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Not everyone has an internal monologue

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Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#301

Post by findthewords »

xvector wrote: post #272
warent wrote: post #262

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 h…

I never knew that people actually thought verbally ! I always thought it was a figure of speech. I mean, I can "think verbally" if I try really hard... even then, it's more like me imagining myself saying something rather than actually thinking verbally. Wow. I don't know what to think.

For me, thinking verbally means either monologue by someone else than me, or dialogue with not-me. Rarely dialogue where neither party is me. You've never argued with ancient Greeks? I find the act of dialogue with my idea-form of Plato hilarious.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#302

Post by babgev »

OGWhales wrote: post #283

I took mushrooms once and only about a month after the trip did I realize I hadn’t been using an internal dialogue since the trip. It started up again and hasn’t really stopped since. It was unnerving.

Can you tell more about that month please. I just cant imagine how that could be possible

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#303

Post by Rury »

wbhart wrote: post #244

I have an inner monologue, but I wouldn't say I was like "hearing" anything. For me it feels a bit more like the muscle movements in my larynx are played out as though I was going to speak the words. I can imagine a voice speaking at the same time if I want, but that's not how it is normally. I tried reading at the same time as thinking of different words. I can certainly read the words whilst thinking of different o…

>For me it feels a bit more like the muscle movements in my larynx are played out as though I was going to speak the words

Apparently, there's been studies showing that is actually true: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/aug/21/science...

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#304

Post by hug »

echelon wrote: post #30
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.

No, I think that's pretty normal. I do it all the time. I can even "compose" my own music (it can be any genre, with any type of instruments, and even include voices), but I have no ability to play instruments myself. I'd love to get into music, but just don't have the time. My literature professor back in college said he "listened to" classical music in his head during his morning runs. I just assumed everyone did i…

I cannot 'play music in my head'. I can recall vaguely what it felt like to have been listening to a specific piece of music, but not much further than that.

Possibly related, I have a very poor ability to visualise anything internally. (I cannot, for example, "picture a beach in my head")

In fact, most things I try to hold in my head evince nothing more than a foggy recollection.

It has been this way for as long as I can remember.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#306

Post by nibbula »

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…

It is the observation of linguists that some language processing is hardware accelerated. But hardware acceleration comes in a great many varieties, anywhere from having a slightly smaller partially specialized neuron group in the frontal lobe, to having genetically preconfigured sections in lower brain, to not needing the signals to travel to the brain at all, as demonstrated by headless chickens, and government officials.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#307

Post by 40acres »

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.

Definitely but my partner will probably disagree; I've played devil's advocate way too many times for her liking.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#310

Post by callesgg »

The part of the brain that is your thoughts is the activity of a nuralnetwork. It can manifest in a wide range of ways.

Using the narrative of the internal dialog is interesting way of conceptualising thoughts. And I suppose there might be benefits to those who use the concept of internal dialog to understand themselves.

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