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.

Do you not have a minds eye?

You can think in words, in images, in abstract concepts (e.g.when working out maths problems I don't think in words).

My inner monologue is so bad and I talk alot.sometimes I verbalise thinks to make them make sense.
I have had dreadful anxiety and await an ADHD assessment.
It stops when I sleep.

Recite the 2 times tables in your head without opening your mouth. If you hear yourself doing it, you have an inner monologue. Most people have an inner monologue to someextent. Some don't and that can be linked to aphantasia. Done people have hyperphantasia too (I do) and nearly constant inner chatter.

Directed inner chatter can be a useful tool.

Inner monologues can be disrupted by brain injury too. Have a look for the book called Chatter the voice in our head and how to harness it.

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/internal-monologue

You don't need to heat the word to know its meaning.

@Shoopstoop hahaha that is the same as me - if ever I try to meditate or empty my brain it's basically a case of picturing a beach and then: oh that's a lovely beach at sunset, (hearing the waves) lovely waves crashing, run down and paddle your toes, (imagining the cold water) nice and cool. Stop thinking so much, just quiet, waves, maybe a bird flying past, seagulls, (remembering seagulls stealing chips) etc etc.
I don't know if it's possible to empty your mind without replacing it with something else to tell yourself or music to play instead?
Even with music going there's still the monologue though.
Plus I'd say underneath the monologue is the kind of subconscious level of thinking that others describe. So whilst my monologue/narrative thinking has been dictating this text, I've been thinking I'm tired, need to go back to sleep, but that was more automated thinking without the words at the forefront of my mind like these words are.
I can see why people are associating the inner voice with anxiety and I would say sometimes I have to consciously buoy myself along, imagine I'm one of my mates and think about what I'd say to them in the same scenario, so the voice can be positive as well as draining or focussing on negative thoughts or worries.
Mostly it's just boring though. @Hadjab that dinner conversation is hilarious and sounds very familiar 😆

Yep. Just realised, this is me. I read in my head, but no internal conversations. I'm a very chatty person though! I can't see any pictures in my mind at all. I have almost 100% perfect recall out loud of my life experiences and conversations. Can name anyone from any class photo in front of me since childhood, but I can't describe anyone. I think one of my children is similar as he thought a friend who is Indian, is a white friend's mum. So I don't think he can picture them together. If he could, he'd realise it doesn't "look" we quite right I think.

Babies and young children and animals can all think without language. I only discovered other people have voices in their heads very recently. It’s so weird to me. I don’t have an internal monologue at all. I just ‘know’ stuff without hearing a voice and can recall the words to speak when I need them. I don’t sound them out in my head first.

I recently discovered that my dh doesn’t see the letters in his mind when asked to recite the alphabet out loud 😳.

I was absolutely gobsmacked and cannot for the life of me understand how this is possible as I see every letter clearly as I refer to it. In fact my mind is never empty of visual images.

If we talk about going to the butcher or florist, or to a certain place, I can see every detail of it in my mind’s eye.

This is so interesting. I would feel exhausted if I had to actually ‘see’ the letter in my minds eye. Surely if you say the alphabet reeeally quickly you don’t have the time to conjour them all up?

My inner monologue says what I really think of some people but couldn’t say to their face 😂

No, I wouldn’t hear a sentence like that. I would get a feeling that I think they’re being unreasonable, similarly to if I was in a real conversation with someone and I thought they were being unreasonable, but it wouldn’t be a heard sentence in my head, just an intuative feeling. If that makes sense.

I think I have one. My voice is chattering away all the time. There are other participants in my inner monologue too, sometimes it's a conversation with someone else.

However, if I'm thinking of food to eat, I get a sensory feeling and can almost taste it for a second.

Is it a bit like thinking? Thinking with words in your mind. So people that don't have it, does it mean they do not think?

I'm no clearer now as to what it means. Yes, I say words in my mind when I read. Likewise if I'm reacting to something, I'll think "Oh what a load of bullshit" or the like. But planning my every move? Describing it to myself ahead of time? Is that what it's supposed to mean?

I’m not sure planning ahead is really do to with whether you hear thoughts as as internal monologue or not. I didn’t read the link that PP who mentioned that posted though.

For a while, I walked around with my mother in law's voice in my head, criticising everything I did! I've dealt with it now and regained my autonomy. Now it's just my own voice, cheering me on :)

I wish mine would take a holiday or at least a regular daily lunch break.

I see things as well as having an inner monologue, so when I read I don't see the words I hear them but I also visualise what the words are describing or if someone is talking I can see either the words or the thing they are talking about.

I understand that would work for babies and animals, I imagine their thoughts are on a more primal level. But how do you ponder the state of the economy for example, without using words? I wonder if we can train ourselves to think in a different way? I would love the incessant chatter in my head to shut the hell up for a few minutes!

I’m similar, I hear words when I’m reading (or when I’m planning what to write) but I’m not wandering around with my own voice in my head as I do other stuff, that would drive me mad!

Although interestingly a few pp mentioned anxiety- I do have anxiety but it’s very physical (shaking, hyperventilating, etc), I’m not going around actively thinking “oh my god, I’m so worried about x”

I've asked my partner this before because he says he doesn't have one. He obviously has thoughts 😅 but he doesn't have a constant narrative/conversation/pondering as such. He says he has songs going through his head like a radio all the time.

I rehearse conversations in my head, mainly with my H, and then am invariably shocked by how they never go the way I thought they would when I try to have them in real life.

Also my H has always told me that he can sit and have no thoughts in his head. I have never been able to imagine how this could possibly be, so maybe I do have inner monologue (I thought this was normal and he was unusual).

Mine never shuts up. Sometimes it’s constantly calculating time / distance when I’m travelling somewhere. Or it’s working out compass headings and calculating reciprocals. And sometimes having conversations or testing them. Or saying nonsense.

Sometimes I think thoughts I don’t want to think, and the voice screams “HORSE” to try to distract me from those thoughts. And occasionally I yell “HORSE” out loud if it’s too intense.

The way I’ve explained it to people before is that it’s all subconscious. The same way that people with an internal monologue/voice don’t hear “now I’m going to lift up my right leg and move it forward, then the left leg, right, left” when they walk - it would be impossible to think about everything you’re doing at once (“I’m breathing in, I’m breathing out”?! 🤣)

All my thoughts are like that. They’re abstract. I don’t know what I’m going to say before I say it. I form opinions in the background as it were. Not only is there no voice/music/sounds inside my head, there is no stream of thought. They just come and go without me being aware of them.

I can’t understand how it works having your life narrated in your head - surely unless the voice is very very fast, you’d come across as being very slow in your actions? Like “now I’m going to put the kettle on” - are you standing there doing nothing for the 3 or so seconds it takes to state that thought in your mind? I’ve never seen people behaving like that so that can’t be how it works, so what is it like?

You have just blown my mind. I'm so bloody confused

Similar - I have far less anxiety than I used to (it wasn't generalised, but related to specific ongoing things). If I'm driving, for instance, my thoughts-as-words, or muttered under the breath, are usually comments on other drivers - the occasional "thank you" or "nice to see a careful driver" or more frequent "fuckwit!" If I'm just walking, it's all rather vague and scattered, not something I'd dignify with the name of a monologue.