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?

[quote MummyInTheNecropolis]@HalcyonSea thank you, that’s interesting. My memories are also smells, sounds, feelings etc, it’s not all just words at all. It’s just some people are saying they don’t picture anything in their minds, nor do they hear anything. I see and hear my dad so clearly, I feel like I would miss him so much more if I couldn’t.[/quote]
I think not picturing things in your mind is a totally separate thing to not having this voice in your head/ monologue thing.

For the separate picturing in your mind issue there is a test you can do.

aphantasia.com/vviq/

Also @MummyInTheNecropolis I'm so sorry about your Dad.

‘I have a constant inner monologue. I'm also a maladaptive daydreamer though and I don't think you can be a daydreamer without one.’

I am a maladaptive daydreamer and don’t have an internal monologue. A large part of daydreaming is feeling the emotions of your characters. Most of what people are isn’t expressed in their words.

I feel that having an internal monologue would slow me down and reduce the complexity and range of my thoughts.

Yes, I find it hard to contemplate not having one. Is your mind constantly quiet? I think about things and mentally debate. I find it hard to get to sleep because my mind won't stop or be quiet.

My thoughts are I guess 99% accompanied by an internal verbal monologue. But thinking about it, I guess you are right, Halcyon, it IS limiting to think this way, and now I come to think of it, I do have thoughts/feelings that there are no words for, and which kind of manifest as colours, patterns, or something. I remember when living abroad and learning another language, it struck me that some sentences don't translate exactly to/from English, and that therefore the actual thoughts and feelings of people in that country must be slightly different because the words those thoughts are made of have a different nuance. Very strange.

Yes, I have one. Sometimes it spills over into real-life words or gestures, which gets me some odd looks.

This blows my mind. I’m pretty sure I don’t have one. So, you all have constant internal chatter?!

@Bluebutterfly36, thank you. I’m hyperlexic but still experience the words in my head.

@Bluebutterfly36 that’s so interesting. Sounds lovely!

Someone mentioned anxiety earlier. I do suffer with anxiety, sometimes quite badly and sometimes it’s ok. The chatter is a big part of it.

This is so interesting but I can't quite understand what it's like to not have an internal monologue!

I have constant chatter, music (some ear worms that I don't like), constant conversations, visual images, intrusive thoughts. It never stops and it is tiring, if I try to imagine silence I'll literally be say stuff like "nope not silent, I'm still talking"

I have conversations with myself like just now

"It's so annoying having a face and head to get ready every day, I wish I had a gallery of heads and I could just pick one like (then I visually imagine the film Return to Oz but don't say it)

Then I reply "that would be amazing"

"I know"

It sounds like I'm a bit mad now! I do gestures and lip read if I'm angry and the thoughts are too big but also I can imagine words before I say them as it's quicker sometimes!

My head is usually chuntering to itself, with earworms of music going on... like Radio Bogroll
There's a lot of visual stuff going on too.
Also the concept stuff.

I'll be driving along, singing on autopilot to the radio, head chuntering on, possibly listening to DS1 and controlling the car. I have a completely clean driving record so far so there must be enough due care and attention going on.

I can find group conversation hard to follow as it's hard to interject and my head plans what it wants to say and I never fit it in, or if it's hard to hear (background noise, soft voices, lack of lip reading) my inner voice can dominate over the actual input.

I like reading and actual radio to fill my head with something more directed. It's why I MN too much because it fills my head. A couple of days ago, I went to mow the lawn and my head continued on my unposted the theme of a thread that I'd been reading.
I'm not a fan of silence, not helped by tinnitus. I find it easier to go to sleep to music, or I'll run a story through my head, although that.gets stuck easily.

DS1 has ASD. I asked him about his internal voice and his is strong. He was worried that he'd be in trouble at school for talking all the time when it's in his head

I do the reading thing to my kids too, where you don't know what you've read as you're day dreaming but its annoying sometimes as ill read a few pages of my own book and not know what I've read, same with driving, I'm like wow I don't remember going through 3 roundabouts but it's perfectly safe, although I agree does not sound it! I

I am meditating these days to try to stop the chatter. It should make me more contemplative rather than a constant blethering.
I think it's working.

Ok my brain is like OP, very abstract. I dont have monologues but I DO mutter to myself "I'm going to do this then that..." at work etc and say to others ,dont mind me just talking to myself. I.e. I have tk actually say it out.

I cant see or visualise things, in my head ...a memory, number , word ro colour. I just know it. Every number has a different feel but I dont see it in my head I have to write it out

I also read like OP, skimming a lot. I started reading longer books aloud to DC past year and that has improved reading.

The only times I do see something is in dreams but they are very abstract, as if I watched a bollywood/foreign language film last night and can recall some pivotal bits. Dream conversations are silent, like a silent movie, I infer what happened

I thought everybody was the same till now?!

Not having a voice in your head doesn't mean you can't picture something. My memories are sounds, smells, things I have seen, feelings, sensations. My thoughts and reasoning are concepts or images or emotions. These are only translated into words when it's necessary to communicate them to other people because language is so limiting

This is a good description of my experience. I don't have an inner monologue and can't begin to imagine what that must be like. Abstract thoughts flow from one thing to the next in split seconds, a problem arises and then I search my mind for a solution. No actual words go through my mind, just concepts and ideas. I imagine it would slow my thoughts down considerably if I had to translate them to language.

I've just tried to read a book by focusing on each word as I read it and strangely, have to keep going back to the beginning because I haven't taken it in. Like a pp I sort of sweep the whole sentence to make sense of it.

It's all very strange. e.g. I just noticed some crumbs on the table so I swept them into my hand and put them in the bin. Not a word went through my mind. Are some people saying that they would go through that process actually thinking it - in words?

I also have an inner monologue, but it's MY words, not someone else's, if that makes sense. So, I see something, and in my head I say, "I must clear that up, I'll do it after the washing up" or "I've just been looking to buy something like that" or whatever.

I don't have 'voices' which discuss or criticise my actions or anything, which my friend with mental health issues has. Sometimes the voices are very hurtful and tell her to do things which are harmful, especially when she's ill. I don't have any of that.

My own monologue is basically me talking myself through actions, decisions or whatever. I also visualise things very easily, if I want to paint a room I just 'see' it in my head and change the colour until I get the colour I want, or mentally move the furniture round to see how it looks etc. I always thought everyone did that but it appears they don't!

HalcyonSea's posts, especially the one at 1:45 express much I agree with . (words do have their uses. communication, and 'thinking about thought'.)

I would be curious to know if the different modes of thinking described on the thread correspond with peoples aptitudes and chosen professions. I can't imagine doing maths and science without a mix of them.

Musicians? Artists? A poet may obviously work in the medium of words but Wordsworth refers to his 'inward eye'.

Another one here with a constant internal monologue. All day, every day. Even when I'm busy. In fact it's worse when I'm doing anything physical, like running or vacuuming. Almost as if my body being busy frees up my brain. It's also there while I'm reading, sometimes commenting on what I'm reading as I go and other times yakking on about whether I should hang out the washing, what we're going to have for dinner. Sometimes I have to read the same paragraph two or three times because I have only managed to get a very vague grasp of its content. Thing is, I love reading, but it takes me a very long time to get through a book.

This is fascinating. I’m going to google what research has been done into this.

@BlackAmericanoNoSugar

It's so busy inside my head and I think in words and sentences, in the same way as I would converse. Plus I often get earworms, so my inner monologue has a soundtrack. I'm really good with pictures and can manipulate and rotate things in my mind. I can see colours, and find it odd when I suggest a colour scheme and people can't picture it until I put the colours together for them in real life (I crochet and quilt, it requires a lot of colour chit-chat). I can see numbers by volume and shape, and add numbers together in a sort of tetris way rather than the the way I was taught in school (by carrying the one etc).

I day dream a lot, I've designed houses, whole cities, a post-apocalyptic future and all sorts of complicated things. I night dream too, although that's generally more stressy and less enjoyable. Falling asleep can be quite difficult.

I've always found that reading quiets my mind, I think because I speed read and so it's more of an experience that I can see and feel than a flow of words. Although a miss-spelling or some bad grammar can pull me out of the flow so I'm obviously processing each word in some way. Watching tv or listening to an audio book can seem very slow compared to reading and so I usually do something else at the same time.

I find it really hard to imagine having a quiet mind. I suspect that my DS is a bit like that though, he needs lots of external stimulation and it's possibly because he has very little in the way of internal amusement.

Wow - aside from difficulty falling asleep this so accurately describes me it's almost scary! I fall asleep very quickly, but have quite anxious fast moving dreams and wake up feeling like I haven't slept at all.

I also have a inner monologue in complete sentences, often almost narrating conversations I think might happen and practising my answers. I think it's an anxiety thing (for me)?

I have an internal monologue and often narrate what I’m doing.

Interestingly, last year I got a severe ear infection in both ears and my ear drums perforated. I couldn’t hear anything for a week or so. Whilst I couldn’t hear anything the internal monologue stopped and was replaced with auditory hallucinations. On repeat, all day, everyday I had three pieces of music going on in my head - Entrance of the gladiators, happy birthday (being played by a brass band) and Heroes. It sounded like the music was in the distance, but I could hear every single note.

I wonder if people with internal monologues are more likely to believe in social constructivism. It would make sense to believe the world is constructed out of language if you are walking around literally thinking in language.

If I think about what is going on in my head, it is like a woman with her arms held open, reaching out into an open sky. Most of my head is the sky. When I am going to sleep it is a beach or wood. All the thoughts kind of swirl around in clouds around the woman’s feet and I pick one out if it is relevant to a current task, but I don’t hear them out loud. They are just like little tool kits. If I am anxious the wrong tool kit keeps pushing forward and makes me feel sick.

So @GenuineViolet if I was sweeping up the crumbs I might say something internally, probably grumpily like "god can't anyone round here clean up after themselves" but I wouldn't narrate like "I am cleaning up crumbs" although when I say them initially I might say "I need to clean that up in a minute" if that makes sense. It's never quiet!

*saw them

If you can't visualise things how do you recall memories???

If I want a cake my brain will say in words "I want a cake" whilst also bringing up a photographic memory picture of a cake I've previously eaten.

How do you remember things?