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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

#221

Post by illwrks »

0xdeadb00f wrote: post #171

My inner monologue is almost crippling. I can't fall asleep at night, I think of all the stupid shit I've done and said in the past, and I call myself names because of it. It's gotten to the point where sometimes when I'm alone I'll vocalise these names I call msyelf out loud. It sort of helps to relieve the stress of reliving cringey memories... But I'm not sure anymore.

I used to dwell on things like that also. Everyone has done or said things throughout their life that are embarrassing, make you cringe or are stupid. Thats part of you growing as a person, and being able to acknowledge them shows that you have grown!

It sounds harsh but the best advice I've ever received is that "people don't care about you". The context in which it was said was that people engage with you when you're there but when you're not you can expect them to be caught up in their own life, problems, issues and listening to their own inner voice.

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

#222

Post by alok-g »

thepra wrote: post #161

I don't know you guys but I think I have a little bit of everything going on: 1) I can think with my voice 2) I can think with other sounds such as anothers person voice(ex. Donald Trump or Barack Obama) with some effort 3) I can see images or full blown videos or memories or made up ones as if I can hijack my eyes and can override with what I want, both when closed eyes or open(the later is less done because of safe…

Same for me.

It's not so explicit for me to say that it's just like it's actually happening. However, perhaps a few same neurons are firing as if it were for real.

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

#223

Post by TheFreim »

Sosh101 wrote: post #182
japanuspus wrote: post #140

There is a theory in evolutionary psychology that consciousness is tightly coupled to inner voices (voices of the Gods) [0]. Personally I find the theory compelling, but I do not know how well accepted it is. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in...

Are you suggesting that people without an inner voice are less conscious?

I haven't thought about this issue too much but I don't, at a glance, find an issue with saying people lacking inner voices are less conscious (at least in one aspect of consciousness, for all we know they might lack one aspect but have greater consciousness in other aspects). It seems that someone who has a lesser ability to use their consciousness would definitionally be "less conscious". What are your thoughts?

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

#224

Post by 0xdeadb00f »

illwrks wrote: post #221
0xdeadb00f wrote: post #171

My inner monologue is almost crippling. I can't fall asleep at night, I think of all the stupid shit I've done and said in the past, and I call myself names because of it. It's gotten to the point where sometimes when I'm alone I'll vocalise these names I call msyelf out loud. It sort of helps to relieve the stress of reliving cringey memories... But I'm not sure anymore.

I used to dwell on things like that also. Everyone has done or said things throughout their life that are embarrassing, make you cringe or are stupid. Thats part of you growing as a person, and being able to acknowledge them shows that you have grown! It sounds harsh but the best advice I've ever received is that "people don't care about you". The context in which it was said was that people engage with you when you'…

You're so right about that! In fact I've had similar thoughts about it.

Still, i find myself wondering if maybe by chance people do remember and do judge me for things I've said and done. But that can't be true all the time, and yet, I still dwell on these things...

Nevertheless thanks for your comment.

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

#225

Post by Lochleg »

pseudalopex wrote: post #109
psyc wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When others say they can see images and movies in their heads, and hear voices and play back songs in their heads, I believe I know exactly what they mean. Just as if they were describing itching or feeling cold. Yet some people respond with “You can see pictures? You can hear voices? WAT?? I see nothing and hear nothing!” I don’t see how those people could be having the common experience and still be so shocked to h…

Some people in the middle think people who describe stronger sensations just exaggerate. And people who describe weaker sensations are just confused by the exaggerations.

I never looked into it, but some scientists supposedly lent credence to the existence of lucid dreaming. That's a similar concept where you assume that, with training, some people have tapped into a wellspring of vivid imagination. Or, they just have more natural DMT in their system and start hallucinating in their mind's eye.

I can only get a taste of that experience when deeply engaged in reading books. I am hoping the prototypes for deep-dive VR will soon be better than dreaming (for some people that struggle with recollection and other mental exercises) so that we can build what were once only mental palaces and OOBEs.

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

#226

Post by GoblinSlayer »

antman wrote: post #148

I never heard of inner voices, or have discussed such a thing with other people. Is that a cultural thing? I am totally surprised I thought it was a literal construct when I saw it in the movies etc Anyway I had read that when you “vocalize” inside your head during e.g. reading you severely slow down. Isn’t that the same with any kind of thinking? Brain works with abstractions won’t involving your “voice” functions f…

People who can't think in abstractions have no other way.

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

#227

Post by superposeur »

I seem to have a variant of aphantasia where I can conjure images through dint of will, but they immediately begin wildly revolving in space / mutating as if lacking any stable “camera angle”, then vanish entirely. No matter how hard I try, the images refuse to stay put or to persist in memory. Does any one else have this? / does _everyone_ else have this?

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

#228

Post by illwrks »

0xdeadb00f wrote: post #224
illwrks wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to dwell on things like that also. Everyone has done or said things throughout their life that are embarrassing, make you cringe or are stupid. Thats part of you growing as a person, and being able to acknowledge them shows that you have grown! It sounds harsh but the best advice I've ever received is that "people don't care about you". The context in which it was said was that people engage with you when you'…

You're so right about that! In fact I've had similar thoughts about it. Still, i find myself wondering if maybe by chance people do remember and do judge me for things I've said and done. But that can't be true all the time, and yet, I still dwell on these things... Nevertheless thanks for your comment.

I read years ago about a 'trust meter' or a something similar (sorry I've forgotten the exact name for it). The basic idea is that all relationships (business, personal etc) starts at zero and depending on the things they do or say either destroys people (-1) trust or build people trust (+1).

If you've done something negative, acknowledge it to yourself and any anyone else that was impacted by it and move forward from it. Knowing your flaws, acknowledging them and working around them is an important thing to do. 'Water under the bridge' and all of that...

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

#229

Post by distances »

smeej wrote: post #181
clairity wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, note that nearly all of our thoughts are subvocal/subconscious. some folks have a more active and/or efficient surfacing mechanism than others though. and a few folks have an overactive vocalization system where most of their subvocal thoughts actually come out of their mouths. i'm always partly fascinated by these folks (just walked past one today), since i tend to be relatively economical in my vocalized thoug…

I probably look like those people, but I wonder if their experience actually is as you say or if it's like mine. I do talk to myself out loud, constantly, but it's still actually only a very tiny percentage of the thoughts that are in my mind. I wonder if it would look like most of my thoughts were coming out of my mouth from the outside. At any given time there are at least 6 tracks running in my head, sometimes twi…

> At any given time there are at least 6 tracks running in my head, sometimes twice that many, thinking about all kinds of different things at varying levels of depth.

This sounds interesting. Can these tracks all proceed fine in parallel, can you collect and write down the simultaneous lines of thought afterwards if you wish? I feel like I have just one execution pipeline, which I consider to be my conscious self. Bit similar to how I literally can't talk and watch a movie at the same time (even though that is about I/O I suppose), one action takes the whole processing capability.

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

#230

Post by thechao »

helaoban wrote: post #59
StreakyCobra wrote: post #21

> Many of the people I speak to learned late in life that their inner voices were not the norm. For years, Worrall thought that other people also had attics in their brains. I went through exactly the same situation around 10 years ago, but it was about mental imaging. Do you know people can actually visualize and see things when they close there eyes? You probably do, but it took me 25 years to figure out that for m…

I don't even have to close them, I can reproduce pictures of objects, people, scenery etc in my mind while my eyes are open and actively observing other things. As I type this comment I've got an image of a girl I saw yesterday fixed in my mind, as if looking at a picture of her. I also assumed this was the norm.

Right!? I just naturally assumed that everyone could picture & model 3d shapes in their visual space (like AR), until I was in college. I used to design machines & parts "in front of me" and then build them. I think it's one if the reasons I find CAD so difficult to use.

When I draw 3D shapes, I just "visualize" the shape on the surface and trace it.

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