31–40 of 272 posts
This is going to be like when I discovered I had aphantasia isn’t it. People are hearing actual voices inside their heads? I can sometimes have a train of thought that I could vocalise if I wanted to but I don’t actually hear it as a voice. Can you all hear things like music and other sounds too?
> 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 think my mind's eye is particularly strong for example, don't have very vivid imagination. But I also don't know where the frame of reference should be!
But underpinning all the reporting I read on it is a fundamental assumption that's very strange to me. A lot of people seem to work under a model where brains and lived experiences should be very similar to each other, and I just don't see that actually bearing out anywhere. So what I often come away wondering is: Why is this assumption so pervasive?
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 r…
A couple of years ago, I learned that other people see images in their minds. Now I learn that people hear voices in their minds in a way that is dramatically different to mine. When I am thinking, there is pure silence and blank-ness in my mind. I don't see anything in my blind mind's eye, and I don't hear anything in my deaf mind's ear. It seems that I can create a monologue in my mind, but I have to be consciously…
For me it's easy to "fly" around my neighborhood just by closing my eyes and remembering what the streets and trees and houses look like as I take a lap. I can see off into the distance, I can see the sidewalk cracks, I can see people... all of them are obviously fuzzed versions of reality but nonetheless they're relatively easy to see. I figured everyone was able to do that to some extent.
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…
A couple of years ago, I learned that other people see images in their minds. Now I learn that people hear voices in their minds in a way that is dramatically different to mine. When I am thinking, there is pure silence and blank-ness in my mind. I don't see anything in my blind mind's eye, and I don't hear anything in my deaf mind's ear. It seems that I can create a monologue in my mind, but I have to be consciously…
So wait, if you close your eyes and picture Mount Everest, you can't see Mount Everest in your head? For me it's easy to "fly" around my neighborhood just by closing my eyes and remembering what the streets and trees and houses look like as I take a lap. I can see off into the distance, I can see the sidewalk cracks, I can see people... all of them are obviously fuzzed versions of reality but nonetheless they're rela…
> 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…
Aphantasia: Is there a simple test or procedure we can use to make it easier to decide to what degree we have this or not? It just seems like a topic where expectations can differ a lot. Since it's hard to clearly explain what visualizing feels like and doesn't. Some people might even be very normal and yet disappointed and think they are missing something. I don't think my mind's eye is particularly strong for examp…
Interesting about how there's different shades of this. I have an inner voice when I'm working through a problem, but I don't rely on it. I can definitely do abstract and complicated thinking without engaging it. It's a combination of a voice and mental arrows about tasks. I don't have the voice when reading or writing, but I do when I'm planning around what to write. Incidentally, I read at over 800wpm with an extre…
I'm focusing on it right now. It speaks in my head as I'm planning out the next sentence I'm going to type, but then once I'm typing it goes away until I need to stop and plan the next words. I also read very quickly, sometimes multiple lines at a time, reassembling the words in context.
The voice certainly doesn't follow me around chattering in my head the way some people's seems to.