Not everyone has an internal monologue

I have both this and aphantasia. Meaning I don't normally hear my thoughts or see anything in my mind. I am able to kinda hear myself, but i have to almost hum. I can not see anything at all the vast majority of the time, but sometimes I feel like I start to see something simple and it quickly goes away

Not OP, but their description fits mine perfectly. When I write, I don't know what will come out until it does. This goes for this comment (funnily, typing this is not harder because I'm aware of the process - it just pours out) as well as the novel I'm writing. When I'm not writing the novel, but thinking about it, there are two different stages: "thinking about the chapter I plan to write" when I form the sentences, but that quickly becomes impossible because I can't keep more than a few sentences in my head.

When I'm not in front of the computer, I often abandon this process and instead focus on the larger concepts: the alien species and their evolution and civilization, the plot and the major events that need to be there. These are all concepts or scenes. I don't want to say they're "visual", they're more "concepts".

I can compare this to wanting a cup of coffee. I don't think "I would like a cup of coffee" (although that is what I might say if I have to vocalize it). It's more a feeling (wanting) and a concept (a cup of warm coffee). The label underlying the concept is secondary.

When I think of my novel in the shower, I haven't the slightest idea idea how I exactly will get to the major event at the end (because there are several major events before that which I haven't gotten to). This can only unfold when I write.

Edit: I just did the "Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire" and I don't have aphantasia, but I realize that when asked about scenery that I've seen, it's easier to have a clear picture, whereas completely imaginary scenarios are concepts, rather than vivid images.

To answer some of the questions that the author posed, how do people without an internal monologue formulate ideas, maybe think about it this way: Those voices in your head, how do they formulate ideas? Before the words form, there's a construct - slightly out of reach, an uncontrollable yet influenceable bubbling. That voice in your head is not your brain - it's not your thoughts, it more like a second mouth and your brain pulling the strings.

I presume.

Of course, I'm not in your head, so I couldn't tell you for sure.

I've never realised that there was this divide between people, but it actually makes a lot of sense to me. Some people have a barrier, a pre-speech-speech, other people don't. Some have more neurons or less neurons in this half-way house. I have a vague recollection of people reporting losing their internal monologue after a lobotomy, but I may be wrong on that.

If I had to guess, with my programmer-with-very-little-neuro-science background, it seems like a natural way that our brains form. Sometimes all the neurons specialise for speech directly connected to your mouth, other times a cluster of neurons specialise for speech with a disconnect. I suspect like most things, it isn't fully genetic - though it probably plays a part.

Personally, I find myself monologuing the first few words that I'm typing, and from then on I'm reading it off the screen. I have an idea of where I want the sentence to go, then I re-read it and decide better of it.

It does mean that writing emails especially, takes me an absolute age to say something remarkably simple. Speech is unaffected, though I'm never the loudest voice in the room and am particularly hesitant to butt in (and feel really bad when I try)

When I replay arguments with a particularly frustrating person, I often find myself quietly vocalising as the emotion rises.

And when I have a mental block on a word (which happened a couple of times writing this - "construct" is still not the right word above, but I can't find a better one), often the voice in my head will still keep playing with words to try and prompt the rest of my brain to do its job. I would love to see whether internal monologues make for better or worse wordsmiths. Or the effect the divide has on meditation.

Also, possibly related, I find it very very difficult to visualise pictures in my head. I dream fine (possibly in black and white - which was how I trained myself out of bedwetting as a kid), but asking me to imagine a picture of a beach, the picture is horribly hazy.

This is called subitizing (or subitization). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subitizing

What if it’s something more nuanced than what words can express in a concise way? Do you have to slow down your train of thought? E.g. the first bite of that Proust’s madeleine probably didn’t last several minutes...