Do other people have quiet times in their head or is their brain always talking?

[Smallsteps88]

Do you ever have silence in your head? I never do. My head voice is constantly talking. Shite mostly. It often interrupts conversations I’m having with people and I have to concentrate really hard to “hear”what the other person is saying. I really wish I could switch it off sometimes. I take hours to fall asleep every night because my brain is still going. Is that what everyone else has or do you have quiet sometimes?

@Blibbyblobby

Oh god and I’ve just remembered my imaginary medieval girl! When I was a kid there was a story in Bunty or something about a medieval girl who turned up in the twentieth century and a modern girl who had to explain everything to her and keep her out of trouble. For some reason that stuck in my mind and some part of my brain has spent the last 40 years on and off thinking how I’d explain whatever I’m currently doing to an imaginary medieval girl.

Brilliant. This is EXACTLY the sort of nonsense I do. Bunty - I can even imagine what the art looked like. The medieval girl might start visiting me now... what have you done @Blibbyblobby 😆

@hilariousnamehere

Mine is like this. Tabs open, music snippets, diary and conversations and thoughts and stuff going round at what feels like high volume constantly, interrupting each other and never, ever switching off. Plus super vivid dreams. And for extra fun I also have ticker tape synesthesia so I see the words I am saying or other people are saying as they say them, roll past me in typeface. It's very hard to focus and I'm fairly certain I have ADHD!

Ah!

Ticker tape synesthesia! I didn’t know there was a name for that. The only person other person I’m aware of who experiences this is my DS, who is on the Autism Spectrum. I suspect I also have an ASD or ADHD thing going on.

@Blibbyblobby

Oh god and I’ve just remembered my imaginary medieval girl! When I was a kid there was a story in Bunty or something about a medieval girl who turned up in the twentieth century and a modern girl who had to explain everything to her and keep her out of trouble. For some reason that stuck in my mind and some part of my brain has spent the last 40 years on and off thinking how I’d explain whatever I’m currently doing to an imaginary medieval girl.

Yes! I regularly explain things to my foremothers - often I have them in the front passenger seat of the cat, or just somehow beside me.

I’m now wondering if I have ADHD... I visualise imagined scenarios. I talk to imagined people. Quite a lot of doom... calm in crisis. I’m with the OP re bringing something purple in: went to grammar school, year 7 important exams... but I never got the memo about exams. Ended up in near bottom sets for everything since had done zero revision. Was upsetting since couldn’t tell oppressive parents. Mother def has all the aspects of ADHD mentioned so far, but more sinisterly, also NPD and maybe other personality disorders. What else do people have?

Ps I can’t get on board with yoga, and I always listen to podcasts or audio books when I’m not working or reading... mind ALWAYS busy.

@Raindropsonrosesand Yes, it's so hard to articulate a whole thing I'm thinking sometimes.
I remember once when I was trying to write my dissertation, I actually mindmapped something I was thinking about on the wall with post its. It looked like one of those murder solving detective walls from films

I also find I can concentrate really really well. I get so engulfed in something that the whole day can go by and I've eaten and drank nothing and not noticed time passing (it's called a flow state)

I never ever stop thinking. There is always something going on in my brain. It never stops.

I find it difficult to read as my mind wanders and then I realise I have no idea what I have just read. Similar with audiobooks. I'd love to know some of the classic stories, but can't read or listen to them. It's only trite I can take in.

DH doesn't have this issue. He often has a blank mind and litterally thinks of nothing. I don't understand that at all. Its not right.

I remember from being in school always being alone in my room talking to my school friends. This has just carried on into adult life. Especially when running. The amount of people I've bumped into while on a solo run has been amazing, usually other runners I know in real life, but sometimes people I've never met. I even bumped into Rishi and Boris on the odd occassion. I gave them a no holds barred view of the pandemic and my opinion of their actions to it

Yup! I'm basically mark from peep show

I find your purple table story really interesting OP, because I'm a teacher. Thinking back, do you think there's anything the teacher could have done to help get things across to you or make them sink in?

And when you say you missed stuff because everyone else listened and you didn't, do you think it was that you literally didn't pay attention (busy doing something else etc) or that it just didn't go in or stick in your head?

Thinking back, do you think there's anything the teacher could have done to help get things across to you or make them sink in?

I’m really not sure. I don’t know how it was presented to the class. Possibly if I had been spoken to directly and told “small we’re having purple table next week and you can bring in something purple if you want” but I think that would have only been possible if they had been aware there was something amiss with my concentration. They definitely new I was a window gazer as it’s in every single school report since p1 but I don’t think they noticed anything beyond that, certainly my mum would have mentioned it and actually, she doesn’t seem to be aware there was an issue. The only thing she ever said (a lot) was that I struggled because I was the youngest in the class and started school in April of p1 rather than the previous September when everyone else did.

And when you say you missed stuff because everyone else listened and you didn't, do you think it was that you literally didn't pay attention (busy doing something else etc) or that it just didn't go in or stick in your head?

Again, I’m not sure. I remember always thinking “when were we told about this?” And checking with friends if they knew that we were having a quiz today. Also things like I had no idea why we were doing certain things, like we did what I now know was a science class about gravity/motion where we set up ramps of different heights and gradients and let toy cars go down them. At the time I remember seeing classmates writing down numbers and realising I was supposed to be doing the same. I had no idea what these numbers were so just copied and missed some so my sheet was full of gaps. I took nothing at all from the experiment because I had no idea what it was or what I was supposed to be looking for or measuring. I never missed school so it wasn’t like I had missed lots of information. I just hadn’t taken it in when it was being given out.

I had tests for deafness at school. I just wasn't listening ...away with the fairies

I can so relate to this. Constant dialogue and songs in my head. Counting steps, spelling out words as if on a keyboard (a bit like Miranda when she repeats a certain word but I have to type it in my head). I have a lot of ASD traits (not diagnosed). I also suspect ADHD. As a child, during story time in primary school, I would appear to be not concentrating at all - drawing, doodling, looking around for the next thing to do - but I'd be able to answer every single question the teacher asked me about the story.

Does anyone else find if they've been in an overly stimulating environment (night out, party, lots of people and talking etc) that they need time to "come down" before being able to go to bed?

Do you think it's like a 50/50 thing? Half of the population are like this? I've just had a chat with DH about it and he is like this too, maybe not to quite the same extent as me and and it sometimes manifests differently with him but he certainly does have it. I suspect our eldest DS who has some mental health issues is the same.

I used to. It stopped suddenly aged about 40! Go figure?

@Smallsteps88

I wonder if this is why I’m a serious introvert? Because my brain is making so much noise it’s exhausting and overwhelming to try and concentrate on real life interactions at the same time.

Ooo..good question...I’m an introvert too and noise from other people or music can freak me out after a while, especially if a bit tired. Have to take myself away

Yes to reading extremely quickly. Can read an average paperback book in a couple of hours. Totally absorbed in it.

Yes to being very good in a crisis - I suspect I've planned entirely in my head what to do in every conceivable situation, including zombie apocalypse, so I am always very calm, focused and able to deal with it.

Yes to being an utter introvert. Other people exhaust me and I need to spend my evenings sitting silently somewhere without having to talk/listen to noise.

Yes to having music in my head - and I dislike music. There are few songs I would listen to because it's just more noise, yet I often have songs I'm silently listening to in my head. It's one of the things I hate.

Does anyone NOT see pictures/images? I don't. When people have said in the past Ooh...imagine being on a tropical island.. I've always thought that was a figure of speech. It freaked me out to realise that most people can apparently picture stuff - because I can't. I couldn't picture my mother's face, for example. Or anything else. Obviously I know what she looks like, and I'd recognise her instantly but I can't see her in my mind's eye. Is that because my stupid brain is constantly talking/chatting/going over conversations, etc?

Is the constant monologue a female thing, maybe? I have a very noisy brain.

DH says that a lot of the time he isn't thinking about anything at all. He falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, whereas I'm usually awake for hours.

I do have auditory processing issues diagnosed. I can hear on a hearing test, but I struggle to filter and focus hearing and often miss bits.
Had a great conversation with the DCs about petticoats on our walk today. I know DS2 wasn't actually talking about pettioats, but that's what my brain heard and we ended up talking about what they were for. If I ask someone to repeat themselves I get stuck in the same place (or my delayed reactions have caught up) so I end to repeat back what I heard to disentangle the missing bit.
My own thoughts will drown out extenal sound. I've also had tinnitis since childhood (probably from a spate of ear infections)

I had a bastard of an A-level languages teacher. He'd set homeworks in about 5 or 6 different sections. Once I missed a detail about preparing for a roleplay having completed all the other sections, ended up stumbling for vocabulary and he ripped into me and shattered my confidence for oral work that ended up having to be rebuilt with a tutor.

In my teenage years, I was most likely to be told off for giggling. My overactive imagination would kick in and animate over what was happening in the classroom. With hindsight, it must have been bloody annoying to everyone else

@PolytheneHam

Is the constant monologue a female thing, maybe? I have a very noisy brain.

DH says that a lot of the time he isn't thinking about anything at all. He falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow, whereas I'm usually awake for hours.

Are you secretly married to my DH? I don't understand how he can think of nothing. He can totally zone out and when I ask where he was he's like nowhere! Weirdos.

Mine's quiet unless I'm specifically thinking about something. If I'm reading then I hear the words in my own voice. I do not have an imagination though; I can't form pictures in my mind at all so that might have something to do with it.

When I talk I often move my hands to point to the places I have parked a concept and the spacial relationship between these parking places also represents relationships between the concepts.

@Blibbyblobby I was bullied in my first job for'speaking posh'and waving my hands around when I talked. Ever since then I've either sat on them or held them together really tightly to avoid moving them. Sometimes it affects my ability to speak clearly

You've just explained me to myself !
And I wish I could go back and tell those bullies to fuck off.

Sometimes I don't actually know what I'm thinking clearly til I say it out loud and have to describe those non-verbal relationships in words. I write very long emails that I don't send as a way to uncover those thoughts and structures.

Yep, this is completely me.

My mind is now officially blown

My brain never shuts up. Thought I'd do an experiment and type my thoughts as they came to me - so here it is - about 2 mins of what's going on in my head, as it happened...

"Free thinking. So what is thinking anyway? Am I thinking in sentences? Did I put cranberry sauce on the Tesco order for 3 weeks' time? Must remember to add honey 'cos the honey I used for the parsnips today was old and set. Do we need another Christmas decoration for 2020 so we can leave one at our friend's house and bring ours home with us? Time. What's that all about then? Is it something we've invented or does it exist in a sort of non-material way. Argh, my foot's going to sleep - wonder if the dogs need an out or did DH let them out after dinner? Do I want a coffee? No, I have wine. Where is the wine? Oh, there it is. What time is it? Should I go to bed early and read my book today? Argh, must do my daily language lesson. Need a new scented candle. let's have a look on Amazon..."

It. Never. Stops.

I'm hungry. It's cute the cat is sitting next to me. I should concentrate on strictly. Urgh work tomorrow. Yoga. I'm hungry. But I probabably don't need this extra food. Must hang the clothes up to dry..... There must be something good on.

That kind of stuff goes on in my head.

I don't have an internal monologue (dialogue?) either. I think in concepts and feelings rather than words and sentences.

There was a big Twitter discussion about this about a year ago. Those who have a voice and those who don't.

I do have lots of tabs open and family/Xmas/work stuff to think of, but I can always decide to turn it off and blur out the brain. It is really nice having silence in there.
If I do make a mistake or think I've upset someone though, that's harder to switch off.

In addition to that, I often feel I don't remember much. I remember important, factual things, but feelings or events that matter, I draw a blank.

I asked myself what thought I'd draw on to conjure up a patronus (if I'd gone to Hogwarts obvs) and I couldn't think of one.
DD being born was more relief than happiness!

@FredtheFerret

Yes to reading extremely quickly. Can read an average paperback book in a couple of hours. Totally absorbed in it.

Yes to being very good in a crisis - I suspect I've planned entirely in my head what to do in every conceivable situation, including zombie apocalypse, so I am always very calm, focused and able to deal with it.

Yes to being an utter introvert. Other people exhaust me and I need to spend my evenings sitting silently somewhere without having to talk/listen to noise.

Yes to having music in my head - and I dislike music. There are few songs I would listen to because it's just more noise, yet I often have songs I'm silently listening to in my head. It's one of the things I hate.

Does anyone NOT see pictures/images? I don't. When people have said in the past Ooh...imagine being on a tropical island.. I've always thought that was a figure of speech. It freaked me out to realise that most people can apparently picture stuff - because I can't. I couldn't picture my mother's face, for example. Or anything else. Obviously I know what she looks like, and I'd recognise her instantly but I can't see her in my mind's eye. Is that because my stupid brain is constantly talking/chatting/going over conversations, etc?

I can't see images in my head either and was shocked when I found out other people could. I have since discovered it's called aphantasia. I also have a constant inner dialogue and daydream all the time. I always daydream in meetings but can somehow bluff the answer! I'm a secret introvert and pretty sure I have ADD.