What is it for?
I am super confused what an internal monologue is as I’m fairly certain I don’t have one.
If I did, I feel like it would annoy the shit out of me.
Read this sentence one word at a time. As you read it, do you hear the words spoken inside your head?
If that doesn’t work, turn on the tv and try to repeat the words you hear immediately after you hear them, but absolutely silently. The goal is to echo the television ij your head.
That is your internal monologue.
Now imagine you’re trying to sleep and the asshole part of your brain starts talking about the reality dumb-ass shit you did 25 years ago…
Now imagine that you just got a song stuck in your head. You know the song really well… and you can’t stop repeating the hook in your mind.
It’s your brain silently reading the captions of the narration of the images of your train of thought.
Oh, is that all it is? I guess I was reading it to be where I can hear myself talk to myself when reasoning things out or experiencing things.
I can do exactly what you are describing and do constantly and all day. You don’t debate on goings internally with words? That’s confused my brain. Wonder if it’s an ADHD thing on my end.
I think only about half the population think this way. Your voice is in your head speaking thoughts kinda like they show in movies. The other half thinks in pictures, shapes, colors, and sounds.
The other half thinks in pictures, shapes, colors, and sounds.
Its definitely not that simple as I definitely have both, I’ve also heard a lot of people say “I’m a visual thinker”, but I’ve absolutely never heard of someone not being one do I’m not sure there is even such a thing as a non visual thinker
This is making me keep thinking of blinking and breathing and it’s weirding me out!
As someone else mentioned with hearing music, people can also smell smells, taste tastes and conjure up imagery. When they read books the reading turns into a movie like thing or something like that.
It’s all bundled up as visualization.
Some people can’t visualize at all, or can to varying degrees.
When you can’t, it’s called Aphantasia. If you can’t do any visualization at all (maybe some can hear music, but nothing else) that’s called total aphantasia.
The one part that’s still a weird conversation for me is the inner monologue. I can think, I can read words, but it’s not my voice? It’s not my voice like people say they can have a conversation with themselves or pretend to have one with someone else.
So I lean to thinking I don’t have an inner monologue as others would describe and expect, but I still do?
I can’t visualize to save my life and it bothers me. It also leads to an insane lack of a sense of direction. A good friend told me to just go the opposite direction of what I feel - and 9/10 that actually works.
When people ask me what someone looks like, I typically devolve to…“umm, a face, a couple arms, some hair”. I know it sounds dumb, but it’s actually impossibly hard for me to describe someone.
I totally get the think/read but not your voice thing, I feel like it isn’t a monologue, it just…is?
Granted I am diagnosed ADHD and partially in the spectrum, so I suppose that may play a part?
ADHD can impare visualization as well, and people with ADHD can also have Aphantasia.
So maybe you have both? The connection between the two isn’t understood yet.
The term Aphantasia is very new. Under 10 years old I think. I learned I had it before the term was officially a thing but there were a few articles about it without a name. I always thought people were just using visualization examples as a matter of expression, not something they were actually doing. E.g counting sheep.
Also I totally understand what you mean about describing people. I’d be useless to a sketch artist
Can you summon a song in your head? A melody?
It’s that… But it’s your voice. And you employ it to think. It’s how I argue with myself and reason my way through a thing. I’m not sure how I’d get along without it, except every once in a while I get stuck on a problem, so I do something different. Often, the right solution to the thing I wanted to do will pop into my head. Then I need to work backwards how I got there. Both are useful, I prefer the information up front though.
Don’t you have an inner voice for instance when you read?
I’m not sure I get the monologue part either, because I perceive it more as dialogue, and I always considered that normal. But maybe it’s a matter of perception?
