To ask: do you have an inner-monologue?

[allthatgrace]

I don't have an inner-monologue and never realised that some people do. My thoughts are rapid, abstract and conceptual rather than verbal.

For example, if I am thinking that I'm hungry and want to start making dinner it takes the form of something like: concept of hunger+concept of dinner+concept of it being the evening/dinner time. After speaking to my family members they would have an inner-voice that actually says "I'm hungry, I think I'll go start dinner".

I have also always been confused about the idea of having an inner-critic that berates you. I've never heard an inner-voice say, for example, "nobody cares what you have to say, don't bother speaking, everything you say is stupid", instead I would just feel the sensation of shyness and wanting to stay quiet.

I can make myself have an inner-voice and I will use it occasionally, for example if I'm trying to remember a particular phrase or something but my default thinking is not an inner-monologue.

Which kind of thoughts do you have?

@Heartofstrings

I've read the whole thread and so think I'm the first person to say this. I used to have a really active and racing internal monologue but in my mid twenties had a massive breakdown. Took me 12 months to recover. During this time I couldn't handle and external stimulus like tv or radio. I'm not sure when exactly, but the monologue also switched off at the same time. It's never returned. I now get nothing apart from the odd passing thought

That's so sad, and it's similar to what happened with my DP. He's an artist and apparently used to be really visual and pictured things in his head vividly. Then he got very sick a few years ago and developed a brain tumour and now he cant picture things in his head any more. He's still an artist and the most creative person I know, but I think his brain just processes things differently now. He says he misses the way he used to think :(

I wonder if those without an internal monologue would find being alone for any length of time more difficult?

I certainly don't. I have no internal monologue but that doesn't mean I have no thoughts. I enjoy my own company and have no problem entertaining myself.

How do you think about more complex stuff? - or do you switch over then

Whereas I cannot understand how you can get to grips with complex concepts if you have to put it all in to words. I can think about multiple, overlapping concepts but I’d have to slow it down and simplify them if I had to put it all into a stream of words and my understanding would be limited to the amount of words I could attach to it.

I wonder if those without an internal monologue would find being alone for any length of time more difficult

No because being alone with my thoughts is peaceful as there isn’t constant chatter There are still lots of thoughts. I would find it really hard to be alone if those thoughts were noisy.

Questions though for the mind talkers - would you say you were traditionally quite clever - in the sense of UK academic schooling ?
Is your mind faster than many other people you meet?
How is your mental maths?
Mental recall for pop songs or film actors?

Yes, I was very bright at school (but an underachiever as I was hopelessly distracted and badly organised around revision and exams). I think my mind is fast - I get frustrated when people can't think things through and reach conclusions instantly. My mental maths is average, but I have poor recall for anything visual like faces, so not good on actors. I also don't remember music very well, except if it's got lyrics that stick in my head - I remember the music by attaching it to the words, so rarely remember instrumental music.

Heartofstrings, I have had a similar experience in life. From childhood I was what I learnt is hypervigilant and also withdrawn and introverted but with a constant narration in my mind. I could not conceive how people coped with daily life without it. On the other hand I was also quick at analytic and abstract thinking but not so visually orientated and could not reproduce music although I recognised songs and tunes when I heard them. For shorthand i had a breakdown 20+ years ago in which I could not tolerate any outside stimulas - TV, radio etc. and totally withdrew from life. Having recovered from that there are aspects of my mental life that have changed forever. I used to be one of those told "you think too much" but now I can spend long periods without thinking about anything usually whe I am outside. Whether this is good or bad is a moot point.

Some of my mental reactions are still considered weird by many judging by some poor attempts at sharing I have made. EG is it really strange to enjoy watching/reading something and at the same time be considering or analysing your own emotional and intellectual reactions to the story, events, depiction whatever? I mean I don't care if it is unusual but I find it hard to take anything at face value. As the song said, "Is that all there is?" as opposed to "it is what it is" .

Oh I meant to mention, I have face-blindness also forget peoples' names even close family. I could not understand body-language when I was younger before I had even heard the term. Funnily enough what helped me a lot with that is the first series of Big Brother whe they had psychologists analyzing the participants' reactions and I could finally see what people had been telling me for years. About things like eye contact for example, I could never understand when people talked about the expression in someone's eye. So now I am much more socially aware and also visually literate.

Questions though for the mind talkers - would you say you were traditionally quite clever - in the sense of UK academic schooling ? Is your mind faster than many other people you meet? How is your mental maths? Mental recall for pop songs or film actors?

Yes. Oxbridge degree, speak 4 languages. Massive reader, very good verbal memory, good at learning large chunks of text off by heart, quick learner in general. Shit at maths, spatial stuff, directions etc though. I have to drive somewhere a gazillion times before I can remember the route. Oh and I have a quite shockingly bad long-term memory for events. I only have hazy, sporadic memories of things more than a few years ago! Basically, if it's not word-based, my brain doesn't retain it.

Questions though for the mind talkers - would you say you were traditionally quite clever - in the sense of UK academic schooling?

Yes and no - good at English and humanities, rubbish at maths and sciences.

Is your mind faster than many other people you meet?

Nope.

How is your mental maths?

Rubbish! I think I have a fear of maths, it's called something like numerolexic (?)

Mental recall for pop songs or film actors?

Pretty good I think

Btw belated apologies for being a bit snippy earlier, @HalcyonSea . I've only just come back to the thread. I still don't agree about the limitations of language, but we'll have to agree to differ!

As a linguist I find it fascinating to think about how people's thought processes might work in different languages - either differences between the thought processes of native speakers of different languages, or people who are fluent enough to think in more than one.

I speak 3 foreign languages comfortably. My fluency levels have varied a lot over the years depending on how much I've been using each of them though. I feel a bit like I put a very slightly different personality on in each language, and I definitely think it affects how I think about stuff. I quite often talk to myself in my head in my other languages, but that's more conscious and deliberate than my normal inner monologue in English.

*it's called Numerophobia

Yes I have an inner monologue, she's a complete and utter cow bag.

With reading, when I'm reading out loud to DD, I also read ahead in my head at the same time, then at some point the two get confused!

Questions though for the mind talkers - would you say you were traditionally quite clever - in the sense of UK academic schooling ?
Is your mind faster than many other people you meet?

How is your mental maths?
Mental recall for pop songs or film actors?

Fairly clever I suppose, but didn't do as well in school as expected because of the constant daydreaming.
Mental maths skills are pretty good but shit recall for people, not the greatest recall for songs.

I struggle at mental maths - I can’t visualise the numbers so I lose track. I need to write it out. Even just tracing a finger in the air helps. But weirdly I sometimes know the answer but not with enough certainty.

I was well above average in school but an under achiever in life. I need a lot of structure to keep focus.

@cateycloggs I don’t think that level of meta analysis is unusual. I’ve even had dreams where I’ve known I was dreaming and analysed the meaning of symbols within the dream.

Questions though for the mind talkers - would you say you were traditionally quite clever - in the sense of UK academic schooling ?

Very academically successful BUT in large part through hard work and determination alongside an aptitude for quick thinking and working under pressure. And crippling self doubt / a need to prove myself. I'm adopted and used to worry about getting 'sent back' which breaks my heart now!

Is your mind faster than many other people you meet?

Yes. I hate that it sounds arrogant but very much so. At points it's been my only source of self confidence and identity, particularly as a teen.

How is your mental maths?Mental recall for pop songs or film actors?

Ridiculously good at remembering songs, lyrics, names, links between famous people, fun facts. You want me on your team at a pub quiz! Unless it's geography or maths heavy, in which case I'm rubbish. It doesn't matter how much I try, those subjects don't naturally interest me so I can't apply them in real life. I got top marks in them at school through sheer determination and working myself to the ground doing so.

Have also been diagnosed with bipolar and ADHD. Had anorexia. Everything to the extreme!

I will read those answers back and cringe as my inbuilt self critical chip says I shouldn't speak highly of myself but those are my honest answers!

I struggle at mental maths - I can’t visualise the numbers so I lose track. I need to write it out. Even just tracing a finger in the air helps. But weirdly I sometimes know the answer but not with enough certainty.

This is EXACTLY my experience too, down to the using fingers, picturing them moving in my head to work out patterns and shapes when tackling mathematics. Also being able to separate out things like multiplication. For example I'll tackle the hundreds, tens and single numbers separately then be able to put them all together visually in my mind to come up with the answer. But that's through a true and tested process rather than coming naturally at all.

It is the only decent conversation I get, I often keep myself amused..☺️

Very active inner monologue, very good at maths and arithmetic. I do it by shape, so for instance I never learned my times tables by heart in primary school because I can calculate it more quickly by shape. I worked in statistical analysis and I could visualise data as three dimensional shapes by reading the tables, which was really handy for spotting errors.

Also freakishly good at remembering song lyrics from decades ago and I can hear the music in my head although I can't sing so I can't reproduce it. I remember having a conversation with the choir master at the local church and I said something that assumed that when he read music he heard it in his head, and he said he didn't. He could play or sing something that he'd never seen before, but he couldn't hear it in his mind he had to hear it from his piano or his voice. I can't read music, so I don't know whether I would hear it in my head, but I suspect I would.

I'm exactly the same as you, OP.

The only time conversational thoughts appear in my mind is when I want them to, when I'm reading (my mind creates a voice which reads to me) and when I'm writing, like this reply. Everything else is abstract.

Questions though for the mind talkers - would you say you were traditionally quite clever - in the sense of UK academic schooling?

Yes, didn’t achieve well in academia but have an IQ in top 3%

Is your mind faster than many other people you meet?

Yes - sounds horribly arrogant but yes

How is your mental maths?Mental recall for pop songs or film actors?

Weirdly good - especially in remembering lyrics, music, artists, albums etc. In particular I pick up lyrics to songs very quickly. I love music

Christ - I’m thick as all fuck.

Probably because I retreated into my own head at school to escape my rubbish life.

My memory is shit too - but that again is probably because I’m always off in my own world so I don’t remember real world stuff.

I struggle at mental maths - I can’t visualise the numbers so I lose track. I need to write it out. Even just tracing a finger in the air helps. But weirdly I sometimes know the answer but not with enough certainty.

I'm the same, I can't understand people who just know the answers to maths questions.

Questions though for the mind talkers - would you say you were traditionally quite clever - in the sense of UK academic schooling ? Is your mind faster than many other people you meet? How is your mental maths? Mental recall for pop songs or film actors?

I'm a 'mixed mode' thinker, I'd have said. Yes, 'clever' - top exam results in the school, a first and PhD. Pretty good all rounder but went for chemistry in part because it was the best combination of numerical and abstract concepts. Yes, quick thinker, was good at mental maths when I had to do a lot but mostly CBA now. Good at spatial rotations etc. Not very interested in pop songs but I can summon up nursery rhymes and hymns learned in childhood.

My memory isn't what it was though. Short term memorisation of eg a telephone number I tend to need to 'say' the numbers and then 'hear' them back. I don't 'say' the numbers when I'm doing maths though.

So many interesting replies, thank you. :)

For those that asked, I'm a scientist and would say I'm an introvert. I feel like my way of thinking has definitely helped me with science as I'm good at making links between different topics and weaving it into my general knowledge/understanding.

I do think my mind works very quickly though. I feel like it's most visible through in conversations. In group settings I'm always the first to laugh at a joke or to affirm that I understand something being taught/explained to us. However, on the other hand I struggle with just accepting things at face value. I have to know the 'why' and 'how' and how it fits into other concepts I know about. I feel like all my thoughts are within a giant spider's web and I need to know how they fit and link in with other things.

My mind is very quiet. I can sit with my thoughts but often get bored and like music or some form of distraction. Meditation is easy for me and I fall asleep within minutes.

Wonder what the breakdown is between men and women on this?