What is it for?
Because sometimes the rubber ducky would be embarrassed at the questions I ask so I ask me the questions first.
Why do we have an internal monologue?
Submitted 9 months ago by _number8_@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
slazer2au@lemmy.world 9 months ago
bstix@feddit.dk 9 months ago
I think one key in the success of our species is the ability to plan ahead and mentally simulate what will happen before actually doing it.
Doing this with language is not very different from imagining what will happen when doing a physical action.
scarabic@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I have imaginary conversations all the time where I simulate interactions with the people in my life and work. I’ll say something and then imagine their response and often go back and revise what I would say. This is how I prepare for conversations that might be delicate, where I want to get something across but not in a way that creates negative consequences.
Other people say that they verbalize literally everything, as in, “I need to throw this rock in a gentle arc if I want it to hit that other rock there, oh dear perhaps I should adjust my grip and throw underhand instead.” My opinion is that this is functionally impossible. You can’t drive a car by verbalizing every command as you go - put a blindfolded friend at the wheel and try it sometime! I think one of two things is happening to people who say their monologue is exhaustive: they are only counting verbal thoughts as thoughts and ignoring the sea of inchoate impulses that churns beneath them. Also, I think any time we turn our attention to our thoughts themselves, those thoughts become verbal. To say it another way, any thought you want to think about you have to first pin down and define. You render it in words by directing your attention to it. I believe this leads people to believe that all their thoughts are verbal because all the thoughts they’ve looked at are always verbal.
But I’d say this to those folks: have you ever forgotten the right word for something? There it is on the tip of your tongue but the word won’t come. This happens to everyone. And you’re clearly able to think about the whatness of the thing even in absence of the right word.
Hjalamanger@feddit.nu 9 months ago
Truly nobody knows, it’s an open research question. And to complicate matters more we know (as others have mentioned here) that everyone doesn’t think in the same way.
FelipeFelop@discuss.online 9 months ago
We do actually know quite a bit about the Internal Monologue and other forms of intrapersonal communication.
There isn’t one single use for it or benefit of it (in the same way water has many uses)
Art3sian@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I can offer you a very small example of a difference in thinking that I experience.
I’m a grown ass man and I can’t easily tell my left from right. The best example of this is when I’m gaming and the tutorial tells me to press ‘left thumb stick’, I usually fuck it up. It took me a long time and a lot of thinking on it to realise what was going on. For me, left and right is not instinctive like up or down, but rather, it’s either a feeling, or not a feeling.
The reason for this is because when I was 5 I nearly lost my left index finger in an accident. It was reattached, but during the healing process I was constantly told my left finger was the one I hurt, so I conditioned myself to attribute left to pain.
So now, when I have to choose left or right, my brain has to remember an injury and where it was, then kind of feel that injury to know if a( yes, I feel it so that’s left, or b) I feel nothing so that’s right.
And that delay is why I fuck up left or right because when I’m forced to make a quick decision like ‘press left bumper’ or ‘make a right turn here’, it’s not instinctive and I don’t have the time to process the memory of the injury and then the feeling, so I guess.
Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 9 months ago
As an aside, there is a theory called the “bicameral mind” which posits that this internal dialogue is the source of religion. In ancient or rather even prehistoric times, it’s theorized that people started separating themselves from the voices in their heads in a spiritual way and this gave rise to the concept of a “God”.
Far from proven but interesting nonetheless.
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I heard a Ted Talk that claimed they had some evidence for it. Still think it is bullocks
BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 9 months ago
One interesting corollary to the bicameral mind theory is that our brains have multiple sentient centers to them- that in turn might explain that feeling of struggling with a decision and being able to see the same thing from more than one point of view. It also explains why different parts of the brain light up in different situations
clockwork_octopus@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’ve never heard of that idea before, but it’s really interesting! I wonder how they’d be able to prove something like that?
paddirn@lemmy.world 9 months ago
What I find interesting is that supposedly, not everybody actually has an internal monologue, I just can’t even imagine what that must be like. But then I start to wonder, do I even have an internal monologue, is what I experience an actual “internal monologue”? I definitely talk to myself and I have thoughts running around my head all the time, but I don’t know that I “hear” an internal monologue. Is what I experience the same thing as what everybody else is experiencing?
GladiusB@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I hate to sound heartless, but haven’t you met anyone that isn’t that bright? Like they may have a heart of gold but they couldn’t figure out a math equation if they were given all day. There are high school graduates that can’t even find directions on a compass for a map. I imagine that the lower end of intelligence does not have a inner monologue. And some other fringe reasons.
clockwork_octopus@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It seems to me that you’re attempting to equate an internal monologue with intelligence, and I don’t think that’s a fair assumption. An internal monologue is just a brains way of formatting its thoughts and feelings about the information that flows in. There are many ways to do this, and one way isn’t necessarily “superior” to another. That’s just how brains work. And while many intelligent people do have this internal monologue, it’s absolutely not necessary for intelligence.
Side note, one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met is aphasiac, and doesn’t have an internal monologue.
Kase@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Ok, I have a question for you guys.
I consider myself to have an internal monologue, but it doesn’t just run all the time. Like, sometimes my thoughts have words, and sometimes they don’t. Is it like that for the rest of you who have an IM? I always assumed it would be, but considering some people don’t have one at all, it wouldn’t surprise me that much if some people had one constantly.
I really tried to word this in a way that makes sense… sorry if it doesn’t lol.
Seasoned_Greetings@lemmy.world 9 months ago
One of the “constantly” group here. It’s a bit more like having someone to talk to all the time who is also me. I can turn it off, but it has to be a concentrated effort and as soon as I’m not concentrated on keeping it silent it comes back.
I’ve spent many years wondering at the nature of the little voice, especially after I learned that not everyone has it. It’s not controlling or contradictory, it’s a bit more like a narrator for my feelings and a driving point for logic.
I’ve come to the conclusion that what it actually is is my subconscious manifesting as a conversational partner. Kind of like an avatar that represents the part of me that isn’t the literal point of consciousness inside my head. Make of that what you will.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 9 months ago
You don’t consciously control yours? Mine is conversational with myself, but it’s a single entity. Like if it’s critical, it’s me being critical of myself, not one part of me blaming another part. It’s not a two-way conversation; it’s a monologue that I have full and conscious control of. I can cut it off but still know what it was going to say.
KaiReeve@lemmy.world 9 months ago
My experience is the same as yours. I have an inner monologue, but it is not constant. My thoughts do not always come in the form of words.
In fact, I would say that wordless thoughts are my default and the IM comes when I am trying to figure something out.
SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Wow I’m like the complete opposite of you. Inner monolog is default and if I’m trying to figure something out it’s like pictures or a 3d model in my brain or, if in deeper thought, I’m not even here but in like, a different plane solving the issue in my head space.
SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Same. Kind of both. When I’m doing like a Jimmy neutron brain blast, it’s all pictures and like… 3d models in my brain.
johnlobo@lemmy.world 9 months ago
it never off, annoying af
nutsack@lemmy.world 9 months ago
it may be many voices speaking simultaneously at different levels of consciousness. you don’t know how noisy it is until you do some zen cock garbage and temporarily experience inner quiet.
AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
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.
elrik@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Read this sentence one word at a time. As you read it, do you hear the words spoken inside your head?
lingh0e@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
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.
In between what you hear and what you silently say, your brain repeats the words.
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.
AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
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.
GlendatheGayWitch@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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.
EddoWagt@feddit.nl 9 months ago
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
AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
This is making me keep thinking of blinking and breathing and it’s weirding me out!
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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?
AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
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?
elscallr@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 9 months ago
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?AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
I mean…sort of? It doesn’t really have a voice though it’s more like…just an understanding. I don’t know, this entire post has been fascinating.
Sagifurius@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Then how do you pre plan things that you are going to type?
johnlobo@lemmy.world 9 months ago
it is annoying, you know schizophrenia? hearing voices? it is just like that but your voice only, and you heard it in your head but not your ears.
russjr08@bitforged.space 9 months ago
I’m by no means a medical expert, so just a stab in the dark here - our brains constantly process all sorts of information. Whether that’s memories, input from your various senses, or a million other things. During that process, your brain is also trying to make sense of it all (“Why?”, “What does it mean”, “How?”, etc).
Our ability to communicate and express language is intertwined in this process, which of course is what gives you the perception of dialog. So in essence, I think its just our brains trying to make sense of… its process of making sense, if that makes sense?
On a side note, I’m practically dosing myself with semantic satiation with how many times I’ve used “sense” here (that last one being more tongue-in-cheek)…
MrNesser@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Do you think we had internal monologue before having language?
russjr08@bitforged.space 9 months ago
It’s a bit difficult to say, but perhaps we did in say, maybe through the repetition of flashing images from our memory, or sounds, etc.
Even without language, that internal “making sense” of things / interpreting the world around us still exists - I’d imagine if you were to ask someone who was deaf (starting at a very early age) they’d probably say there is a monologue of some sorts, even if not by “sound”, whether that be the flashing images of various hand signs, or written words, etc.
Rosco@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
My guess would be it’s a side-effect, kind of like pareidolia. Us being extremely social animals, so much that being cast away from the tribe in our hunter-gatherer days would spell certain death, our brains have become extremely attuned to face/emotion recognition and language. So we have a tendency of using words to express ideas, even to ourselves.
elscallr@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I use it for reasoning. It’s a way to talk to myself without having to do so out loud, which I do a lot.
There is a segment of the population who, apparently, don’t have one. Even deaf people apparently have an inner monologue of hand signs visualized. But this segment just lacks one entirely. I don’t understand how they think, how they come to a conclusion. Things just pop into my mind, when I take my mind away from other matters and let my subconscious bake on an item… is this the way they think about everything? I don’t know.
send_me_your_ink@lemmynsfw.com 9 months ago
So I’m one of those people without an internal monologue ( but I can choose to subvocalize if I want).
I don’t know if this will help you understand but for me everything is quiet. All the time. I don’t say to myself “I should take a bite of the apple” - I just take a bite. As I type this reply out I have not determined what the next world will be before writing it, I just write. If I need to build a mental image it is simply there.
When I need to make a decision, is made. I might have been pondering it for some time, but it’s not a surface thought. Again I can subvocalize - but it’s more speaking to the room as opposed to having an internal argument.
And when I say quiet, I mean quiet. I did not realize for most of my life that monologues in books where anything more then a story telling device.
Uranium_Green@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
To freak us out when we’re a little bit too high…
abbadon420@lemm.ee 9 months ago
In my experience, it’s solely meant for witty comebacks half an hour after the discussion is over and you’re on your way back home.
Knitwear@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Team Aphantasia!
AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
I never realized this was a thing until now and it kinda explains a lot.
I’ve always wanted to be more visually creative and it has always been an extreme struggle, neigh impossible. Kind of nice to finally have a term for it.
Whisper06@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
I think I think differently than most. I have a very active internal monologue but when it comes to visual thought I can very easily overlay my thoughts onto my vision. Almost like a diagram or writing something on something but in my head only. I feel that if I was smarter I would be able to do something with it.
rosymind@leminal.space 9 months ago
I’m somewhat similar, but I’m also extremely easily distracted. I can’t hold multiple things in my mind for longer than two or three steps ahead. And then anything that comes along to break me out of it and I’m just done. It’s super frustrating, especially because I have the kind of mind that bounces different perspectives around all the time. It’s like I just want to reach out and grab a thought to think it through thouroughly before I get to the next but… nope
Buffalox@lemmy.world 9 months ago
That is very different from me, I can visualize but it breaks down if it gets just a bit complicated. For instance geometry or 3D relations.
But maybe that’s not what you mean?
darthsid@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m going to take a guess - survival.
Jeredin@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Off topic, but this is the best Lemmy comment section I’ve ever read through: really diverse, mostly civil, super interesting and insightful.
RIP_Cheems@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It’s to ensure the demons are kept away. Though sometimes, one slips by, and that’s either an intrusive thought or your true monolog.
callouscomic@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Pretty sure I read once that some people don’t.
GluWu@lemm.ee 9 months ago
It’s so you can pick nice clothes to wear in the morning. Imagine how horrible your outfits would be without it.
0x0001@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
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.
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.
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.
Kase@lemmy.world 9 months ago
That is so interesting. Thanks for sharing!
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.
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.
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 9 months ago
Thanks, I actually wanted to post that as a question. I would have thought that reading silently would be harder.
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.
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.
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.
Surp@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Try vyvanse meds bro it will calm those thoughts. Obviously talk to a doctor about it
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
adam_y@lemmy.world 9 months ago
We’re very similar, I think. That externalisation as a way of understanding in particular.
afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I have a committee. Usually made up of people I know well. loud motherfuckers
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.