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Not everyone does, I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of people on this topic.
People's thought processes range from monologue to dialog to narration to silence to images to raw concepts without form.
I personally do not have a constantly running monologue, but rather have relatively short bursts of thought interspersed with long periods of silence.
I always find this conversation fascinating and it makes me wonder in what other ways people may experience the world differently.
I do have a constant internal monologue. Every word I read is spoken in my mind. My thought process is, to my awareness, me talking things out in my head.
Yeah, I also "hear" the words in my head as I read them, and that goes for everything.
I kinda wish I thought in shapes and colors though. While my imagination is okay, I get the feeling it's not as... vivid or Shar as others imaginations are.
I don't have one at all. Spent ages thinking that it was just a figure of speech, but when I found out I became fascinated by it.
The current theory is that at some early point in our evolution we literally had a voice in our head, not unlike how some forms of schizophrenia present.
It's called the bicameral mind.
https://gizmodo.com/did-everyone-3-000-years-ago-have-a-voice-in-their-head-510063135
In my day to day life it makes little difference however, despite being an avid reader and writer I struggle tremendously to read aloud.
I don't know for sure but I suspect it is connected.
In the article they bring up many questionable aspects of this idea, which also seems to lack in scientific support.
And so the bicameral mind remains a highly controversial idea
Absolutely. I'm no expert, and since there weren't any studies performed on people from that era, I'd expect it to be taken as a theory rather than a fact.
In my day to day life it makes little difference however, despite being an avid reader and writer I struggle tremendously to read aloud.
Thanks, I actually wanted to post that as a question. I would have thought that reading silently would be harder.
I worked as a typesetter for years. I have a rather speedy reading pace (it isn't inate, rather through practice)... but I do wonder if not having to 'hear' words changes the rhythm of reading.
I'm also fascinated if other folk perform accents in their head whilst reading? Do different characters sound different or is there one 'voice' that acts as a narrator?
Do different characters sound different or is there one ‘voice’ that acts as a narrator?
Neither. I think of the idea of the words, rather than hearing the words in my mind. Which is to say, though I can read a sentence and string together the words I read in my mind, the l there is no voice to those words, no gender, no accent, no volume etc.
For me different characters have different voices. The narrative is either the voice of the character whose perspective is currently shown (which can lead to conflicts if I don't know the perspective at the start) or it is how I imagine the author to sound like or my own voice.
I won't pretend in not a little jealous of that. I can only imagine the texture that adds to a novel. Plus, it's like a form of creative collaboration... You are present in the text... How cool is that?
That sounds heavenly. Mine will not shut up. And when I've run out of current problems to worry about, I start thinking about all my past fuck ups an embarrassments. And that's just in the time it takes to a simple activity. When I'm at work it is constant flipping back and forth between my anxious thoughts and doing my work and worrying about how I might be fucking up my work.
This describes me 100% and I fucking hate it. And I’m sorry you go through it, too.
Mine seems to appear when I'm not on auto-pilot. If I'm heating a can of soup, there's no real thought. I'm probably thinking about other things while carry out simple steps. If I can't find something, it'll pop in and say, "Where did I leave that?" Or maybe something like, "I should call Mom cause it's New Year's Day." Another is, "I'm glad I remembered my umbrella," when in rain. But I don't have monologue about putting on my shoes or locking my door. Those are mechanical tasks while I think about something else in an abstract fashion.
I suspect that most people have a partial internal monologue, whereby some thoughts arise to the level of verbiage and others don’t. There is also variance in how self-aware we are of our thoughts themselves. I don’t think anyone can keep up effective, meta self-monitoring 100% of the time, so our own view of our thought process is probably skewed as well. Some people swear that every single thought they have is 100% verbalized. I think that’s impossible and they’re only counting verbal thoughts as thoughts. But no doubt some people verbalize more than others.
Yep, I don't, either. I think mostly subconsciously, then in raw concepts, then images, then words. I have to actively translate what I'm thinking into language in order to consciously understand it myself or communicate it, but I do better if I externalize the language through writing or speaking.
Because sometimes the rubber ducky would be embarrassed at the questions I ask so I ask me the questions first.
I think one key in the success of our species is the ability to plan ahead and mentally simulate what will happen before actually doing it.
Doing this with language is not very different from imagining what will happen when doing a physical action.
I have imaginary conversations all the time where I simulate interactions with the people in my life and work. I’ll say something and then imagine their response and often go back and revise what I would say. This is how I prepare for conversations that might be delicate, where I want to get something across but not in a way that creates negative consequences.
Other people say that they verbalize literally everything, as in, “I need to throw this rock in a gentle arc if I want it to hit that other rock there, oh dear perhaps I should adjust my grip and throw underhand instead.” My opinion is that this is functionally impossible. You can’t drive a car by verbalizing every command as you go - put a blindfolded friend at the wheel and try it sometime! I think one of two things is happening to people who say their monologue is exhaustive: they are only counting verbal thoughts as thoughts and ignoring the sea of inchoate impulses that churns beneath them. Also, I think any time we turn our attention to our thoughts themselves, those thoughts become verbal. To say it another way, any thought you want to think about you have to first pin down and define. You render it in words by directing your attention to it. I believe this leads people to believe that all their thoughts are verbal because all the thoughts they’ve looked at are always verbal.
But I’d say this to those folks: have you ever forgotten the right word for something? There it is on the tip of your tongue but the word won’t come. This happens to everyone. And you’re clearly able to think about the whatness of the thing even in absence of the right word.
Truly nobody knows, it's an open research question. And to complicate matters more we know (as others have mentioned here) that everyone doesn't think in the same way.
As an aside, there is a theory called the "bicameral mind" which posits that this internal dialogue is the source of religion. In ancient or rather even prehistoric times, it's theorized that people started separating themselves from the voices in their heads in a spiritual way and this gave rise to the concept of a "God".
Far from proven but interesting nonetheless.
Speak for yourself! I have internal stereologue.
I have an external monologue!.. Yeah, I just never stop talking
What I find interesting is that supposedly, not everybody actually has an internal monologue, I just can't even imagine what that must be like. But then I start to wonder, do I even have an internal monologue, is what I experience an actual "internal monologue"? I assume that I have an internal monologue, I definitely talk to myself and I have thoughts running around my head all the time, but I don't know that I "hear" an internal monologue or what having an internal monologue is supposed to be like. Is what I experience the same thing as what everybody else is experiencing?
Chomsky would say that the original purpose of language is to structure thought, with communication being solely secondary. (Or something like this, I don't recall it word-by-word.)
If that's correct, then internal monologues are simply a result of your brain processing your thoughts.
Ok, I have a question for you guys.
I consider myself to have an internal monologue, but it doesn't just run all the time. Like, sometimes my thoughts have words, and sometimes they don't. Is it like that for the rest of you who have an IM? I always assumed it would be, but considering some people don't have one at all, it wouldn't surprise me that much if some people had one constantly.
I really tried to word this in a way that makes sense.. sorry if it doesn't lol.
One of the "constantly" group here. It's a bit more like having someone to talk to all the time who is also me. I can turn it off, but it has to be a concentrated effort and as soon as I'm not concentrated on keeping it silent it comes back.
I've spent many years wondering at the nature of the little voice, especially after I learned that not everyone has it. It's not controlling or contradictory, it's a bit more like a narrator for my feelings and a driving point for logic.
I've come to the conclusion that what it actually is is my subconscious manifesting as a conversational partner. Kind of like an avatar that represents the part of me that isn't the literal point of consciousness inside my head. Make of that what you will.
Don't get me wrong, I still think in pictures and non-verbal inclinations. That doesn't really go away either. But it's like having a narrator alongside it that also speaks in the first person.
You don't consciously control yours? Mine is conversational with myself, but it's a single entity. Like if it's critical, it's me being critical of myself, not one part of me blaming another part. It's not a two-way conversation; it's a monologue that I have full and conscious control of. I can cut it off but still know what it was going to say.
My experience is the same as yours. I have an inner monologue, but it is not constant. My thoughts do not always come in the form of words.
In fact, I would say that wordless thoughts are my default and the IM comes when I am trying to figure something out.
Wow I'm like the complete opposite of you. Inner monolog is default and if I'm trying to figure something out it's like pictures or a 3d model in my brain or, if in deeper thought, I'm not even here but in like, a different plane solving the issue in my head space.
I am super confused what an internal monologue is as I'm fairly certain I don't have one.
If I did, I feel like it would annoy the shit out of me.
Read this sentence one word at a time. As you read it, do you hear the words spoken inside your head?
If that doesn't work, turn on the tv and try to repeat the words you hear immediately after you hear them, but absolutely silently. The goal is to echo the television ij your head.
That is your internal monologue.
Now imagine you're trying to sleep and the asshole part of your brain starts talking about the reality dumb-ass shit you did 25 years ago..
Now imagine that you just got a song stuck in your head. You know the song really well... and you can't stop repeating the hook in your mind.
It's your brain silently reading the captions of the narration of the images of your train of thought.
Oh, is that all it is? I guess I was reading it to be where I can hear myself talk to myself when reasoning things out or experiencing things.
I think only about half the population think this way. Your voice is in your head speaking thoughts kinda like they show in movies. The other half thinks in pictures, shapes, colors, and sounds.
The other half thinks in pictures, shapes, colors, and sounds.
Its definitely not that simple as I definitely have both, I've also heard a lot of people say "I'm a visual thinker", but I've absolutely never heard of someone not being one do I'm not sure there is even such a thing as a non visual thinker
Aphantasia
I'm by no means a medical expert, so just a stab in the dark here - our brains constantly process all sorts of information. Whether that's memories, input from your various senses, or a million other things. During that process, your brain is also trying to make sense of it all ("Why?", "What does it mean", "How?", etc).
Our ability to communicate and express language is intertwined in this process, which of course is what gives you the perception of dialog. So in essence, I think its just our brains trying to make sense of... its process of making sense, if that makes sense?
On a side note, I'm practically dosing myself with semantic satiation with how many times I've used "sense" here (that last one being more tongue-in-cheek)...
Do you think we had internal monologue before having language?
It's a bit difficult to say, but perhaps we did in say, maybe through the repetition of flashing images from our memory, or sounds, etc.
Even without language, that internal "making sense" of things / interpreting the world around us still exists - I'd imagine if you were to ask someone who was deaf (starting at a very early age) they'd probably say there is a monologue of some sorts, even if not by "sound", whether that be the flashing images of various hand signs, or written words, etc.
My guess would be it's a side-effect, kind of like pareidolia. Us being extremely social animals, so much that being cast away from the tribe in our hunter-gatherer days would spell certain death, our brains have become extremely attuned to face/emotion recognition and language. So we have a tendency of using words to express ideas, even to ourselves.
To freak us out when we're a little bit too high...
I use it for reasoning. It's a way to talk to myself without having to do so out loud, which I do a lot.
There is a segment of the population who, apparently, don't have one. Even deaf people apparently have an inner monologue of hand signs visualized. But this segment just lacks one entirely. I don't understand how they think, how they come to a conclusion. Things just pop into my mind, when I take my mind away from other matters and let my subconscious bake on an item... is this the way they think about everything? I don't know.
I’m going to take a guess - survival.
By which you mean, it’s the part of our brain that we no longer really listen to, so it developed the ability to flat out tell us: “damn that’s a bad idea.” And “I told you so, idiot.”
In my experience, it's for 2 things:
Witty comebacks half an hour after the discussion is over and you're on your way back home.
Overanalyzing every stupid decision and mistake you have ever made.