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Not everyone has an internal monologue

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Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#261

Post by LordFast »

hardwater89 wrote: post #256

I speak 3 languages (Spanish being my mother tongue). I just came to the realization that when I read in English, the words sound crips, clear, and the voice that's reading them in my head is not really my own voice. I can't really describe it but its a very neutral voice with no accent. When I speak in English I have a thicker Spanish accent. When I read something in Spanish the voice in my head sounds a lot closer…

Whoa, you just made me realize that my internal voice sounds like a typical Californian evening news TV broadcaster type person. Cool!

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#262

Post by warent »

This isn't so hard to understand if you've ever meditated. It becomes clearer that the internal monologue is a process that just runs on its own almost endlessly, and the feeling that we control it is mostly just an illusion. You can test this for yourself by trying to find out what your next thought is going to be. You never know until you have it, which indicates that the process is spontaneous and involuntary. I have ADHD and possibly some mild form of OCD so for me a big portion of the mind chatter is just counterproductive noise, and the only (healthy) freedom is meditation. I envy people who have no internal monologue, although they probably get the same noise just in a more abstract way.

There must be a language/hearing center in the brain that's being activated for some people and not activated for others. When I'm consciously having an internal dialogue, sometimes my tongue is lightly flickering around in my mouth as if I'm actually talking!

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#263

Post by downtide »

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…

Don't worry with age your brain will deaden. My mind raced, I learned somewhat how to chill it right out, and now it flat-lines far too much.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#264

Post by agarden »

feanaro wrote: post #204
jerf wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably less of a difference than you might think. Dreams are generally less detailed than you might think from their portrayal on TV. What they are really good at are convincing the dreamers that they are a great deal more detailed than they really are, because they're on the "inside" of the cognition; you might "see" a vaguely round blotch of color like what you may see when you close your eyes, but you cogni…

How do you differentiate between the dreams being detailed and the dreamers simply being convinced of the dreams being detailed? It's certainly my impression that my dreams are extremely visually detailed, to the point that I'm often able to read things in dreams (and remember it later).

And I never experience dreams with that kind of visual detail. Occasionally I dream a dream that leaves an impression of being very realistic, but even those don't have any visual details to the point where I could read letters.

My waking ability to visualize is poor too. I have a very vague mental picture of what my wife's face looks like, and I cannot see it all at once. Nor can I visualize an entire chessboard in my head, despite being able to play chess blindfold well enough to beat novices.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#265

Post by meowface »

bradlys wrote: post #253

For those who do inner monologue - I worry about telling you about this. It might make you wish you didn't ever realize it. So.. spoiler in the next sentence. When you start talking in your head, pay attention to your vocal cords and the area around them... Notice anything? They're probably moving like they would if you were actually talking out loud. Have you ever noticed how you tried to talk really fast in your he…

I think your thoughts are right. I think once we have good neural interfaces, interpersonal communication will become much, much faster for some people. Both linguistic and non-linguistic (symbolic, abstract, etc.).

I think there will be certain superusers who start using them from a very young age and will be able to communicate and transform information with incredible density and clarity. I'm not totally sure how useful that'd actually be for conversing or teaching, but for writing, programming, and creating art, I bet it'll be very significant.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#266

Post by _underfl0w_ »

sandov wrote: post #50

I like to think that I have "hardware acceleration" for typing on QWERTY keyboards because I am so used to it that I do it unconsciously. But when I smoke weed, I have to actively think about the position of keys in the keyboard in order to type coherent things. I have to type "by software". The point is: maybe for some people, their spoken language is "hardware accelerated" and for others, thinking in words is too c…

YMMV, but I find cannabis consumption requires that _pretty much every subsequent action_ be done at a conscious level for the duration of its effects. Reading, coding, speaking, typing, etc. This can occasionally yield interesting results by forcing you to think through minute aspects of everyday things - and sometimes by extension craft questions you might not normally think to ask - but at least for me it seems to disable the majority of unconscious "muscle memory" systems. "hardware acceleration" is a perfect phrase to describe them though!

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#267

Post by godshatter »

qznc wrote: post #215
godshatter wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The positive aspect is that you should be immune to Kopfkino: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Kopfkino > Kopfkino happens when you involuntarily use your imagination to think of troubling or disgusting things in graphic detail. > From the german words kopf, head and kino, cinema. > After i heard 'granny pussy' i had the most disgusting kopfkino. (Just realized, I need to remember this one as a nice ge…

That is nice. I can't conjure an image like that at all. Also, seeing a graphic image doesn't stick with me very long since I don't keep seeing it like a lot of people apparently do. People with aphantasia would probably do better moderating images than those without. Still not great, though, because while I can't see the image again I would still remember the circumstances involved.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#268

Post by findthewords »

Mirioron wrote: post #119
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…

On the other hand, this probably allows you to put yourself in someone else's shoes more easily.

It's helpful for simulating different thoughts and feelings from different viewpoints in real or imagined scenarios. It doesn't grant super-empathic powers of comforting, or mirroring feelings in the moment. Moreso it hinders my ability to mirror emotions because I'm dont live "in the moment" as much.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#269

Post by agarden »

godshatter wrote: post #72
c_o_u_n_t_s wrote: post #11

Similarly, 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…

Interesting. I have very little mental visualization and find ignoring TVs to be extremely difficult. I had thought it was because I grew up in a house that did not have a TV on very often.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#270

Post by Elof »

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…

Also ADHD and experience the world in a similar but slightly different way. All my narratives are about potential immediate futures and how they might tweak the longer term outcomes. It's interesting but insanely draining and often depressing. Since I've noticed this about my self I've been intentionally trying to take steps to slow my thoughts and be in the moment, but when I do I'm constituently thinking about how doing that will effect my future self, lol. Still, I think I've found that intentionally trying to take moments has been helpful and beneficial
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