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 definitely don’t have a constant voice talking in my head, but there are never no thoughts. I’m constantly thinking, just not always in words. I can think using words and my inner voice but it’s much quicker to think without words.

So to all the people who are asking if it’s quiet without constant voices in your head, it’s definitely not quiet. It’s not an absence of thought.

How do you work through options and solutions to problems quickly if you have to have all your thoughts by saying them in your head? Doesn’t that take ages?

.....

Not everything is in words for me.

So if I'm (for example) putting together IKEA furniture I might crack on with it without any words.

Yeah. It's a mix. I write scientific software and I definitely don't come up with what I'm going to do in words - sometimes it's sort of visualising what I need to do, sometimes... well, probably by definition hard to put into words what exactly the nonverbal thinking is! Sometimes I'll be doing the garden or making dinner and verbally think 'oh yes, I know what to do...'

Our ancestors must have been able to think before they had words. I suspect that for most people there must be a lot more non verbal thinking going on than you realise.

@Bluebutterfly36

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?

Oh wow that one sounds scary!

They don't tend to correlate with real life at all, though I have a few times told myself what to dream about and I have done.

I remember them to the extent I would remember a film - I can remember all of this week's for example, and a few of the last months particularly weird ones.

They are so specific, so random and so all consuming that it baffles me!

I have epilepsy too and nights I have seizures that experience is tenfold. My neurologist mentioned that my body seems to try and make sense of the seizures through dreams - so if I have a dream I'm flying through the air for example, I'll now notice that in the morning my wrists and ankles are particularly sore and my partner will
Confirm that in that particular overnight seizure I was massively flexing those joints downwards as if pushing up. Hence the feeling of projecting through the air.

I love our brains, they're incredible.

I've also had a dream of a children's book plot which was then picked up and published. Ditto with ideas for work campaigns sometimes - which then feels a bit like cheating as was it 'me' or dream me who came up with the concept?!

@FortunesFave

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

It drives me bonkers at times!

OMG I should have RTFT earlier - this is exactly what I was referring to in my earlier post, but I thought I was a complete weirdo and nobody else ever did it....!

I think I did it more as a child - but nice to know I'm not totally odd.....

So interesting, my husband doesn’t read the same way as me- I read aloud in my head and he doesn’t he said she just sees the worlds and knows the meanings like @Bluebutterfly36 described. Also no internal chitter or monologue for him unlike me , there’s times he says he seeing my mouth move as if I’m chatting to myself silently- most likely going over a conversation- real or not!

@Teenagehorrorbag me too. It is like a very very boring book.

@LadyCatStark

Yes always, I think that’s why I find it so hard to switch off and go to sleep. I can’t see pictures in my mind though. I also write Facebook statuses and MN threads in my mind that I never actually post 😂.

To those people who don’t have an inner monologue or see pictures in their mind, how do you have thoughts?

Yes to the Facebook and Mumsnet thing! My internal dialogue externalises when I'm alone (rarely!) and I find myself saying 'Let's have a cup of tea' 'oh nice idea'... I'm a word person, love all things verbal, rubbish at visuals - and mildly prosopagnosic, so don't remember faces well.

Yes, JD from Scrubs style. And I also move my lips on occasions when I'm having conversations between myself and what I'm imagining another person saying DH has no idea

I have a monologue which becomes an ensemble cast and also several films playing in my head along with Queen and David Bowie.

Sometimes it's like a stage version of "Whatever happened to Baby Jane?" in here.

@PinkBuffalo

I think I am the same as you op I really do not think I have an inner monologue. We were talking about it at work and my colleagues were saying all the constant sort of things in their head and I was amazed! I wonder how much of this has to do with maybe me being autistic and I also stim a LOT including verbal/vocal I am amazed that some people have constant chatter in their head I would find it exhausting

I really should have RTFT before posting earlier. I mentioned my ASD DS (and non-ASD DD, and DH) all think in visual ways rather than words. I can't relate to that as all my thoughts are verbal, (albeit silent) and as I said earlier, I have often wondered how deaf people can dream....?

As per my earlier post - Temple Grandin thinks in video clips. Maybe that is a common trait for autistic people?

I talk to myself ALL the time! 😊

I question why I did or didn’t do something. I replay situations in my head and go over the outcome and how I wish I’d done it differently, sometime I say what I really wanted to say but didn’t.

Sometimes I talk out loud to myself and my children will say ‘mummy’s talking to herself again’ 😊 and I always say ‘I have to coz no one else listens’ 😊

@Mrsdarwin

Even reading this I have an inner monologue going. I didn’t realise there was a different way of your brain functioning until a few years ago.

I would love to understand the visual image or how it works more.

If you are annoyed at someone and think to yourself they are a twat, what happens in that sort of situation?

When you need to make a decision between two chocolate bars in the supermarket how does this work?

For the first I literally just think to my self they are a twat and try not let it show on my face
Second I would have an inner conversation about which I prefer / what did I have last / which one I fancy more etc

"If you are annoyed at someone and think to yourself they are a twat, what happens in that sort of situation?" - It would be something like a mind map of conceptual thoughts. For example, if I was annoyed at a driver who overtook me and sped past in a way I thought was dangerous then the first thought would recognise that they were speeding unnecessarily, which would link to the concept that speeding is dangerous which would lead to the concept that they are being reckless and therefore I am annoyed at them. It's almost like there is a huge mind map of concepts in my head and once I jump onto the idea that someone is doing something annoying it links in with all the other resulting thoughts.

"When you need to make a decision between two chocolate bars in the supermarket how does this work?" -
Again, it would be conceptual. With situations like this is almost feels instinctual, I can just pick and know in my head I've quickly weighed up all the different attributes - taste, price, any offers, etc.

@youvegottenminuteslynn Wow! You have an amazing subconscious mind! I agree brains are incredible. Interesting that you have been able to tell yourself what to dream about. A friend who is a hypnotherapist told me that if you are struggling with a decision or don’t know what to do in a situation, you can try asking for a solution in a dream. So basically your subconscious mind can work on the problem while you are asleep. I think you would be an excellent person to test this theory!

Yes. A constant stream of consciousness that sometimes causes insomnia. Every thought is in my voice as though I'm speaking to myself with some pictures /videos etc recalled from memory.

I literally cannot stop thinking unless I'm asleep. Always words. Closest thing I have found is saying the words 'blank mind' over and over to drown out the rest.

Critical thoughts are common and I sometimes argue with one me with another me over them. Sometimes I nickname the meaner thoughts as 'the gremlin' to distance it from my innerself. But it's all just me.

I have extremely vivid and bizarre dreams with a lot of impossible situations and often wake up in a cold sweat. I have also lucid dreamt a number of times.

Oh it does switch off 90% when reading a good book. Then I'm in the story like a video with occasional observations in sentence form.

[quote youvegottenminuteslynn]@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. [/quote]
Absolutely couldn't do this at all....

As a PP said, I have prosopagnosia so maybe there is a link between poor visual skills and enhanced aural abilities? Amazing how we can all do things differently.....

@Iyland

What do people mean about visualising? I've never been able to conjure up an image but can others? It's more abstract for me in that sense. Can people actually picture things like a screen?

Hmmm almost but not quite, it's a very clear image/clip but not in front of my eyes. It's like it's at the back of my head like a projector screen but my eyes don't see anything, my brain sees it as an image.

I also struggle with visualising things.

I wouldn't say I can't see at all, but what I can see is very hazy and takes a lot (and I mean a lot!) of mental effort to see and sustain the image. If I tried to imagine a forest my mind's eye can only hang onto certain aspects of that image for maybe a second or two for example I may see the green leaves for a second, then the tree trunks for a second, then the ground for a second. It feels very uncomfortable trying to hold onto those images in my head. I could never combine them all into one holistic image of a forest either, I can only see separate components of the forest.

I have an outer monologue. As in whatever is going through my head, I usually say out loud.

@CorianderBee there's a great book called Subpersonalities by John Rowan. Your 'gremlin' strategy reminds me of it 😃

I can visualise with my eyes open but if I close them and try to picture something, it's just not possible no matter how hard I try! All I see then is blackness.

[quote baroqueandblue]@CorianderBee there's a great book called Subpersonalities by John Rowan. Your 'gremlin' strategy reminds me of it 😃[/quote]
I should take a look. It was a coping mechanism at one point but now it's just much nicer to tell those thoughts and the gremlin to F off.

I have a constant inner monologue, it never stops talking. To get to sleep I have to focus on my breathing and still the voice will narrate my breathing but otherwise it just goes off and has random conversations and arguments in my mind.

It fascinates me that people don't talk to themselves like I do but I imagine it's so much easier and calmer inside your head.

How do you read? I speak the words in my head. There's words that I don't know what they actually sound like but I read a "made up" version in my head, things I've never needed to say but have read and then I hear someone else read it and I'm like, oh that's what its meant to sound like!

I'm autistic and a terrible day dreamer. I can do something else, some kind of visualisation or minds eye thing, can't remember what it's called. But I can see the things I think. I do maths by putting up a kind of white board and doing the workings out on it, I can see it and do one equation, then a different one but still have the writing from the first on the board so I can reuse those numbers. And I can put like 3d shapes up and move them around as though they're like a hologram. But I can't think if there's noise in the room my brain just locks onto that noise and plays it over and over even once it's stopped.

And the way I find lost things is to bring up the image of where i last saw it. And work out where it is from what else I can see with it.

@OhWhyNot

Oh yes

Adrian Dunbar and I have been talking all afternoon about how LOD should have ended last night. I visualise this too. I’m quite the daydreamer

This is more like my inner voice. I'm not having a conversation with myself but with someone else - not always defined. And they're there with me everywhere - walking, driving, on the train. Often the same person for years and then they can change. Sometimes, I'm talking to someone in real life and wish they'd shut up because my private conversation is more interesting.

I used to have very developed daydreams, often going over the same plot for days on end to it refine all but that seems to have stopped a lot in last few years. I miss them.