What is it for?
Not everyone does, I’ve had a lot of conversations with a lot of people on this topic.
People’s thought processes range from monologue to dialog to narration to silence to images to raw concepts without form.
I personally do not have a constantly running monologue, but rather have relatively short bursts of thought interspersed with long periods of silence.
I always find this conversation fascinating and it makes me wonder in what other ways people may experience the world differently.
I do have a constant internal monologue. Every word I read is spoken in my mind. My thought process is, to my awareness, me talking things out in my head.
Yeah, I also “hear” the words in my head as I read them, and that goes for everything.
I kinda wish I thought in shapes and colors though. While my imagination is okay, I get the feeling it’s not as… vivid or Shar as others imaginations are.
Me to. This is the first time I think about that. Everything I read or write gets spoken aloud.
When I am hearing a book or a podcast there is silence though, because when there is someone else talking, my inner voice would interfere.
Fascinating.
I don’t have one at all. Spent ages thinking that it was just a figure of speech, but when I found out I became fascinated by it.
The current theory is that at some early point in our evolution we literally had a voice in our head, not unlike how some forms of schizophrenia present.
It’s called the bicameral mind.
https://gizmodo.com/did-everyone-3-000-years-ago-have-a-voice-in-their-head-510063135
In my day to day life it makes little difference however, despite being an avid reader and writer I struggle tremendously to read aloud.
I don’t know for sure but I suspect it is connected.
In the article they bring up many questionable aspects of this idea, which also seems to lack in scientific support.
And so the bicameral mind remains a highly controversial idea
Absolutely. I’m no expert, and since there weren’t any studies performed on people from that era, I’d expect it to be taken as a theory rather than a fact.
Hypothesis not Theory
Pedantry, not conversation.
Still, you are correct.
In my day to day life it makes little difference however, despite being an avid reader and writer I struggle tremendously to read aloud.
Thanks, I actually wanted to post that as a question. I would have thought that reading silently would be harder.
I worked as a typesetter for years. I have a rather speedy reading pace (it isn’t inate, rather through practice)… but I do wonder if not having to ‘hear’ words changes the rhythm of reading.
I’m also fascinated if other folk perform accents in their head whilst reading? Do different characters sound different or is there one ‘voice’ that acts as a narrator?
For me different characters have different voices. The narrative is either the voice of the character whose perspective is currently shown (which can lead to conflicts if I don’t know the perspective at the start) or it is how I imagine the author to sound like or my own voice.
I won’t pretend in not a little jealous of that. I can only imagine the texture that adds to a novel. Plus, it’s like a form of creative collaboration… You are present in the text… How cool is that?
I do read extremely fast in my native language (Spanish). Feels like entire sentences go straight into concepts and my brain builds a whole world based on what I’m reading.
However I started reading in a verbalized way with my second and third languages (English and Swedish) because I was completely useless at pronunciation, while reading at a high level. So I had to learn the sounds and they started invading my reading, which I sort of resent.
But the verbalization is still very mild; faint, monotone, non-enunciated.
Some people talked about poetry and I hadn’t considered that my absolute lack of poetry-sense could be related. People have told me about the metrics and whatnot and it really doesn’t click. I have to sort of analyze a poem and explain it to myself in prose, and I imagine that defeats the purpose of poetry?
And there’s something else I’m interested in. When you think, do you think in a mixture of those languages? Or do you actively translate? Is it a conscious thing?
I natively speak Swedish but I’ve studied and used English for 4-5 years so I speak English fluently and would consider myself bilingual. I can think in either English or Swedish and I can mix sentences in Swedish and English freely. But I never think in a language that’s really a combination of those languages (what we would call svengelska in Swedish).
I’m also studying french and German but I’m not fluent in any of those languages. When using those languages (or at least German) I think in a language that’s truly a combination of that language and Swedish/English. I use words from all languages and construct sentences as I would in Swedish (reverse word order for questions, no weird German thing with adjectives at the end etc). This of course becomes a pain as soon as I have to express a thought to someone else.
Absolutely fascinating.
I do wonder if not having to ‘hear’ words changes the rhythm of reading.
Hadn’t thought of this…what’s your take on poetry, especially meter-forward? Like, Robert W Service or Robert Frost, I feel would be less interesting if they didn’t have their beat.
I don’t do voices or accents when I read. Everything is in the same ‘voice,’ which isn’t quite the same as my spoken voice. My internal voice enunciates much better and slightly lower pitch. It’s more like the voice I wish I had than the voice I do have. :)
Interesting you brought up Service… Grew up reading him as he’s from my home town.
I do like poetry, but I’m much more inclined to concrete work, or something closer to what William Burroughs was after.
The shape rather than the rhythm.
Never thought of it that way. Though I still adore Service for the narrative.
I like that your internal monologue is an idealised voice.
I am pretty sure it does. From what I’ve heard people that essentially “read out loud” inside their head tend to have a have a slower reading pace. I don’t think Anauralia is necessary to not do that, either.
Oh yeah, often I’ll even have a specific person in mind playing the character: an actor, someone I know, etc. I often don’t even realize that I’m doing this
if not having to ‘hear’ words changes the rhythm of reading.
Poetry instantly comes to mind. I have a very different experience when I silently read poetry vs. reading aloud or listening to someone read it aloud, especially when the poem is written with rhythm in mind.
it depends on if I heard a voice of that character before for example Batman is always Kevin Conroy and the joker is always Mark Hamill. another usecase is if I listened to the audio book then start reading a text book. Ray Potter shows up alot.
Out of curiosity do you visualize in your mind? Like if I say a stapler can you conjure one?
The people with both Aphantasia and Anauralia fascinate me.
I’ll chuck in my answer since I’ve been asked this before too.
I don’t “see” a stapler. I perceive a future state where the pages are stapled. This does appear visually in my mind but not a a a picture of stapled pages rather a set of symbols that incorporate the task “to staple” into the other things that I am concerned with at the point of thinking about that task.
“Set of symbols?” Is probably your follow up question - yes, geometry or iconography that describe the path from here to that future state where that pages are stapled.
That’s the best I can do. None of this is literally narrated in my mind, however typing this out to you each sentence is “auditioned” as I imagine I am speaking it to you.
That is fascinating! And different than I’ve heard described elsewhere by either the “non-visual” or “non-verbal” thinkers. I think I am pretty generic, when I think of a stapler I literally see a red swingline stapler floating in a void like in a 3d modeling program (that stapler specifically due to the movie Office Space, and therefore I also own one).
Do you enjoy coding, math, and logic?
Yes. Like many here it is my vocation.
Makes total sense to me that you think this way then.
I teach middle school and I think mostly verbally with pictures thrown in.
“I should staple this” plays in my head and I have a dreamlike image of a stapler I’m looking for, or perhaps its location. If I focus, I can make those pictures very vivid, but usually they aren’t in my day to day.
I talk to myself in my head literally non-stop. It’s a full day dialogue with myself - which I suppose makes it a monologue. But it’s pretty involved with a lot of back and forth.
It’s so interesting. I imagine your experience is something like Venoms relationship with Eddie Brock which cracks me up!
Absolutely. My day job is as a conceptual artist (seriously, the hours are good and I get to travel). Visualising objects is a large part of that. I’ve also worked in video game level design and found thinking in terms of 3D space pretty easy too. Just no words in there, or specifically, no voice.
That sounds heavenly. Mine will not shut up. And when I’ve run out of current problems to worry about, I start thinking about all my past fuck ups an embarrassments. And that’s just in the time it takes to a simple activity. When I’m at work it is constant flipping back and forth between my anxious thoughts and doing my work and worrying about how I might be fucking up my work.
Try vyvanse meds bro it will calm those thoughts. Obviously talk to a doctor about it
I truly wish there was someone who could properly diagnose me. I did take a RAADS test a while back but I didn’t have a psychiatrist to bring my results to, so I go undiagnosed and likely will forever with the current health crisis. I don’t know if I can go on something like that without a proper diagnosis. I can’t even find a family doctor unfortunately.
But I appreciate the tip 😊 thank you.
Mine seems to appear when I’m not on auto-pilot. If I’m heating a can of soup, there’s no real thought. I’m probably thinking about other things while carry out simple steps. If I can’t find something, it’ll pop in and say, “Where did I leave that?” Or maybe something like, “I should call Mom cause it’s New Year’s Day.” Another is, “I’m glad I remembered my umbrella,” when in rain. But I don’t have monologue about putting on my shoes or locking my door. Those are mechanical tasks while I think about something else in an abstract fashion.
Yeah this is similar to my experience. Some stuff gets done without that monologue, but I’m not completely without it.
I suspect that most people have a partial internal monologue, whereby some thoughts arise to the level of verbiage and others don’t. There is also variance in how self-aware we are of our thoughts themselves. I don’t think anyone can keep up effective, meta self-monitoring 100% of the time, so our own view of our thought process is probably skewed as well. Some people swear that every single thought they have is 100% verbalized. I think that’s impossible and they’re only counting verbal thoughts as thoughts. But no doubt some people verbalize more than others.
Insightful, I’ve found that most people change their answers at least slightly after having time to observe their thoughts for a while, we are geniuses at believing our own conjectures.
I’d say I can’t actively observe a thought without my internal monologue in some way narrating it or articulating what’s going on. Frankly that’s the reason I have difficulty understanding what it’s like for someone without internal monologue.
I’ve been able to observe myself stringing ideas together in a complicated way before actual words can land. The other day this happened and I considered stopping to put words to my thought and decided to just let it go and move on.
Yep, I don’t, either. I think mostly subconsciously, then in raw concepts, then images, then words. I have to actively translate what I’m thinking into language in order to consciously understand it myself or communicate it, but I do better if I externalize the language through writing or speaking.
We’re very similar, I think. That externalisation as a way of understanding in particular.
I have a committee. Usually made up of people I know well. loud motherfuckers
Because sometimes the rubber ducky would be embarrassed at the questions I ask so I ask me the questions first.
I think one key in the success of our species is the ability to plan ahead and mentally simulate what will happen before actually doing it.
Doing this with language is not very different from imagining what will happen when doing a physical action.
I have imaginary conversations all the time where I simulate interactions with the people in my life and work. I’ll say something and then imagine their response and often go back and revise what I would say. This is how I prepare for conversations that might be delicate, where I want to get something across but not in a way that creates negative consequences.
Other people say that they verbalize literally everything, as in, “I need to throw this rock in a gentle arc if I want it to hit that other rock there, oh dear perhaps I should adjust my grip and throw underhand instead.” My opinion is that this is functionally impossible. You can’t drive a car by verbalizing every command as you go - put a blindfolded friend at the wheel and try it sometime! I think one of two things is happening to people who say their monologue is exhaustive: they are only counting verbal thoughts as thoughts and ignoring the sea of inchoate impulses that churns beneath them. Also, I think any time we turn our attention to our thoughts themselves, those thoughts become verbal. To say it another way, any thought you want to think about you have to first pin down and define. You render it in words by directing your attention to it. I believe this leads people to believe that all their thoughts are verbal because all the thoughts they’ve looked at are always verbal.
But I’d say this to those folks: have you ever forgotten the right word for something? There it is on the tip of your tongue but the word won’t come. This happens to everyone. And you’re clearly able to think about the whatness of the thing even in absence of the right word.
As an aside, there is a theory called the “bicameral mind” which posits that this internal dialogue is the source of religion. In ancient or rather even prehistoric times, it’s theorized that people started separating themselves from the voices in their heads in a spiritual way and this gave rise to the concept of a “God”.
Far from proven but interesting nonetheless.
One interesting corollary to the bicameral mind theory is that our brains have multiple sentient centers to them- that in turn might explain that feeling of struggling with a decision and being able to see the same thing from more than one point of view. It also explains why different parts of the brain light up in different situations
I’ve never heard of that idea before, but it’s really interesting! I wonder how they’d be able to prove something like that?
I heard a Ted Talk that claimed they had some evidence for it. Still think it is bullocks
Truly nobody knows, it’s an open research question. And to complicate matters more we know (as others have mentioned here) that everyone doesn’t think in the same way.
I can offer you a very small example of a difference in thinking that I experience.
I’m a grown ass man and I can’t easily tell my left from right. The best example of this is when I’m gaming and the tutorial tells me to press ‘left thumb stick’, I usually fuck it up. It took me a long time and a lot of thinking on it to realise what was going on. For me, left and right is not instinctive like up or down, but rather, it’s either a feeling, or not a feeling.
The reason for this is because when I was 5 I nearly lost my left index finger in an accident. It was reattached, but during the healing process I was constantly told my left finger was the one I hurt, so I literally learnt left from right as ‘injury’ or ‘no injury’, which I then attributed to as ‘hurt’ or ‘not hurt’.
So now, when I have to choose left or right, my brain has to remember an injury and where it was, then kind of feel that injury and tell myself that yes, I feel it so that’s left, or no, I feel nothing so that’s right. These steps take more time than a normal person’s automatic reaction to left or right direction.
Imagine someone touching you and saying, “does this hurt”. It takes time to figure out if it hurts or not and then reply. Thats what I’m doing every time I need to identify left or right, and if there’s no time for that, like “quick, make a right turn here”, I’m forced to guess.
And there is no way for me to unlearn this.
We do actually know quite a bit about the Internal Monologue and other forms of intrapersonal communication.
There isn’t one single use for it or benefit of it (in the same way water has many uses)
What I find interesting is that supposedly, not everybody actually has an internal monologue, I just can’t even imagine what that must be like. But then I start to wonder, do I even have an internal monologue, is what I experience an actual “internal monologue”? I assume that I have an internal monologue, I definitely talk to myself and I have thoughts running around my head all the time, but I don’t know that I “hear” an internal monologue or what having an internal monologue is supposed to be like. Is what I experience the same thing as what everybody else is experiencing?
I hate to sound heartless, but haven’t you met anyone that isn’t that bright? Like they may have a heart of gold but they couldn’t figure out a math equation if they were given all day. There are high school graduates that can’t even find directions on a compass for a map. I imagine that the lower end of intelligence does not have a inner monologue. And some other fringe reasons.
It seems to me that you’re attempting to equate an internal monologue with intelligence, and I don’t think that’s a fair assumption. An internal monologue is just a brains way of formatting its thoughts and feelings about the information that flows in. There are many ways to do this, and one way isn’t necessarily “superior” to another. That’s just how brains work. And while many intelligent people do have this internal monologue, it’s absolutely not necessary for intelligence.
Side note, one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met is aphasiac, and doesn’t have an internal monologue.
I’m sure it depends on how you define intelligence.
There are probably people without internal monologues who can solve any problem you put in front of them. But I do think there is a certain level of emotional intelligence that can’t exist without an internal monologue. I suppose one could externalize this process and just talk aloud to themselves in order to mull something over. But even then, you likely couldn’t do that all day every day. Those of us with internal monologues must glean some sort of benefit from essentially self-reflecting all day.
Granted, all of this hinges on my limited understanding of consciousness being somewhat accurate. It’s possible that everyone has an internal monologue and some people just lack a connection in their brain that brings it to the forefront of their consciousness. Maybe some people’s IMs are in their subconscious and inform their actions in ways they simply aren’t aware of.
Speak for yourself! I have internal stereologue.
Peasant…Go quadraphonic or go home!!!
THX noises
🫨
Me, too! No I don’t! SHUT UP, STEVE. NO ONE ASKED YOU.
Chomsky would say that the original purpose of language is to structure thought, with communication being solely secondary. (Or something like this, I don’t recall it word-by-word.)
If that’s correct, then internal monologues are simply a result of your brain processing your thoughts.
Yeah, language is an added analytical layer on top of our thoughts. We are clearly able to have thoughts without language (feral children for example are able to process their environment, plan and predict). But language adds a formality to it. Not to challenge Chomsky on his own turf but I don’t see how this can be separated from communication, since communication is how we acquire language. Does he really posit that even a feral child will have its own internal set of mouth sounds for organizing thoughts, even when it never speaks those to anyone? Seems backwards.
What do you think evolved first - verbal communication or thoughts? Presumably we were able to think before we could speak, no? The words we have in our language are like pointers to internal concepts, and it seems to me that those internal concepts would have existed before language was a thing. The mouth-sounds as you put it are not the thoughts themselves, rather just labels for specific concepts. It might be possible and even convenient to think in mouth-sounds but it’s not necessary for logical thought.
Yeah I agree with you. There might be something to the other side of the coin though. For example, a feral human with no language will have “thoughts,” as we both agree. But they will probably be quite different than thoughts from someone with language. Having a word for something has a way of crystallizing a concept. With a lot of those at your disposal you might be capable of more sophisticated thought. It’s really hard to say since we don’t have feral people to study and we couldn’t examine their “thoughts” even if we did.
Chomsky’s concept of UG (universal grammar) is able to handle this. Since there would be a chunk of language that is innate (universal), that feral child would share it. So, as a conclusion from that, even if the feral child isn’t expressing it through vocalisation, since they lack an “application” of the UG (like Nahuatl, Mandarin, Quechua, English, Kikongo etc.), they’d still have some rather simple internal monologue.
…that said I think that Chomsky’s UG is full of shit. I do agree with him that the faculty of language might have developed first to structure thought; but my reasoning resembles a bit more yours, the role of language would be to formalise thought. Thinking without language is possible in the same way as moving across a village without roads - it’s doable but clunky, and you’ll likely take far more effort than with proper roads/ a language.
Not to challenge Chomsky on his own turf
Don’t worry. Everyone and their dog challenges him. Including himself, he’s often contradicting his own earlier statements.
I would say we all have thoughts without language with varying levels of frequency, think about moments where you or others have said “ah i know what I want to say but forgot the word”
Yeah I agree 100% and have used that same example in other discussions like this.
I am super confused what an internal monologue is as I’m fairly certain I don’t have one.
If I did, I feel like it would annoy the shit out of me.
Read this sentence one word at a time. As you read it, do you hear the words spoken inside your head?
If that doesn’t work, turn on the tv and try to repeat the words you hear immediately after you hear them, but absolutely silently. The goal is to echo the television ij your head.
That is your internal monologue.
Now imagine you’re trying to sleep and the asshole part of your brain starts talking about the reality dumb-ass shit you did 25 years ago…
Now imagine that you just got a song stuck in your head. You know the song really well… and you can’t stop repeating the hook in your mind.
It’s your brain silently reading the captions of the narration of the images of your train of thought.
Oh, is that all it is? I guess I was reading it to be where I can hear myself talk to myself when reasoning things out or experiencing things.
I can do exactly what you are describing and do constantly and all day. You don’t debate on goings internally with words? That’s confused my brain. Wonder if it’s an ADHD thing on my end.
I don’t debate ongoings internally, but I am formally adult ADHD diagnosed. This entire post/thread is fascinating to me.
It’s the same inner voice speaking thoughts instead of words on a page.
Yep, it’s mostly that. Like a movie/show/anime protagonist narrating their reasonings and thoughts to the watchers, except there are no watchers and you are just talking to your inner self.
I think only about half the population think this way. Your voice is in your head speaking thoughts kinda like they show in movies. The other half thinks in pictures, shapes, colors, and sounds.
The other half thinks in pictures, shapes, colors, and sounds.
Its definitely not that simple as I definitely have both, I’ve also heard a lot of people say “I’m a visual thinker”, but I’ve absolutely never heard of someone not being one do I’m not sure there is even such a thing as a non visual thinker
Aphantasia
This is making me keep thinking of blinking and breathing and it’s weirding me out!
Another fun one is thinking about the size of your tongue. Lol it doesn’t fit in there bro!
As someone else mentioned with hearing music, people can also smell smells, taste tastes and conjure up imagery. When they read books the reading turns into a movie like thing or something like that.
It’s all bundled up as visualization.
Some people can’t visualize at all, or can to varying degrees.
When you can’t, it’s called Aphantasia. If you can’t do any visualization at all (maybe some can hear music, but nothing else) that’s called total aphantasia.
The one part that’s still a weird conversation for me is the inner monologue. I can think, I can read words, but it’s not my voice? It’s not my voice like people say they can have a conversation with themselves or pretend to have one with someone else.
So I lean to thinking I don’t have an inner monologue as others would describe and expect, but I still do?
I can’t visualize to save my life and it bothers me. It also leads to an insane lack of a sense of direction. A good friend told me to just go the opposite direction of what I feel - and 9/10 that actually works.
When people ask me what someone looks like, I typically devolve to…“umm, a face, a couple arms, some hair”. I know it sounds dumb, but it’s actually impossibly hard for me to describe someone.
I totally get the think/read but not your voice thing, I feel like it isn’t a monologue, it just…is?
Granted I am diagnosed ADHD and partially in the spectrum, so I suppose that may play a part?
ADHD can impare visualization as well, and people with ADHD can also have Aphantasia.
So maybe you have both? The connection between the two isn’t understood yet.
The term Aphantasia is very new. Under 10 years old I think. I learned I had it before the term was officially a thing but there were a few articles about it without a name. I always thought people were just using visualization examples as a matter of expression, not something they were actually doing. E.g counting sheep.
Also I totally understand what you mean about describing people. I’d be useless to a sketch artist
Can you summon a song in your head? A melody?
It’s that… But it’s your voice. And you employ it to think. It’s how I argue with myself and reason my way through a thing. I’m not sure how I’d get along without it, except every once in a while I get stuck on a problem, so I do something different. Often, the right solution to the thing I wanted to do will pop into my head. Then I need to work backwards how I got there. Both are useful, I prefer the information up front though.
Then how do you pre plan things that you are going to type?
Don’t you have an inner voice for instance when you read?
I’m not sure I get the monologue part either, because I perceive it more as dialogue, and I always considered that normal. But maybe it’s a matter of perception?I mean…sort of? It doesn’t really have a voice though it’s more like…just an understanding. I don’t know, this entire post has been fascinating.
I’m by no means a medical expert, so just a stab in the dark here - our brains constantly process all sorts of information. Whether that’s memories, input from your various senses, or a million other things. During that process, your brain is also trying to make sense of it all (“Why?”, “What does it mean”, “How?”, etc).
Our ability to communicate and express language is intertwined in this process, which of course is what gives you the perception of dialog. So in essence, I think its just our brains trying to make sense of… its process of making sense, if that makes sense?
On a side note, I’m practically dosing myself with semantic satiation with how many times I’ve used “sense” here (that last one being more tongue-in-cheek)…
I use it for reasoning. It’s a way to talk to myself without having to do so out loud, which I do a lot.
There is a segment of the population who, apparently, don’t have one. Even deaf people apparently have an inner monologue of hand signs visualized. But this segment just lacks one entirely. I don’t understand how they think, how they come to a conclusion. Things just pop into my mind, when I take my mind away from other matters and let my subconscious bake on an item… is this the way they think about everything? I don’t know.
So I’m one of those people without an internal monologue ( but I can choose to subvocalize if I want).
I don’t know if this will help you understand but for me everything is quiet. All the time. I don’t say to myself “I should take a bite of the apple” - I just take a bite. As I type this reply out I have not determined what the next world will be before writing it, I just write. If I need to build a mental image it is simply there.
When I need to make a decision, is made. I might have been pondering it for some time, but it’s not a surface thought. Again I can subvocalize - but it’s more speaking to the room as opposed to having an internal argument.
And when I say quiet, I mean quiet. I did not realize for most of my life that monologues in books where anything more then a story telling device.
To freak us out when we’re a little bit too high…
Team Aphantasia!
I never realized this was a thing until now and it kinda explains a lot.
I’ve always wanted to be more visually creative and it has always been an extreme struggle, neigh impossible. Kind of nice to finally have a term for it.
I’m going to take a guess - survival.
By which you mean, it’s the part of our brain that we no longer really listen to, so it developed the ability to flat out tell us: “damn that’s a bad idea.” And “I told you so, idiot.”
In my experience, it’s for 2 things:
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Witty comebacks half an hour after the discussion is over and you’re on your way back home.
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Overanalyzing every stupid decision and mistake you have ever made.
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