to ask if you have an inner life?

[crochetmonkey74]

Really interesting conversation at work this morning - I was saying that I often walk around a bit oblivious whilst in town/ walking somewhere etc as I am thinking of all of my inner life things- things like bits of films I've seen, ideas for stories, lots of 'imagine if' scenarios. Other colleagues were split half and half between being the same and not having a clue what we were talking about - so for fun: have you got an inner life and what is it?

Yes! I love to relive things and 'tell' them like a story as if I'm saying it out loud. I think of an event and then re tell it in my head. Weird but fun 🤣 I have a lot of what ifs. Also...does anyone have this...I will get a flashback of a place (usually really random, insignificant) and feel like I'm right there. Usually a place from childhood and it's just a flash and I'm there and then back but it's the same few places that I go back to...?

Overthinker so constantly replaying conversations, scenarios in my head. To relax and try to sleep, shut my brain up I go to my ideal life, don’t need to work, live in country, long dog walks etc.

I have always wondered about people who don’t overthink, not able to picture anything, would like to experience a quiet mind sometimes

Yes, it's on a spectrum. That's why I say complete aphantasia, because if I just say aphantasia then some people confuse it with a less severe form. I'm at one end of the spectrum. People at the other end have hyperphantasia. Roughly 3% of the population are thought to be at either extreme, most people are at some point in between. When I did tests for it they calculated it as a centile, like child growth charts, so people who don't have either extreme will still have varying degrees of a mind's eye, internal monologue etc. I would imagine that relatively few people fall exactly on the 50th centile.

I have a few longstanding fantasy lives, usually influenced by whatever I am reading/watching or things happening in my real life. In my favourite one, I'm an apprentice to a mysterious and handsome wizard and we live in a tower and go on adventures 🤣

I can't imagine not having these daydreams, I feel like I'd be bored out of my head often without them, especially when I go for long runs or dog walks by myself.

If you do an online test for aphantasia, they will usually ask you to imagine something and then note on a scale how clearly you can 'see' it in your head. It's certainly not that everyone can see it completely clearly except people will aphantasia who can't see it at all; people fall on different points on the scale. And for people who don't have aphantasia there might be differences in how well they can picture different people or things.

When I was a child I would look forward to times when I could just be in my head. Be a different person with a different family. It was my coping mechanism to abuse at the time but it's something that's lasted into my adulthood. My thoughts are always there along with an inner monologue. I love to rebuild and redesign houses to the point of being in someone's house and getting a bit lost in my thoughts of how I would do things if was my home. I'm constantly fascinated by people and places and always looking things up so I have the right image in my head. I love thinking of who came before me if I'm in a certain area of history. Just standing in an old doorway and thinking of the person a hundred or so years ago. What they were wearing etc. writing it down I sound quite mad but I love my inner life. My husband doesn't understand but he swears he never dreams and despite being a builder and designer he doesn't see things in his head like I do. I don't get that at all. 😂

I have written novels and at times the characters were all busy doing stuff in my head.

More recently I’ve lost that creative flow and tend to think about the more mundane and realistic stuff going on. I’m putting that down to a busy job and family but I’d love to have my creative novel building mind back.

I can’t imagine not having that constant chatter going on in my head though. I always assumed everyone had it.

Massive daydreamer here! My current favourites are:

• picturing another dog in the family
• fantasy life as a film maker. But I refuse to attend award ceremonies as I have my children and my farm to look after!
• interactions with random people I see and what I might say if I wanted to say something.
• how much better I'd make that house look as I walk past their windows and stare in like a weirdo.
• where my dream bookshop and writers workshop courses would be, as I search commercial.properties nearby
• dinosaurs and stuff

Yes. Snippets of books or things on TV (Woman in the Wall). Sometimes I narrate my own life, as if I'm writing a long letter to someone.

Alternative lives I could have lived. Revenge fantasies for people who have crossed me and great come back lines after nasty incidents at work. I'm generally non-confrontational so they remain just thoughts.

Scenes from my past, thinking about friends, wondering what the future might hold. Hoping for seaside and greyhounds on that front.

Thinking about what house I might buy (fantasy) and how I'd make it nice. Or even what eye shadow.

Plotting to outwit the LA who constantly try to remove/deny provision for child with multiple SEN is a popular route - I have to remind myself not to tread that path too often lest it wear a hole in my brain.

Noticing things people pass by - red berries on tree, puddle reflections. Little glimmers. Also writing a book in my head set around Partition era India.

I'm always surprised other people's minds are not like this. Some people have very little inner resources to go at and need a lot of stimulus coming from the outside so they don't get bored. I'm never bored but I am a worrier so maybe that's a downside to a vivid inner life?

I used to love going to bed at night as I would lie there and think up my make believe life 😅 I would still do it today but I tend to fall asleep so quickly now I have two small kids (one 8 month old who doesn't sleep through), so I don't get very far into my other life 😆
Actually now that I think about it, phones / screens have stopped me doing it so much too.

I'd say that I was definitely at the opposite end of the scale before my head injury, and I would certainly say that I'm very much in the percentage of people who can't see anything at all now.

Very occasionally, I'll get flashes again of vivid imagination and an extremely clear photographic image will appear in my head, that will briefly make me feel sad... I actually gasped out loud when this happened last time, as it was a difficult reminder of what I was once able to so enjoy. You really don't know or appreciate what you have until it's gone. I would give anything to be able to see things in my mind's eye again 😔

I totally have an inner life. I have this conversation with my husband who apparently has periods in the day where he literally doesn't think. He thinks thinking all the time sounds tiring. I have no idea how not to think.

You’ve never known the true definition of “torture” until your brain decides to sing “I’m a Barbie Girl, in a Barbie world” over and over and over again to yourself for no apparent reason.

I have maladaptive daydreaming so yep, a very active inner life. It's brilliant as I can be anywhere and have a great (if totally fictional) time.

I also did this a lot as a child and teen - now I realise it was to escape an abusive upbringing. I used to look forward to being alone so I could do it. I had a whole load of fantasy lives going on, it was brilliant! I have carried it onto growing up to a lesser degree - particularly when I used to run, it made the time go really quickly! I do it less so now as I'm just too busy!

I used to think I was just a weirdo tbh (I was in fact quite a strange child), but it's interesting to read about Immersive and Maladaptive daydreaming - I haven't heard of either. (And would need to look at the differences between the two).

Constantly, I wouldn't know how to stop.

My inner life is a combination of reality, planning and day dreaming.

I remember in my teens I made up this family (just three people); they seemed so real to me and I thought about them often. I'm sure they exist somewhere, in an alternative universe (that again).

'm sure there's worse than that, like some Bon Jovi, meatloaf, Coldplay or Gary glitter song shudder

Same! Except mine is a character from a book.

That particular daydream is probably 10 years old now. There are others too, sometimes I'll favour one over the other. They're always based on relationships, but that's what you get for growing up on Disney.

Honestly, I wouldn't be any other way.

Yes I do and I love it. Sometimes I don't bother reading in bed, because I plan on having a nice think instead. It's the reason I have never been bored in my life. I genuinely can't understand people who get bored. Don't they have a whole world of entertainment to tap into in their heads?

Being bored is a different thing altogether. It doesn't mean you are bereft of an inner life. Why are people so smug and annoying

Thanks for starting this thread, OP. I live all kinds of lives in my head and enjoy them like reading a good book. I have favourite characters and different (better!) versions of myself, in all kinds of situations and adventures. Sometimes recently I’ve tried to limit daydreaming, as I think I should be more aware of reality.

Lol I’ve got my own little world. I quite often disappear there cause it’s so much better than here!

Of course I do... doesn't everyone

I assume that was directed at me 🤣 It's not smug. Genuinely, people being bored is something that has always baffled me!