To not believe that some people don't have an internal monologue?

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Even though I've just read this:

ryanandrewlangdon.wordpress.com/2020/01/28/today-i-learned-that-not-everyone-has-an-internal-monologue-and-it-has-ruined-my-day/

I can't quite understand if. Hoping some MNs of the non-monologue type can help me out.

Especially with the reading part.

When I'm reading descriptions fast I don't properly say the words in my head, more of a picture forms I guess. But I'm hearing any dialogue words.

And chattering away to myself in my head all day long. Must be nice not to!

When I was a child I did have a calming mantra that would 'play' in my head all the time and I would also do compulsive word games. But no dialogue whatever I'm doing.

Re pp asking about the supermarket thing: if I was choosing a product, I would think "hmm, need bread, check the reduced shelf, bother nothing decent, do I buy the unsliced this week, ooh look they've got hot cross buns, maybe I could get those, no come on Potato get on with it, right I'd better get the harvest grain" then I'd just put out my arm and pop it in my basket - it doesn't take deliberate thought to pick up the thing!

hmm, need bread, check the reduced shelf, bother nothing decent, do I buy the unsliced this week, ooh look they've got hot cross buns, maybe I could get those, no come on Potato get on with it, right I'd better get the harvest grain

You think all this at what speed? Like, as if you’re reading aloud, except instead of the words forming in your mouth they’re forming in your mind?

I’ll go through the same process and get to the same result (need bread, consider options for bread, reach for bread) but I don’t formulate all those words in my head. It’s like.
Split second: need bread check reduced shelf
Another split second: what do I want then? Unsliced or hot cross buns, or potato bread?
Another split second: just the harvest loaf

At the same time, in between the split second thoughts on bread, because my body can’t move as fast as my brain, I’ll be having split second thoughts on where in the supermarket I’m going next, and other things. The book I’m reading and what the toddler’s doing and shit I wish I’d booked an online delivery because there’s a queue forming at the checkout; but none of these at reading aloud speed, just whole thoughts at lightening speed, which I may then concentrate on for longer (get phone out and add notification to book grocery delivery next week).

I’m often frustrated that other people make decisions slowly, or act slowly. Maybe this is why. And I’m a deep thinker, and have to think at a high level for work, and all my hobbies are thinking based. But limiting thought to an “internal monologue” in the way it’s discussed here sounds ponderous.. like reading aloud when you could be reading in your head (where I take in chunks of text at a time.)
It’s not that I can’t think slowly in a voice. I can. But it takes conscious effort and it’s boring. Like pushing a bike rather than riding it.

Another thing, I dislike books written in first person because they never seem “real” for how a person thinks and experiences the world. Yet I know they’re very popular. They have to be written with an internal monologue structure like people who think at speech-speed, so do those who do so, who like reading, enjoy those kind of books more? (“I went downstairs wondering that the smell was...”)

I think I think it at speech speed, because I tend to do it out loud sometimes if I'm by myself. But yes, I am a very slow shopper. Incidentally though, when I am analysing a piece of literature (language student) I don't think "oh look, a metaphor, is that anaphora, I wonder what the effect of that is" I just scribble down "metaphor->common in 17th C drama -> used in different way -> emphasises xyz" so this kind of academic thinking I do in writing

So what’s happening to the speech-speed-internal-voice while you’re analysing? Is it chatting away about something else - surely not because that would be so intrusive and you wouldn’t be as successful academically as you are (recognise you from higher ed threads!) Is it that it turns off while you read? And can you consciously turn it off at other times and think more... intuitively is the only word I can think to describe it?

This is fascinating.

I don't know what happens to it when I'm thinking by writing. I think it gets replaced by the writing. Sometimes the monologue starts up about something else, which is as you say very intrusive and distracting, so if this is happening a lot (when I'm anxious / stressed) I put music on to distract that bit of my brain as pps have mentioned. I do use the monologue to think through more complex (essay) questions though, as if I'm talking about them to someone else. In exams I just focus on the thinking by writing and the adrenaline takes over. I can't switch it off when I'm not writing though.

Duex

friend thinks I have a great memory (I don’t!) but it’s not so much for events but words and conversations I’ve had with people. So I might meet someone casually and they’ll tell me about their cat called Romeo and they have to have an operation and they’re taking them to some specialist place and their car is In the garbage but Bob's sprained his arm ... blah blah. Then I’ll meet them 9 months later and I’ll remember all that detail. And my friend is like, whoa how did you remember all that?

I'm like that it's like conversations go into a tape player in my head. It is frustrating though as I have noticed some people often tell lies (mainly small ones) and I wonder if they are doing it intentionally or they just get caught up in the moment, nevertheless it makes me dislike these people as I am very black and white when it comes to lies myself. I have a particular friend who will flippantly make remarks and I have to bite my tongue a lot as I would just sound like an anal idiot if I pulled her up on it every time particularly as they're often things that don't affect me but equally it is very hard for me to listen to as While she's speaking my inner voice is saying, "that's not what you said 3 years ago" also has caused difficulty with DH as he'll say he didn't say such and such and I know for a fact he did and I'll remember what room we were in and where we were standing etc

Im pretty good at learning languages (not really tried but pick things up easily)

Mimic voices and accents easily

However my sense of direction is shocking and I'm pretty face blind (which is really embarrassing)

Also I can follow the concepts of basic maths (eg GCSE level) but my working memory for numbers is crap, so if I have to work out a 2 part sum in my head I work the first part out but then have nowhere to 'put' that number IYSWIM I've even tried to visualise it by imagining writing it on a blackboard or piece of paper while I work the second part out but when I 'look' for the first bit it's like someone has rubbed it out

On the other hand give me an easy title and I'll have written it in my head in a couple of minutes and my hand can barely keep up!

Hence this essay!

notthelang
I process at breakneck speed too. My supermarket experience is the same as yours.
I only really think at normal speed in the shower, or when driving the car. The rest of the time I live in the moment and my mind is pretty blank. I react to external sources.
I never hear music though. That blows my mind.

Dd says that she's exhausted all the time as her mind has arguments with itself all the time. She has some anxiety. Is it the chicken or the egg? Does this create the anxiety or is it a result of the anxiety?

If I'm worried about something I may wake in the night and the worry goes round in a loop. occasionally in the night this may happen with inconsequential things. If this sort of thinking is normal for people during the day, then that's quite exhausting. I'm not sure I like a busy mind.

You think all this at what speed? Like, as if you’re reading aloud, except instead of the words forming in your mouth they’re forming in your mind?

I'd have said yes until recently, when I was driving at 70 and noticed an obstruction up ahead. I was aware of my inner voice saying, "Oh, what's happening there? He's stopped, better move across (checked mirror, signalled and moved without internal comment), brake because the people in front haven't seen it and will need to move too, should put hazard warners on for those behind"

Afterwards I realised that the above internal conversation can't have taken more than 5 or so seconds but seemed like it happened at normal speech speed. Very odd.

Different people definitely have different processing speeds - after all, you can have a processing speed disorder.

I am pretty sure that I have a very fast processing speed, and I think it's why I was always excellent at exams. I am now wondering if the apparently relative calm in my head, compared to what other people are describing, is why?

I don't think that being a faster processor makes you cleverer, though it can quite often make you seem superficially more intelligent.

This is super interesting and something I'd never thought about!

I hear my voice when I am reading, like through the comments in this thread, etc., but when I think it's more... abstract? Pictorial? I don't know how to describe it but I'm not hearing my voice (or any voice) at all.

My husbands thinks it odd my reading voice in my head is not in my own voice. It’s a unique reading voice and it’s more of a mans voice than mine. An old man.
My internal monologue is my voice but more animated.

I've only read the first 100 posts (I'll come back to it) but I have a typical what they call chatterbox brain. It's a symptom of ADHD for me but it just feels normal! I have spotted at least two other posters on here I'd make a good bet were adhd as well from their descriptions of their minds.

It's like a busy pub, there are several conversations going at once. Even though I'm scrolling through my phone reading this thread I'm imagining my response to each comment or having a little wander off into a memory or train of thought as I'm reading the next post in the thread. I don't find the phone occupies my internal monologue! It just gives it something to pick apart! If I didn't have that it would be something out of the window, a thought about something I've recently done or is upcoming, other passengers on the bus, train etc.

I'm not introverted either. In fact my brain is so noisy I can focus better by typing or writing something out or discussing it out loud. That helps me isolate one train of thought rather than getting carried away with one of the others.

In school I could sort of flick a switch in my head between history/English word based thinking and physics/maths abstract thinking. When I struggle to grasp a new concept I can feel my brain is stuck in the wrong mode.

Sleep deprivation played havoc with me. I couldn’t read maps properly because my brain wouldn’t shut up.

If I’m writing I need the thoughts to flow onto the page rather than rattle round my head. I’ve had writers block when my head won’t shut up, and conversely written arguments and dialogue that I didn’t consciously imagine before hand.

I find that interacting with some people leaves a residue behind and I’ll keep replaying parts of their conversation for a while. It doesn’t happen with everyone though.

Wow this is very interesting. The only person I can really relate to is @thegreyinthiscity
There is definitely no wordy internal monologue in my head, the thoughts are just 'there' in an abstract sense, no words attached.
DH thinks more systematically and does things likes practices conversations in his head. It drives me crazy as I find it slow and pointless (I don't tell him this, not a total bitch!)

‘Re pp asking about the supermarket thing: if I was choosing a product, I would think "hmm, need bread, check the reduced shelf, bother nothing decent, do I buy the unsliced this week, ooh look they've got hot cross buns, maybe I could get those, no come on Potato get on with it, right I'd better get the harvest grain" then I'd just put out my arm and pop it in my basket - it doesn't take deliberate thought to pick up the thing!‘

But in order to notice they have hot cross buns and harvest grain, you have to know what the supermarket has in stock, which means you have to think about everything that is in the supermarket. If the only things you are thinking is what is above, you’re missing the vast majority of information that people who think on a more abstract level are taking in.

I mean, how did you get from check the reduced shelf to nothing decent. You must have thought enough to recognise each individual product as what it was and then made a decision to reject it.

So either you think about everything out loud and shopping takes you hours and hours, or your internal voice is one of those fast forward signs, or 99.9% of the shop is a non observed blur, or the majority of your thinking is in the abstract and the thinking done by the voice is just a small part of your thinking.

Wow I'd never thought about it properly! Yes presumably there is thinking going on apart from the monologue, perceiving etc. Not everything is in the monologue, that would take forever. But I don't know I'm thinking the rest of it

To the poster who asked if you don't have an internal voice how do you plan what to say, I have a constant internal monologue and rarely plan anything, least of all what to say (which causes endless stugggles). Trying to plan actually makes my head hurt.

I am not sure that your thinking modality:words/pictures/concepts/feelings is related to any neuro divergence - it seems from this thread they are 2 separate paradigms eg both an NT person and an ND person can think in words but not pictures and vice versa?

I don't have an internal voice at all, nor do I visualise images. I read very quickly, can memorise and recall things perfectly and write and analyse fiction easily ( as well as teach!)

However, i just do not have any internal voice or vision at all. I can't even "see" my children without a photo. I could describe them in words, though. Similarly, I can write a beautiful beach vista but I don't see it at all.

I easily think in visuals, and I can have words, but it’s certainly not a continual monologue.
So if I need to get something done I might think “Time to get the dinner on” , but generally it’s thoughts that aren’t words.
So to illustrate, just now a friend of mine who is struggling at the moment popped into my mind, and in response I thought, in words “ Oh yes, Julia is having that meeting with her manager tomorrow, I’ll call her later “.

The sort of mind I have is able to take on information quickly, and likes overview, but hates detail.

My biggest strength is emotional intelligence. I’m perceptive about people and can spot a wrong un a mile off! I always know instinctively who to trust, and my children are the same.

I think that both the monologue in everyday decisions and the writing in academic work function as a kind of summary of all the unnoticed thoughts and perceptions of the state of the reduced shelf/ if I can see a metaphor etc. There must be more thinking going on than I can speak or write.

This is BLOWING MY MIND.

I've always wondered about it, though – always been fascinated by the way, when people say 'think about it', I just sit and wait for a bit and then an answer will pop through the quiet. There's very rarely any step-by-step processing for me, just waiting and then BAM.

I have feelings about things, and responses to things, but I wouldn't call them a monologue, at all.

@NotTheLangCleg yours is the closes to my experience, so far.

I'd say 80% of my thoughts are abstract concepts.

If I'm writing, the only words that come into my head are MAYBE the next 3 or 4. The rest is still waiting in the 'back office' in concept form, until the beginning of the sentence comes out and there's space for a few more words.

This is Interesting and mind blown. Explains why I'm an ovetthinker as I have a whole world in my head..some of it is real life, some is fantasy..I can watch or do something and imagine something else in my head, if i have an argument with someone i finish it or redo it in my head-both sides. I'm always thinking of something whether it's real stuff or fantasy.
People who dont have an inner voice. Is it silent? So there is like a blank? Just nothing? Silence? I csnt imagine it. I feel that is so stress less, but at the same time maybe lonely? Like I can entertain myself for hours lol also as I'm typing this I can hear it in my head. Maybe I'm crazy 🤔

I can watch or do something and imagine something else in my head, if i have an argument with someone i finish it or redo it in my head-both sides

Can't speak for others, but sure, I can do those things too... I can imagine things in my head and recreate arguments, but that's if I choose to imagine those things – it's not a constant involuntary noise.