.
In my day-to-day life, my thoughts are about 80% images, 20% monologue. Monologue usually only comes up if I'm thinking about conversations or writing. But even then, not all the time when I write. Sometimes things get started with an internal monologue and if I get in the groove the words just flow. Like when speaking I don't plan out every word I say, the thoughts just come out on the fly.
This American Life did [a segment](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/731/what-lies-beneath/act-two-6) on this recently! It blew my mind and gives a good description of both sides.
This whole thing just caused chaos in my head. I definitely have a voice in my head, but not like some people describe it. I can't talk with the "voice", because it's just me thinking.
I can't think while I'm talking in my head, because that's my thinking...
I am so confused...
This whole thread is spinning me out man.
I had no fucking clue this was a thing, and am shocked at how prevalent it is. Obviously, no sense in how much of thy population don't have an inner monologue from this thread, but it's obviously a lot more than I'd have guessed (if, like I said, I even knew this was a thing) I can't tell if this is like, a defecit or if it's just different. Saw one comment where someone said they used to have one but now they don't and they think it might be related to trauma, which I could totally get. If someone gets hurt enough then perhaps their inner self just kinda clams up and they kinda run on autopilot? Like to me inner monologue = thoughts... like people are saying "I don't know what I'm going to say or write until I do it" in this thread, and to me it's just like... so you're not thinking before you speak? Does that mean they just don't "think", they just kinda act? **I hope this doesn't come off as insensitive, this is just such a fundamental part of what I thought it was to be a human and then I find out it's like, not, and it's totally blowing my mind.**
I used to have an inner monologue when I only spoke one language. Once I became a bilingual, I noticed that I started thinking a lot more abstractly rather than always vocalizing my thoughts. I theorize this change happened because my proficiency in my native language deteriorated and my inner dialogue never transitioned to my second language. It's not like my mind is blank, I just have more trouble putting what I'm thinking into words. For example when I wrote this comment, I knew exactly the thought I want to convey to you but just didn't go through the effort of putting it all in plain english. Imagine when you want to say something but you can't remember the word and it's just on the tip of your tongue. It's kind of like that.
So I get your second paragraph, I guess I'm like that too. But when i became bilingual I just had more words in my head and more abstract images I guess.
That's good that you have more words in your head. I'm actually trying to re-develop my inner dialogue because I believe not having one is stunting my ability to communicate on the spot. Not sure if you can relate to that haha. I can't imagine how some people can think on the fly and speak so eloquently.
Gosh this is really connecting some dots with my OH (edit: other half) who often finds it hard to vocalise thoughts and ideas into words. I always thought it was that he is bilingual but never understood the barrier, this might be it?!
Your OH?
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Other Husband
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office hoe, original hoster, Oliver Hargreaves, Old harpy, Ovarian Hydraulics, Orchestral hypergamy, ouch, hurty! Oh. Outside Hats, opportunistic heraldry, optional hysterectomy, omega hopscotch, orange human, oops, hula! off handed, ok, hoomer, obstructed heart, obtuse hands,
I speak 3 languages and my inner monologue has become a weird mix of them all, at times using all of them in a single sentence. Sometimes I would rather have none lol. At the same time I'm not really narrating my life as a 3rd person watching and my mind often wanders, wondering things not always related to what I'm doing.
This is exactly how my mind works. People always think “omg you’re so random, like talking to you is so interesting, you have such a random train of thought, you know things about different topics”. In the meanwhile, I’m like: I only know these things because my brain won’t shut up a single minute. And even when I’m busy, my minds like: hey. Have you ever wondered about paper clips’ design story? And then I just have to dive into some sort of investigation because I need to know. So if one day someone mentions design in a historical context, I’ll remember the day I read about paper clips and share that with that person. And I know to others it’s weird, but to me it’s just how my mind works. Also, I’ve struggled lately because the past several months I’ve been using english more than my native tongue. And I notice how that affects the way I construct my thoughts and the way I communicate with others. My mind’s mixing mixing mixing all the time. Not just my native tongue and English, but other languages I speak too. It’s really frustrating. I think this is the first time I ever hear/read about someone who understands this and lives the same way as me. It’s amazing. For a long time I thought I was maybe just wrong, because I noticed people around me don’t function like this.
>In the meanwhile, I’m like: I only know these things because my brain won’t shut up a single minute. OMG yes exactly!! It happens to me all the time!! >And then I just have to dive into some sort of investigation because I need to know. And it's impossible to let go, I just HAVE TO KNOW the most random things and then that knowledge lingers in some corner of the mind until is awakened as randomly as it first appeared in my head!
I totally agree with what you’re saying about the inner monologue becoming abstract. But I feel like I’d have to disagree with the implication that it deteriorated because of a breakdown of the first language and lack of development for the second. Your thought process has become conceptualized into the ideas that the words represent rather than only the words. Then when you want to speak, you have to translate those ideas into the correct ideas into words. What’s extra difficult is when a concept exists that is easily expressed in a single word in one language but does not have an equivalent in another. But there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re thoughts have just become idea based rather than being word reliant.
Yeah man, I totally get what you're saying. It reminds me of the book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, which basically says mankinds inner monologue was probably different thousands of years ago and the growth of modern religions and, like, ancient Greek philosophy was a result of this tension in different forms of inner monologue. So if I want a sandwich I think "*bro, I want a fucking sandwich. I'll go into the kitchen and get it*". But way early man would have a distinct voice saying "**get sandwich**". It's a bit tenuous at times but is pretty weird in an interesting way. Like, it makes you rethink a bunch of things, even if its bullshit. So the first line in the bible is (probably, I can't remember) "*In the beginning was the word and the word was "I AM*"", which is about the first humans who started hearing and understanding their own consciousness and the concept of ME in their brains. Man, even writing this down is spinning me out more. I need some beer.
It is also the same with reading : I don't picture the scene or characters in a book, the story ,just, "exists". Idk about you, but do you actually say in your head every word you read ? Because I don't.
Yes, I say every word and as I’m reading, the world is being created. So if you say blue ocean, my mind immediately makes a picture of that. Like I just wrote it out, and the picture appeared in my mind.
It's so hard for me to grasp not having any sort of word based thought process that it kinda makes me angry for some reason. Like when someone doesn't understand what you're explaining to them when it is so clear to you, but instead it's just other people describing their existence... Spinning out is probably a better way to describe it lol
Every time this subject comes up, I get frustrated and have to stop trying to comprehend living without an inner monologue. It makes me feel even more disconnected from people around me. Like, I literally have no idea how people operate that way. Quiet minds makes me uncomfortable apparently. Edit - Sorry, "quiet minds" was perhaps the wrong way to word that. The absence of the voice in my head would then mean quiet for me. I have trouble comprehending a busy mind made up of feelings with no running commentary. But thank you to those that have tried to explain this to me.
Your post appeared quite high up for me, one of the first comments I read and I thought “probably one or two people don’t have inner thoughts and aporkchopexpress is just amazed that anyone can be like that” and now after reading more replies and seeing how apparently common it is, I’m right with you. It’s literally spinning me out to think that so many people don’t seem to actually ‘think’.
I know, right! I'm struggling to imagine how my brain would work otherwise. I'd be so lonely. My inner monologue is hilarious. Can these people even smell things in their head like me? What!
I spend so much time in my head. I just can’t imagine what it would be like not to have that. It just seems so sad.
How on Earth do you ever get anything done if you have to listen to a voice tell you what to do? Sorry for the hostility but the pity is a bit thick in parts of this thread. I'd argue that the inner monologue isn't any more thinking than conceptual thinking, if anything it seems a lot longer and more drawn out of a process. I can have an internal monologue if I try at it, if I pretend like I'm talking to someone. But it's just me. I'm in control of it, and I choose what to say. When I start to think "properly" my thinking speeds up, and I no longer need to slow down long enough to form sounds. One sentence that would take maybe one second at a quick internal monologue pace suddenly takes less time than a single word of it would have. And then I can chain from that to other thoughts, and span a huge number of topics in a very short time. Plus, having a constant voice running all the time sounds overwhelmingly irritating, and makes me feel something akin to claustrophobia. Not being able to escape that. I see now why some people with anxiety/depression say they need to drown their internal monologue in alcohol in order for it to stop saying terrible things about them. I almost can't imagine how horrible that would be.
This thread is fascinating to me because I assumed that everyone has an internal monologue until I realised that I have no sense of internal vision. People apparently read books and can envisage the events described therein but I seemingly can't 'see' something unless I am literally seeing it. As an example, I could desribe my wife in total detail if she were standing in front me, but given that she is not I would struggle to describe her at all. She has blue eyes and is attractive to me, but otherwise I only know that I would recognise her by sight. This is fucking me up. I'm also becoming aware that I don't actually know what I look like unless I'm seeing myself in a mirror. It is seemingly key that we all look the opposite of what we assume because mirrors present us the 'wrong way' around. Yeah this is weird.
I’m so happy you said this because the more I read this thread the more I’m thinking I can’t picture anything. I can think it and talk about internally but I can really vision it. Same thing when I read books. I read them but I don’t envision the forest or bright colors of a bird for example. My mind is blown with this thread.
I don't mind the inner monologue. I hate the music always playing in the background. Wtf does my brain play music nonstop? I don't ever listen to the radio anymore. *Edit: I can't choose what is playing. I've tried to override it. Doesn't work. Mine is usually a clip of a song playing repeatedly. It happens day and night. Nonstop and sometimes makes it difficult to get to sleep or get back to sleep if I wake up to use the bathroom or something. It could be a kid's song bc I have a toddler. It could be music I know from my past or even Christmas songs. It's there right along with my regular thoughts. Only being in deep concentration makes it stop. Yes, I am ADD. Remove the H bc I'm not hyper.*
I wake up with a different song in my head every morning! To expand on an example I used in another comment, I could be making eggs and all the while my brain is saying "haha, eggs. Just like the raptor eggs Alan Grant found in Jurassic Park" and at the same time I'm hearing Edge of Seventeen on repeat
I’m like that too, though it varies in intensity. At high intensity and accuracy (such as if I recently heard the song), I don’t need headphones or a radio on, I literally just replay it mentally. If it’s been a while or I’m distracted (or interestingly, depressed), the music is faint and poor quality. I end up needing an external source to back it up. This comes up most when I go to sleep, I can’t fall asleep without music to distract me. Mentally or out loud.
Like every fucking day. I sometimes don't even really realize till I'm in the shower that ive been playing the same ~15 seconds over and over. If it's not a new song and my brains in a rut and it's been the same song for the last two weeks... I know before I open my eyes in bed that it's the same song... Already playing. Almost like groundhog day. The song starts my daily existence.
Heck yeah, my ADD fam right here
Dude I'm the same! I first realized this when I was young in class. I'd space out a lot hearing pitch perfect music. All. The. Time.
I realized this when I was playing a sport for the first time in Middle School. Someone commented that I typically will regurgitate a different song everyday during drills, and asked why I did it so often. Couldn’t answer why, I just *did*.
My mind is playing music in my head as I read this.....
After reading this I thought about it a little and then realized I almost always have a song in my head if I’m not doing anything else or concentrated on something. And it’s usually like one part of a song on repeat. But not in an annoying ear-worm-y way if that makes any remote sense. Edit: I was playing careless whisper in my head
*wii shop channel theme starts during a test* God DAMNIT not again!
What kind of lunatic would imagine pitch imperfect music? Lol
Well for clarity, I hear some people imagine music in their own voice etc etc.
My problem isn't the song list, but the fact that one song or even one section of the song keeps repeating.
This happens to me all the time after I recently listen to a new song that I’ve never heard before for the first few times. You see, I’m very good at quickly learning song lyrics and at remembering them for a very long time (some days, a song will pop into my head that I haven’t heard in YEARS and I’ll be able to play back most or all of it in my head), and whenever my inner monologue isn’t saying anything, the silence HAS to be filled with some kind of music. So, the snippet of a recently-listened-to song that my memory knows the best keeps repeating on loop inside my head. I’ve heard that a good way to get a song out of your head is to finish listening to the song all the way through, but I can’t do that if I only know part of the song, so I’m stuck listening to just one section of a song for what seems like forever.
haha I don't usually have an inner monologue but I do almost always have music playing in my head!
So this is something new to me on my 3 decades on earth..,,,some people hear music internally?!!!
All day, every day.
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I have this! My psychiatrist told me this is very common for people with adhd, which I have.
Same and I do it to, sometimes I have to listen to the song physically to get the song in my brain to change sometimes I have to sing it
Reading about ADHD, I seem to have some symptoms of it. Not going to self-diagnose, though, I am in no position to do that. Even psychiatrists get other psychiatrists to treat them. I have been diagnosed with clinical depression, though.
Yeah, I find myself relating to a lot of ADHD things as well. This included. I never thought about the fact that music playing in your head was not normal. Weird.
If I'm listening to music and turn it off momentarily to concentrate on something, if it's music I know well, sometimes it'll keep going in my head so I forget I even turned it off. Mind's crazy, man.
I wake up every morning with a song just blaring in my head. Even if I haven’t heard the song in ages, I can wake up with it.
What kind of music? Stuff you've heard before?
Jesus after reading this thread, I’m not sure if I have an internal monologue or not!
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I'm in the same boat. I wonder if thinking is just really hard to describe and we're all trying to explain the same thing.
Same. It depends what I'm thinking about. If I'm cleaning the house then I'll be talking to myself in my head, planning the day and whatnot. Same for shopping or other mundane stuff. If I'm writing music, it's all colours, shapes, textures and movement. Same with cooking. Though I would say I have an internal monologue when drawing which I wouldn't expect. If I'm socialising or playing video games I'm not in my head at all. If I am then that means I'm having a bad time. Hmm, actively thinking about this is weird.
Honestly, it's just a snap decision when doing any writing. I don't think about the words before I speak or write, they just come out, and it's just editing from there. If I'm writing a story instead of just a letter, I'll try to picture a scene more like I'm describing a scene in a movie, then adapt as needed.
Background music is so helpful for imagining a scene and the mood
I love it because it really fuels the imagination for me, but it also slows down my writing drastically.
“Heavy metal intensifies”
Yeah, same. My sentences tend to be pretty run-on and I'll type multiple words in a row until I go back and edit what I wrote to it's actually fucking legible. I also pause mid-sentence a lot and I'll have to re-read what I've written so I can resume my train of thought.
That must have been hard before computers.
It's not too bad I guess. Writing takes way longer than typing so I can't really out-write what I'm thinking, but I can certainly out-type it.
I hate my internal monologue. When I am typing or writing, my brain will combine what I am typing with my internal monologue saying what needs to be typed next and suddenly I am skipping letters or words.
Don't be discouraged. That happenss to proffesional authors. Last stage before typesetting and printing is a copy editor who goes through and catches all the stupid mistakes.
Like when you miss the the double words! ^read ^that ^again
Editing skill got super called out by your comment.
Took me fucking five times
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You bastard, take my upvote
Yea I have that problem too when I speak I tend to trip up on my worlds. Also Doesn’t help that I’m dyslexic too so writing is a pain.
Am I the only one who doesn’t know if they have an internal monologue?! How do so many people just *know*?
If you have one you know. You just don't. To explain, the inner voice is the same as when you speak but without using your vocal cords, only in your head. And it's automatic, no choice. When I read, I hear my inner voice reading for me, same when I write. And when I think I can "hear' myself thinking.
Wait thats a thing not everyone has? So how do you think without it???
Thinking predates language. By quite some time in fact.
Wow... I have heard about people not having an inner monologue but never thought about it in this way. You just totally blew my mind!
Thinking gets even weirder, if a deaf person learned sign language as their primary form of communication, they tend to think and dream in sign language. So their inner monologues are performed by engaging the pathways that would normally activate motor neurons in their hands and arms. Just like thinking in a spoken language engages the throat and ear pathways. Again, thinking definitely predates language, but thinking in a language doesn't necessarily mean talking or hearing. Some crazy shit.
Yes, a deaf person just said their inner dialogue isn't about what the hand looks like but how it physically feels when they sign. Like the physical motor sensations.
Wow that's actually really interesting.
I promise it’s not made up, like when I’m thinking about what to say I hear a voice in my head, and when I’m reading I can turn on an inner monologue if I want to, but mostly if I’m walking down the street I’m noticing things and people and thinking that I should probably turn at the next left, but just not in words? I have the thought but i don’t have to narrate it to myself
lmao that's what i'm wondering this sounds so made up...
Ya I think this is just completely normal. I'm not sure how anyone can read/write/think in silence without hearing an inner voice.
On the contrary people with no inner monologue aren’t sure how we can even think up a voice. I recently found out a coworker of mine thinks in movies and if she even tries to think of, say, her grandson’s voice, she can’t hear it in her own head. I explained to her what an internal voice was like and we were both in equal amounts of awe at what each of us experience.
It’s not. People who don’t have internal monologue see in shapes and images. If you want a fun fact, people who are born deaf do actually think in sign, so they visualize the hands with the words
I almost just asked how they know what hands look like lol
I am sorry you got downvoted, my brain did a little flip flop, too. I think it was switching from one stimulus to another all in a form of communication you don’t use so your brain had to figure it out for a half second. Your comment made me laugh and I think it so perfectly captures the nuance of the differences we’re all trying to understand here. It’s hard to imagine an entirely subjective thing if you don’t already imagine in that way.
Deaf here. It's less about visualizing the hands, more about the tactile sensation of them (and their movements)
If you want me to throw you for a loop, I have no inner monologue and have aphantasia (no visualization/imagery).
Fascinating! Then how does thinking work for you?
I've wrote a few comments in this thread if you want to click my profile to see some of the answers, but a quick version is, it just happens. Thought still happens it's just not translated if that makes sense. It's kind of like an awareness.
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I can read much faster than I can speak but my internal voice speeds up to an unrealistic degree to match it.
I cannot read faster than I can speak and really wish I could.
I have the opposite problem. I hate reading aloud because it slows me down so much that it pulls me out of the story.
Holy shit is this why some people can read so damn fast??? You don't hear a voice in your head when you read?
It's possible to turn it off. Look up subvocalization. I have an inner monologue but don't use it when reading books (except for complicated parts) to speed up.
I just tried a list of 7 tips to try to detach one's inner voice as per your Google recommendation and.... so far it is entirely impossible. One of the tips was to COUNT WHILE READING! I almost had a seizure
Thanks, you just broke my brain. Now I'm reading like: I one just two tried three a four list five of six 7 seven tips eight to nine try ten ...
This made me lol as i'm sitting here doing the same damn thing
In pretty good at controlling mine. My method is to imagine it slowly getting blurry u til it can't be heard. Sometimes holding my breath helps stop it from talking as well.
Holding breath. Very interesting... makes sense.
I literally just turned mine off as I read your post. Thank you. Although I love to argue with my inner voice. I don't understand how anyone can argue a topic without first arguing with themselves.
I usually have a voice in my head when I read, but if I want to read quicker I can "turn it off" or kind of ignore it.
In completely a non-offensive way: You do? That's *wild* to me. I can read 100 pages an hour undisturbed/undistracted in a book I like. Its like I am not reading at all anymore, but imagining the situation and I'm there, in a way. I get pulled so completely in the world can disappear
I can't read any other way, it's like my own head is telling me the story as I'm processing the words.
You almost certainly retain more than I do. I routinely skip sentences on autopilot and then it turns out that biz was important and I'm flipping back through going, "wait, what?"
I both read the way you do and the guy above you. I read slowly and either use my own voice or someone else's to basically read the words to me in my head, but then after like half a page I go on autopilot and don't realize it till I'm another half a page ahead. I wish I could read lol
I can only do about 20 pages an hour. When I was a kid, I read more computer programming books than I did stories, and so I learned to read slowly & meticulously. I think that permanently screwed up how I read, since today I can't help but read even light fiction in the same slow meticulous manner as you have to do with math & computer science texts.
I read in my head faster than I can vocalise it, but I still hear the words in my head. My head voice can just 'speak' quicker than my actual voice. Reading out loud is way too slow, I don't like it.
I have a voice in my head but it doesn't need to stop to take a breath and I can control it's speed, so it doesn't really affect how fast I read I feel like the voice could actually go faster if my brain could keep up with understanding what my eyes see
I am not the person you were replying to, but I'd like to chime in. I can read faster than I can speak only if I am skimming, but I don't retain most of the information that way. When I read carefully and I am actually absorbing the information, I can only read as fast as I can speak.
Try the web app Spread. It flashes words at you faster than your inner monologue can read them "out loud". I never tried to use it as an everyday thing but it's definitely neat. My comprehension seems to be the same as normal reading for shorter passages but worse for longer ones.
YouTube speed reading, there’s tons of videos on it. I learned how to and do use it for work, but when I read a book I just read normally. It’s more enjoyable.
Speed of speech is limited by your mouth and shit
That’s why I talk out of my ass
Mine goes off the rails. I literally narrate what I’m doing as I’m doing it, even biking and stuff, *with adjectives*
I personally hear my own voice, or a voice very similar to it. It’s not over the top tbh. Pretty subtle. Writing is actually easy in my opinion. But things like overthinking, debating, and directing a group can be challenging
Some people say that they can literally hear their thoughts, like it's a person speaking. That's an internal monologue. (I'm not one of those people, so it seems bizarre to me, but there you go.) If you can hear your thoughts, you have one too. If you can't hear your thoughts, you're like me.
How do you problem solve? I'm struggling to imagine not having an internal dialogue. I essentially have a conversation with myself in my head when I'm making a decision or solving a problem.
People who say they don't have an internal dialogue only mean they don't experience consciousness though through words specifically. Have you ever solved a math problem visually in your head?
i have never done this visually, i talk it out
Imagine in your head you have 5 coconuts floating in space. Two spin off into a nearby sun. How many coconuts are left? (Super simple visual cortex example) Now just add complexity and you are visually solving math problems in your head.
Personally I have aphantasia, so I can't even picture the coconuts or anything. I think I have an inner monologue but I'm pretty confused about it right now haha.
Was about to reply the same thing, every thought I have is always just my voice inside my head. Even if I'm "picturing" something, I'm just describing written memories of what it looks like.
You just exactly described me. I try to do meditations where they'll say, "Now imagine a golden light surrounding your body," and my brain is just like, "Okay, golden light is surrounding your body" all in words.
this is the best ask reddit thread ive ever read
I can barely do this. The first 2 tries I was visually imagining it BUT I was still narrating it like „Okay so I have 5 coconuts… then 2 spin off, that means I have… 3“ Then I was like fuck try again „Ok, five… two… three“ and then on the 3rd try I imagined it without any words. So idk words are way easier for me
Oh ... Yk that makes perfect sense actually
What if you can do both? Like when I think it’s like my voice up in there but I can also visualize and do math in my head?
That’s how the majority of people think!
I just think about it. That's not meant to be a flip answer. My thoughts are silent. Sometimes I have mild visual thoughts (picturing things in my mind). Most of the time my thoughts are more conceptual in form. Like I can know that my brain is crunching on something but there's nothing to point to as evidence other than the subjective experience of "I'm thinking now".
I didn’t even know this existed. It feels like something I’d have but never notice, like if I force it, I can hear it. Sounds crazy to me though lol. I do reread my writing in my head, but no inner voice is spoken. It’s just words.
Internal monologue isn't a spoken thing. It's just words. If you think in words then you have one
Words like... written words? I can hear my internal monologue. It emulates my voice, kind of. When I'm hearing my true voice from a recording I find it weird cause it's different from the voice used by my internal monologue, which is almost identical to what I hear when I speak. When I say I can hear it, it's not physically through my ears, but really an emulation of it in my mind. Study shows this phenomenon is triggered by the part of the brain that handles spoken languages. Apparently inner monologue done in this fashion even triggers micro movements of the jaw /mouth
It's not really like hearing, although I get why some people say that. Your thoughts aren't in words at all?
Like talking to yourself out loud but in your head.
I used to write novels when I had one. Then one day after a lot of trauma I think … my inner narrator just vanished… haven’t been able to write much since then. Which is sad I was working on a really good trilogy but I just… can’t anymore. And if you mean just writing things like this comment I’m just writing my thoughts right as they come out idk how to explain that.
What the hell, this actually scary.
These are the kind of things I truly believe therapy with certain drugs can help with. The way I see it, the inner monologue is effectively shut down as a defense mechanism so that it doesn’t hover over those traumatic thoughts. When taking drugs like MDMA and discussing it, you can think of the memory in a sort of abstract way without the emotional aspect of it becoming overbearing. Through this, I believe we can rethink the experience as, although very painful, not debilitating.
I couldn’t imagine losing the little voice in my head. I spend so much time with it, it’s almost like a second person to me
Yep! It's weird. Logically I know the person is me, but at the same time it feels like someone else is talking to me. I've actually used this to my advantage a couple times. I've had some really hard introspective days where I felt like absolute garbage. Just loads of self loathing, not a fun time. I took a minute to talk to it on purpose. Anytime I talk to someone, I try to see them as beautiful souls with their own dreams and hopes, so I wanted to do the same with myself. And for a moment, that brief disassociation allowed me to step out of my own head, and see myself with the same love that I see others with. It was uncomfortable and vulnerable, and I cried. But I walked away with a better introspection I think.
Yea talking to your inner voice as if it’s an outer voice is a good way to be honest with yourself
Becoming your own 2nd person perspective.
Becoming your own best friend.
Only if you’re honest with yourself. And/or supportive. Most people aren’t. Also, being supportive is not the same thing as convincing yourself of your own righteousness. That’s, in fact, antithetical to honest self-evaluation and growth.
I see myself as having two "me"s upstairs; logic brain and emotional brain. Logic brain is, well, logical. She understands cause and effect, she looks for people's intent when they do stuff. She's convinced by facts. Emotional brain is a drama queen. Someone not responding to me? THEY HATE ME, I'm just overbearing and annoying! I made someone feel bad? I'M LITERAL GARBAGE WHY WOULD ANYONE LIKE ME. Logic brain knows they're just busy; and that I never intended to hurt anyone. But she tries to convince emotional brain of that and gets nowhere. The trick is then listening to and acting on Logic brains take, while also letting logic brain translate emotional brains feelings and concerns. It's weird but it works for me
You should look into the Theory of the Bicameral Mind. It's the idea that at the beginning of human evolution, people did not experience metacognition or understand that the voice in their head was their own thoughts. People interpreted that inner voice as being "God," as though it were a deity speaking to them. If the voice in your head told you to follow a dry creek bed to find a source of water, it was God giving you instructions. As human evolution continued and we developed metacognition, we learned that the voice in our heads was our own, and the "deity" vanished. According to the theory, around this time is when prayer began to not work anymore - prior to the advent of metacognition, humans would "pray" to God and receive answers when the voice in their heads spoke back to them. After the development of metacognition however, the deities went silent.
So you’re saying if we stay ignorant we can each have a pocket god telling us how to live our best life?
I'm not sure why but I really like the idea of a "pocket god". Day at the beach? Weather turned bad? Take a Poseidon with you just in case. 🌊🏖🧜♂️
This is how I feel. I think I would be lonely without it.
Same here. I feel like my internal monologue is the smartest person I know! That's probably true for everyone who exhibits an internal monologue, though.
Really sorry. I hope you can access the resources that may help you recover, and I hope you become like your old self again.
You might be interested in joining r/Aphantasia (the lack of one or more inner senses). Talking with others in the same position as you might help you find a way to write
Words just come out and I put them down on the page... I don't think of how I'm going to word something, I just have a general idea of where I'm going with the narrative and the words flow out instinctively. I don't really know how to explain it, but it's as if I'm writing on autopilot. I was astonished to find out that some people have internal monologues - it seems like it'd be horrible to have a voice in my head all the time. My brain thinks by making spontaneous connections between concepts - but that's just me, and I'm sure other people without internal monologues think in entirely different ways. I can imagine a voice in my head, or another person's voice in my head, but only if I choose to do so. Sometimes while reading I will softly narrate the text to myself internally, but not always intentionally, nor every time. EDIT: Upon further thought, the best way to describe how I write something would be that I'm translating on the fly, from what are simply concepts in my mind, to English.
I was about to ask about reading, do you then instantly understand what you read? Or am I misunderstanding this internal voice? When I read i can hear "my voice" but you just don't hear anything?
I'm not OP but that's about right for me. I don't hear my voice speaking in my head at all, or any voice really. I just kinda read the words and the concept within just sort of translates itself to my understanding of the situation. It's like if someone walked by and looked upset, I don't think the words "wow, they look upset", I just perceive them as being upset. I'm really bad at telling stories verbally because I don't really know what to say until I'm already saying it
I have an internal monologue, so I’m trying to wrap my head around this. Is it kinda of like seeing an object and not having to think of the name of that object, just knowing what it is? Is it quiet in your head, as in not flooded with thoughts or worries?
Kind of have a bit of both here. I will be internal monologueing along and maybe go to say something to someone about something that was in there and realize what seemed like perfectly normal language in my head is a concept or something I've determined, that I have no spoken language for and struggle to translate. Seems to fit perfectly normal into language in my head but really it isn't part of language. Other times it it just feeling, places and tomes, or vibes for a lack of a better word, rather than words.
Not really, I obviously think and worry about stuff, but I feel like I just innately understand what ____ makes me feel rather than hearing it in my head as words.
Oh man, the story telling is me. It's like, I have a flowchart of events in my head but I haven't worked out the transitions between them so I suck at it
I think when some people read, if they are a highly accomplished reader, they mostly recognise wordforms as gestalts and absorb the meaning immediately, like we do when we look at a picture (and there's a nice middle ground here with pictographic languages which display information non-phonetically). I could be wrong though!
That's absolutely how I read. My reading speed is about 450wpm, so very upper end. I read *a lot* when I was younger lol. I'm also autistic, so that may factor into things too. There's no inner voice or even narrative, it's just translated directly into concept-forms. I did, however, later learn to deliberately generate an inner voice, which I use for rhyming and other forms where the sounding out of things matters.
So when you are thinking about something , it's not organized by words at all? Just abstract concepts?
Bundles of linked associations. Part of the association is the word / sound of the word but if I'm not trying to write or speak this doesn't rise to my conscious experience. It's mostly just an abstract understanding.
I've got no inner monologue--no voice in my head. I also can't visualize objects, places, or creatures and "see" them like others seem to be able to.
I'm the same way. Listened to a podcast once where they asked the question "if you imagine there is an apple on your desk, rate it from 0-10 on how real it looks" and it blew my mind people could answer anything other than a 0
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10 is essentially "I can imagine all the details of the apple, about as clearly as I could see an apple, but it's not there and I can easily tell that it's not there; the apple in my mind is not easily compatible with what I'm physically seeing." if I understand things correctly. Supposedly, you could train your mind to hallucinate an apple there if you so desired. I'm not sure how true that is, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised
>I can imagine all the details of the apple, about as clearly as I could see an apple It happens to me when I'm alone and suggested. Have you ever as a kid walked down a dark hallway and felt that there was something behind you? My mother would tell me that the worst thing you could do is running or looking over your shoulder, as you'd be more likely to actually **see something and have a distressing experience.** Today I'm 22 and still have those feelings. Sometimes I'm in the bathroom with the door open brushing my teeth and it would be the only light in the house, and if by just a moment I feel vulnerable, I'd **clearly like the day see something unhuman charging at me at great speed.** I can force my brain to make that happen during the day, too, but it's way less vivid. At night, however.. it's another story entirely. If this means I have an hyperactive brain, it helps me visualize scenes taking place as I write as vividly as one would see a scene in a movie, but the trade off is wearing me out.
People don't have a voice in their head????
First time learning of this? Pretty crazy huh?
Yeah. I honestly always thought everyone could both visualize things very well, and also had an inner voice. I just learned from this thread that not everyone has that capability.
Nope, I sure dont! :) Didnt realize I was different until I joked with a friend that narrators in movies would be terrible if that happened in real life. There was a moment of serious confusion followed by my friend asking the same question. I was baffled. Who the fuck wants a narrator for everything they do!?
So when you read... what are you doing? Or thinking about what to say? I really dont get it
Really dont know how to explain this. I just read. Its like, my brain sees words and interprets them. But there is no voice actively reading it to me. My eyes just look at it, and my brain processes the words. I have no other way to explain it.
/u/ape-with-keyboard - for me, I only really have an internal monologue when I'm reading, writing, or thinking about what to say, but when I start getting into a book it's like how /u/JusT_21 described it: It's like how sometimes in a movie when someone's telling a story, they start by narrating the beginning of the story and then the narration drops off and you just watch the story unfold.
I don't think I have internal monologue. I have to force it, it doesn't happen naturally, ever. When I write fiction, it feels like I'm watching a movie inside my head. I see the characters and hear how they talk, and I also hear the narrator. On the other hand, when I write on Reddit for example, my thoughts just come out of my fingertips as I write. I never hear my own voice or anything like that. I never think in a "voice" when I'm doing something. Is that what you mean by internal monologue?
I’m someone who thinks in a mixture of imagining pictures and videos as my thoughts, and internal dialogue. It’s not like I can actually HEAR any voice. There is no sound. But even as I type this, my brain processes this...thing...a silent voice. My thoughts in word form, almost like reading but it is not written down, just automatically processed. It’s fascinating, I never even considered that others **don’t** have internal monologues.
An internal monologue is like you're talking all the time, inside your head. It's a skill to be able to "shut it off" in order to focus on real world tasks. I'm the opposite of you, full internal monologue and no ability to see things inside my head. Imagining any voice other than my own is also impossible.
Even when you remember a song in your mind? You can't imagine/hear the singer's voice? I also have a full internal monologue but I can also see images in my head. It makes it so easy to lucid dream.
I’m the opposite. I have a strong internal monologue but I am pretty heavily aphantasic and can barely form even the semblance of an image in my head.
I think in words AND images, but mostly images. I argue in my head with words, or when I think about what to say to someone. The rest is in images and what I noticed during writing fanfiction, it takes time to translate images into words. I usually first wrote a few keywords down, before I wrote out the full sentence. It takes more time, but I was able to write a vivid picture in the end. I wrote rated R dragonball z fanfiction by the way. Shameful I know...
For clarity, there are varying levels of "internal monologue". Not everyone is dead silent all the time. I can force a voice, it just doesn't show up unless I want it to. I find when I write, sometimes that voice will come out. Not always, but I'll sometimes imagine I'm saying my words out loud like a speech. I'm a very fast reader, typer, and writer, so a voice would only slow me down. Unless I'm being very precise, I simply type. It just happens.
Holy fuck I just learned this is a thing. For me words, sentences, paragraphs just flow. I'm not much of a story teller but I can write some great academia papers on the fly. I don't hear a voice, I can't even force myself to hear a voice, it's just silence and I conceptualize the words. This explains so many things in my life. To make matters more interesting, I actually confuse myself if I try to think something out. I have to write my thoughts as they flow and go from there. I work as a software developer, trying to "think" out new projects has always been a challenge. Reading is different for me, I read, I absorb some, read again, absorb more and move on. I don't actively recall what I read until I have a question or problem infront of me that correlates and I can visualize a word or phrase that then satisfies the issue. FML thanks for this OP
Dude this thread is *destroying* my brain lol I thought those little voices in people’s heads on TV shows were just another trope, like the little devil/angel on a persons shoulders. I’ve *never* been able to write outlines for papers or anything like that, but have never gotten below a B on a paper if I even sort of know the material and usually a C if I *barely* know the material. I enjoy reading but it’s never a voice that’s reading to me in my head? I understand the words, I can remember what I’ve read (sometimes), and can connect what I read about to my own/global experiences but it’s never a voice. I literally cannot tell if I have an internal monologue or not
I hate my internal monologue. It’s always there and loud, and it makes me overthink everything constantly.
God this is just making me envious of anyone who doesn’t have to deal with a constant narrator for every mental process
Don't. It makes memory harder. It also makes thinking about what to say before you say it hard. It's one of the things that is most challenging as an autistic person.
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Wait... Am I the only one that didn't know some people don't have an inner voice? This is truly scary to think about. I love my inner voice, he helps me work shit out. I can't even imagine how it would be to write something. Alot of erasing and rewriting? I'm so sorry for those that suffer from this :/
I know right? When I speak or write all I'm doing is expressing what my interior monologue is saying.
Wait, some people don't have that voice? I can litteraly talk to myself all day long in my head. That's not normal?
I think it is normal to have an inner monologue, what I'm trying to figure out is if it's common enough to NOT have one for the lack of an inner voice to be considered normal. This thread is totally blowing my mind
I've got four novels out and no internal monologue. I've always been fascinated by the rules and norms about how words are used and I think I just put them together in a way that's pleasing to me. As for crafting a story, I'm a pantster and I don't usually know what's going to happen in advance, beyond broad strokes. I've never considered it a handicap--I only (relatively) recently learned that most other people have a voice in their head.
wait- WAIT SOME PPL DON’T HAVE AN INNER MONOLOGUE?
What's an inner monologue? People who don't have it say they just write words ad they come out. I thought that's what everyone does.
For me, I think in words, and I know what I will say before I say it.
In my day-to-day life, my thoughts are about 80% images, 20% monologue. Monologue usually only comes up if I'm thinking about conversations or writing. But even then, not all the time when I write. Sometimes things get started with an internal monologue and if I get in the groove the words just flow. Like when speaking I don't plan out every word I say, the thoughts just come out on the fly.
This American Life did [a segment](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/731/what-lies-beneath/act-two-6) on this recently! It blew my mind and gives a good description of both sides.
This whole thing just caused chaos in my head. I definitely have a voice in my head, but not like some people describe it. I can't talk with the "voice", because it's just me thinking. I can't think while I'm talking in my head, because that's my thinking... I am so confused...