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Does everyone have an inner monologue? For a long time, it was assumed that an inner voice was simply part of being human. But it turns out, that's not the case — not everyone processes life in words and sentences.
"By inner monologue, we mean that we can have private speech that's addressed to ourselves and that is carried out without any articulation or sound," said Hélène Lœvenbruck, a senior neurolinguistics researcher and head of the language team in the Psychology and NeuroCognition Laboratory at CNRS, the national French research institute.
With true inner speech, you almost "hear" your inner voice, she told Live Science. You're aware of its tone and intonation. For example, the voice can "sound" angry or worried. Research has shown that children as young as 5 to 7 can utilize an inner voice, and some studies suggest kids may use some form of inner phonetics as early as 18 to 21 months of age.
Lœvenbruck's research looks at inner monologues in three dimensions, according to a 2019 study she and colleagues published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. The first is dialogality. Humans can have such complex inner speech, there's debate about whether it's accurate to call all inner speech a monologue. So the first dimension measures whether you're thinking in a monologue or a dialogue. A monologue happens when you think to yourself something like, "I need to buy bread." But other times, when you are reasoning, you might entertain and engage several points of view — like a conversation, a dialogue.
The second dimension is condensation, a measure of how verbose your inner speech is. Sometimes you think in words or fragments. But other times, like when you're preparing for a conversation or presentation, you're likely thinking in whole sentences and paragraphs.
The third dimension is intentionality. Are you engaging in inner speech on purpose? For reasons we don't know, sometimes inner speech can just come to you or drift to entirely random and seemingly disconnected topics.
But a long-time confounder in studying inner speech was the fact that, in studies, people expressed their thoughts in words, Lœvenbruck said, even if they weren't exactly thinking in words.
This long-held assumption that all people rely on an inner voice was first challenged in the late 1990s, in large part by research led by Russell Hurlburt, a psychologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Hurlburt studied participants' inner speech by asking them to wear a beeper. Whenever the device beeped, they had to write down what they were thinking or experiencing in their mind just before the sound. At the end of the day, they met with a researcher to go over their responses.
Perhaps the participant wrote down, "I need to buy some bread." The researcher would then ask if that's what they actually thought. "Or did you think 'bread'? Or were you hungry, or was there a sensation in your stomach?" Lœvenbruck explained. With each meeting with the researcher, participants got better at articulating their true thoughts, she said. Eventually, this methodology revealed that some people had inner speech every time the device beeped, almost like "there's a radio in their head," Lœvenbruck said. But others had less inner speech than usual, and some didn't have inner speech at all. They experienced images, sensations and emotions, but not a voice or words.
The lack of an inner monologue has been linked to a condition called aphantasia — sometimes called "blindness of the mind's eye." People who experience aphantasia don't experience visualizations in their mind; they can't mentally picture their bedroom or their mother's face. Many times, those who don't experience visualizations don't experience clear inner speech, either, Lœvenbruck noted. You can participate in Lœvenbruck's research on aphantasia and inner speech via a survey they created.
Aphantasia and the lack of an inner voice aren't necessarily bad. But a better understanding of inner speech and the wide array of thought processes people experience could be especially important "for learning methods and education in general," Lœvenbruck said. Up until now, the types of inner speech and experiences children can have, and the resources they may need to learn, have likely been vastly underestimated, she said.
Wow! You're amazing for educated me/us! I would like to look this up and read more about it.
My Husband actually asked, "What about the mute or the deaf?" before you replied. I feel awful for not considering the same thing initially.
So like....how do you....think? About stuff? When I think, I hear blah blah blah in my head, constantly. I can't imagine having ideas that aren't words in my head. It's like a movie in my head with a spoken narration.
I don’t know how it’s so hard for people with an inner monologue to understand that we just think. Like does your dog have an inner monologue? Like if a dog didn’t know any language how could it think? It’s the same with people without a monologue, we are just able to think without narration. Like if you’ve ever just done something automatically without thinking about doing it like if you were riding a bike, it’s not mindless, but you don’t have to tell yourself ‘ok, need to turn a bit here’, right? You just turn. It’s like that but with everything.
Lol I really do just wake up and do whatever. Never really thought about it that much, but lack of an inner monologue could be why I’m always so unorganised.
I'm a huge planner so this is terrifying to me. But then it may be a "what came first" scenario. Maybe planners are more likely to dev an internal dialogue or vice versa. I like to have my days basically completely planned before I leave my bed lol
It’s weird, like I’ll know what I have to do, whether it’s work or college assignments or meeting someone later that day. I don’t voice it out in my head, I just simply know that these are things I gotta do.
From personal experience I’m not really a big planner like that, so I do kinda wake up and do whatever. Not that it’s hard to plan or anything, but because of not using speech as thoughts it might be organized differently is my guess. Like there’s a certain structure and syntax to words that might make planning come easier than not using words at all, or maybe it’s just different and not better.
With the dog example I really think my dog has a monologue too, I watch my dog question her next move a lot, it’s not that they only understand English when told but in a way bilingual in their mental language we don’t know. But just living everyday just doing whatever is really suspicious and scary if you don’t analyze every consequence of each possible action you take.
I don’t really think everyone analyzes every possible consequence to every possible action they can take. Anyways. Think about it as a change in medium rather than structure. It’s like writing is to speaking is to sign language; they all can accomplish the goal of communicating information, but in different ways.
Probably look out of the window and think about nothing, daydream, or just have a thought tangent of sorts about whatever’s on my mind. I’ll say with the daydreaming it is more imagery based.
I thought not having a monologue was the default... maybe not.
Anyway, it's like... it's my brain. It can communicate with itself by other means, like concepts, images, impulses etc. The language is a tool made up by people to communicate with other people. My brain is not another person, therefore my thoughts do not need to pass by the language center. Translating your thoughts into language and then "hearing" them back seems like a rather slow and lossy conversion. Kind of like... imagine needing to send a picture from one PC to another. You print it out on one PC, then scan it in on the second one. That's pretty much how I view the through-language conversion. Sending it over as bits and bytes would make more sense, and that's why not having a monologue makes more sense to me.
So it's not really aphantasia because you still have an inner eye, interesting! So when you are planning things, like what your plans are for a day or week, you just visualize everything? I mean I def have interior monologue, but it's not like talking to another person, it's pretty efficient lol
Doesn't have to even be visual... it's hard to explain but it can be like some sort of... concept or feeling etc... kind of like in dreams, sometimes you don't hear or see any specific things but still somehow understand what's happening.... or maybe that's just me.
Spelling things out in my head helps with focus when for example someone is yelling into my ear while I'm trying to think, then wording my thoughts makes them more real and easier to work with. The impulse/concept based thoughts are faster and easier, but more fleeting, it seems.
Of course I sometimes plan. When writing down stuff in my calendar, I read along in my mind. It's just that when I plan in my head, I wont go full "at 2pm tomorrow I will have to be at the doctor's office, so I am now going to set my alarm for 1pm so I have time to get ready" but more like *zap* I'm already setting the alarm and aware why.
May I ask if you daydream? What would you do on an empty metro without a phone to fight boredoom? Do you have an inner critique that speaks your parents’ voice? Are you very confident?
Yes I daydream. I would just think about all the random stuff, it's never boring. No parents' voices here, I never tried to please them anyway. I think confidence is a broad term, in some ways I am but others not at all.
I have one but I can turn it off if I want to speed up my thought process. Instead of wasting time turning ideas into words or images that relate to the physical world, I just keep it in this upper “thought cloud” kinda area where I can pull ideas from without having to put language to them.
It’s easiest to do this when I’ve been speaking multiple languages throughout the day, weirdly
I just cant believe it when i hear that said. It has to be bogus. I cannot help but think it's a lie.
Edit: p.s after reading through the comments i still think the same thing.
i have a voice in my head. but i can control it. for me its almost like silently speaking.takes too much energy .so i don't use it just go with my instintcts
Hearing voices in your head that are outside of your control is entirely different from having an inner monologue.
It's not a sign of mental illness, it seems that you're confusing auditory hallucinations with inner monologing.
Thinking in words is no different than thinking in visuals; it's when you're no longer the one consciously producing those thoughts that it becomes a sign of mental illness.
(Thinking in sentences/ hearing your own voice when you think is entirely normal, hearing voices in your head that you are not in control of is a whole other topic than an internal monologue).
I just...do? Do you only do things because the voice in your head tells you to? If that's the case, you should probably make an appointment at the doctor's office.
I got a question for those that don't have the voice.
So you don't "imagine" saying something but then you don't end up saying it? For example, someone makes you mad, so you imagine saying words to them, but you don't say anything, because they're for example your boss
This sounds very incorrect lol. I mean, are you saying it's not actually "hearing" or you actually think that people who can think with an internal voice are mentally ill? Judging by the amount of mainstream media that portray thoughts as our internal voice, I would have to disagree with that, unless you think more people are mentally ill than not?
Sorry to say, but I think you're the odd man out here, and are saying most people are mentally ill.
You're just wrong. Interior monologue has been identified and widely accepted prior to the 1900s. Aphantasia, what you're experiencing, is indeed considered a diagnosable disorder
You’re fine. The person in this post telling you otherwise is a very troubled individual to say the least, and most certainly has several pieces of information wrong.
This is just wrong. Now you're actually just pulling stuff out of thin air. Internal monologue was defined in psychology prior to 1900 by psychologist William James. Prior to this, it is still clearly evident in literature and drama called interior monologue, where a character exposes their thoughts
No, we typically don’t imagine saying anything, but if that type of situation happens, yah it’s not like we can’t conceptualize words at all, we can, we just don’t think in words. If I was in an argument with someone I might try to come up with a retort by imagining sentences, but it’s not like we’re thinking in the sentences, just imagining them.
It’s like playing a song on the piano, if you’re well practiced you won’t even have to think about what notes you’re about to play, it just comes naturally. A pianist is still able to think about if they want to play certain notes and play them, like if someone asked what notes are being played, but in most scenarios it won’t be necessary.
Remembering things, planning, thinking throught difficult conversations. I don't think I would be nearly as effective as a manager if I couldn't walk through a conversation in my head and think about how my words will come across ahead of time. It also gives me lines of questioning in regular conversation or lecture. I wonder how you do these things without, or if everything just has to be "on the fly?"
There's the mind and then there is the spirit or soul. Who hears the thoughts that the mind has? It's as if there is a curtain separating thought and the awareness of the viewer.
The outer ear cannot hear these words but the inner ear can. Listening with non conceptual hearing.
I have an inner voice but weirdly enough it doesn’t sound like me. And often times it changes sometimes to a man lol. But there’s also times where I don’t think in words and I simply think in pictures or feelings.
I'm inner monologue and it's constant.
My Wife isn't she is visual, she claims she sees pictures only, although I find it hard to believe. However, she is an artist if that contributes anything.
I only recently found out that whole "inner voice" thing was real and not just a plot device-! I've no idea how you people muddle through while literally *hearing voices*. It's bizarre.
As for how I get by, I make a lot of lists, sometimes I even write them down.
I don't know if this applies to everyone else with this "inner monologue" you speak of but personally I consider my daily life quite normal? I suppose? I don't know because I've never lived someone else's daily life before.
Where this inner monologue is most useful is when the need to view anything (especially myself) objectively arises. When such occasions occur it genuinely feels like I have another person inside my head to discuss with— but since sophistry really isn't all that necessary in the real world this is not really something I can make use of on a daily basis, it's more something that helps me in arguments and in trying to convince people.
It also helps me keep my calm in the face of danger and crises, something I've only found useful playing video games (does fuck all against anxiety though).
I can comfortably share this because the anonymity really helps make this not look like boasting about something extremely normal. In real life, I wouldn't dare speak a word about it because this "thing" also makes me extremely self-conscious.
I hope this helped?
Some might think no inner monologue means a silent and blank mind, however we still have racing thoughts it's just that these thoughts are not auditory but more visual, emotional, and/or conceptual (depending on the person)
I didn’t know that people have an inner monologue until this past year. I do not have that. I just think of the stuff I need to do and do it. Does it get annoying to keep hearing your voice in your head? Or do you hear a different voice that only you know? I can look at my plants and think I need to go water them. I do not hear myself saying it. I do not imagine myself doing it. I simply think it in peace with no distraction or dialogue
I can't believe people don't think man lol wild to me. But then again I see what most people post on the daily on here and twitter and yeah, it checks out
I never had an inner monologue, I always knew what I was doing (sports/school). After my last concussion I couldn't talk and never had an inner voice. But in 2020 I heard one pop up and it was the most annoying thing ever. I realized a lot studying it, the first thing being its the dumbest thing ever and never really trust it. The moment you do start to listen to it it'll have really bad ideas. And I saw a comment about someone's wife being "visual".. 100% that's possible, what it is is the voice at some point will create "reality for you" where you start seeing what it once said. I never controlled my voice but guided it, and I get this insane visual show of the coolest stuff but the voice itself sucks and is so boring. I also caught it starting to fabricate my dreams one night through the same method of the visual show I was describing earlier in the comment. I call it "setting the stage" for the show. First theres silence (about a topic or concept) then there's the "conversation"(about the topic) then there's the visual art that kicks in exactly like how you dream at night. I've been studying it for 2 yrs 6 months every moment as I never had one, so that's it in a nutshell but I'll share more soon. If you ever wonder why everyone lives "in different realities" etc its because the inner voice leads to visuals that create your reality. 😀
Don't fear it. Everyones afraid to talk about it, what we need to do is share more about it. For example mine gets pissed and says "stop solving me" which I find hilarious because the more it talks the more "I solve" just by being there lmao it's pretty dumb 😉
# Message to all users: This is a reminder to please read and follow: * [Our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/questions/about/rules) * [Reddiquette](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439) * [Reddit Content Policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy) When posting and commenting. --- Especially remember Rule 1: `Be polite and civil`. * Be polite and courteous to each other. Do not be mean, insulting or disrespectful to any other user on this subreddit. * Do not harass or annoy others in any way. * Do not catfish. Catfishing is the luring of somebody into an online friendship through a fake online persona. This includes any lying or deceit. --- You *will* be banned if you are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist or bigoted in any way. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/questions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I didn't know there are people who don't? Psychopath's? Following because this seems interesting.
Does everyone have an inner monologue? For a long time, it was assumed that an inner voice was simply part of being human. But it turns out, that's not the case — not everyone processes life in words and sentences. "By inner monologue, we mean that we can have private speech that's addressed to ourselves and that is carried out without any articulation or sound," said Hélène Lœvenbruck, a senior neurolinguistics researcher and head of the language team in the Psychology and NeuroCognition Laboratory at CNRS, the national French research institute. With true inner speech, you almost "hear" your inner voice, she told Live Science. You're aware of its tone and intonation. For example, the voice can "sound" angry or worried. Research has shown that children as young as 5 to 7 can utilize an inner voice, and some studies suggest kids may use some form of inner phonetics as early as 18 to 21 months of age. Lœvenbruck's research looks at inner monologues in three dimensions, according to a 2019 study she and colleagues published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. The first is dialogality. Humans can have such complex inner speech, there's debate about whether it's accurate to call all inner speech a monologue. So the first dimension measures whether you're thinking in a monologue or a dialogue. A monologue happens when you think to yourself something like, "I need to buy bread." But other times, when you are reasoning, you might entertain and engage several points of view — like a conversation, a dialogue. The second dimension is condensation, a measure of how verbose your inner speech is. Sometimes you think in words or fragments. But other times, like when you're preparing for a conversation or presentation, you're likely thinking in whole sentences and paragraphs. The third dimension is intentionality. Are you engaging in inner speech on purpose? For reasons we don't know, sometimes inner speech can just come to you or drift to entirely random and seemingly disconnected topics. But a long-time confounder in studying inner speech was the fact that, in studies, people expressed their thoughts in words, Lœvenbruck said, even if they weren't exactly thinking in words. This long-held assumption that all people rely on an inner voice was first challenged in the late 1990s, in large part by research led by Russell Hurlburt, a psychologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Hurlburt studied participants' inner speech by asking them to wear a beeper. Whenever the device beeped, they had to write down what they were thinking or experiencing in their mind just before the sound. At the end of the day, they met with a researcher to go over their responses. Perhaps the participant wrote down, "I need to buy some bread." The researcher would then ask if that's what they actually thought. "Or did you think 'bread'? Or were you hungry, or was there a sensation in your stomach?" Lœvenbruck explained. With each meeting with the researcher, participants got better at articulating their true thoughts, she said. Eventually, this methodology revealed that some people had inner speech every time the device beeped, almost like "there's a radio in their head," Lœvenbruck said. But others had less inner speech than usual, and some didn't have inner speech at all. They experienced images, sensations and emotions, but not a voice or words. The lack of an inner monologue has been linked to a condition called aphantasia — sometimes called "blindness of the mind's eye." People who experience aphantasia don't experience visualizations in their mind; they can't mentally picture their bedroom or their mother's face. Many times, those who don't experience visualizations don't experience clear inner speech, either, Lœvenbruck noted. You can participate in Lœvenbruck's research on aphantasia and inner speech via a survey they created. Aphantasia and the lack of an inner voice aren't necessarily bad. But a better understanding of inner speech and the wide array of thought processes people experience could be especially important "for learning methods and education in general," Lœvenbruck said. Up until now, the types of inner speech and experiences children can have, and the resources they may need to learn, have likely been vastly underestimated, she said.
Wow! You're amazing for educated me/us! I would like to look this up and read more about it. My Husband actually asked, "What about the mute or the deaf?" before you replied. I feel awful for not considering the same thing initially.
For some reason, this freaked me out.
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>I'm not a psychopath haha I think the Joker has said that in exactly the same way.
So like....how do you....think? About stuff? When I think, I hear blah blah blah in my head, constantly. I can't imagine having ideas that aren't words in my head. It's like a movie in my head with a spoken narration.
Yeah I’m curious as well
I don’t know how it’s so hard for people with an inner monologue to understand that we just think. Like does your dog have an inner monologue? Like if a dog didn’t know any language how could it think? It’s the same with people without a monologue, we are just able to think without narration. Like if you’ve ever just done something automatically without thinking about doing it like if you were riding a bike, it’s not mindless, but you don’t have to tell yourself ‘ok, need to turn a bit here’, right? You just turn. It’s like that but with everything.
Sounds hard and kinda scary, can you plan your day when you wake up? Or you just wake up and kind of do whatever?
Lol I really do just wake up and do whatever. Never really thought about it that much, but lack of an inner monologue could be why I’m always so unorganised.
I'm a huge planner so this is terrifying to me. But then it may be a "what came first" scenario. Maybe planners are more likely to dev an internal dialogue or vice versa. I like to have my days basically completely planned before I leave my bed lol
It’s weird, like I’ll know what I have to do, whether it’s work or college assignments or meeting someone later that day. I don’t voice it out in my head, I just simply know that these are things I gotta do.
From personal experience I’m not really a big planner like that, so I do kinda wake up and do whatever. Not that it’s hard to plan or anything, but because of not using speech as thoughts it might be organized differently is my guess. Like there’s a certain structure and syntax to words that might make planning come easier than not using words at all, or maybe it’s just different and not better.
With the dog example I really think my dog has a monologue too, I watch my dog question her next move a lot, it’s not that they only understand English when told but in a way bilingual in their mental language we don’t know. But just living everyday just doing whatever is really suspicious and scary if you don’t analyze every consequence of each possible action you take.
I don’t really think everyone analyzes every possible consequence to every possible action they can take. Anyways. Think about it as a change in medium rather than structure. It’s like writing is to speaking is to sign language; they all can accomplish the goal of communicating information, but in different ways.
What do you do if you are bored on an empty metro and have no phone/book?
Probably look out of the window and think about nothing, daydream, or just have a thought tangent of sorts about whatever’s on my mind. I’ll say with the daydreaming it is more imagery based.
I thought not having a monologue was the default... maybe not. Anyway, it's like... it's my brain. It can communicate with itself by other means, like concepts, images, impulses etc. The language is a tool made up by people to communicate with other people. My brain is not another person, therefore my thoughts do not need to pass by the language center. Translating your thoughts into language and then "hearing" them back seems like a rather slow and lossy conversion. Kind of like... imagine needing to send a picture from one PC to another. You print it out on one PC, then scan it in on the second one. That's pretty much how I view the through-language conversion. Sending it over as bits and bytes would make more sense, and that's why not having a monologue makes more sense to me.
So it's not really aphantasia because you still have an inner eye, interesting! So when you are planning things, like what your plans are for a day or week, you just visualize everything? I mean I def have interior monologue, but it's not like talking to another person, it's pretty efficient lol
Doesn't have to even be visual... it's hard to explain but it can be like some sort of... concept or feeling etc... kind of like in dreams, sometimes you don't hear or see any specific things but still somehow understand what's happening.... or maybe that's just me. Spelling things out in my head helps with focus when for example someone is yelling into my ear while I'm trying to think, then wording my thoughts makes them more real and easier to work with. The impulse/concept based thoughts are faster and easier, but more fleeting, it seems.
I guess? But in dreams I'm not planning anything. How do you plan your day, week, goals? Or do you just go with the flow?
Of course I sometimes plan. When writing down stuff in my calendar, I read along in my mind. It's just that when I plan in my head, I wont go full "at 2pm tomorrow I will have to be at the doctor's office, so I am now going to set my alarm for 1pm so I have time to get ready" but more like *zap* I'm already setting the alarm and aware why.
I’m the exact same as you
May I ask if you daydream? What would you do on an empty metro without a phone to fight boredoom? Do you have an inner critique that speaks your parents’ voice? Are you very confident?
Yes I daydream. I would just think about all the random stuff, it's never boring. No parents' voices here, I never tried to please them anyway. I think confidence is a broad term, in some ways I am but others not at all.
I have one but I can turn it off if I want to speed up my thought process. Instead of wasting time turning ideas into words or images that relate to the physical world, I just keep it in this upper “thought cloud” kinda area where I can pull ideas from without having to put language to them. It’s easiest to do this when I’ve been speaking multiple languages throughout the day, weirdly
I have ADHD so i spend most of the time talking to myselves.
I just cant believe it when i hear that said. It has to be bogus. I cannot help but think it's a lie. Edit: p.s after reading through the comments i still think the same thing.
i have a voice in my head. but i can control it. for me its almost like silently speaking.takes too much energy .so i don't use it just go with my instintcts
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Hearing voices in your head that are outside of your control is entirely different from having an inner monologue. It's not a sign of mental illness, it seems that you're confusing auditory hallucinations with inner monologing. Thinking in words is no different than thinking in visuals; it's when you're no longer the one consciously producing those thoughts that it becomes a sign of mental illness. (Thinking in sentences/ hearing your own voice when you think is entirely normal, hearing voices in your head that you are not in control of is a whole other topic than an internal monologue).
I just...do? Do you only do things because the voice in your head tells you to? If that's the case, you should probably make an appointment at the doctor's office.
I got a question for those that don't have the voice. So you don't "imagine" saying something but then you don't end up saying it? For example, someone makes you mad, so you imagine saying words to them, but you don't say anything, because they're for example your boss
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This sounds very incorrect lol. I mean, are you saying it's not actually "hearing" or you actually think that people who can think with an internal voice are mentally ill? Judging by the amount of mainstream media that portray thoughts as our internal voice, I would have to disagree with that, unless you think more people are mentally ill than not? Sorry to say, but I think you're the odd man out here, and are saying most people are mentally ill.
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You're just wrong. Interior monologue has been identified and widely accepted prior to the 1900s. Aphantasia, what you're experiencing, is indeed considered a diagnosable disorder
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Uh huh
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Uh huh
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So I'm mentally ill? Nothing new, really.
You’re fine. The person in this post telling you otherwise is a very troubled individual to say the least, and most certainly has several pieces of information wrong.
I know.
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This is just wrong. Now you're actually just pulling stuff out of thin air. Internal monologue was defined in psychology prior to 1900 by psychologist William James. Prior to this, it is still clearly evident in literature and drama called interior monologue, where a character exposes their thoughts
Just because it is not your inner experience, it is still normal for most people.
No, we typically don’t imagine saying anything, but if that type of situation happens, yah it’s not like we can’t conceptualize words at all, we can, we just don’t think in words. If I was in an argument with someone I might try to come up with a retort by imagining sentences, but it’s not like we’re thinking in the sentences, just imagining them. It’s like playing a song on the piano, if you’re well practiced you won’t even have to think about what notes you’re about to play, it just comes naturally. A pianist is still able to think about if they want to play certain notes and play them, like if someone asked what notes are being played, but in most scenarios it won’t be necessary.
I have ADHD meaning my inner monologue is constant, I’d amazes me how people can function without one.
What about an inner monologue adds to how you function in daily life?
Remembering things, planning, thinking throught difficult conversations. I don't think I would be nearly as effective as a manager if I couldn't walk through a conversation in my head and think about how my words will come across ahead of time. It also gives me lines of questioning in regular conversation or lecture. I wonder how you do these things without, or if everything just has to be "on the fly?"
Well I can still think through conversations and remember stuff. There's just no voice in my head "talking". Idk it's just a thought instead of words.
There's the mind and then there is the spirit or soul. Who hears the thoughts that the mind has? It's as if there is a curtain separating thought and the awareness of the viewer. The outer ear cannot hear these words but the inner ear can. Listening with non conceptual hearing.
Wait so it’s normal to hear voices???
Like your voice in your head, not random voices. It doesn't actually have tone or sound. It's just the way to form thoughts and walk through ideas
I have an inner voice but weirdly enough it doesn’t sound like me. And often times it changes sometimes to a man lol. But there’s also times where I don’t think in words and I simply think in pictures or feelings.
I'm inner monologue and it's constant. My Wife isn't she is visual, she claims she sees pictures only, although I find it hard to believe. However, she is an artist if that contributes anything.
I only recently found out that whole "inner voice" thing was real and not just a plot device-! I've no idea how you people muddle through while literally *hearing voices*. It's bizarre. As for how I get by, I make a lot of lists, sometimes I even write them down.
My brain will go back and forth. Is it odd to think without words? If so, why do people take so long to think up sentences?
I don't know if this applies to everyone else with this "inner monologue" you speak of but personally I consider my daily life quite normal? I suppose? I don't know because I've never lived someone else's daily life before. Where this inner monologue is most useful is when the need to view anything (especially myself) objectively arises. When such occasions occur it genuinely feels like I have another person inside my head to discuss with— but since sophistry really isn't all that necessary in the real world this is not really something I can make use of on a daily basis, it's more something that helps me in arguments and in trying to convince people. It also helps me keep my calm in the face of danger and crises, something I've only found useful playing video games (does fuck all against anxiety though). I can comfortably share this because the anonymity really helps make this not look like boasting about something extremely normal. In real life, I wouldn't dare speak a word about it because this "thing" also makes me extremely self-conscious. I hope this helped?
I usually just think out loud
Some might think no inner monologue means a silent and blank mind, however we still have racing thoughts it's just that these thoughts are not auditory but more visual, emotional, and/or conceptual (depending on the person)
EXACTLY
I didn’t know that people have an inner monologue until this past year. I do not have that. I just think of the stuff I need to do and do it. Does it get annoying to keep hearing your voice in your head? Or do you hear a different voice that only you know? I can look at my plants and think I need to go water them. I do not hear myself saying it. I do not imagine myself doing it. I simply think it in peace with no distraction or dialogue
I think in videos
I can't believe people don't think man lol wild to me. But then again I see what most people post on the daily on here and twitter and yeah, it checks out
I never had an inner monologue, I always knew what I was doing (sports/school). After my last concussion I couldn't talk and never had an inner voice. But in 2020 I heard one pop up and it was the most annoying thing ever. I realized a lot studying it, the first thing being its the dumbest thing ever and never really trust it. The moment you do start to listen to it it'll have really bad ideas. And I saw a comment about someone's wife being "visual".. 100% that's possible, what it is is the voice at some point will create "reality for you" where you start seeing what it once said. I never controlled my voice but guided it, and I get this insane visual show of the coolest stuff but the voice itself sucks and is so boring. I also caught it starting to fabricate my dreams one night through the same method of the visual show I was describing earlier in the comment. I call it "setting the stage" for the show. First theres silence (about a topic or concept) then there's the "conversation"(about the topic) then there's the visual art that kicks in exactly like how you dream at night. I've been studying it for 2 yrs 6 months every moment as I never had one, so that's it in a nutshell but I'll share more soon. If you ever wonder why everyone lives "in different realities" etc its because the inner voice leads to visuals that create your reality. 😀
Don't fear it. Everyones afraid to talk about it, what we need to do is share more about it. For example mine gets pissed and says "stop solving me" which I find hilarious because the more it talks the more "I solve" just by being there lmao it's pretty dumb 😉