How can I tell if I have an internal monologue?

[Barrol]

I learned recently from my teen that ~ 30 to 50% of people don't have an “inner voice.”

I’m sure I do. As I type I hear my voice in my head. But am I just assuming I can? I’m confused. So maybe I am in the minority of people who don’t have an inner monologue. When I read I say it a loud in my head I think.

Please can anyone familiar with this topic elaborate.

I still think, well hopefully anyway!
Do you hear an actual voice, speaking as a person would in the same style? What does it say!?

I don't have an inner monologue really, I think I have a bit of one when stressed but that's it. I'm autistic and I will sometimes dream of conversations and rehearse conversations in my head (again mainly work related)
A lot of the time though my mind feels quite blank. I'm just quietly observing and there's no chatter.

I have a good friend with quite severe ADHD and he describes his inner monologue as constant, fast paced and switching topics all the time. It sounded exhausting. He was baffled when he realised that there could be times that if he asked me what I was thinking, and I said 'nothing' that that could be genuinely true!

With my autism I do mimic a lot by habit, and when I do have a bit of an inner voice it usually starts to take on the voice of people I spend a lot of time with and look up to. If I'm not careful I then start picking up their intonation and accent so I have to be careful as that can appear very creepy!

Ok.

In that case, I'm pretty sure I do both.

I wonder if we all 'think' in many kinds of ways simultaneously.

Sometimes an intenal monlogue is really obvious - like if I'm pottering in the garden and I think 'where did I just leave my secateurs', but say it out loud without thinking.

Do people with no internal monologue whatsoever do that too? Or never speak their thoughts out loud when alone?

I don't think I have an inner monologue. I think verbally in my head about specific things (eg thinking about what people say in conversation, spending time thinking about a topic I've seen mentioned in the news or read a post about) but in day to day life I'm not noticing and narrating what's happening.

All I can compare it to is when you're driving familiar roads on autopilot. You are concentrating and able to react to things if they happen, but unless something does happen your brain isn't actively making new memories. That's me all the time- I have verbal thoughts in response to stimuli, but the rest of the time I'm just going along silently rather than noticing things.

I also don't picture things when I read. I wonder if it's linked. It seems illogical but I’m a massive lover of reading and always enjoyed creative writing and got high marks in it. Just don’t picture things in my head (so descriptions of appearances or action scenes in a book get skim read just to pick up the gist or plot points, rather than me visualising them in depth).

I have a whole world with characters and back stories. I know them better than I know my friends! I have scenarios and conversations between them going on all the time.
My brain is very busy!

I only have it sometimes
It's pretty boring.
I tend to just think without words but in abstract thoughts and impulsion.

Can anyone explain the difference between a thought and an internal monologue? As I write this I'm saying it in my head, if that makes sense?

@Nursingadvice I hear my own voice mostly, reading out my own words like now as I'm typing. Although sometimes I'll take the opposite stance and ask myself a question perhaps to verify how I feel about something, and then both voices are my own discussing contrasting sides. Sometimes it's spontaneous thoughts being aired in my brain, other times I kind of know what I'm about to say, so there's clearly more background non verbal thinking informing the narrating voice in my head.

But you do think, so how do you not have an internal monologue? Even to think ‘I have no internal monologue’, must mean you think it and therefore ‘hear’ yourself speaking that thought in your head?

Surely thinking the thoughts is an inner monologue? The monologue is your thoughts.

But it’s not a monologue if it’s not as if you’re hearing thoughts in words. It’s more a shifting set of fuzzy clouds that are thoughts (for me).

This is so, so mind blowing. So if you think ‘this person on Mumsnet is being unreasonable’, how do you think it if you don’t hear in your head ‘yeah I think that’s unreasonable?’

I can do both? Just sat in silence, eyes closed. I can hear nothing and think nothing or I can think to myself ‘well…’

Fascinating discussion.

It is odd in general though. Anyone that can read a book in silence has an internal monologue.

sometimes the voices just happen, its like your doing x and then its yea so to speak

Fascinating. I need this work out what I actually have

What if you thought ‘did I put the bins out?’ or ‘oh bloody hell, gbetter set the alarm.’ What do you hear when you think it whilst your eyes are shut?

Gosh. Interesting. Mine is like I'm constantly talking to myself.

I wonder the same thing. I wish my inner monologue would go away sometimes because it’s constant and always worrying.

Yep, exactly the same here- thank you for setting it out as I couldn't think of how to explain it!

DH tells me how he has a non stop internal world, and particularly the thing about rehearsing and re-rehearsing conversations 🤯 I get this on a logical level but it sounds pretty tiring.

Do you tell yourself to shut up? I have to listen to the radio

Wow, fascinating!

So those with an inner monologue, do you hear your own voice and the timbre of your actual voice in your head? Like a person speaking in your ear?

I thought i had an inner monologue but now realise I don’t: I’m in the “thought clouds” group.

I also absorb chunks/paragraphs of words, read really fast and work as a writer/editor - mentioning as this is coming up.

My brain has lots of thoughts but I don’t hear my own voice, it’s more of a neutral wondering.

If I think of an upcoming event, I will have a pre-visual of me doing it, eg like “Yorkshire to parents” I’ll imagine driving to Yorkshire. I also “see” a calendar of the year ahead unfolding in my mind (anyone else?!)

Can someone describe what the monologue is like? Is it “and now I’m cleaning my teeth, and now I’m going downstairs” is everything narrated?

I don't have an IM that I can hear at all but I kind of see the words all jumbling together. I have anxiety and when it's bad the letters are all crashing into each other.

I am always thinking though and worrrying but as I say I kind of see them.
I can't see things in my minds eye but I know for example what a red apple looks like but I can't envision one? I'm not sure though if I'm describing or a amusing the same thing differently to others iyswim?

I remember being about 7/8 abc my dad was away for a couple of days I was so upset because I couldn't remember what he looked like.

Yes it's constant and has been as long as I remember, can't picture things in my head though without a lot of effort!

I have a particular voice which goes through my head when I’m reading posts on here. Everyone has the same voice. It is a different voice to the voices in my head when I am reading other things. I very rarely post but as I write this I’m also using the mumsnet voice.