I can do both interchangeably and always assumed everyone could do the same!
Not everyone has an internal monologue
151–160 of 904 posts
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#152I 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…
This isn't healthy. You should go on a meditation retreat. Or drop acid. This is what Buddhist monks call the monkey mind syndrome.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#153There are also people who code-switch. I sometimes monologue and sometimes think abstractly.
Me too. Sometimes I notice my internal monologue is slowing me down, so I turn it off and let the thoughts flow without converting them into words. Other times, I feel like the abstract thoughts are coming too quickly, so I'm like "woah, slow down there!" and work my way through the same thought process again in words, to assure myself that I'm not skipping steps and jumping to conclusions.
That sounds like my experience. Though the slow working-through doesn't always have to be in words. It can be in pictures or in orderly logical lumps of knowledge that I don't have a good name for.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#154I 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 e…
I used to refer to this as ”thinking of myself in third person”.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#155The "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.
> 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.
With all due respect, I disagree completely . I think it's incredibly helpful to be able to talk to yourself and examine ideas and concepts verbally without having to physically verbalize.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I have not, but I will most certainly check it out, thanks for the tip!
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#157I 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…
I think some people are just wired to be super verbal/auditory and don't have as strong pattern or visual/symbolic skills. For example, a friend of mine who is a fantastic poet - VERY skilled verbally - told me that she was one of those kids who had to move their lips when reading, and she never actually learned to read the way I do (where words are just visual symbols that form patterns and have not that much to do…
I looked at your VR expression platform (not yet tested in VR) I see it as a kind of non-linear language experience, where you pick objects and conjure them to express yourself, that I would have greatly enjoy when I was a kid instead of reading/writing. (I'm not yet sure the UI is still mature enough to not get in the way of the thoughts).
Snapchat with its way of communication with pictures also got this right.
My inner feeling is that we new technology we should be able to alleviate the need to speak in a serialized/sequenced form between people that was kind of imposed by nature and exchange mental pictures directly.
Keep up the good work :)
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#158Something 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.
Yes, I think the inability to do this seems to be associated with aphantasia. Most people do not have aphantasia, therefore I'd expect most people are able to do this.
I think similarly that most people who do not have an internal dialogue experience aphantasia - the ability to replay or simulate sensory experiences mentally. Personally I do not often have thoughts "racing" through my head - maybe one main one, maybe zero - and I think this related to my aphantasia.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#159I 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 e…
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Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#160Similarly, not everyone can visualize things in their mind. Pixar's founder Ed Catmull did a survey of Pixar employees and, interestingly, there wasn't that big of a skew of artists who are able to mentally visualize. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47830256 I wonder if there's an intersection of people who do not have an internal monologue nor a "mind's eye?"
I have both. My mind's eye is blind and my mind's ear is deaf. The inside of my head is a pretty empty place where I inhabit it, cue the jokes. Thoughts just pop into my head from some other part of my brain. When I'm thinking about how to word something, I feel my mouth start to form the words, though my mouth doesn't move. Maybe I'm sub-vocalizing, I don't know. When I'm thinking hard about something, I just sort o…
I realised this about myself only in the last few years. If there's a screen on in the room I will be riveted on it to the exclusion of anything else.