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Not everyone has an internal monologue

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Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#121
Here's the imagery based version of this: https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-...

From what I can tell, if you don't have imagery, you don't have audio. If you happen to be someone who can hear audio internally (audio hallucinations) yet don't form imagery internally (historic iconic memories, faces, shapes, creative viz, etc.) hit me up on email.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#122

I wonder if there's a connection between people with strong internal monologues and people who dislike audiobooks? I _hate audiobooks_ as it's essentially a constant interruption of my own inner monologue and breaks my ability to visualize the world the author is painting. It also feels lazy to me, like by relenting I'm outsourcing my internal dialogue to a voice on my phone...

Sample size is just me, but I have both a strong monologue, and also love audio books and podcasts. Though sometimes my own thoughts will distract me and I'll miss pieces, especially if I'm on a walk or something.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#123

LSD turns off some people's inner monologue. Anyway, I'd like to know more about the visible / observable differences between people who have inner monologues and those who don't.

>LSD turns off some people's inner monologue.

I've never heard this from anyone I know who's tried the substance n=dozens

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#124
While the fact that there are two types of people in this respect is interesting, the article seems to be over the top with the "it's ruining my life" bit. Yes, people are different, and some of the ways in which they are different are very fundamental. Deal with it.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#125

Something I discovered within the past year is that if I know a song fairly well, I can "play it" silently in my head, and be entertained. The experience isn't quite as emotionally resonate as listening with headphones, but it's not so far off either. It's useful when I'm bored. ...can anyone else do this? I actually find it supremely weird.

Yup, have been able to do that as long as I remember. It's great for pub quizzes where they play the start of a song, I listen to the rest in my head until I've worked out the song's name. Isn't this the experience of getting a song "stuck in your head?"

Depends if you can turn it on or off. I used to have songs stuck in my head when younger. Now I can more or less stop or start it on command.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#126
post #65

I dream up movies and songs and all sorts of rich fantasies in my head, and I do this constantly. As a consequence of this, I never get bored as I've got an incredible imagination to lean on. I think about movies I want to make, startups I want to create, the change I want to put into the world. New songs on my commute, goals I want to accomplish, what I could do with time travel. I'm always working on the structures…

I used to have such an imagination when I was young: before going to sleep, I would always reimagine the movies I just watched or the books I just read, factoring myself into the story (often as a coprotagonist, not particularly OP but helpful in many ways), sometimes going a bit meta trying to explain my presence to the characters, tweaking their response, trying not to trigger the obvious self-doubting panic that w…

Have you read "The Continent of Lies" by James Morrow? I can't remember how I came across it, not quite my normal reading fare, but it delves into some of what you are talking about.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#127
post #81

Something I discovered within the past year is that if I know a song fairly well, I can "play it" silently in my head, and be entertained. The experience isn't quite as emotionally resonate as listening with headphones, but it's not so far off either. It's useful when I'm bored. ...can anyone else do this? I actually find it supremely weird.

I have experienced something similar, namely hypnagogic hallucinations, usually when waking up, that sound exactly note for note the same as the recordings. Strawberry Fields Forever was the most memorable. To my mind experiences like this and particularly vivid dreams show that our mental capacity for self-stimulating is profoundly more extensive than most people believe. I can't think of any reason why you couldn't…

In case you're interested: "hypnogogic" refers to experiences you have while falling asleep. The word for experiences you have while waking up is "hypnopompic".

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#128
The "inner dialogue" is called the default mode network in neuroscience. It doesn't have to be thinking in "words" necessarily; you could also skip the words and still be thinking in a resting state. It serves the purpose of ruminating, reflecting on memories, doing introspection. Paradoxically, your brain actually consumes more calories doing this type of resting thinking than you do in task-oriented thought, like when you're replacing a broken pipe or solving a leetcode challenge. Depressed people tend to have too much default mode network activity.

I think it's maladaptive. You are better off having no default mode network activity.

Of course it's another thing entirely if you're too stupid to have an inner dialogue, verbal or not, but I feel like even non-human animals are capable of an inner dialogue. It doesn't add anything useful.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#129

Here's the imagery based version of this: https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-... From what I can tell, if you don't have imagery, you don't have audio. If you happen to be someone who can hear audio internally (audio hallucinations) yet don't form imagery internally (historic iconic memories, faces, shapes, creative viz, etc.) hit me up on email.

I think in visual outlines when thinking visual things, and have to think a bit more if I want to fill it in with detail. I use audio when reading words, but otherwise think abstractly (like not audio or video, etc). Sometimes I self talk, many times I don't.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#130
post #107

For myself personally, it depends on what I'm thinking about. Thinking about writing this sentence, I hear each of the words I'm going to type in my head before I type them. However, if I'm working out how to assemble a table, I'm not hearing "And now I screw the leg on" I just abstractly know that's what I'm going to do. I have to imagine that's the case for at least most people. Thinking out complicated abstract co…

> However, if I'm working out how to assemble a table, I'm not hearing "And now I screw the leg on" I just abstractly know that's what I'm going to do.

This is funny. I can't imagine anyone doing that. There is no end to that. Like imagine someone thinking while walking down a lane "I am walking down the lane, and now I am going to turn left ... " this is endless ...

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