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People who have unusual, or non-existent, inner voices

theguardian.com

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Re: People who have unusual, or non-existent, inner voices

#11

Post by floatingatoll »

Bellend wrote: post #5
floatingatoll wrote: post #2

Hey, it’s me! I’m one of the “inner silence” folks, in case anyone has questions. Didn’t realize y’all heard voices until five years ago.

Hey! I don't know if I have the voice or not. I seen this on a video (Joe Scott maybe?) a couple of weeks ago and I wondered too. I don't know the difference between thinking and inner voice. Like if I am approaching a road, I don't recall an inner voice telling me to stop but I don't know if that is valid as an example. The question might be too broad but how do you know you have no inner voice?

Other people apparently hear perceptible voices talking to them. Those cartoons about a devil and angel on your shoulders aren’t just cartoons, it turns out, I guess. I’m not really great at explaining it :)

Re: People who have unusual, or non-existent, inner voices

#12

Post by state_less »

Aethylia wrote: post #6
bsid wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: What happens when you're reading? For me, my inner voice kind of repeats it, if that make sense. Can't wrap my head around what "understanding" would be without that lol.

This isn't directly related. It's likely a product of how you were taught to read. You can learn to read without it by trying to have the inner voice say something different like 'a, e, i, o, u' while reading. It takes practice but it increases your reading speed.

Thanks for the pro tip!

Re: People who have unusual, or non-existent, inner voices

#13

Post by renton_wal »

Bellend wrote: post #5
floatingatoll wrote: post #2

Hey, it’s me! I’m one of the “inner silence” folks, in case anyone has questions. Didn’t realize y’all heard voices until five years ago.

Hey! I don't know if I have the voice or not. I seen this on a video (Joe Scott maybe?) a couple of weeks ago and I wondered too. I don't know the difference between thinking and inner voice. Like if I am approaching a road, I don't recall an inner voice telling me to stop but I don't know if that is valid as an example. The question might be too broad but how do you know you have no inner voice?

Can you speak to yourself in your head? I also think there's a difference between involuntary and voluntary inner voice.

Re: People who have unusual, or non-existent, inner voices

#14

Post by malwrar »

xyzelement wrote: post #4
floatingatoll wrote: post #2

Hey, it’s me! I’m one of the “inner silence” folks, in case anyone has questions. Didn’t realize y’all heard voices until five years ago.

I didn't read the article yet but since you're offering... how do you "think through" problems? Example, this was a dialogue I had in my head this morning: "Avenue X has a lot of stop signs which is annoying. But Avenue Y is narrow and it's garbage-pickup time, so I can get unlucky and really stuck behind a garbage truck. That's not worth the risk, I'd rather deal with the stop signs so I am taking avenue X" What is…

I think in terms of pictures or concepts. Your example becomes me picturing being stuck behind a dump truck, then me stopping at numerous stop signs, then I’d decide based on which one feels like it would be more painful.

Do people actually think in terms of complete sentences like you describe in this passage, or is there some nuance to the experience I’m not understanding? Thinking for me feels more like watching thoughts flow between black boxes representing some known factor than talking to a friend.

Re: People who have unusual, or non-existent, inner voices

#15

Post by josephg »

I started doing improv comedy classes a few years ago. It’s terrifying. My friends would share stories of what their inner critics were saying about their performances. “You were rubbish and everyone was knows it!”.

It was weird for me - my mind doesn’t have a voice like that. “Hah maybe I don’t have an inner critic” I thought. But I still felt crippling shame after bad scenes in class. In quiet moments my mind is full of thoughts - there’s just no voice and no words attached by default. It’s all non verbal unless I think about vocalising it. This mode of thinking makes a lot of sense for imagining algorithms. There’s no words - just a kind of an imagined symbolic mechanism shifting to my will.

I know now I do have an inner critic. It just speaks in my body with emotions like guilt and gut wrenching shame. I have an “inner voice” - but having a thought and having words for that thought are different steps for me. Some of my most interesting thoughts I don’t have the words for at all.

Re: People who have unusual, or non-existent, inner voices

#16

Post by floatingatoll »

xyzelement wrote: post #4
floatingatoll wrote: post #2

Hey, it’s me! I’m one of the “inner silence” folks, in case anyone has questions. Didn’t realize y’all heard voices until five years ago.

I didn't read the article yet but since you're offering... how do you "think through" problems? Example, this was a dialogue I had in my head this morning: "Avenue X has a lot of stop signs which is annoying. But Avenue Y is narrow and it's garbage-pickup time, so I can get unlucky and really stuck behind a garbage truck. That's not worth the risk, I'd rather deal with the stop signs so I am taking avenue X" What is…

I run the timelines with conceptual blocks and then do a final pass to put them back into words to reply. It only takes a fraction of a second to solve the puzzle but it’s a pain to figure out wording each direction. Logical-NOT traps in standardized testing are hell on earth because they’re not language-appropriate uses of negation.

If I can afford five minutes of truck wait I’ll rock out in the car. If I cannot, stop signs earn precedence.

The upside of doing it this way is that I can solve the puzzle without needing the variables to be well-defined, because it’s easy to nail down where the crux points are and then leave the .. I don’t have a word here, the subunit of puzzle? .. unresolved until information exists.

Re: People who have unusual, or non-existent, inner voices

#18

Post by haxiomic »

haxiomic wrote: post #7

I love hearing about how other minds work! It's the coolest thing to think about and fascinating how we all go by without ever realising how different we can be to one another HN: How does your mind work? Do you have a dialog, monolog, abstract concepts, something else entirely?

For me it's a clear audible monolog which breaks into a dialog of self talk for problem solving and day-to-day planning. It sounds nothing like my physical voice but I feel that's my truest self

I've had this wonderful experience after learning sign language that for the first time I feel like I can talk to other people with the voice in my head! And when they sign back I hear a voice speaking aloud each sign. What I discovered is I'm quite a different person when I don't have to use my physical voice to talk, I'm much more expressive and fun, which I guess I find difficult to translate through the voice of a late 20s man. Something to work on!

Something I've wondered about is how noisy people find images: https://www.reddit.com/r/noisygifs/ is fun to explore. I find all repetitive motion has sound, like anything, no matter how abstract, I cannot help hearing some weird audio pattern when I look at it

Re: People who have unusual, or non-existent, inner voices

#19

Post by titusjohnson » 

  The broadcaster Jenni Murray lives in author Hannah Begbie’s brain. 
  Well, not Murray exactly, but a facsimile of Murray, with the same 
  kind but quizzical voice, and a scarf flung loosely over her shoulder.
  “My inner voice is a duologue, like I am in a constant state of
  interviewing myself,” says Begbie, who is 44 and lives in London.
  “The interviewing always happens in a plush radio studio,” she says. 
  “There’s nice rich crushed-velvet walls. There’s a warmth and a colour to it.”
I must just not understand what they're talking about? I have an inner dialog, but I'm very aware that it's just me. In my head I can rehearse things I want to say, or argue a topic back and forth, but it's exactly the same as playing chess against myself. I know what I'm saying and I have infinite knowledge into what the "other side" will say because it's just me. At no time are there other voices, no unexpected insight posited by an old radio announcer.

For the most part I also feel fully in control of my inner dialog. Any time I'm not in control, as in the thoughts are racing and my mind keeps skipping from topic to topic and maybe circling back to a specific topic, that means I'm having some kind of anxiety episode. I probably need a glass of wine or a smoke, and some quiet time to mull over what my brain is trying to get me to process (aka meditation lite).

The very first thing I think of when reading this article is that everyone interviewed except Hopkins is having near-constant auditory hallucinations. An inner voice that consists of an old Italian couple arguing in the kitchen? Really? Am I that disconnected from this concept?

Re: People who have unusual, or non-existent, inner voices

#20

Post by floatingatoll »

bsid wrote: post #3
floatingatoll wrote: post #2

Hey, it’s me! I’m one of the “inner silence” folks, in case anyone has questions. Didn’t realize y’all heard voices until five years ago.

Question: What happens when you're reading? For me, my inner voice kind of repeats it, if that make sense. Can't wrap my head around what "understanding" would be without that lol.

I glance at the paragraph, it glows briefly, I blink, I trace a spiral from the center counter clockwise, and if I still don’t have comprehension, I go back a couple paragraphs or try again the agonizing word by word way. Sometimes I read left to right to left depending on text width and such. I can usually keep math in the right order but I'm known to add left-to-right which involves the concept of 'one past nine' as a 'digit' for the sake of forcing it into base 10 math, and then I unroll the carries right-to-left, but not always, it depends.
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