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?

I even play music in my head all the time...! Can be v annoying

When I read, I don’t read the words by saying then in my head, I just absorb the meaning.

This is FASCINATING to me and sounds so incredible smart.

I see the words in my head and more often than not project the images they conjure up onto a sort of projector screen in my brain so I see them being acted out.

If that even makes sense?!

Our brains are amazing, so unique in how we process the information we are presented with.

I also subconsciously word associate to the point I have to stop myself continuing or it would be an infinite chain of words. So for example I'm going to type how my brain is working right now - I'm thinking chain, chain of fools, aretha, Motown, records, breaker, breaker breaker, radio, star, space, raiders, Indiana Jones, movie, cinema, lockdown, covid, ill, sick, threads, needle, haystack, farmer... it's TIRING.

@DazzlingHaze

I have a constant inner monologue and I was so surprised when I found out not everyone has it! I find it very annoying at times as I can't control it. I can't meditate properly because I can't clear my mind. Even when I try the voice is going "Come on, just empty your mind. How hard can it be?" Like another poster, I also daydream a lot and have a few vivid scenarios I've been adding to for years and years. I wouldn't call it maladaptive daydreaming as I don't feel it negatively impacts my life.

I also pretty much always have a song running in my head. It changes a lot but there always seems to be some song playing. I usually will wake up with a song in my head and when I dream I can hear songs and sing along with all the correct words. My DP has told me I sing in my sleep sometimes if I concentrate I can play full songs in my head and hear all the instrumentation. When I was at school our R.E teacher used to make us read really boring textbooks for entire periods and to pass the time I would choose an album I liked and play it in my head.

Yes! Always have music coming on. So so so annoying

@pinkbuffallo
I'm also autistic and my brain never shuts up. Constant chatter and songs lyrics.

Yes. I tell myself stories in my head before I can sleep. I have done it all my life the stories evolve but sometimes I tell the same part over and over again to get it just right.

I have a constant one too - it never shuts up!

@apalledandshocked

Like a screen, but its 3-d and interactive if that makes sense. So I can imagine a flat image of a kettle. I can then make it an actual 3-d kettle, I can pull the kettle closer to me or rotate it. I can put it in a kitchen. I can then put the kitchen around me so I am standing in the kitchen with the kettle in front of me. Wierdly I can then get rid of the kitchen but I cant make the kettle 2-d again. All I can do is turn it into a picture of a kettle but then its an actual picture on a piece of paper and the paper is 3-d

EXACTLY this for me. I can manipulate the image in the way you describe, so change the colour, size etc. I thought everyone could do this bit so it's fascinating to hear that other people don't.

I narrate myself a lot. "She walked down the stairs and turned the light on. It was raining..."

I do this too, slightly differently though - it’s as if I’m describing myself to someone else.

Much as my.p brain does chatter I find it quite easy to stop thinking. I can have quite long periods of “brain silence” if I want, although it’s a conscious effort.

I do this before I fall asleep (probably makes me crazy)

A-Z of counties
A-Z of world cities
A-Z names

It takes me a while to get to sleep and this my version of counting sheep

[quote DazzlingHaze]@gah2teenagers how strange, we just posted about the song thing at the same time! [/quote]
I definitely can’t play a whole album !

@Gilead

Most of the time my eyes skim over several words and I understand the meaning so I process the meaning of a sentence rather than hear the individual words. If I'm struggling to concentrate I will have to slow down and read the words in my head, but I find that frustrating to do. I’m sorry, I don’t understand what’s happening in your head when your (nearest I can get) assimilating the words on the page.

@gilead I do this too. I can skim-read hundreds of pages of text very quickly and just pick out the relevant bits I need to know (and ignore the rest). My brain just subconsciously processes the words without me registering them as words. I would not skim read like this if reading a book to relax, but I still read quickly - the images from the words just appear instantly in my mind without the words forming. I’m not sure if that is a very good explanation

I also have incredibly vivid dreams and always remember them, in detail, the next day. They are honestly cinematic in detail and complexity - to the point I am impressed my brain can conjure them up! Is this something most people experience? If not, what does dreaming look like to you?

I am a visual thinker and see myself having conversations - I am also a maladaptive daydreamer. It's fun in my head sometimes - but it never bloody stops

@gah2teenagers
I always have a song, at all times. I monologue over the song and it's there when I'm not thinking of anything in particular.

@wheresmymojo “The voice inside my head is much quicker than talking out loud though I think because you're not actually having to sound anything out.”

I think that’s what I’m saying - I’m constantly thinking, but definitely not sounding out all the words. The inner monologue people seem to be saying there are always words going on in their heads

Mine is constant and can be very intrusive when I’m tired. It shouts and sings loudly so I can’t sleep then I get more tired and it goes on and on. Often Beethoven’s 5th. I’m not musical, I never listen to music so it’s all the more frustrating. Over the last few years ive trained it to tell me bedtime stories and I can drop off in 5 mins like that. It’s a good storyteller.

As my kids have got older and sat in the front passenger seat of the car they have noticed than, as I’m driving (automatic) I use my left hand to gesture....in the conversation that I am having with myself.

I can also remember things that I have read pretty much exactly as I have read them. So as I remember it is as if I have the book open and I’m reading from it again. My auditory processing for things that I have heard is much worse. DP on the other hand can recall exactly dialogue that he has heard in a film or as apart of a conversation.

I'm the same as you Op. I didn't realise people had an inner monologue until a couple of years ago when a friend was diagnosed with anxiety and depression and was reading a self help book that she said perfectly described what was going on in her head - I tried reading it but couldn't get into it as it just wasn't something I've ever experienced.

I massively talk in my head, and when I was young I would talk in the third person - as in 'she walked down the street to see her friend....' etc. That started about age 3 and I think carried on until about 10.

I am a very aural person - always revised for exams best by talking through with peers and testing each other etc. I love listening to the radio. I have often wondered how deaf people can dream because my dreams are very chatty. But then I could say the same about blindness....?

When I was in France I would find my inner monologue being in French - albeit very bad French....

My DCs are not aural at all. DS is autistic. After reading Temple Grandin, she says she sees everything like a video clip, so maybe DS does too. I found that fascinating but couldn't relate - but DD is not autistic and yet she says she is the same. She doesn't think in words, but pictures. It opened my eyes to how different we all are....

But I know other people are different.

I can identify with pretty much everyone on here who has said they have ADHD, which is quite shocking for me. Perhaps I need to look into it, might explain a lot of my struggles.

My inner voice is constant and not just my own either! I even frequently imagine what people who overlook me and can see through my windows are thinking about what I'm doing as I do it. Pretty much every move I make is announced to myself beforehand, and then accompanied by other thoughts that I can hear as I'm doing stuff. Definitely a verbal processor, in fact I rarely just look at objects, usually I'm aware of the word for the object as I look at it. I dream a fair bit and have very visual memories of them, but I struggle to visualize deliberately. It's more that I can see what I'm thinking of on some faint layer of awareness that's not in the forefront of my mind.

Constantly ruminate on all sorts of memories, mistakes, regrets, dead people, anxieties, and it's all verbal. Everything I read I 'hear' in my head, predominantly in my own voice but will also do accents and stuff for characters. When watching telly I have a pretty constant commentary going on.

I could say so much more about this, but the realisation that some people don't experience day to day life in this way is astounding to me, and very poignant. I can't even hold a job down because of the way my mind works, I imagine the worst about what people are thinking of me so much that I then can't believe it's not real. And mostly that side of things is persecutory.

@youvegottenminuteslynn

I also have incredibly vivid dreams and always remember them, in detail, the next day. They are honestly cinematic in detail and complexity - to the point I am impressed my brain can conjure them up! Is this something most people experience? If not, what does dreaming look like to you?

@ youvegottenminuteslynn that is absolutely fascinating and very unusual to remember them the next day, especially in detail? I always forget mine within a few hours of waking or just hazy recollections. I am really intrigued by dreams! My worst one was when I dreamt I was made of ice and I was slowly melting!! Do you think your dreams have any connection to real life?

I have near constant dialogue with myself in my head unless focused on an intricate task. I'm a chronic daydreamer and procrastinator. An old housemate of mine said she used to solely think in colours, images and numbers which I just couldn't understand!

I have asphantia and do not have an inner monologue - wonder if the 2 are connected

I do replay conversations in my head if I am troubled by them and 'rewrite' them or plan a tricky conversation I might be due to have but generally no, I would never say to myself 'oh I'm hungry, it's dinner time, better go and make some food's- it is definitely just abstract concepts as the OP describes.

I cannot visualise anything at all which is pretty shit tbh. I probably border on being a maladaptive daydreamer but there are no proper visual images attached to them (weird I know) - but I can still 'see' what is happening and put words to it and could describe it perfectly but can't actually picture it. God knows how much time I would spend daydreaming if I could actually see them

@Shadedog

Mine is constant and can be very intrusive when I’m tired. It shouts and sings loudly so I can’t sleep then I get more tired and it goes on and on. Often Beethoven’s 5th. I’m not musical, I never listen to music so it’s all the more frustrating. Over the last few years ive trained it to tell me bedtime stories and I can drop off in 5 mins like that. It’s a good storyteller.

OMG that is so me! It only sings songs that I've heard recently - but the DCs know not to sing certain earworms near me or I will suffer for hours. But I do have a couple of stories that I tell myself when I want to go to sleep - because it will stop me thinking about other things that keep me awake.

Are we weird - I thought everyone had this?

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