Not everyone has an internal monologue • Hacker News Board

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#131

Post by zoba » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

I rarely have internal monolog, but instead have an internal dialog. Most of the time I'm explaining ideas to people, sometimes arguing with them.

I've found this is how I think through things. "Talking" things out with the various models of people I have in my head can be useful...

I've found when there isn't conversation happening, its typically replaced by music. I can hear and play songs perfectly in my mind. Listening to music with headphones helps turn off the conversation so I can focus on other tasks more fully.

I used to be concerned I was crazy for having these dialogs, but, I get along ok. :)

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#132

Post by pdonis » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #26

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.

> can anyone else do this?

I do it frequently. Sometimes I can't stop myself from doing it, which can be annoying.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#133

Post by coliveira » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

enobrev wrote: post #45

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #26

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 do the same, but unintentionally and the songs that seem to pop into my head are all songs I hate. It's incredibly rare that my favorites end up playing, but rather repetitive Pop crap. This isn't even a comment about Pop Music, as even though I don't really listen to Pop, I've heard plenty that I like. But not the songs that fly around in my head all day; Pure garbage. Edit: As I was typing this, "La Macarena" pop…

The way I solved this is by stopping completely to listen to pop songs. I will actively avoid the radio or web stations so I won't be "contaminated" by these cheap songs. I actively look for more complex music: jazz/classical style and similar.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#134

Post by vemv » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

I've come to believe that the internal monologue is just an "echo", or "audio" so to call it.

i.e. it's not your real thought process, but a mere trace of it.

It's easy to attach oneself to this voice, to believe that that voice is you. But once you see how this voice is analog to e.g. "playing" a song in your head, you might question the notion.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#135

Post by Mirioron » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

echelon wrote: 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 have the same thing going on in my head. Sometimes I think that this has a negative effect on me, because it's very easy for me to procrastinate, because all I need for that is to daydream.

It helped me through school though. I cannot imagine going through classes without daydreaming. It sounds like torture.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#136

Post by Lerc » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

echelon wrote: 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 believe I am similar. I have often thought that I would not consider locked-in-syndrome to be as bad as others express as a worse-than-death fate. I think I would just happily continue wandering within my meandering mind.

I think it is detrimental to achieving things though. Actually doing things takes far more discipline and that's time that could be used for coming up with more internal ideas.

As a side note to this, I also have aphantasia. So I don't get any images. Just concepts,dialog, connections etc.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#137

Post by rc_hadoken » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #116

Had a writer say "We think in words. Without language, we could not form thoughts". Which is instantly nonsense. I can think of a blue elephant, then the Gettysburg Address. If I'm asked "What did you think of first?" I'd say "a blue elephant". So where was that blue elephant in the mean time? Still in my mind, still a thought. Just not at the surface, not words. I look at code projects by scrolling through all the s…

I'm confused -- are you saying the writer is wrong because of your anecdotal process for coding?

As someone who writes I would have a very hard time imagining writing without the ability to have a mental monologue. I do know Alan Moore said in an interview that he would talk to himself in the mirror. Maybe he's an instance of a writer who doesn't think in words.

I would not think of a blue elephant as the word 'blue elephant' it would be the mental image of one. However, when it comes to thinking about a multiple choice question on a practice test or a quote I've recently read I can recall the words on the page of paper and the words mentally "read out".

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#138

Post by mikelevins » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

oarabbus_ wrote: post #123

gwbas1c wrote: post #115

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

I remember it stopping mine fairly frequently, but it was a really long time ago--and it was LSD--so my memory of it might well be unreliable.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#139

Post by klondike_klive » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

scj wrote: post #79

What about both..? For example, I have a concept in my head that's like a hashtag but would translate to "over-optimized 80s/90s technologies that have aged poorly". It's a categorization that overlaps with a sense of frustration (typically because I'm using one) and joy that I'm seeing fewer of them these days... I have a lot of similar "feelings" that are felt instantly, but would take dense English to express. It…

That's a great article. I'll extend this even further to include feeling sad for people whose lives I tangentially encounter. I felt unbearably sad the other day watching a middle-aged woman walk along in the rain holding an umbrella with an oversized signature of the painter Renoir on it, thinking this is her favourite umbrella, and the world doesn't care about it. Some kids, maybe her own, probably gave her shit about it. But she's still holding it and showing the world that she loves Renoir. Heartbreaking.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#140

Post by pazimzadeh » Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

40acres wrote: post #105

Unfathomable to me. My mind is constantly racing, playing out different conversations, interviewing myself in a variety of roles to navigate my thoughts on things (one day I'm the president of the US talking about foreign policy, another day I'm a big tech CEO navigating the diversity questions). I constantly have something in my ears to tune myself out, podcasts or music. After being diagnosed w/ ADHD I realize I'm…

I used to be like that, and it was helpful in many ways as I seemed to always be ready for wherever a conversation might go. But I wasn't living in the moment. Now I actively stop myself from simulating the various branches of potential conversations. It feels good to live in the moment (shaking my head a little when I feel it starting helps). The downside is that I don't have as many prepared responses and am more easily caught unaware, so now I rely more on sentences or behaviors that are broadly applicable to buy me time to think about my actual response.