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Not everyone has an internal monologue

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Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#171

Post by kordlessagain »

zelly wrote: post #152
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…

This isn't healthy. You should go on a meditation retreat. Or drop acid. This is what Buddhist monks call the monkey mind syndrome.

LSD only gives temporary relief and is hard to get. Shroons might be a better route.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#172

Post by coliveira »

empath75 wrote: post #112
lovegoblin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your own link: > The primary scientific criticism has been that the conclusions drawn by Jaynesv [i.e., bicameralism] had no basis in neuropsychiatric fact.

Weirdly, I think that his theory makes sense without leaning on bicameralism at all. Internal monologues could be a recent development with very few obvious physical changes in the brain that caused it, and the cultural interpretation of it could have changed. People think of the idea of 'the mind' and 'the self' being obvious and self evident, but they are anything but, and it took a lot of brilliant philosophers an…

My opinion is that the "internal talk" is a result of our adaptation to human culture from the last thousands of years. This happens because several thousand years ago we had no language, at least not as developed as in the modern world. I guess the same is true for hearing music inside your mind, since there was no music (as we understand nowadays) a few thousand years ago.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#173

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#174

Post by johnchristopher »

n00b123 wrote: post #164

Interesting topic (and comments). 1. I do inner monologue. And I have to say, sometimes I get scared from what I "hear". I don't mean sometjing like "I hear voices telling me to kill everyone", but nasty, brutally cynical, sometimes outright violent thoughts. They feel alien to me, because on general level I consider myself "the good guy", but one the other hand they don't feel like someone else whispering me evil th…

> 2. Sometimes I feel like my mind has layers, where this monologue is the the most upper one with some lower, less verbalized layer which is only later formed into words. Doesn't happen often, but it feels like the lower layer is actually more capable because it's not constrained by language/words.

I have something like that which is more akin to wandering formless thoughts to me. I don't think they are more capable though, I think it's an illusion given off by the deeper or soother sensation it instills into the mind.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#175

Post by robinoh »

vemv wrote: post #134

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.

hear hear!

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#176

Post by klondike_klive »

cguess wrote: post #122
Zenbit_UX wrote: post #94

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.

I've been toying with the idea of a podcast that doesn't require you to pay attention to it too much.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#177

Post by Insanity »

For me, it's definitely the internal monologue. Worse is that I have a form of OCD (repetitive thoughts) so this monologue gets stuck in a 'loop' and I end up just repeating the same sentence, or part of sentences to myself. Drives me nuts.

Makes me wonder if people without this 'internal monologue' experience this kind of OCD in the same way..

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#178

Post by mikelevins »

mhandley wrote: post #75

I think there are also two types of people when it comes to navigating. One type gives and understands directions along the lines of "go along this street until you pass the Red Lion pub, then turn right. After 50 metres, turn left". Most people seem to be in this category. Then there are those of us who have an internal map, and have no problem with "go north for half a mile, then turn east". I'm the latter - I alwa…

My mother is a step-by-step navigator. She wants detailed in-order instructions.

I'm a spatial navigator. Give me enough information to locate the destination on my mental map, and a few local details I can use to double-check that I'm in the right place.

My mother will follow the directions step-by-step. I will travel in the general direction of the location of the destination and start checking landmarks and addresses when I'm in the right area of the map.

I cannot navigate at all when engaged in a conversation. I can drive safely, but if you occupy my attention in conversation, my destination will become random. My daughter used to exploit that quirk for laughs when she was a teenager.

Unfortunately, I have sort of the same issue with conversation and logic problems. I tend to perform pretty badly in tech interviews because I can't think about programming problems very well while participating in a conversation.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#180

Post by kordlessagain »

Lerc wrote: post #136
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 t…

Yeah, if you don't have images you probably don't have sound. Thinking mind only.
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