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Not everyone has an internal monologue

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Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#721
There is a science fiction novel by Robert J. Sawyer titled "Quantum Night" which touches on this. Basically, "three states of minds" which amount to "normal, zombie, psychopath".

The story explores "flipping the switches" on a global scale, among other things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Night

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"interviewing myself in a variety of roles to navigate my thoughts on things" I used to from time to time imagine my half of a conversation in which I was showing around someone notable who had traveled through time to get to the present day. Maybe someone from 1,000 years ago or maybe from 50. That is, for entertainment, not to cope with anything. I never felt like my imagination was quite good enough to turn it int…

And, as far as visual thoughts go, I don't think I'm a visual person, but I wouldn't say I don't think visually. Once in a while, I do. Waking from dreams, I often feel like they were very visual. I guess maybe my sense is that my visual imagination is latent or stunted. Usually it's difficult for me to picture anything, but I feel I know what it's like, that I can imagine waking up and being able to see the tiniest…

Your comment just reminded me of a dream I had, I think last night coincidentally. I am also not a visual person, and while I can visualize things, do object manipulation, and that kind of thing in my mind, it's quite difficult for me to pull up more than a hazy metal picture of something, and anything I do get in detail tends to be ephemeral.

Anyway, last night (I think) I had a dream where I was able to pull up an essentially photographic mental picture of something. I recall spending some time analyzing it and being amazed at the level of detail and permanence, knowing that that's not usually how I experience things.

Of course, recalling it now, I can only bring to mind a hazy picture of what I experienced. (I think there was a field of some kind and maybe trees?) But now I'm curious... did I actually see that clear mental picture in the dream? Or did I only have, like, the idea of doing so?

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#723
Barely related: I told my father that instead of sounding words or hearing a voice, I "see" words on a page scrolling by very quickly. He didn't believe me. As I got older it turned into a voice, which I preferred because the voice is able to be changed to anything I want. My grandfather, Captain Picard, myself.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#724
post #646

I would say I don't have an internal monologue. But that doesn't mean my mind isn't wandering all over the place. I don't talk to myself, I don't play out conversations in my head. Instead it's more like a collection of "thoughts", or "images", or visualizing myself "doing". I can get extremely caught up in this. There's also an awful lot of contemplating objects, observing features, visualizing how they interact. Ve…

Say you're planning to write a letter (or an email), but you're not actually sitting at your computer to do it right at that time. You're in the shower, or walking around or whatever. Will you play out specific sentences you intend to include, in your mind? Could you do that if you wanted to?

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#725

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…

I spend a great deal of time worrying about what we'd do if a few hundred thousand exact clones of me appeared. Should we congregate, maybe seize an uninhabited island or form a town, or should we scatter to the four winds? How would we deal with our darkest secrets or quirks being public knowledge? Would we cooperate or conflict violently?

I think it's all my internal monologue voices feeling trapped living in one head. At least we're self-aware..

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#726
post #330
post #314

I 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 think with words, in multiple languages, but they're silent. I can't actually hear anything. Importantly though, the verbalizing is a later stage of thinking. First there is the thought, seemingly instant, non-verbalized, and fuzzy. If needed, I can already act based on that thought without verbalizing. However if I verbalize it in my head, then that allows for further analysis that may lead me to override the init…

I understand thinking in concepts but not words, and I understand having an internal monolog, but it seems like you're describing a third option, unless I'm just misunderstanding. Obviously everyone's internal monolog is literally silent, as they're not speaking out loud, but it's most naturally described as 'hearing' the words in your head. (As opposed to literally hearing with your ears.)

It sounds like you're saying you will 'verbalize' your conceptual thoughts, ie put them into words, but not actually process the sounds of those words in your head? In what way do you think of the words then? As text? Or do you somehow think of words themselves using, like, the concept of each word, without mentally hearing their sounds?

If so, that is unfamiliar to me. Maybe I do it, but it's not something I recall being consciously aware of.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people who experience having an internal monologue: Suppose you see a bagel on the kitchen table in the morning and decide whether or not you're hungry enough to eat it. Does that process involve an internally experienced stream of words (whether "audible in your mind's ear" or not) like "I'm pretty hungry" or "I bet that bagel would taste good"? Is this what it would be mean to have an internal monologue? Becaus…

For me it really depends. I have two ways of representing my speech. 1) experience the words as if I'm saying them out loud but don't vocalize them. This is similar to how a lot of people read, so I figure I'm technically subvocalizing them. 2) especially when doing math or programming I simply know what I was about to think using method 1) without any specific words springing up. I can't figure out if method 1 is me…

You just made me realize that internal speech is, I think, a better way to understand the internal monolog (at least in my case) than internal hearing. I guess I can hear my internal monolog, but it's more about 'saying' the words in my head than 'hearing' them.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#728

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…

Having conversations with yourself and re-playing conversations is different from narrating things like a voice over though. I do the former, and I believe that's quite normal, but not the later.

I don't think many people literally narrate things, which is why this joke is funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZwib_JvtCM

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like hell to me. I don't have an internal monolog. I think in visuals. I am a quiet person. I am a better programmer for it I think. I visualize the structure of a program I am writing and pair programming would also be hell for me.

I definitely am capable of thinking non-verbally, and I agree it can help with programming. But I just can't wrap my head around not having an internal monologue at all. How did you even write this comment? What was the process that led you to put together this particular series of words, if not 'hearing' them in your own mind as an expression of your thoughts first? Edit: Thinking on this more, I may not have had an…

I spend a lot of my time writing, and when I'm ready, stuff just pours out. I'm always thinking the words as I write them, but there's not lots of intervening internal dialog.

Often it's like I have no clue what I'm going to write, until I write it.

But maybe that's just that I've trained myself to write my internal dialog down, instead of just thinking it. And when I'm stuck, I definitely talk to myself more. Sometimes to the point that I can't write anything.

When I'm really focused on something, on the other hand, it's very hard to stop. I'll be so tired that I can barely think, and yet I can't clean my teeth and wash my face without scribbling notes on scraps of paper. Which, by the way, I dispose of securely ;)

Also, it's obvious that there's a lot going on that I'm not at all conscious of. I can stew over stuff for days, or even weeks. And then, out of nowhere, it's there to be written. Or done, as the case may be.

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Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like hell to me. I don't have an internal monolog. I think in visuals. I am a quiet person. I am a better programmer for it I think. I visualize the structure of a program I am writing and pair programming would also be hell for me.

I definitely am capable of thinking non-verbally, and I agree it can help with programming. But I just can't wrap my head around not having an internal monologue at all. How did you even write this comment? What was the process that led you to put together this particular series of words, if not 'hearing' them in your own mind as an expression of your thoughts first? Edit: Thinking on this more, I may not have had an…

Not the parent, but the general process would be: form a kernel of a thought, this is largely subconscious process. This thought is made up of meaning-and-context-rich symbols specific to my mind. Refine this thought, resolving contradictions and various logical weakpoints. Translate this thought into speech, losing much of the information content because language is a tool created to holler at your fellow hominids as you hunt African game and backstab each other when competing for high value mates.
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