How can I tell if I have an internal monologue?

The Inspector Gadget theme can be very distracting sometimes!

My head is like trying to follow a group conversation with some radios and podcasts in the background while trying to do some things on autopilot. Then some of it leaks out of my mouth- usually confirming/ directing myself or a bit of stray earworm.

I MN a lot because reading the words directs the dominant voice rather than it chuntering to myself.

I am visual too. When I'm immersed in a novel it's like being integrated into a film while my voice reads like an audiobook. Very annoying when book adaptations just get it wrong

My head doesn't like quiet, inside or out. It's deeply unsettling.

I am hyperphantasic and I have a strong inner monologue. I think about different things in different ways - mathsy things are often more visual, some things need a monologue to think it through - which can take on a differentvoice, depending on the subject. Various friends, family. Language often has words written inside my head (different colours for different languages.)

There are usually concurrent different bands of thoughts running through my head - one of them is always music, often annoyingly so - currently it's Tease me but only about 3 repetitive lines of it. I can bring up different bands of thought to the forefront when I need it, though and the others mostly don't interfere. Mostly...

Question for those of you who have a constant internal narration - does that make you better at remembering people’s names?

I only have a strong inner voice when I’m planning something I’m going to write (or occasionally planning a conversation). It pops up occasionally at other times, but when I see someone I don’t automatically have a voice in my head saying “There’s Richard.” I think if I did I’d be better at remembering names without having to try so hard and forgetting them all the time!

Me too.

I have an internal monologue that never, ever stops. In fact, I generally feel that there are several strands of dialogue going on. I form partial sentences in my mind, which then get interrupted or 'answered'. I can't decide to switch it off. Before I discovered audiobooks, I got to sleep by making up stories and narrating them in my head, or playing out potential future conversations with people (where I was always amazingly erudite of course🤣) or reading until I fell asleep with my head lolling over the book. It has always been a source of great anxiety to me that I can't stop the 'stuff' in my head.

I don’t hear anything-the thought emerges as a sort of concept rather than a narrative? Another poster described ‘thought clouds’ which is the closest to what I experience! Similarly when i read I don’t hear the words or go word to word hearing the sentence. I would glance at the paragraph or sentence and then it’s sort of all absorbed in one go

Similar - I have far less anxiety than I used to (it wasn't generalised, but related to specific ongoing things). If I'm driving, for instance, my thoughts-as-words, or muttered under the breath, are usually comments on other drivers - the occasional "thank you" or "nice to see a careful driver" or more frequent "fuckwit!" If I'm just walking, it's all rather vague and scattered, not something I'd dignify with the name of a monologue.

You have just blown my mind. I'm so bloody confused

The way I’ve explained it to people before is that it’s all subconscious. The same way that people with an internal monologue/voice don’t hear “now I’m going to lift up my right leg and move it forward, then the left leg, right, left” when they walk - it would be impossible to think about everything you’re doing at once (“I’m breathing in, I’m breathing out”?! 🤣)

All my thoughts are like that. They’re abstract. I don’t know what I’m going to say before I say it. I form opinions in the background as it were. Not only is there no voice/music/sounds inside my head, there is no stream of thought. They just come and go without me being aware of them.

I can’t understand how it works having your life narrated in your head - surely unless the voice is very very fast, you’d come across as being very slow in your actions? Like “now I’m going to put the kettle on” - are you standing there doing nothing for the 3 or so seconds it takes to state that thought in your mind? I’ve never seen people behaving like that so that can’t be how it works, so what is it like?

Mine never shuts up. Sometimes it’s constantly calculating time / distance when I’m travelling somewhere. Or it’s working out compass headings and calculating reciprocals. And sometimes having conversations or testing them. Or saying nonsense.

Sometimes I think thoughts I don’t want to think, and the voice screams “HORSE” to try to distract me from those thoughts. And occasionally I yell “HORSE” out loud if it’s too intense.

I rehearse conversations in my head, mainly with my H, and then am invariably shocked by how they never go the way I thought they would when I try to have them in real life.

Also my H has always told me that he can sit and have no thoughts in his head. I have never been able to imagine how this could possibly be, so maybe I do have inner monologue (I thought this was normal and he was unusual).

I've asked my partner this before because he says he doesn't have one. He obviously has thoughts 😅 but he doesn't have a constant narrative/conversation/pondering as such. He says he has songs going through his head like a radio all the time.

I’m similar, I hear words when I’m reading (or when I’m planning what to write) but I’m not wandering around with my own voice in my head as I do other stuff, that would drive me mad!

Although interestingly a few pp mentioned anxiety- I do have anxiety but it’s very physical (shaking, hyperventilating, etc), I’m not going around actively thinking “oh my god, I’m so worried about x”

I understand that would work for babies and animals, I imagine their thoughts are on a more primal level. But how do you ponder the state of the economy for example, without using words? I wonder if we can train ourselves to think in a different way? I would love the incessant chatter in my head to shut the hell up for a few minutes!

I wish mine would take a holiday or at least a regular daily lunch break.

I see things as well as having an inner monologue, so when I read I don't see the words I hear them but I also visualise what the words are describing or if someone is talking I can see either the words or the thing they are talking about.

For a while, I walked around with my mother in law's voice in my head, criticising everything I did! I've dealt with it now and regained my autonomy. Now it's just my own voice, cheering me on :)

I’m not sure planning ahead is really do to with whether you hear thoughts as as internal monologue or not. I didn’t read the link that PP who mentioned that posted though.

I'm no clearer now as to what it means. Yes, I say words in my mind when I read. Likewise if I'm reacting to something, I'll think "Oh what a load of bullshit" or the like. But planning my every move? Describing it to myself ahead of time? Is that what it's supposed to mean?

Is it a bit like thinking? Thinking with words in your mind. So people that don't have it, does it mean they do not think?

I think I have one. My voice is chattering away all the time. There are other participants in my inner monologue too, sometimes it's a conversation with someone else.

However, if I'm thinking of food to eat, I get a sensory feeling and can almost taste it for a second.

No, I wouldn’t hear a sentence like that. I would get a feeling that I think they’re being unreasonable, similarly to if I was in a real conversation with someone and I thought they were being unreasonable, but it wouldn’t be a heard sentence in my head, just an intuative feeling. If that makes sense.

My inner monologue says what I really think of some people but couldn’t say to their face 😂

This is so interesting. I would feel exhausted if I had to actually ‘see’ the letter in my minds eye. Surely if you say the alphabet reeeally quickly you don’t have the time to conjour them all up?

I recently discovered that my dh doesn’t see the letters in his mind when asked to recite the alphabet out loud 😳.

I was absolutely gobsmacked and cannot for the life of me understand how this is possible as I see every letter clearly as I refer to it. In fact my mind is never empty of visual images.

If we talk about going to the butcher or florist, or to a certain place, I can see every detail of it in my mind’s eye.