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Comment on Why do we have an internal monologue?

Not everyone does, I’ve had a lot of conversations with a lot of people on this topic.

People’s thought processes range from monologue to dialog to narration to silence to images to raw concepts without form.

I personally do not have a constantly running monologue, but rather have relatively short bursts of thought interspersed with long periods of silence.

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SeeJayEmm@lemmy.procrastinati.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I always find this conversation fascinating and it makes me wonder in what other ways people may experience the world differently.

I do have a constant internal monologue. Every word I read is spoken in my mind. My thought process is, to my awareness, me talking things out in my head.

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- YashaB@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Me to. This is the first time I think about that. Everything I read or write gets spoken aloud.
  
  When I am hearing a book or a podcast there is silence though, because when there is someone else talking, my inner voice would interfere.
  
  Fascinating.
  
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- Kase@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That is so interesting. Thanks for sharing!
  
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adam_y@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t have one at all. Spent ages thinking that it was just a figure of speech, but when I found out I became fascinated by it.

The current theory is that at some early point in our evolution we literally had a voice in our head, not unlike how some forms of schizophrenia present.

It’s called the bicameral mind.

https://gizmodo.com/did-everyone-3-000-years-ago-have-a-voice-in-their-head-510063135

In my day to day life it makes little difference however, despite being an avid reader and writer I struggle tremendously to read aloud.

I don’t know for sure but I suspect it is connected.

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- naharin@feddit.nu ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  In the article they bring up many questionable aspects of this idea, which seems to lack in scientific support.
  
  And so the bicameral mind remains a highly controversial idea
  
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  - adam_y@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Absolutely. I’m no expert, and since there weren’t any studies performed on people from that era, I’d expect it to be taken as a theory rather than a fact.
    
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    berkeleyblue@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Hypothesis not Theory
    
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- bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  In my day to day life it makes little difference however, despite being an avid reader and writer I struggle tremendously to read aloud.
  
  Thanks, I actually wanted to post that as a question. I would have thought that reading silently would be harder.
  
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  - adam_y@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I worked as a typesetter for years. I have a rather speedy reading pace (it isn’t inate, rather through practice)… but I do wonder if not having to ‘hear’ words changes the rhythm of reading.
    
    I’m also fascinated if other folk perform accents in their head whilst reading? Do different characters sound different or is there one ‘voice’ that acts as a narrator?
    
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    ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Do different characters sound different or is there one ‘voice’ that acts as a narrator?
    
    Neither. I think of the idea of the words, rather than hearing the words in my mind. Which is to say, though I can read a sentence and string together the words I read in my mind, the l there is no voice to those words, no gender, no accent, no volume etc.
    
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    bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    For me different characters have different voices. The narrative is either the voice of the character whose perspective is currently shown (which can lead to conflicts if I don’t know the perspective at the start) or it is how I imagine the author to sound like or my own voice.
    
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    aeki@slrpnk.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I do read extremely fast in my native language (Spanish). Feels like entire sentences go straight into concepts and my brain builds a whole world based on what I’m reading.
    
    However I started reading in a verbalized way with my second and third languages (English and Swedish) because I was completely useless at pronunciation, while reading at a high level. So I had to learn the sounds and they started invading my reading, which I sort of resent.
    
    But the verbalization is still very mild; faint, monotone, non-enunciated.
    
    Some people talked about poetry and I hadn’t considered that my absolute lack of poetry-sense could be related. People have told me about the metrics and whatnot and it really doesn’t click. I have to sort of analyze a poem and explain it to myself in prose, and I imagine that defeats the purpose of poetry?
    
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    tburkhol@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    I do wonder if not having to ‘hear’ words changes the rhythm of reading.
    
    Hadn’t thought of this…what’s your take on poetry, especially meter-forward? Like, Robert W Service or Robert Frost, I feel would be less interesting if they didn’t have their beat.
    
    I don’t do voices or accents when I read. Everything is in the same ‘voice,’ which isn’t quite the same as my spoken voice. My internal voice enunciates much better and slightly lower pitch. It’s more like the voice I wish I had than the voice I do have. :)
    
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    Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I am pretty sure it does. From what I’ve heard people that essentially “read out loud” inside their head tend to have a have a slower reading pace. I don’t think Anauralia is necessary to not do that, either.
    
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    0ops@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Oh yeah, often I’ll even have a specific person in mind playing the character: an actor, someone I know, etc. I often don’t even realize that I’m doing this
    
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    elephantium@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    if not having to ‘hear’ words changes the rhythm of reading.
    
    Poetry instantly comes to mind. I have a very different experience when I silently read poetry vs. reading aloud or listening to someone read it aloud, especially when the poem is written with rhythm in mind.
    
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    lordnikon@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    it depends on if I heard a voice of that character before for example Batman is always Kevin Conroy and the joker is always Mark Hamill. another usecase is if I listened to the audio book then start reading a text book. Ray Potter shows up alot.
    
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- Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Out of curiosity do you visualize in your mind? Like if I say a stapler can you conjure one?
  
  The people with both Aphantasia and Anauralia fascinate me.
  
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  - Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ll chuck in my answer since I’ve been asked this before too.
    
    I don’t “see” a stapler. I perceive a future state where the pages are stapled. This does appear visually in my mind but not a a a picture of stalled pages rather a set of symbols that incorporate the task “to staple” into the other things that I am concerned with at the point of thinking about that task.
    
    “Set of symbols?” Is probably your follow up question - yes, geometry or iconography that describe the path from here to that future state where that pages are stapled.
    
    That’s the best I can do. None of this is literally narrated in my mind, however typing this out to you each sentence is “auditioned” as I imagine I am speaking it to you.
    
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    Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That is fascinating! And different than I’ve heard described elsewhere by either the “non-visual” or “non-verbal” thinkers. I think I am pretty generic, when I think of a stapler I literally see a red swingline stapler floating in a void like in a 3d modeling program (that stapler specifically due to the movie Office Space, and therefore I also own one).
    
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    Wolf_359@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Do you enjoy coding, math, and logic?
    
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  - adam_y@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Absolutely. My day job is as a conceptual artist (seriously, the hours are good and I get to travel). Visualising objects is a large part of that. I’ve also worked in video game level design and found thinking in terms of 3D space pretty easy too. Just no words in there, or specifically, no voice.
    
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TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
That sounds heavenly. Mine will not shut up. And when I’ve run out of current problems to worry about, I start thinking about all my past fuck ups an embarrassments. And that’s just in the time it takes to a simple activity. When I’m at work it is constant flipping back and forth between my anxious thoughts and doing my work and worrying about how I might be fucking up my work.

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- PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This describes me 100% and I fucking hate it. And I’m sorry you go through it, too.
  
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- Surp@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Try vyvanse meds bro it will calm those thoughts. Obviously talk to a doctor about it
  
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  - TheDoctorDonna@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I truly wish there was someone who could properly diagnose me. I did take a RAADS test a while back but I didn’t have a psychiatrist to bring my results to, so I go undiagnosed and likely will forever with the current health crisis. I don’t know if I can go on something like that without a proper diagnosis. I can’t even find a family doctor unfortunately.
    
    But I appreciate the tip 😊 thank you.
    
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some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Mine seems to appear when I’m not on auto-pilot. If I’m heating a can of soup, there’s no real thought. I’m probably thinking about other things while carry out simple steps. If I can’t find something, it’ll pop in and say, “Where did I leave that?” Or maybe something like, “I should call Mom cause it’s New Year’s Day.” Another is, “I’m glad I remembered my umbrella,” when in rain. But I don’t have monologue about putting on my shoes or locking my door. Those are mechanical tasks while I think about something else in an abstract fashion.

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- celeste@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah this is similar to my experience. Some stuff gets done without that monologue, but I'm not completely without it.
  
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scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I suspect that most people have a partial internal monologue, whereby some thoughts arise to the level of verbiage and others don’t. There is also variance in how self-aware we are of our thoughts themselves. I don’t think anyone can keep up effective, meta self-monitoring 100% of the time, so our own view of our thought process is probably skewed as well. Some people swear that every single thought they have is 100% verbalized. I think that’s impossible and they’re only counting verbal thoughts as thoughts. But no doubt some people verbalize more than others.

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- 0x0001@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Insightful, I’ve found that most people change their answers at least slightly after having time to observe their thoughts for a while, we are geniuses at believing our own conjectures.
  
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  - BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’d say I can’t actively observe a thought without my internal monologue in some way narrating it or articulating what’s going on. Frankly that’s the reason I have difficulty understanding what it’s like for someone without internal monologue.
    
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    scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ve been able to observe myself stringing ideas together in a complicated way before actual words can land. The other day this happened and I considered stopping to put words to my thought and decided to just let it go and move on.
    
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AnalogyAddict@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Yep, I don’t, either. I think mostly subconsciously, then in raw concepts, then images, then words. I have to actively translate what I’m thinking into language in order to understand it myself or communicate it, but I do better if I externalize the language through writing or speaking.

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- adam_y@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  We’re very similar, I think. That externalisation as a way of understanding in particular.
  
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afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I have a committee. Usually made up of people I know well. loud motherfuckers

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LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I have a mixture of types of thought processes. I mostly think in pictures and play things out in my head like a silent movie, but sometimes I have a monologue. Sometimes I think in a way I can’t describe with words.

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