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Not everyone has an internal monologue

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Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#141

Post by friendlybus »

I had an internal monologue in my youth. Constantly searching for the next witticism in my mind before I said it and putting thought into structuring my words carefully for school. I later spent some time alone and developed a simulation of other people I could ask and have conversations with in my head.

Then I went to therapy and they told me to stop doing that, so I did. I also worked with people who barely speak english too often and my need for high level english faded. Now I mostly see a battle of ideas and artworks through a misty haze in my mind.

I tried out turning back on the inner monologue and I know I can. I used to have vivid dreams about playing starcraft and that's gone too with the skills. I think you think what is valuable to you.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#142

Post by tshadley »

GistNoesis wrote: post #86

I guess that's probably related to the way people internally vocalize or not when they read. Teaching people to read probably scars many minds at a young age. People who vocalize are working with the slow side of the mind. You are not vocalizing your thoughts when you need to drive fast. Imagine for a second having the focus of your thoughts being forced into being single-threaded vocalized process. Having to seriali…

Translating thoughts to language does seem like a major bottleneck. But if your goal is to implement thoughts in socially communicable concepts (spoken word or text), or in mathematical or programmable concepts (algorithms, software), an internal monologue is a rough draft of the implementation that is continually refined during the reflective process.

Further, the internal monologue is just one representation in mind, it does not replace the full (non-verbalized) thought. Both are present and complement each other.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#143

Post by arcade79 »

keiferski wrote: post #38

I'd posit that the strength of the internal monologue is tied to one's propensity and skill in language. People that think primarily in linguistic terms probably have an easier time forming their thoughts into the structure of language, whereas a person who interprets the world in primarily in visual or spatial terms would see more mental images, maps, or connections. Unfortunately, we live in a society strongly domi…

And I'd posit that you're wrong. :-) The reason? I do neither.

I do not have an internal monologue. I can construct one if I want to, but I do not have an "inner voice". When I type this, I do not prepare the sentences before I type them. They come to me as I type. I know exactly what I want to convey, but the sentence doesn't exist inside my head as a recognizable language or as any structure I can describe. The funny part? I don't think in neither English nor Norwegian (my native language), and I never have.

When it comes to imagery - I cannot construct a clear image of much at all in my head. I can, if I try hard, construct vague images of my mother, father, wife, daughter and very close friends in my head - but they're vague. Very, very vague. I have no problem recognizing people, though.

I do have fantastic spatial skills. If I walk through an area, I can see imagine it from different angles and positions - but not as a picture. It's abstract, without imagery. It's difficult to explain how it's processed in my head. I can spin things and know exactly how things will "look" from a different angle .. but I can't "visualize" it. This seems self-contradictory - but let me try to give a real life example. I visited Manila some 15 years ago. 10 years ago (5 years after being there) - I was going to show someone where I'd been on google maps. I had never looked at the area on a map before. I could just zoom in on the city, start from the airport, recognize the patterns from above, and zoom in on various things I had visited - switch to street view and show it from the angles I wanted. In seconds.

I can visit woods I've been to 20 years ago, and recognize where I am, and know the paths.

Still, no inner monologue. Not much mental imagery. Heck of a lot of connections though - but very very abstract.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#144

Post by allovernow »

zelly wrote: post #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 w…

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

I vehemently disagree. Introspection from normal mode activity is a critical source for self improvement and creativity. Yes, it can be hyperactive, but some degree of introspection is one of the primary qualities that differentiate us from animals and make us decidedly human.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#146

Post by danogentili »

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.

Yeah I can also do this (sometimes), the experience is the same as yours: I can't quite emotionally resonate with the song as I would if I were hearing it IRL, but if I know the song quite well I can get all the details right.

It is particularly intriguing to be able to "sing" using other people's voices, since the lyrics of the song "feel" the same way as my inner voice, passing through (I assume) the brain's phonological loop.

Once I had this really weird experience, where in certain conditions, certain muscles would resonate exactly with the song playing in my brain (and not just the rythm, even minor details were somewhat transferred, as if my brain was redirecting raw PCM audio from my brain directly to the nerves); I was really excited about this, as there was potential for a direct non-invasive neural interface to my brain, capable of extracting original songs directly from my brain without any instruments; unfortunately I could not replicate this weird behaviour reliably, and I also felt a bit weird in my brain when trying to do so, so I just dropped the matter.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#147

Post by tandr »

pdonis wrote: post #132
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.

I found that when some particular song is getting too much of my internal "air time", the best way to get rid of it is actually to find it (personal collection, youtube, google music, spotify - whatever you are using) and just to listen to it from beginning to the end. HTH.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#148

Post by VLM »

kordlessagain wrote: post #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.

Talk to ham radio operators who know morse code, for them its fairly common. After awhile, especially in a competitive contest, you start to hear stuff in the static. Sometimes because there's an actual station there trying to reach you, sometimes not.

Hams and hunters are the only people I can think of in modern life who listen very closely to silence, or noise anyway.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#150

Post by svachalek »

kordlessagain wrote: post #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.

Huh. I wouldn't say I can't visualize "at all" but it's a faint, crude version of actually seeing, like 1% of what it would actually be like, with great effort. On the other hand I can "hear" a voice clear as day if I want to.

I'm not in the habit of "talking" to myself as many people seem to, the soundtrack of my mind can easily be silent. But if I want to rehearse what I want to say or something I can imagine it clearly.

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