"The brush is the sword of the mind." - Miyamoto Musashi
Not everyone has an internal monologue
501–510 of 904 posts
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the process is spontaneous and involuntary Do you consider that the parts of yourself that are not conscious are in fact not part of yourself? Otherwise it cannot be involuntary. Some part of you has decided to have those thoughts. Ex nihilo nihil fit.
I guess the idea is that the part that makes decisions is not under your control and you are just an "observer" who justifies what this "person" is doing. It is a scary thing if true, but can help in understanding why things are the way they are.
Yes it's an interesting point and AFAIK research is showing this to be quite true.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#503I have a serious question to people here describing themselves (as I understand it) as thinking in words and whole sentences: How can you think about concepts which cannot be put into words or for which no words exist? Do you have to come up with elaborate verbal descriptions of abstract concepts in your head before you can think about them? If so, don't you think that any verbal description is essentially incomplete…
I came here to ask this same question.
Surely, we develop thought before we develop language?
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Man I can't even imagine. I realize a while back that I don't actually hear music in my head when I have an earworm, instead I hear a representation of it made entirely of what would be vocalized sounds. So if I'm hearing the guitar solo from November Rain, its kind of like someone (me, really) going 'bowwwww owww nah nahhhh nah nahahhhhhhh wan nah nah nah nah wah wah' rather than actual guitar noises, but then it's…
> its kind of like someone (me, really) going 'bowwwww owww nah nahhhh nah nahahhhhhhh wan nah nah nah nah wah wah' rather than actual guitar noises, but then it's followed up by the singers legitimate voice.
That is super interesting!
I would assume that if you audiolize instruments as you making instruments sounds with your mouth, you would audiolize other people as you mimicking them as well...
I mean, when I read your post above, my inner voice does it in a neutral me voice, because I have no clue what you actually sound like. But if I read a text message or something from a friend of mine, I read it in their voice, because I know what they sound like.
Can you also imagine your friends' voices?
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a blog linked here some time ago where the author turned off his internal dialog and was able to observe his more automatic behavior. I recall trying it on my way to work and was fascinated. It was not like meditation, but I was still suspicious of the safety. This piece just reminds me that I need to try it again, but I dont recall how.
Can you try to dig that up and share it with us? It sounds a lot like some versions of meditation, but I'd be really interested to read it.
Reminds me of this: http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/what-my-stroke-taugh...
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I am having this reaction also. I am literally speechless, thinking that it wasn't an idiom; and that the monologue as recorded in e.g. modern literature, was likely meant to be read and as is read as a transcription... I have always at a deeply unexamined level assumed that that was just a convention of how literature functions through its medium, language; that the recording of thought through its semantic content…
Yes, for example there's the movie trope of becoming able to hear "the thoughts of others", and then the person goes in a bar and hears these sentences, like "hm I wonder if she ..." and so on.
I pointed out how unrealistic this is and you obviously couldn't hear such things, as thoughts aren't literally sentences like this. And my friend was just brushing my comment off as if I was not making any sense, since thoughts are obviously sentences like this (for him)...
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I specifically avoid viral earworm songs because I am very prone to getting them stuck in my head. I can have the same song playing "in the background" non-stop in my mind for days. I have songs in my dreams and I'll wake up with them still playing in my head. Sometimes it will just be a single bar of a song, or just a piece of it looping. To this day, I have never once listened to "Chocolate Rain" or Rebecca Black's…
I also get ear worms, although not as bad as you seem to get them.
One trick that works for me is to over-saturate your brain with it. Got an annoying song on your mind? Find it in spotify, put on headphones, and listen to it on repeat until you're sick of it.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#508Bicameral mind
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#509Mine doesn't. I also barely read growing up. I figure they're related as a past girlfriend was a lit major who read books all her life and couldn't imagine me not having conversations in my mind.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#510I could always do both. I have the internal voice, that talks and thinks and analyses things all the time. But I can also willingly turn it off, pause it and think purely visually, which is much faster than narrating (I can do it in two languages). Thinking visually, like playing silent video or manipulating objects in your mind is useful, but in the end the inner voice always continues with some conclusion. The best example I can give is playing chess. I can play blind chess (no board or physical chess set needed). It is much faster to think visually. Move pieces in your head, imagine positions well in advance, take things back and explore different variants, than it is to narrate: if I play kings pawn forward two squares my opponent will play bishop to e2. Narrating is limiting in this case, and would slow things to a crawl. But when a particularly good movie is found through visual only thinking the voice still kicks in with “Aha that is a good move”. It’s inescapable.